I'm not sure where Osama ends and I begin...
One of my favorite Cronenberg movies, after
It Came From
Within (if it haven't seen it, you probably
don't want to; I love it!), is
Videodrome,
which starred James Woods and Deborah Harry. One of the chief characters in the
movie was Dr. Brian Oblivion who is sort of an early day Osama bin Laden.
Whether he existed or not really doesn't matter. Long Live The New
Flesh!
I've been using Osama bin Laden, Auntie Madder,
Uncle Cryer, Wayne Bo Trout, Wanda Japan, Neal Downer, Paul Bare, Sleeper Cell,
Dr. Faustroll, Diana Moon Glampers, Les S. Mohr, Dick Nada, Beulah Omar, Ligi,
The Spanish Inquisition, Timothy McVeigh, Jim Jones, John Doe #2, Vernon Howell,
Hungry Chuck Whitman, Hungry Chuck Bukowski, Little Dickie Wanker, Mary Q.
Contra, Bosse D'Nage, Big Al Jarry, Tony "Bloody Stagehand" Artaud, and dozens
of other handles for more than a decade on Al Gore's favorite invention. Before
that I used to create new people with every 10 or 15 poems or stories I wrote,
which prompted me to rent new P.O. boxes on occasion from which to send them,
sometimes driving hundreds of miles to find suitable town names, so I could
track which editor in a small magazine would compare my latest work favorably or
unfavorably to some other thing I had written and published under another name
elsewhere. There was no reason to do this, of course. There is no reason to do
anything. I just find it entertaining. Life on its own is seldom as engaging to
me as what I do with it. I have critics, of course, but only one of them lives
with me, so life is good.
Here is a complete thread I highjacked over at the Al Franken board, where I am a resident troll. I'm not going to insert the external links. If you are interested in the big picture, go to the original thread, which may continue to grow, although it is unlikely. I am a thread killer because I hold a master of arts in inappropriate behavior from the Milo MinderBinder School of Journalismm which I also created. I've edited only redundant poster information and dates and times. Again, you can still get all the "missing" information at the Al Franken site. I'll use italics and plain and bold to distinguish between chunks. This version is in chronological order from October 21 through October 25 or so.
Great piece from The Nation (to be continued in his next column):
Corrupt, Incompetent and 'Off Center'
Quote: Published on Friday, October 21, 2005 by The Nation Corrupt, Incompetent and 'Off Center' by Eric Alterman
Here is the liberals' problem in a nutshell: More than 30 percent of Americans happily answer to the appellation "conservative," while 18 percent call themselves "liberal." And yet when questioned by pollsters, a super-majority of more than 60 percent take positions liberal in everything but name. Indeed, on many if not most issues, Americans hold views well to the left of those espoused by almost any national Democratic politician.
In a May survey published by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 65 percent of respondents said they favor providing health insurance to all Americans, even if it means raising taxes, and 86 percent said they favor raising the minimum wage. Seventy-seven percent said they believe the country "should do whatever it takes to protect the environment.'' A September Gallup Poll finds that 59 percent consider the Iraq War a mistake and 63 percent agree that US forces should be partially or completely withdrawn.
Nevertheless, extremist right-wingers, including a few apparent criminals, enjoy a stranglehold on our political system and media discourse. And so the majority views of the American people are treated with contempt by pundits and politicians alike. To give just a minor example, New York Times columnist David Brooks--the writer who best understands the dynamics of the contemporary Democratic Party, according to the smart boys at ABC's The Note--began a recent screed with the proclamation: "After a while, you get sick of the DeLays of the right and the Deans of the left." Note the implied equivalence between the corrupt and extreme Tom DeLay--who regularly compares the Environmental Protection Agency to the Nazis--and Howard Dean, a balanced-budget fiscal conservative and ally of the NRA whose "radical" position on Iraq now puts him to the right of most Americans. Or how about the treatment meted out by smarty-pants pundits to Al Gore, one of the few politicians who have given voice to majority American positions on the war, the environment and the dishonesty and ideological obsessions of the Bush Administration. Brooks termed him "unhinged." Fred Barnes said he was "nutty." Charles Krauthammer, speaking, he said, in his capacity as a psychiatrist, called him on "the edge of looniness."
Because right-wingers have been so adept at controlling the political discourse, they have succeeded in moving the Democrats rightward too. Brooks himself has pointed out that the conservative media have "cohered to form a dazzlingly efficient ideology delivery system that swamps liberal efforts to get their ideas out." In fact, all that's necessary to discredit an individual or an idea in the present poisoned atmosphere is to apply the label "liberal," which conservatives equate with "treason," "slander" and "treachery" (Ann Coulter); "idiocy" (Mona Charen); "Communism" (David Horowitz); inspiration for child murder (Newt Gingrich); Islamic terrorism (Andrew Sullivan, Christopher Hitchens, Horowitz again); and priestly pedophilia (Rick Santorum).
Even allowing for the possibility of mental and emotional unbalance on the part of some of those quoted above, the ground for these attacks has undoubtedly been seeded by liberals' mistakes. Back in 1991 Thomas and Mary Edsall published their revelatory work Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics, in which they illustrated the cost of liberal hubris and political miscalculation. The combination of rising tax rates, judicially imposed integration, affirmative action and abortion laws, the redistribution programs of the Great Society and the occasionally violent excesses of leftist social movements--coupled with the brilliant exploitation of these disparate phenomena by a well-funded, well-disciplined conservative movement--laid the groundwork for the takeover of American politics by the right.
Now, fourteen years later, political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson have published an equally illuminating investigation into the underlying dynamics of our present political predicament. Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy demonstrates just how badly Americans are served by media that accept the fundamental frame put forth by far-right Republicans. Did you know, for instance, that according to all available evidence, Americans have not grown more conservative in recent decades? (Judy Woodruff just stated that myth as a "fact" on The Colbert Report.) And what about the fact that in the 2004 election "moral issues" like gay marriage actually benefited Kerry, not Bush, by producing turnout? (In "What's the Matter With What's the Matter With Kansas?" Princeton professor Larry Bartels draws similar conclusions.)
Hacker and Pierson shine a light on the methods employed by the governing right-wing clique to maintain and expand their power without paying the price for their unpopular policies and base-focused system of rewards. Examining the 2001 tax cuts, the Bush energy plan, the Medicare drug bill and the deregulation of almost every industry that has a lobbying team and campaign-contribution budget, they expose tactics like "tailored disinformation," designed to confuse a poorly informed public; Mafia-like manipulation of the levers of power in the House, Senate and White House that not only defenestrates the Democratic opposition but cuts off their sources of financial support; and a network of "New Power Brokers," like the aforementioned DeLay, Grover Norquist and countless think tanks, media moguls, funders and lobbyists who work together to game the system at a level that is either too complicated or too boring to attract intelligent scrutiny. (If our leading political reporters were forced to address these authors' evidence or to stop mouthing the nonsense dominating their own stories, our politics would be transformed overnight.)
With leading Republicans looking at potential slammer time and Bush's approval rating in a tailspin, providence has given liberals an opportunity pregnant with possibility. Americans already share our values and no longer remain in thrall to the linguistic terror tactics of right-wing propagandists. What we need now is a liberal language to help people connect needs and desires to liberals' vision. I'll take up that challenge in my next column. © 2005 The Nation
heckraiser Tucker Carlson was on Bill Maher this evening insisting that "we" hold the Dems responsible for "voting for the war". Maher did a stand up job trying to say that "No, they voted to give Bush the authority to go to war". But, Carlson insisted - "I was there. They knew they were voting for war with Iraq. Now hold them responsible".
I can't sleep now thinking about an answer for this claim. I listened fairly intently to the speeches from the Senate floor in the autumn of 2002. Most Dems tried to make a point to say that their vote was to support a show of force in order to "avoid war". But that's neither here nor there. And this is where I get to the thread topic "liberal language": Dems have to say that they didn't vote for war profiteering. They voted to force Saddam to comply and to show support for the larger War on Terror, which was mangled terribly by BushCo. And fire Donald Rumsfeld once and for all time!!!
In other words - attack and keep attacking!
archvixer Quote: Did you know, for instance, that according to all available evidence, Americans have not grown more conservative in recent decades? (Judy Woodruff just stated that myth as a "fact" on The Colbert Report.)
You know what the problem is, or at least part of the problem?
Dumbass columnists like Eric Alterman get their facts wrong. That wasn't Judy Woodruff, it was Leslie Stahl. Stupid little things like that discredit anything else he has to say, at least to the wing nuts who will take advantage of any opportunity.
Other than that, he's right.
TedBell
I cannot stand Eric Alterman.
heckraiser Quote: Did you know, for instance, that according to all available evidence, Americans have not grown more conservative in recent decades? (Judy Woodruff just stated that myth as a "fact" on The Colbert Report.)
And what she actually said was that the center has moved to the right, and implied that began with Reagan. Ya know, I heard her say it and it sounded plausible. There is definitely a conspiracy - of misinforming us.
OsamabinLaden heckraiser wrote: Tucker Carlson was on Bill Maher this evening insisting that "we" hold the Dems responsible for "voting for the war". Maher did a stand up job trying to say that "No, they voted to give Bush the authority to go to war". But, Carlson insisted - "I was there. They knew they were voting for war with Iraq. Now hold them responsible".
I can't sleep now thinking about an answer for this claim.
The answer is simple. There really isn't ANY difference between Democrats and Republicans. I realize that liberals like to draw these fine lines, but they really don't exist.
There are people and there is the government. The disconnect has been in place since Truman. People prefer to ignore it because the country is so mobile and disjointed and hopelessly lost. As Vonnegut says: So it goes!
I could get involved in politics if I had some way to put the two party system on one side and the people on the other, but that ain't gonna happen without major bloodshed, and the only side in this country that has shown a willing to accept major bloodshed is the government and all the children they keep leaving behind.
Think about it, and don't just blow me off again because what I'm saying pissing you off and you take it personally. Thanks for giving a shit.
Osama bin born of frustration!
heckraiser Quote: The answer is simple. There really isn't ANY difference between Democrats and Republicans.
I can think of about 48 million people who would disagree with you - me included. Within my own family the divide is huge. I don't know how you came to your conclusion.
I'll use just one example. Social Security. Take a side.
OsamabinLaden heckraiser wrote: I can think of about 48 million people who would disagree with you - me included. Within my own family the divide is huge. I don't know how you came to your conclusion.
I'll use just one example. Social Security. Take a side.
Why take a side? What difference does taking a side make against gravity, for instance? Yeah, yeah, I going with apples and oranges. I've heard the arguments from fourth grade on. Fourth grade is where serious socialization begins and the country begins separating the inmates from the guards.
I say again that you are confusing people with government. People who call themselves Democrats may believe that Democrats actually believe their party platform, but Democrats did, in fact, side with Bush on going to war in Iraq. There is absolutely no difference between the ACTIONS of the parties. The people who own the country do not care about the people who pay for running it.
There are millions of people who believe one interpretation of the Bible's creation myth over the other. I don't believe either of them. Does that make me wrong?
Take it one step further. I don't care whether I am right or wrong. I have never seen a clear definition of what right and wrong mean, and I am not going to waste the 30-40 years I have left trying to find one, but I will say this. I have no intention of supporting the illogical concepts of representative democracy or direct democracy or any other traditional means designed to allow people to trick themselves into thinking we're all in this together. We're not. These are all separate life rafts on separate seas while the water slowly covers the last of the arable land.
Each of us is stuck here alone without any recourse to justice, fairness, love, or beauty except what we offer or discover. Politics is poopadoodle.
Excuse me, I have a raft to patch and the liquor store closes in half an hour.
Pissin on a skunk Quote:Each of us is stuck here alone without any recourse to justice, fairness, love, or beauty except what we offer or discover. Politics is poopadoodle.
I'm glad I'm not that pessimistic.
At every turn of my life it was a person of "liberal" persuasion that was helpful and a "conservative" that was, at best, indifferent. That does not mean of course that Dem = good and GOP = bad. Political parties are more than the leadership at any given point in time. The "party" is also that which it stands for and the make up of the people that follow that ideology.
It has been said that all politics is local. I'd go even further and say that all politics is personal. I know that my politics is very personal and stems from some of my earliest, and in some cases bitterest, memories.
It comes from experiences like having my Grandmother cry with relief that, finally, after caring for my disabled mother without any financial help for 4 years we finally got help in the form of Social Security Disability benefits when, because of DEMOCRATS, we received the first of my Mother's SSI disability checks.
It also comes from negative experiences like having learned the meaning of the word bastard at an early age thanks to a conservative religious churchgoer in the pew behind me identifying me as "that little bastard in front of us."
I could go on for quite awhile like this but the point is that anyone suggesting that Dem's and Rep's are all the same can kiss my loyal American lily white liberal ass.
OsamabinLaden Pissin on a skunk wrote: Quote: Each of us is stuck here alone without any recourse to justice, fairness, love, or beauty except what we offer or discover. Politics is poopadoodle.
I'm glad I'm not that pessimistic.
At every turn of my life it was a person of "liberal" persuasion that was helpful and a "conservative" that was, at best, indifferent. That does not mean of course that Dem = good and GOP = bad. Political parties are more than the leadership at any given point in time. The "party" is also that which it stands for and the make up of the people that follow that ideology.
It has been said that all politics is local. I'd go even further and say that all politics is personal. I know that my politics is very personal and stems from some of my earliest, and in some cases bitterest, memories.
It comes from experiences like having my Grandmother cry with relief that, finally, after caring for my disabled mother without any financial help for 4 years we finally got help in the form of Social Security Disability benefits when, because of DEMOCRATS, we received the first of my Mother's SSI disability checks.
It also comes from negative experiences like having learned the meaning of the word bastard at an early age thanks to a conservative religious churchgoer in the pew behind me identifying me as "that little bastard in front of us."
I could go on for quite awhile like this but the point is that anyone suggesting that Dem's and Rep's are all the same can kiss my loyal American lily white liberal ass.
Your opinion doesn't mean shit to me. Your grandmother story is a real weeper, but it misses the point.
I stand by my assertion that there is no difference between either party in the United States and that anyone who participates in the sham of registering and voting is no different from the folks who firebomb remote targets to bring freedomocracy throughout the world.
Sorry.
If you vote, this mess is all your problem. Don't fucking try to shuffle it off on me.
Pissin on a skunk Quote: Sorry.
If you vote, this mess is all your problem. Don't fucking try to shuffle it off on me.
And my answer to you is above, but since you cannot seem to get beyond your own ignorant ass wipe mental masturbation I'll make it easy for you.
On edit, make that "Kiss my liberal ass".
heckraiser Wait OBL, you say it's simple and then you don't voice your opinion on Social Security. What is it? Are you with Wall Street brokers safe guarding your security or actual Social Security?
This is just the beginning. I have a long list of topics which defines Republicans v Democrats.
OsamabinLaden heckraiser wrote: Wait OBL, you say it's simple and then you don't voice your opinion on Social Security. What is it? Are you with Wall Street brokers safe guarding your security or actual Social Security?
This is just the beginning. I have a long list of topics which defines Republicans v Democrats.
Again. How many ways can I say that neither party gives a shit about ordinary people. Ordinary people depend on Social Security. The government would much rather spend billions blowing up and burning ordinary people to death in distant countries than providing for ordinary people in this country. OR ANY OTHER.
If you vote, this is your responsibility, your problem. You are not even approaching the walls of the box in your thinking.
Bring on the next list of topics that defines stupidity and rigidity and the damn woodenheaded tunnel vision that keeps this carnival ride spinning in circles.
The beginning was more than 10,000 years ago. This is all crusty spunk on stale briefs.
OsamabinLaden Pissin on a skunk wrote: Quote: Sorry. If you vote, this mess is all your problem. Don't fucking try to shuffle it off on me.
And my answer to you is above, but since you cannot seem to get beyond your own ignorant ass wipe mental masturbation I'll make it easy for you.
On edit, make that "Kiss my liberal ass".
I have nothing to get beyond, tush face. I'm a troll. Pay the toll, and I'll kiss your punk ass so you won't forget what this tongue feels like.
heckraiser So I guess you know everything. Is that it obl? Your word is final. No room for being informed?
Check out voting records on minimum wage increases and tell me there's no difference in the parties and that Dems don't represent the under class and average working Americans. It's clear there's too much money in the system. But there are huge differences whether you acknowledge them or not.
enviroforchange Hey guys! I do agree with some of OBL's points that the Democrats currently in power are really DINOs and don't do much of anything to protect and take care of we, the people. However, I don't agree with his philosophies that the answer is to not care and not vote - i.e. this makes you part of the problem. THE REAL PROBLEM IS THE MONEY THAT HAS CORRUPTED THE DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM. Please check out this thread:
How to save our democracy - Frances Moore Lappe
IT SHOWS HOW TO HELP GET MONEY OUT OF THE SYSTEM.
Sorry for shouting, guys, but I do think our democracy can work, at least some of the time. But it does involve a change in its implementation (current structure), and it does involve people being more informed, caring, and acting - either running for office, working/volunteering/contributing for political causes, and voting.
OBL, I see that you really are a decent sort, when you aren't ranting viciously against those that I suspect you, deep down, agree with. I think you have been seriously hurt in many ways by society and/or friends/relations. However, people really turn off to your ideas when you start spewing agressive, vicious insults. I see your points. But you are in the wrong forum here to tell us either to not care about politics, or to not act in politics (i.e. not vote). This is a political forum. Can you work with us? I find your ideas very interesting in this thread, other than the excess infighting. I, too, feel very let down by both parties. But, if we don't turn things around, I think the whole livable environment is toast. And, for those of us who care about future generations, we don't just want to say, fine, bringing on the bomb for the "L" of it. Please try to connect to us in some other way. And if you want to viciously insult me, fine, I'll ignore it - but, I'll know it comes from a really deep, down hurt place. The question is, why do you want to hang out with a bunch of politicos here, if you don't give a shit about politics? Please realize that I feel that everyone is important and everyone has something to contribute, if they will allow themselves to be part of the solution.
Pissin on a skunk enviro wrote: Quote: Democrats currently in power are really DINOs and don't do much of anything to protect and take care of we, the people.
But this has almost always been true. Because we live it today it seems to us to be so much worse and yet the very fact that the Dems, in spite of the generally poor leadership at the top, have flourished through most of the 20rh century is evidence that the ideas (if not always the action on them) has been one that resonates with the voters.
The reason the ideas on the left resonate with voters is that they, in general again, come from the bottom up. They come from those served and not from the party elite.
The Republicans, generally speaking again, have been the party that gets it's agenda from the elite classes. They are the party of the powerful, not the powerless. Until the day that they began to perfect the soundbite phrasing and to cynically latch onto "morals" issues have they been able to lure enough voters to gain a majority.
Anyone who doesn't see major differences between these two camps either has their head in the sand or they are too lazy to look or too stupid to understand. Or maybe they don't really care if there is a difference at all because all they really care about is feeling sorry for their own sorry ass because nobody came to rescue them from themselves. They put a scourge on both camps just because they have no faith, hope or optimism left in them nor the capacity for introspection to find the fault in themselves. (Any resemblance to persons living, dead or posting on the internet is purely coincidental.)
Pissin on a skunk In the spirit that this topic was introduced (if not followed through on in the ensuing discussion) I recommend THIS Washington Post article. Snips below.
Quote: Young Democrats Sharpen Tactics Against Old Rivals
New Breed on Hill Works Aggressively To Snap GOP Grip
By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 23, 2005; Page A04
With the Capitol all but deserted last Monday night, the Democratic "30-Something Working Group" seized the House floor and took aim at their Republican adversaries.
As C-SPAN cameras beamed their performance around the country, Rep. Timothy J. Ryan, 32, of Ohio and Rep. Kendrick Meek, 39, of Florida recited a litany of GOP misdeeds -- mismanaging Hurricane Katrina and neglecting education and health care, for example -- and offered the Democrats' alternatives.
[snip]
The two newcomers -- who have served a combined six years in the House -- are part of a new generation of Democrats who are working to try to topple the GOP. Their fresh ideas, modern media skills and aggressive political tactics have inspired a party that has drifted for much of the past decade -- wedded to old notions and seemingly incapable of capitalizing on White House and congressional Republican miscues
[snip]
Unlike some of their forbears, the newcomers are pragmatists who view the past decade of GOP rule not as an aberration but as a sea change in political campaigning, fundraising and lobbying to which Democrats must adjust. They arrived in Washington as challengers and are comfortable questioning the establishment -- because they have not been part of it.
[more at the link above]
Just thought I'd throw this in to stir your thinking about new voices and new messages and remember, if you don't like their message then elect voices whose message fits your own ideas and let then duke it out in Washington.
Bad Mojo OBL wrote: I don't care whether I am right or wrong.
How can you be right or wrong when your opinion is based on not sticking your neck on the line and actually believe in something?
You don't vote and then blame everyone else who does on our current situation. I've never heard of a bigger excuse for apathy in my life. Voting doesn't matter? If Gore won in 2000 we wouldn't be in Iraq now. Thanks to you and half the country who didn't vote we are where we are. By not voting you are just part of the status-quo whether you can wrap your greasy little fingers around that concept by stating " Idon't care whether Iam right or wrong." is not the issue. The issue is it's not about you, probably about as foreign a thought as you have ever entertained.
Pissin on a skunk wrote:
On edit, make that "Kiss my liberal ass".
I concur.
EDIT: In the right time OBL, you'd make a nice little German wouldn't you?
enviroforchange
Thanks, all. I also liked the young Democrats article. I recently read about a organization named the Young Democrats. I'll try to find something on that to post.
OsamabinLaden Bad Mojo wrote: OBL wrote: I don't care whether I am right or wrong.
How can you be right or wrong when your opinion is based on not sticking your neck on the line and actually believe in something?
You don't vote and then blame everyone else who does on our current situation. I've never heard of a bigger excuse for apathy in my life. Voting doesn't matter? If Gore won in 2000 we wouldn't be in Iraq now. Thanks to you and half the country who didn't vote we are where we are. By not voting you are just part of the status-quo whether you can wrap your greasy little fingers around that concept by stating " Idon't care whether Iam right or wrong." is not the issue. The issue is it's not about you, probably about as foreign a thought as you have ever entertained.
Pissin on a skunk wrote:
On edit, make that "Kiss my liberal ass".
I concur.
EDIT: In the right time OBL, you'd make a nice little German wouldn't you?
Oh horse exhaust, mojo. Discussion ends when belief begins. I don't blame other people for my problems, but I'm not going to take responsibility for the ignorance and herd behavior of people with their heads too far up their asses to shout for help.
I don't vote because voting is demeaning. It implies that someone is more qualified to make decisions about my life than I am, i.e., it's a very germanic act of self-abuse.
I prefer to just type with one hand, thank you.
enviroforchange Quote: I don't blame other people for my problems, but I'm not going to take responsibility for the ignorance and herd behavior of people with their heads too far up their asses to shout for help.
OBL, don't take this the wrong way, but if you need help, just ask for it. There are people and groups that will help others, although I know that Buschco is trying to kill the social safety net. PM us, or post it. Hey, I want to tell all of you that in 1999 I had what you call a "major depression." Well, if it wasn't for my support group (family) and income bracket, I'd probably be dead or homeless. Problems hit all of us at different times of our lives, some more than others. And, I must say, I probably wouldn't have given too much of a crap about politics at the time.
OsamabinLaden enviroforchange wrote: Hey guys! I do agree with some of OBL's points that the Democrats currently in power are really DINOs and don't do much of anything to protect and take care of we, the people. However, I don't agree with his philosophies that the answer is to not care and not vote - i.e. this makes you part of the problem. THE REAL PROBLEM IS THE MONEY THAT HAS CORRUPTED THE DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM. Please check out this thread:
How to save our democracy - Frances Moore Lappe
IT SHOWS HOW TO HELP GET MONEY OUT OF THE SYSTEM.
Sorry for shouting, guys, but I do think our democracy can work, at least some of the time. But it does involve a change in its implementation (current structure), and it does involve people being more informed, caring, and acting - either running for office, working/volunteering/contributing for political causes, and voting.
OBL, I see that you really are a decent sort, when you aren't ranting viciously against those that I suspect you, deep down, agree with. I think you have been seriously hurt in many ways by society and/or friends/relations. However, people really turn off to your ideas when you start spewing agressive, vicious insults. I see your points. But you are in the wrong forum here to tell us either to not care about politics, or to not act in politics (i.e. not vote). This is a political forum. Can you work with us? I find your ideas very interesting in this thread, other than the excess infighting. I, too, feel very let down by both parties. But, if we don't turn things around, I think the whole livable environment is toast. And, for those of us who care about future generations, we don't just want to say, fine, bringing on the bomb for the "L" of it. Please try to connect to us in some other way. And if you want to viciously insult me, fine, I'll ignore it - but, I'll know it comes from a really deep, down hurt place. The question is, why do you want to hang out with a bunch of politicos here, if you don't give a shit about politics? Please realize that I feel that everyone is important and everyone has something to contribute, if they will allow themselves to be part of the solution.
Fine. I'll try to change from a spiny old curmudgeon to a wise old smelly twisted mentor.
When I was teaching many years ago I learned (for me at any rate) an astonishing truth: sticks and stones may break one's bones but it's usually a few silly words that lead mankind to murder.
At least once a day I reflect simultaneously on the serenity prayer (by which I mean the condensed excerpt that alcoholics get exposed to and not the whole sordid poem) and The Second Coming by Willie B. Yeats: "the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity." That's what maturity means to me, expressing the obvious. The Emperor's New Clothes should be required reading before any election.
I originally showed up here because I remembered Al Franken's work on SNL before that program fucked the goat. I've always been more aligned with the Michael O'Donoghue, Terry Southern, Lenny Bruce, Bruce Jay Friedman, Marquis de Sade brand of humor, but Al was/is pretty absurd. I've just never been able to view politics as anything more than material from which to build elaborate jokes.
My vicious attacks pale compared to the calculating disdain of a PowerPoint presentation recounting a successful smart bomb mission.
But you're perfectly correct that I am an obnoxious irredeemable pessismist with sphincter control issues. Like that writer in Hearts of the West who jumps off the roof and smashes his scrotum on the saddle horn, not for laughs, but for pure naive love of idealism, I sometimes just get too excited.
You have to admit I have a pretty good way with words. In fact, I may be a 21st century master of brutal invective, and if I'm not yet, I've got decades to improve.
I'll try to keep my personal insults to a minimum and focus more on mocking lineage, sex, death, and religion in the future.
photographer45 OsamabinLaden wrote: I don't vote because voting is demeaning..
I agree with much of what you say, OBL, particularly about the separation between The People and The Government. I would often like to sit down with all the elected Dems these days and start ranting and raving about how wimpy they are.
And I don't often tell someone that they are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
But this IS wrong-minded of you. Voting is not demeaning. It is how we keep our country from becoming another Sudan.
I know only one person over the age of 30 who has never, ever voted. That's my mother-in-law. She's lived on welfare for the past forty years, has never been willing to do any volunteer work for her community, and refused to serve jury duty when her name came up. She won't be bothered to vote, but she is more than willing to take the government's money.
I vote in darn near every election, big and small. Do I feel more demeaned than her? I suppose sometimes I do, because I care about our government and, hence, sometimes feel like I've been kicked in the teeth. But I'm still proud that I try. That's more than she has.
Voting is a priviledge. That might sound like a bumper sticker, but it's true. I have such deep admiration for Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and the rest of our country's founders. I know the system is flawed, but it's still better than what much of the world is living with.
OsamabinLaden enviroforchange wrote: Quote: I don't blame other people for my problems, but I'm not going to take responsibility for the ignorance and herd behavior of people with their heads too far up their asses to shout for help. OBL, don't take this the wrong way, but if you need help, just ask for it. There are people and groups that will help others, although I know that Buschco is trying to kill the social safety net. PM us, or post it. Hey, I want to tell all of you that in 1999 I had what you call a "nervous breakdown." Well, if it wasn't for my support group (family) and income bracket, I'd probably be dead or homeless. Problems hit all of us at different times of our lives, some more than others. And, I must say, I probably wouldn't have given too much of a crap about politics at the time.
I get all the help I need at the keyboard. I have all my fingers. I have a nice room full of computers where I can close the door and write and draw and make music. It's like being in a cave, recording the history of activity I see going on outside by all the busy people.
This time of year, I can go to the forest in the rain and pick mushrooms, and walk along the rivers watching the salmon return to the rivers and creeks to do that breeding and dying routine. Life is good. The alternative isn't half bad either.
I'm fine in part because of my income bracket. I learned to hate politics in grade school, and I continue to sit outside the box, wondering why so many others prefer to jam themselves together inside it. The world is not really as dangerous as we've chosen to make it, and I intend to continue to point out mistakes and incorrect assumptions whenever I see them.
On 9/11/2001, I read Sirens of Titan again, realizing that I had lived my entire life profiting from a continuing state of war against the rest of the world that nobody else seemed to notice. Politics does that to people. It cuts them off from themselves and what their own senses tell them much better than preachers or presidents or county commissioners or cops.
OsamabinLaden heckraiser wrote: So I guess you know everything. Is that it obl? Your word is final. No room for being informed?
Check out voting records on minimum wage increases and tell me there's no difference in the parties and that Dems don't represent the under class and average working Americans. It's clear there's too much money in the system. But there are huge differences whether you acknowledge them or not.
I never said I know anything. I certainly don't believe in anything. I'm a writer. I am still revising things I wrote 40 years ago. In fact, I often go back and change things that I was correct about to make them incorrect because it is necessary for the character who thinks or says those things to be wrong.
There may be a huge differences between politicians, but I don't care. Sorry. What this country needs is more philosophers and fewer pragmatists. I still consider voting a demeaning act of subjugation by the ruling class to justify expansion of the prison-industrial complex that currently drives the American economy.
Pass it on.
OsamabinLaden
photographer45 wrote: OsamabinLaden wrote: I don't vote because voting is demeaning. I agree with much of what you say, OBL, particularly about the separation between The People and The Government. I would often like to sit down with all the elected Dems these days and start ranting and raving about how wimpy they are.
And I don't often tell someone that they are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
But this IS wrong-minded of you. Voting is not demeaning. It is how we keep our country from becoming another Sudan.
...
Voting is a priviledge. That might sound like a bumper sticker, but it's true. I have such deep admiration for Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and the rest of our country's founders. I know the system is flawed, but it's still better than what much of the world is living with.
OK, so is it a right, a privilege, or a responsibility? I am not arguing that this country is a much better place to live than many other countries. I readily recognize that in many countries I would have been imprisoned or killed years ago for what I write. At the same time, this country is allied to many of those countries. I prefer to acknowledge that what makes the rose so desirable is often ignorance of the thorns that protect it.
Madness is simply minority viewpoint. Right and wrong are not absolutes, and even that old rummy Reagan admitted that justice is a moving target. I find voting demeaning. I have voted on occasion on issues I felt strongly about, always on the losing side, I might add, and even in those instances, my preferred choice wasn't on the ballot. In order words, my very act of voting validated a system that denied me an opportunity to express my opinion. That is the fundamental disconnect I have with the rule of law.
OsamabinLaden
Here is a complete thread I highjacked over at the Al Franken board, where I am a resident troll. I'm not going to insert the external links. If you are interested in the big picture, go to the original thread, which may continue to grow, although it is unlikely. I am a thread killer because I hold a master of arts in inappropriate behavior from the Milo MinderBinder School of Journalismm which I also created. I've edited only redundant poster information and dates and times. Again, you can still get all the "missing" information at the Al Franken site. I'll use italics and plain and bold to distinguish between chunks. This version is in chronological order from October 21 through October 25 or so.
Great piece from The Nation (to be continued in his next column):
Corrupt, Incompetent and 'Off Center'
Quote: Published on Friday, October 21, 2005 by The Nation Corrupt, Incompetent and 'Off Center' by Eric Alterman
Here is the liberals' problem in a nutshell: More than 30 percent of Americans happily answer to the appellation "conservative," while 18 percent call themselves "liberal." And yet when questioned by pollsters, a super-majority of more than 60 percent take positions liberal in everything but name. Indeed, on many if not most issues, Americans hold views well to the left of those espoused by almost any national Democratic politician.
In a May survey published by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 65 percent of respondents said they favor providing health insurance to all Americans, even if it means raising taxes, and 86 percent said they favor raising the minimum wage. Seventy-seven percent said they believe the country "should do whatever it takes to protect the environment.'' A September Gallup Poll finds that 59 percent consider the Iraq War a mistake and 63 percent agree that US forces should be partially or completely withdrawn.
Nevertheless, extremist right-wingers, including a few apparent criminals, enjoy a stranglehold on our political system and media discourse. And so the majority views of the American people are treated with contempt by pundits and politicians alike. To give just a minor example, New York Times columnist David Brooks--the writer who best understands the dynamics of the contemporary Democratic Party, according to the smart boys at ABC's The Note--began a recent screed with the proclamation: "After a while, you get sick of the DeLays of the right and the Deans of the left." Note the implied equivalence between the corrupt and extreme Tom DeLay--who regularly compares the Environmental Protection Agency to the Nazis--and Howard Dean, a balanced-budget fiscal conservative and ally of the NRA whose "radical" position on Iraq now puts him to the right of most Americans. Or how about the treatment meted out by smarty-pants pundits to Al Gore, one of the few politicians who have given voice to majority American positions on the war, the environment and the dishonesty and ideological obsessions of the Bush Administration. Brooks termed him "unhinged." Fred Barnes said he was "nutty." Charles Krauthammer, speaking, he said, in his capacity as a psychiatrist, called him on "the edge of looniness."
Because right-wingers have been so adept at controlling the political discourse, they have succeeded in moving the Democrats rightward too. Brooks himself has pointed out that the conservative media have "cohered to form a dazzlingly efficient ideology delivery system that swamps liberal efforts to get their ideas out." In fact, all that's necessary to discredit an individual or an idea in the present poisoned atmosphere is to apply the label "liberal," which conservatives equate with "treason," "slander" and "treachery" (Ann Coulter); "idiocy" (Mona Charen); "Communism" (David Horowitz); inspiration for child murder (Newt Gingrich); Islamic terrorism (Andrew Sullivan, Christopher Hitchens, Horowitz again); and priestly pedophilia (Rick Santorum).
Even allowing for the possibility of mental and emotional unbalance on the part of some of those quoted above, the ground for these attacks has undoubtedly been seeded by liberals' mistakes. Back in 1991 Thomas and Mary Edsall published their revelatory work Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics, in which they illustrated the cost of liberal hubris and political miscalculation. The combination of rising tax rates, judicially imposed integration, affirmative action and abortion laws, the redistribution programs of the Great Society and the occasionally violent excesses of leftist social movements--coupled with the brilliant exploitation of these disparate phenomena by a well-funded, well-disciplined conservative movement--laid the groundwork for the takeover of American politics by the right.
Now, fourteen years later, political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson have published an equally illuminating investigation into the underlying dynamics of our present political predicament. Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy demonstrates just how badly Americans are served by media that accept the fundamental frame put forth by far-right Republicans. Did you know, for instance, that according to all available evidence, Americans have not grown more conservative in recent decades? (Judy Woodruff just stated that myth as a "fact" on The Colbert Report.) And what about the fact that in the 2004 election "moral issues" like gay marriage actually benefited Kerry, not Bush, by producing turnout? (In "What's the Matter With What's the Matter With Kansas?" Princeton professor Larry Bartels draws similar conclusions.)
Hacker and Pierson shine a light on the methods employed by the governing right-wing clique to maintain and expand their power without paying the price for their unpopular policies and base-focused system of rewards. Examining the 2001 tax cuts, the Bush energy plan, the Medicare drug bill and the deregulation of almost every industry that has a lobbying team and campaign-contribution budget, they expose tactics like "tailored disinformation," designed to confuse a poorly informed public; Mafia-like manipulation of the levers of power in the House, Senate and White House that not only defenestrates the Democratic opposition but cuts off their sources of financial support; and a network of "New Power Brokers," like the aforementioned DeLay, Grover Norquist and countless think tanks, media moguls, funders and lobbyists who work together to game the system at a level that is either too complicated or too boring to attract intelligent scrutiny. (If our leading political reporters were forced to address these authors' evidence or to stop mouthing the nonsense dominating their own stories, our politics would be transformed overnight.)
With leading Republicans looking at potential slammer time and Bush's approval rating in a tailspin, providence has given liberals an opportunity pregnant with possibility. Americans already share our values and no longer remain in thrall to the linguistic terror tactics of right-wing propagandists. What we need now is a liberal language to help people connect needs and desires to liberals' vision. I'll take up that challenge in my next column. © 2005 The Nation
heckraiser Tucker Carlson was on Bill Maher this evening insisting that "we" hold the Dems responsible for "voting for the war". Maher did a stand up job trying to say that "No, they voted to give Bush the authority to go to war". But, Carlson insisted - "I was there. They knew they were voting for war with Iraq. Now hold them responsible".
I can't sleep now thinking about an answer for this claim. I listened fairly intently to the speeches from the Senate floor in the autumn of 2002. Most Dems tried to make a point to say that their vote was to support a show of force in order to "avoid war". But that's neither here nor there. And this is where I get to the thread topic "liberal language": Dems have to say that they didn't vote for war profiteering. They voted to force Saddam to comply and to show support for the larger War on Terror, which was mangled terribly by BushCo. And fire Donald Rumsfeld once and for all time!!!
In other words - attack and keep attacking!
archvixer Quote: Did you know, for instance, that according to all available evidence, Americans have not grown more conservative in recent decades? (Judy Woodruff just stated that myth as a "fact" on The Colbert Report.)
You know what the problem is, or at least part of the problem?
Dumbass columnists like Eric Alterman get their facts wrong. That wasn't Judy Woodruff, it was Leslie Stahl. Stupid little things like that discredit anything else he has to say, at least to the wing nuts who will take advantage of any opportunity.
Other than that, he's right.
TedBell
I cannot stand Eric Alterman.
heckraiser Quote: Did you know, for instance, that according to all available evidence, Americans have not grown more conservative in recent decades? (Judy Woodruff just stated that myth as a "fact" on The Colbert Report.)
And what she actually said was that the center has moved to the right, and implied that began with Reagan. Ya know, I heard her say it and it sounded plausible. There is definitely a conspiracy - of misinforming us.
OsamabinLaden heckraiser wrote: Tucker Carlson was on Bill Maher this evening insisting that "we" hold the Dems responsible for "voting for the war". Maher did a stand up job trying to say that "No, they voted to give Bush the authority to go to war". But, Carlson insisted - "I was there. They knew they were voting for war with Iraq. Now hold them responsible".
I can't sleep now thinking about an answer for this claim.
The answer is simple. There really isn't ANY difference between Democrats and Republicans. I realize that liberals like to draw these fine lines, but they really don't exist.
There are people and there is the government. The disconnect has been in place since Truman. People prefer to ignore it because the country is so mobile and disjointed and hopelessly lost. As Vonnegut says: So it goes!
I could get involved in politics if I had some way to put the two party system on one side and the people on the other, but that ain't gonna happen without major bloodshed, and the only side in this country that has shown a willing to accept major bloodshed is the government and all the children they keep leaving behind.
Think about it, and don't just blow me off again because what I'm saying pissing you off and you take it personally. Thanks for giving a shit.
Osama bin born of frustration!
heckraiser Quote: The answer is simple. There really isn't ANY difference between Democrats and Republicans.
I can think of about 48 million people who would disagree with you - me included. Within my own family the divide is huge. I don't know how you came to your conclusion.
I'll use just one example. Social Security. Take a side.
OsamabinLaden heckraiser wrote: I can think of about 48 million people who would disagree with you - me included. Within my own family the divide is huge. I don't know how you came to your conclusion.
I'll use just one example. Social Security. Take a side.
Why take a side? What difference does taking a side make against gravity, for instance? Yeah, yeah, I going with apples and oranges. I've heard the arguments from fourth grade on. Fourth grade is where serious socialization begins and the country begins separating the inmates from the guards.
I say again that you are confusing people with government. People who call themselves Democrats may believe that Democrats actually believe their party platform, but Democrats did, in fact, side with Bush on going to war in Iraq. There is absolutely no difference between the ACTIONS of the parties. The people who own the country do not care about the people who pay for running it.
There are millions of people who believe one interpretation of the Bible's creation myth over the other. I don't believe either of them. Does that make me wrong?
Take it one step further. I don't care whether I am right or wrong. I have never seen a clear definition of what right and wrong mean, and I am not going to waste the 30-40 years I have left trying to find one, but I will say this. I have no intention of supporting the illogical concepts of representative democracy or direct democracy or any other traditional means designed to allow people to trick themselves into thinking we're all in this together. We're not. These are all separate life rafts on separate seas while the water slowly covers the last of the arable land.
Each of us is stuck here alone without any recourse to justice, fairness, love, or beauty except what we offer or discover. Politics is poopadoodle.
Excuse me, I have a raft to patch and the liquor store closes in half an hour.
Pissin on a skunk Quote:Each of us is stuck here alone without any recourse to justice, fairness, love, or beauty except what we offer or discover. Politics is poopadoodle.
I'm glad I'm not that pessimistic.
At every turn of my life it was a person of "liberal" persuasion that was helpful and a "conservative" that was, at best, indifferent. That does not mean of course that Dem = good and GOP = bad. Political parties are more than the leadership at any given point in time. The "party" is also that which it stands for and the make up of the people that follow that ideology.
It has been said that all politics is local. I'd go even further and say that all politics is personal. I know that my politics is very personal and stems from some of my earliest, and in some cases bitterest, memories.
It comes from experiences like having my Grandmother cry with relief that, finally, after caring for my disabled mother without any financial help for 4 years we finally got help in the form of Social Security Disability benefits when, because of DEMOCRATS, we received the first of my Mother's SSI disability checks.
It also comes from negative experiences like having learned the meaning of the word bastard at an early age thanks to a conservative religious churchgoer in the pew behind me identifying me as "that little bastard in front of us."
I could go on for quite awhile like this but the point is that anyone suggesting that Dem's and Rep's are all the same can kiss my loyal American lily white liberal ass.
OsamabinLaden Pissin on a skunk wrote: Quote: Each of us is stuck here alone without any recourse to justice, fairness, love, or beauty except what we offer or discover. Politics is poopadoodle.
I'm glad I'm not that pessimistic.
At every turn of my life it was a person of "liberal" persuasion that was helpful and a "conservative" that was, at best, indifferent. That does not mean of course that Dem = good and GOP = bad. Political parties are more than the leadership at any given point in time. The "party" is also that which it stands for and the make up of the people that follow that ideology.
It has been said that all politics is local. I'd go even further and say that all politics is personal. I know that my politics is very personal and stems from some of my earliest, and in some cases bitterest, memories.
It comes from experiences like having my Grandmother cry with relief that, finally, after caring for my disabled mother without any financial help for 4 years we finally got help in the form of Social Security Disability benefits when, because of DEMOCRATS, we received the first of my Mother's SSI disability checks.
It also comes from negative experiences like having learned the meaning of the word bastard at an early age thanks to a conservative religious churchgoer in the pew behind me identifying me as "that little bastard in front of us."
I could go on for quite awhile like this but the point is that anyone suggesting that Dem's and Rep's are all the same can kiss my loyal American lily white liberal ass.
Your opinion doesn't mean shit to me. Your grandmother story is a real weeper, but it misses the point.
I stand by my assertion that there is no difference between either party in the United States and that anyone who participates in the sham of registering and voting is no different from the folks who firebomb remote targets to bring freedomocracy throughout the world.
Sorry.
If you vote, this mess is all your problem. Don't fucking try to shuffle it off on me.
Pissin on a skunk Quote: Sorry.
If you vote, this mess is all your problem. Don't fucking try to shuffle it off on me.
And my answer to you is above, but since you cannot seem to get beyond your own ignorant ass wipe mental masturbation I'll make it easy for you.
On edit, make that "Kiss my liberal ass".
heckraiser Wait OBL, you say it's simple and then you don't voice your opinion on Social Security. What is it? Are you with Wall Street brokers safe guarding your security or actual Social Security?
This is just the beginning. I have a long list of topics which defines Republicans v Democrats.
OsamabinLaden heckraiser wrote: Wait OBL, you say it's simple and then you don't voice your opinion on Social Security. What is it? Are you with Wall Street brokers safe guarding your security or actual Social Security?
This is just the beginning. I have a long list of topics which defines Republicans v Democrats.
Again. How many ways can I say that neither party gives a shit about ordinary people. Ordinary people depend on Social Security. The government would much rather spend billions blowing up and burning ordinary people to death in distant countries than providing for ordinary people in this country. OR ANY OTHER.
If you vote, this is your responsibility, your problem. You are not even approaching the walls of the box in your thinking.
Bring on the next list of topics that defines stupidity and rigidity and the damn woodenheaded tunnel vision that keeps this carnival ride spinning in circles.
The beginning was more than 10,000 years ago. This is all crusty spunk on stale briefs.
OsamabinLaden Pissin on a skunk wrote: Quote: Sorry. If you vote, this mess is all your problem. Don't fucking try to shuffle it off on me.
And my answer to you is above, but since you cannot seem to get beyond your own ignorant ass wipe mental masturbation I'll make it easy for you.
On edit, make that "Kiss my liberal ass".
I have nothing to get beyond, tush face. I'm a troll. Pay the toll, and I'll kiss your punk ass so you won't forget what this tongue feels like.
heckraiser So I guess you know everything. Is that it obl? Your word is final. No room for being informed?
Check out voting records on minimum wage increases and tell me there's no difference in the parties and that Dems don't represent the under class and average working Americans. It's clear there's too much money in the system. But there are huge differences whether you acknowledge them or not.
enviroforchange Hey guys! I do agree with some of OBL's points that the Democrats currently in power are really DINOs and don't do much of anything to protect and take care of we, the people. However, I don't agree with his philosophies that the answer is to not care and not vote - i.e. this makes you part of the problem. THE REAL PROBLEM IS THE MONEY THAT HAS CORRUPTED THE DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM. Please check out this thread:
How to save our democracy - Frances Moore Lappe
IT SHOWS HOW TO HELP GET MONEY OUT OF THE SYSTEM.
Sorry for shouting, guys, but I do think our democracy can work, at least some of the time. But it does involve a change in its implementation (current structure), and it does involve people being more informed, caring, and acting - either running for office, working/volunteering/contributing for political causes, and voting.
OBL, I see that you really are a decent sort, when you aren't ranting viciously against those that I suspect you, deep down, agree with. I think you have been seriously hurt in many ways by society and/or friends/relations. However, people really turn off to your ideas when you start spewing agressive, vicious insults. I see your points. But you are in the wrong forum here to tell us either to not care about politics, or to not act in politics (i.e. not vote). This is a political forum. Can you work with us? I find your ideas very interesting in this thread, other than the excess infighting. I, too, feel very let down by both parties. But, if we don't turn things around, I think the whole livable environment is toast. And, for those of us who care about future generations, we don't just want to say, fine, bringing on the bomb for the "L" of it. Please try to connect to us in some other way. And if you want to viciously insult me, fine, I'll ignore it - but, I'll know it comes from a really deep, down hurt place. The question is, why do you want to hang out with a bunch of politicos here, if you don't give a shit about politics? Please realize that I feel that everyone is important and everyone has something to contribute, if they will allow themselves to be part of the solution.
Pissin on a skunk enviro wrote: Quote: Democrats currently in power are really DINOs and don't do much of anything to protect and take care of we, the people.
But this has almost always been true. Because we live it today it seems to us to be so much worse and yet the very fact that the Dems, in spite of the generally poor leadership at the top, have flourished through most of the 20rh century is evidence that the ideas (if not always the action on them) has been one that resonates with the voters.
The reason the ideas on the left resonate with voters is that they, in general again, come from the bottom up. They come from those served and not from the party elite.
The Republicans, generally speaking again, have been the party that gets it's agenda from the elite classes. They are the party of the powerful, not the powerless. Until the day that they began to perfect the soundbite phrasing and to cynically latch onto "morals" issues have they been able to lure enough voters to gain a majority.
Anyone who doesn't see major differences between these two camps either has their head in the sand or they are too lazy to look or too stupid to understand. Or maybe they don't really care if there is a difference at all because all they really care about is feeling sorry for their own sorry ass because nobody came to rescue them from themselves. They put a scourge on both camps just because they have no faith, hope or optimism left in them nor the capacity for introspection to find the fault in themselves. (Any resemblance to persons living, dead or posting on the internet is purely coincidental.)
Pissin on a skunk In the spirit that this topic was introduced (if not followed through on in the ensuing discussion) I recommend THIS Washington Post article. Snips below.
Quote: Young Democrats Sharpen Tactics Against Old Rivals
New Breed on Hill Works Aggressively To Snap GOP Grip
By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 23, 2005; Page A04
With the Capitol all but deserted last Monday night, the Democratic "30-Something Working Group" seized the House floor and took aim at their Republican adversaries.
As C-SPAN cameras beamed their performance around the country, Rep. Timothy J. Ryan, 32, of Ohio and Rep. Kendrick Meek, 39, of Florida recited a litany of GOP misdeeds -- mismanaging Hurricane Katrina and neglecting education and health care, for example -- and offered the Democrats' alternatives.
[snip]
The two newcomers -- who have served a combined six years in the House -- are part of a new generation of Democrats who are working to try to topple the GOP. Their fresh ideas, modern media skills and aggressive political tactics have inspired a party that has drifted for much of the past decade -- wedded to old notions and seemingly incapable of capitalizing on White House and congressional Republican miscues
[snip]
Unlike some of their forbears, the newcomers are pragmatists who view the past decade of GOP rule not as an aberration but as a sea change in political campaigning, fundraising and lobbying to which Democrats must adjust. They arrived in Washington as challengers and are comfortable questioning the establishment -- because they have not been part of it.
[more at the link above]
Just thought I'd throw this in to stir your thinking about new voices and new messages and remember, if you don't like their message then elect voices whose message fits your own ideas and let then duke it out in Washington.
Bad Mojo OBL wrote: I don't care whether I am right or wrong.
How can you be right or wrong when your opinion is based on not sticking your neck on the line and actually believe in something?
You don't vote and then blame everyone else who does on our current situation. I've never heard of a bigger excuse for apathy in my life. Voting doesn't matter? If Gore won in 2000 we wouldn't be in Iraq now. Thanks to you and half the country who didn't vote we are where we are. By not voting you are just part of the status-quo whether you can wrap your greasy little fingers around that concept by stating " Idon't care whether Iam right or wrong." is not the issue. The issue is it's not about you, probably about as foreign a thought as you have ever entertained.
Pissin on a skunk wrote:
On edit, make that "Kiss my liberal ass".
I concur.
EDIT: In the right time OBL, you'd make a nice little German wouldn't you?
enviroforchange
Thanks, all. I also liked the young Democrats article. I recently read about a organization named the Young Democrats. I'll try to find something on that to post.
OsamabinLaden Bad Mojo wrote: OBL wrote: I don't care whether I am right or wrong.
How can you be right or wrong when your opinion is based on not sticking your neck on the line and actually believe in something?
You don't vote and then blame everyone else who does on our current situation. I've never heard of a bigger excuse for apathy in my life. Voting doesn't matter? If Gore won in 2000 we wouldn't be in Iraq now. Thanks to you and half the country who didn't vote we are where we are. By not voting you are just part of the status-quo whether you can wrap your greasy little fingers around that concept by stating " Idon't care whether Iam right or wrong." is not the issue. The issue is it's not about you, probably about as foreign a thought as you have ever entertained.
Pissin on a skunk wrote:
On edit, make that "Kiss my liberal ass".
I concur.
EDIT: In the right time OBL, you'd make a nice little German wouldn't you?
Oh horse exhaust, mojo. Discussion ends when belief begins. I don't blame other people for my problems, but I'm not going to take responsibility for the ignorance and herd behavior of people with their heads too far up their asses to shout for help.
I don't vote because voting is demeaning. It implies that someone is more qualified to make decisions about my life than I am, i.e., it's a very germanic act of self-abuse.
I prefer to just type with one hand, thank you.
enviroforchange Quote: I don't blame other people for my problems, but I'm not going to take responsibility for the ignorance and herd behavior of people with their heads too far up their asses to shout for help.
OBL, don't take this the wrong way, but if you need help, just ask for it. There are people and groups that will help others, although I know that Buschco is trying to kill the social safety net. PM us, or post it. Hey, I want to tell all of you that in 1999 I had what you call a "major depression." Well, if it wasn't for my support group (family) and income bracket, I'd probably be dead or homeless. Problems hit all of us at different times of our lives, some more than others. And, I must say, I probably wouldn't have given too much of a crap about politics at the time.
OsamabinLaden enviroforchange wrote: Hey guys! I do agree with some of OBL's points that the Democrats currently in power are really DINOs and don't do much of anything to protect and take care of we, the people. However, I don't agree with his philosophies that the answer is to not care and not vote - i.e. this makes you part of the problem. THE REAL PROBLEM IS THE MONEY THAT HAS CORRUPTED THE DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM. Please check out this thread:
How to save our democracy - Frances Moore Lappe
IT SHOWS HOW TO HELP GET MONEY OUT OF THE SYSTEM.
Sorry for shouting, guys, but I do think our democracy can work, at least some of the time. But it does involve a change in its implementation (current structure), and it does involve people being more informed, caring, and acting - either running for office, working/volunteering/contributing for political causes, and voting.
OBL, I see that you really are a decent sort, when you aren't ranting viciously against those that I suspect you, deep down, agree with. I think you have been seriously hurt in many ways by society and/or friends/relations. However, people really turn off to your ideas when you start spewing agressive, vicious insults. I see your points. But you are in the wrong forum here to tell us either to not care about politics, or to not act in politics (i.e. not vote). This is a political forum. Can you work with us? I find your ideas very interesting in this thread, other than the excess infighting. I, too, feel very let down by both parties. But, if we don't turn things around, I think the whole livable environment is toast. And, for those of us who care about future generations, we don't just want to say, fine, bringing on the bomb for the "L" of it. Please try to connect to us in some other way. And if you want to viciously insult me, fine, I'll ignore it - but, I'll know it comes from a really deep, down hurt place. The question is, why do you want to hang out with a bunch of politicos here, if you don't give a shit about politics? Please realize that I feel that everyone is important and everyone has something to contribute, if they will allow themselves to be part of the solution.
Fine. I'll try to change from a spiny old curmudgeon to a wise old smelly twisted mentor.
When I was teaching many years ago I learned (for me at any rate) an astonishing truth: sticks and stones may break one's bones but it's usually a few silly words that lead mankind to murder.
At least once a day I reflect simultaneously on the serenity prayer (by which I mean the condensed excerpt that alcoholics get exposed to and not the whole sordid poem) and The Second Coming by Willie B. Yeats: "the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity." That's what maturity means to me, expressing the obvious. The Emperor's New Clothes should be required reading before any election.
I originally showed up here because I remembered Al Franken's work on SNL before that program fucked the goat. I've always been more aligned with the Michael O'Donoghue, Terry Southern, Lenny Bruce, Bruce Jay Friedman, Marquis de Sade brand of humor, but Al was/is pretty absurd. I've just never been able to view politics as anything more than material from which to build elaborate jokes.
My vicious attacks pale compared to the calculating disdain of a PowerPoint presentation recounting a successful smart bomb mission.
But you're perfectly correct that I am an obnoxious irredeemable pessismist with sphincter control issues. Like that writer in Hearts of the West who jumps off the roof and smashes his scrotum on the saddle horn, not for laughs, but for pure naive love of idealism, I sometimes just get too excited.
You have to admit I have a pretty good way with words. In fact, I may be a 21st century master of brutal invective, and if I'm not yet, I've got decades to improve.
I'll try to keep my personal insults to a minimum and focus more on mocking lineage, sex, death, and religion in the future.
photographer45 OsamabinLaden wrote: I don't vote because voting is demeaning..
I agree with much of what you say, OBL, particularly about the separation between The People and The Government. I would often like to sit down with all the elected Dems these days and start ranting and raving about how wimpy they are.
And I don't often tell someone that they are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
But this IS wrong-minded of you. Voting is not demeaning. It is how we keep our country from becoming another Sudan.
I know only one person over the age of 30 who has never, ever voted. That's my mother-in-law. She's lived on welfare for the past forty years, has never been willing to do any volunteer work for her community, and refused to serve jury duty when her name came up. She won't be bothered to vote, but she is more than willing to take the government's money.
I vote in darn near every election, big and small. Do I feel more demeaned than her? I suppose sometimes I do, because I care about our government and, hence, sometimes feel like I've been kicked in the teeth. But I'm still proud that I try. That's more than she has.
Voting is a priviledge. That might sound like a bumper sticker, but it's true. I have such deep admiration for Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and the rest of our country's founders. I know the system is flawed, but it's still better than what much of the world is living with.
OsamabinLaden enviroforchange wrote: Quote: I don't blame other people for my problems, but I'm not going to take responsibility for the ignorance and herd behavior of people with their heads too far up their asses to shout for help. OBL, don't take this the wrong way, but if you need help, just ask for it. There are people and groups that will help others, although I know that Buschco is trying to kill the social safety net. PM us, or post it. Hey, I want to tell all of you that in 1999 I had what you call a "nervous breakdown." Well, if it wasn't for my support group (family) and income bracket, I'd probably be dead or homeless. Problems hit all of us at different times of our lives, some more than others. And, I must say, I probably wouldn't have given too much of a crap about politics at the time.
I get all the help I need at the keyboard. I have all my fingers. I have a nice room full of computers where I can close the door and write and draw and make music. It's like being in a cave, recording the history of activity I see going on outside by all the busy people.
This time of year, I can go to the forest in the rain and pick mushrooms, and walk along the rivers watching the salmon return to the rivers and creeks to do that breeding and dying routine. Life is good. The alternative isn't half bad either.
I'm fine in part because of my income bracket. I learned to hate politics in grade school, and I continue to sit outside the box, wondering why so many others prefer to jam themselves together inside it. The world is not really as dangerous as we've chosen to make it, and I intend to continue to point out mistakes and incorrect assumptions whenever I see them.
On 9/11/2001, I read Sirens of Titan again, realizing that I had lived my entire life profiting from a continuing state of war against the rest of the world that nobody else seemed to notice. Politics does that to people. It cuts them off from themselves and what their own senses tell them much better than preachers or presidents or county commissioners or cops.
OsamabinLaden heckraiser wrote: So I guess you know everything. Is that it obl? Your word is final. No room for being informed?
Check out voting records on minimum wage increases and tell me there's no difference in the parties and that Dems don't represent the under class and average working Americans. It's clear there's too much money in the system. But there are huge differences whether you acknowledge them or not.
I never said I know anything. I certainly don't believe in anything. I'm a writer. I am still revising things I wrote 40 years ago. In fact, I often go back and change things that I was correct about to make them incorrect because it is necessary for the character who thinks or says those things to be wrong.
There may be a huge differences between politicians, but I don't care. Sorry. What this country needs is more philosophers and fewer pragmatists. I still consider voting a demeaning act of subjugation by the ruling class to justify expansion of the prison-industrial complex that currently drives the American economy.
Pass it on.
OsamabinLaden
photographer45 wrote: OsamabinLaden wrote: I don't vote because voting is demeaning. I agree with much of what you say, OBL, particularly about the separation between The People and The Government. I would often like to sit down with all the elected Dems these days and start ranting and raving about how wimpy they are.
And I don't often tell someone that they are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
But this IS wrong-minded of you. Voting is not demeaning. It is how we keep our country from becoming another Sudan.
...
Voting is a priviledge. That might sound like a bumper sticker, but it's true. I have such deep admiration for Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and the rest of our country's founders. I know the system is flawed, but it's still better than what much of the world is living with.
OK, so is it a right, a privilege, or a responsibility? I am not arguing that this country is a much better place to live than many other countries. I readily recognize that in many countries I would have been imprisoned or killed years ago for what I write. At the same time, this country is allied to many of those countries. I prefer to acknowledge that what makes the rose so desirable is often ignorance of the thorns that protect it.
Madness is simply minority viewpoint. Right and wrong are not absolutes, and even that old rummy Reagan admitted that justice is a moving target. I find voting demeaning. I have voted on occasion on issues I felt strongly about, always on the losing side, I might add, and even in those instances, my preferred choice wasn't on the ballot. In order words, my very act of voting validated a system that denied me an opportunity to express my opinion. That is the fundamental disconnect I have with the rule of law.
OsamabinLaden
Posted: Wed - October 26, 2005 at 05:04 PM
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