The Obama Deception: Why Cornel West Went Ballistic

Chris Hedges on Cornel West's critiques of Obama. I'm a big fan of Dr. West but that doesn't mean I always agree with him, hell, I don't always agree with myself, but I always listen to what he has to say.

“When you look at a society you look at it through the lens of the least of these, the weak and the vulnerable; you are committed to loving them first, not exclusively, but first, and therefore giving them priority,” says West, the Class of 1943 University Professor of African American Studies and Religion at Princeton University. “And even at this moment, when the empire is in deep decline, the culture is in deep decay, the political system is broken, where nearly everyone is up for sale, you say all I have is the subversive memory of those who came before, personal integrity, trying to live a decent life, and a willingness to live and die for the love of folk who are catching hell. This means civil disobedience, going to jail, supporting progressive forums of social unrest if they in fact awaken the conscience, whatever conscience is left, of the nation. And that’s where I find myself now.

“I have to take some responsibility,” he admits of his support for Obama as we sit in his book-lined office. “I could have been reading into it more than was there.

I think that's where a lot of deeply disappointed liberals are. I'm not thrilled by a lot of what he has continued from the Chimp's maladministration or his caving to the Repugs either, but I'm generally fine with him when I consider the alternative. Shudder.

“This was maybe America’s last chance to fight back against the greed of the Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats, to generate some serious discussion about public interest and common good that sustains any democratic experiment,” West laments. “We are squeezing out all of the democratic juices we have. The escalation of the class war against the poor and the working class is intense. More and more working people are beaten down. They are world-weary. They are into self-medication. They are turning on each other. They are scapegoating the most vulnerable rather than confronting the most powerful. It is a profoundly human response to panic and catastrophe. I thought Barack Obama could have provided some way out. But he lacks backbone.

“Our last hope is to generate a democratic awakening among our fellow citizens. This means raising our voices, very loud and strong, bearing witness, individually and collectively. Tavis [Smiley] and I have talked about ways of civil disobedience, beginning with ways for both of us to get arrested, to galvanize attention to the plight of those in prisons, in the hoods, in poor white communities. We must never give up. We must never allow hope to be eliminated or suffocated.”

Agree with him or disagree with him, and I do both, go read. You decide.

Just as an aside, my biggest unfounded nightmare is to be stuck on a desert island with Dr. West, Rachel Maddow, and Tavis Smiley. Three of the smartest and most assuredly the three fastest talkers on the planet. Since I would only catch about one word in ten and would never get a word in edgewise, I'd just gather coconuts...

Surprised?

I'm not:

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, separated after she learned he had fathered a child more than a decade ago — before his first run for office — with a longtime member of their household staff.

Shriver moved out of the family's Brentwood mansion earlier this year, after Schwarzenegger acknowledged the paternity. The staff member worked for the family for 20 years, retiring in January.

...

Another philandering Republican, par for the course. Didn't we all bring up the fact that he was a womanizing bastid when he ran for the office? I thought so.

"Voting is ‘a privilege, it’s not a right’ "

The Minnesota Independent

House Speaker Kurt Zellers said that voting is not a right, but a privilege Wednesday evening, the Star Tribune reports. Zellers is not the first conservative to make that claim during the debate over voter ID which is heating up the Minnesota Legislature. Republicans and voter ID advocates have compared showing identification for voting to everything from cashing a check to boarding a plane to buying cigarettes.

If that isn't perfectly representative of the right-wing mindset, nothing is. If it was up to them, and they are trying desperately to make it so, it would be a privilege granted only to old white men who are afraid of The Other.

That 'goddam piece of paper', aka the Constitution, keeps getting in their way. So far.

The 14th Amendment, Section 2:

But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age,* and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

The 15th Amendment, Section 1:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

The 19th Amendment:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

The 24th Amendment, Section 1:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay poll tax or other tax.”

The 26th Amendment, Section 1:

“The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.”

Lying racist power-seeking fascist bastards, the lot of 'em, who have a plentiful audience of the ignorant who agree with them. At least they think they do. It's coming to a head in different places and we will see.

The quaint and obsolete Nuremberg principles

Glenn Greenwald expands on Fixer's post.

Benjamin Ferencz is a 92-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, American combat soldier during World War II, and a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, where he prosecuted numerous Nazi war criminals, including some responsible for the deaths of upward of 100,000 innocent people. [...]
...

All of Ferencz's answers are thought-provoking -- including his discussion of how the Nuremberg Principles apply to bin Laden -- but there's one answer he gave which I particularly want to highlight; it was in response to this question: "so what should we have learned from Nuremberg that we still haven't learned"? His answer:

I'm afraid most of the lessons of Nuremberg have passed, unfortunately. The world has accepted them, but the U.S. seems reluctant to do so. The principal lesson we learned from Nuremberg is that a war of aggression -- that means, a war in violation of international law, in violation of the UN charter, and not in self-defense -- is the supreme international crime, because all the other crimes happen in war. And every leader who is responsible for planning and perpetrating that crime should be held to account in a court of law, and the law applies equally to everyone.

These lessons were hailed throughout the world -- I hailed them, I was involved in them -- and it saddens me to no end when Americans are asked: why don't you support the Nuremberg principles on aggression? And the response is: Nuremberg? That was then, this is now. Forget it.

Some of us support the Nuremberg principles, but some think they were simply our due for beating the Nazis and they don't apply to us. Show trials of the vanquished by the victors. Most people haven't a clue what Nuremberg was or meant and couldn't care less.

No decent human being contests that the 9/11 attack was a grave crime. But there are many grave crimes, including ones sanctioned by (or acquiesced to) those leading the chorus of cheers for bin Laden's killing. To much controversy, Noam Chomsky recently wrote: "uncontroversially, Bush's crimes vastly exceed bin Laden's." [...]

His invasion of Iraq caused the deaths of at least 100,000 (and almost certainly more) innocent Iraqis: vastly more than bin Laden could have dreamed of causing. It left millions of people internally and externally displaced for years. It destroyed a nation of 26 million people. It was without question an illegal war of aggression: what the lead prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials -- as Ferencz just reminded us -- called the "the central crime in this pattern of crimes, the kingpin which holds them all together." And that's to say nothing of the worldwide regime of torture, disappearances, and black sites created by the U.S during the Bush years.

[...] The claims being made about why the killing of bin Laden is grounded in such noble principles would be much more compelling if those same principles were applied to ourselves as well as our enemies. And the imperative to do so, more than anything, was the prime mandate of Nuremberg.

War crimes are war crimes regardless of their magnitude. Whether a war criminal kills 3000 or 100,000, you can only kill him once.

Capturing bin Laden alive would have opened a can of worms that the powers-that-be-and-were in this country simply did not want. Alive, he could speak. I think the guiding principle of the realpolitik in his case was Dead Men Tell No Tales. It's done and I'm fine with it, next case.

The next case oughta be Bush and Cheney and their cohort of warmongering neocon minions. Let me make perfectly clear that I do not want them to be assassinated. We need those bastards alive. We need from them all the debriefing that bin Laden is no longer capable of. Then while they are sitting in prison awaiting trial, we need to confiscate their holdings and return them to the treasury or disburse them to help those they hurt that are still alive. It's not much, just twisting the knife in them a little, minor vengeance if you will, but they'll get to watch their ill-gotten gains disappear.

Then on to due process under the law. They each get a fair and speedy trial and then we hang them. En masse if possible. A formation of ranks of twelve. Hang twelve, "next rank forward". The last object lesson.

We won't learn from that either. Sigh.

What you need to know and do for Saturday "Rapture Day"

A practical guide at DK. Do not miss this and set yer drink down!

Think of this Saturday as sort of an "evacuation day for believers, leaving the planet to the rest of us for a few months.

Like the Christians who plan on being airlifted outta here, you too must make arrangements, and plans.

If you are planning any plane travel on Saturday make sure those in the cockpit aren't planning on being raptured. You don't want the entire cockpit empty at 30,000 feet.

The safest bets would be no Christians in the cockpit. A crew of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, atheists/agnostics, etc. would be best. (lapsed Christians, those who belong to liberal or gay welcoming churches, or pretend piety but are schtuping a flight attendant on the side, etc. are probably pretty good too)

If your entire police force plans to be raptured you will need some precautions for your own safety. You might not need to run out to buy a gun, if your neighbor is a right wing Christian who believes he/she will be raptured on Saturday, ask them for the stock pile they've put up since President Obama was elected. They aren't going to need it where they are going and they won't need the cash either!

Send out invitations to your Jewish, Muslims, Hindu, Sikhs, atheist, agnostic, and the wrong type of Christian friends for a Sunday, May 22, 2011 After Rapture Party and or picnic or barbaque.

You may also want to send invitation out to your right wing Christian neighbors, friends and family who are "left behind," they are sure to be depressed and will need a pick me up. ;-)

Much, much more, including links and videos. Just go. Try and get back before Saturday...

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Marijuana Crop Found Near Bin Laden's Compound
Explains three tons of Nestle's Crunch bars discovered in basement.

U.S. Commandos Discover Stash of Porn in Osama’s Hideout
White House announces porn will only be shown to select members of Congress.

They'll probably form a study committee. There may be something issued...

Gingrich's Past Could Be Plus for Some Voters
Many men would love to dump their dying wives for younger, more nubile women half their age.

Wall Street Nervous as Government Cracks Down on Insider Trading
Prosecutors dump holdings in firms under investigation.

So is Schumer (D - Wall St.). Heh.

Rush for Domain Names After Bin Laden Death
If you were lucky you already registered www.osamaobamaohmama.com.

Who'da thunk there was such comedy gold in an assassination? Heh. We should do it more often!

That's fine ...

But while we're bandying war crimes charges around, why aren't Bush and Cheney (and the rest of their cabal) there too?

The International Criminal Court's prosecutor is seeking the arrest of Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi and two others for crimes against humanity.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Col Gaddafi, his son Seif al-Islam, and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanusi bore the greatest responsibility for "widespread and systematic attacks" on civilians.

ICC judges must still decide whether or not to issue warrants for their arrest.

...

It's such a double standard where we champion the International Criminal Court for everybody else but our cruminals. If we tried them here it would be another story but one way or the other, the players in the Bush administration should, in no way, be allowed to walk the streets with impunity.

That would be a "no"?

Seems Secaucus Fats doesn't have the voter enthusiasm he had when he sold the people of New Jersey a steaming, stinky pile o' bullshit:

TRENTON — A majority of New Jerseyans do not think Gov. Chris Christie should run for president, with a majority saying he would be a worse executive than President Barack Obama, according to a new poll.

Of the 700 surveyed in New Jersey, only 15 percent said Christie should run for president and 73 percent said he should not run. The poll, conducted by SurveyUSA for WABC-TV in New York City, included cell phones and an automated poll to landlines and has a margin of error of about 3.8 percentage points.

...

After seeing some of the commercials the NJ Teacher's Union and municipal employees unions are running against him, he'll be lucky if he wins a second term as governor.

***

Waiting for 2 pallets of stone to arrive this morning. Gonna be fun working in the rain today. Thankfully, the snow Gordon got the other day came to us in liquid form.

Stupid, stupid day

I took these pics a coupla minutes ago when the sun came out for five minutes. Snow. Blech. The only good things about it are a) it'll melt quick if it doesn't keep up for a week, and b) it's fuckin' with the AMGEN Tour of California bike race big time. Heh.

You can see that I've almost got my deck railing rebuilt. I'm holding off on putting in the vertical stringers until the snow on the ground below melts enough to safely use a stepladder. I already tried with (thankfully) comic results. I'm not enough of a contortionist to put 'em in from this side.

The screen door needs replaced as well. Let's just say it got a little bent when the pups installed their own doggie door when a squirrel ran across the deck. The formerly attached screen didn't slow them down even a little bit. I will try for a pre-installed doggie door this time.



On the bright side, the little pile of snow behind the pickup is all that remains of the castle wall of snow I had after my roof got shovelled off. I was gonna take everything outta the back today to get the truck ready to get the cap taken off and get the rig into the body shop to fix the b'ar damage. It can wait.



Also on the bright side, I got my computer outta the shop Friday. I had a 'hard error' screen and it didn't work. Mike at Tahoe Tech Group did what amounted to a 100-gallon enema on it and now it works fine. He also put in a 2 Terabyte hard drive and a DVD capture program. Hal went from having 5% of its hard drive left to 99%. The speed's better too, like taking a moped inta the shop and getting a Multistrada back!

The tech shop is located on a short dirt road at the entrance to a seasonal campground. It's in what originally was a WWII army motor pool building and reminds me of some of the motorcycle shops I've worked in. It's got a sign on the highway, but basically when ya get to Spindleshanks* ya just throw a hard right. Primitive, nothin' fancy, but they do good work. They must be doing well as there were two techs this time.

*That joint's outta my price range, but I would love to hear what you folks think about the menu, prices, ambiance, etc.

Mrs. G got tired of gettin' outta bed to go smack the TV to make the colors go from shades of green to normal. Also, the set we paid 50 bucks for ten years ago had some kind of self-shutoff timer that seemed to be timed to shut the set off right at the crux of whatever program was on. Grrr. So we got a new one. A Westinghouse LED job. The damn thing is fully interactive/computer/tickle-yer-ass-with-a-feather capable. More ports than my computer. $229.99 at Costco. I don't see how they can sell 'em that cheap, but they better get good at it so when we're all getting Chinese wages we can still afford a new set when we need one. At 30% interest, of course.

We left home Friday morning with $10 cash between us and spent $900 and still have the sawbuck. Only in America.

Your Bullshit Abuse of Teachers Is Killing Education (Series Part 5)

The Rude Pundit

Let's conclude this week about how badly we've screwed with our children's education under No Child Left Behind (and whatever Frankenstein monster Arne Duncan and the President are stitching together) with a few words from some teachers. They were kind and gutsy enough to write into the Rude Pundit, and he will protect your identities (and do some minor edits). Offered without comment:

From Carla:
"Not a single teacher I know, including myself, has anything positive to say about NCLB. Topping the list is stopping teachers from teaching, thus stopping students from real learning, thus teachers getting the blame, thus teachers getting further underpaid, losing jobs, and classrooms becoming more crowded as schools are unable to meet the percentages, and lose funding and more teachers; the entire original concept of NCLB is doing what is was designed to do: destroy the public school system, all said here in one long run-on sentence because I can."

And entirely out of context which makes the point very well:

[...] This is probably the goal, as it keeps the masses from being successful in school. [...]

The goal of the Repugs and oligarchs is Chinese wages for everybody. Everybody but them.

Much, much more.

Related:

And don't forget an unending supply of prison labor as a result of Repug control of education. Even cheaper, and paid for with your tax money. Not theirs.

Some hot three-way...

...from Osama's stash:

Thanks to sabiratree.

This could end badly...

...kickin' some major grass...

...idle hands are Lucifer's sex toy...Gotta put my new lawnmower together - Fixer

Uh-oh...

Thanks to hdav727, UK.

Or worse...

Thanks to ThePerihelion, US Minor Outlying Islands.

Yesterday ...

So, Blogger wouldn't let me do anything yesterday morning. As Gordon says, idle hands are Lucifer's sex toy or something like that.

The Kinks - Apeman

I'll explain later. Gotta put my new lawnmower together. Yes, the landscaper's history.

Update:

So I was swinging from the trees yesterday. Like I said, Blogger was borked so I drug the girls out and started the tree pruning I've been putting off for the last couple years.

I took about 8 limbs off the big pine in the left foreground.



And did the same to the pine on the right. I only took one big branch off the maple on the left.



I put the maple on the side to dry after cutting it up.



I stripped the pine branches down and built a "fence" along the back of my compost pile.



And now, for the mower. I was pissed last night after the landscaper didn't show up (this, after calling on Tuesday and saying he'd be here Wednesday), not the first instance of his unprofessionalism, so I was gonna call him and tell him to go fuck himself the Mrs. called and politely told him his services wouldn't be needed.

So then I thought about it, what I actually needed as opposed to what I wanted (thinking with the head on the shoulders instead of the little one), and what I could actually fit in the garage (1 car) alongside all my woodworking stuff, two big rollaway toolboxes the heating oil tank (300 gal), the Mrs.' chest freezer, lawn implements, work bench, and a whole buncha building materials.

I ended up with this. It's a 21" Honda with bag/mulch and variable speed transmission. Cut the lawn with it (1/2 acre) in about an hour and it did an excellent job. The variable speed is a great feature and it wasn't that big of a beast to manhandle. Got it in the garage but I can barely walk in there now. Gotta get a shed.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Elvis Costello & The Imposters ~ Wheels (With Emmylou Harris)

or (preferred, but I'm biased)

Emmylou Harris ~ Wheels (With Elvis Costello & The Imposters)

Thanks to Terrabyte007, Netherlands.

Blogger was caca-poopoo today

So we went shopping. Later.

Final thoughts on OBL

From Michael Moore.

We did exactly what bin Laden said he wanted us to do: Give up our freedoms (like the freedom to be assumed innocent until proven guilty), engage our military in Muslim countries so that we will be hated by Muslims, and wipe ourselves out financially in doing so. Done, done and done, Osama. You had our number. You somehow knew we would eagerly give up our constitutional rights and become more like the authoritarian state you dreamed of. You knew we would exhaust our military and willingly go into more debt in eight years than we had accumulated in the previous 200 years combined.

Maybe you knew us so well because you were once one of our mercenaries, funded and armed by us via our friends in Pakistan to fight the other Evil Empire in the last battle of the Cold War. Only, when the killing stopped, the trained killer, our "Frankenstein," couldn't. The monster, you, would soon turn on us.

If we really want to send bin Laden not just to his death, but also to his defeat, may I suggest that we reverse all of that right now. End the wars, bring the troops home, make the rich pay for this mess, and restore our privacy and due process rights that used to distinguish us from any other country. Right now, our democracy looks like Singapore and our economy has gone desperately Greek.

I know it will be hard to turn the clock back to before 9/11 when all we had to worry about were candidates stealing elections. A multi-billion dollar industry has grown up around "homeland security" and the terror wars. These war profiteers will not want to give up their booty so easily. They will want to keep us in fear so they can keep raking it in. We will have to stop them. But first we must stop believing them.

Some of us never believed them, Mike. Some of us have been in bar fights and know a sucker punch like 9/11 when we see one, giving or getting. You hit the guy back, but you don't burn the bar down. Or the one down the street because you've always wanted to because they 86ed you.

Un-Bushing this country will take years, even if the powers-that-be wanted to.

Bush didn't want to get bin Laden

Duh.

Raw Story, with video.

Former Colin Powell Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson told MSNBC’s Ed Schultz Wednesday that President George W. Bush wasn’t interested in bringing Osama bin Laden to justice.

“I don’t think they really wanted to get bin Laden,” Wilkerson said.

“You could be very cynical and say he didn’t want to get him because once they got him the war was over and that left all the political advantage gone,” he added. “Or you could say that they knew that it was almost an impossibility to get him given what they had done to the intelligence and other aspects of the government that you needed to get him. They just about ruined it.”

Thank you, Colonel. Finally someone with enough balls to say out loud what we've been saying for years.

The Battle for the Soul of the GOP

That's kinda like the battle over the Obama/Libruls' socialist/secular/gay/Kenyan/Islamist/sharia agenda - doesn't exist.

Robert Reich on the Teabaggers, Boehner, and the debt ceiling:

The Tea Partiers don’t care about the debt ceiling. To them, it’s a giant bargaining chit to shrink government. Nor do they worry about credit markets. If the full faith and credit of the U.S. government is no longer honored, so much the better.

You see, Tea Partiers hate government more than they hate the national debt. They refuse to reduce that debt with tax increases, even with tax increases on the wealthy, because a tax increase doesn’t reduce the size of government. The Tea Partiers’ real aim is to shrink the government.

But the Street and big business dislike the national debt more than they dislike government. [...]

Tea Partiers have almost as much contempt for big business and the Street as they do for government. After all, the Tea Party was born in anger over the Wall Street bailout.

This is the heart of the civil war in the GOP.

Boehner is siding with the Tea Partiers. Wall Street and big business hold the purse strings in the GOP but the Tea Partiers are now the ground troops. Boehner and his GOP colleagues figure Wall Street and big business will stake them in any event. They need Tea Partiers to get out the vote in 2012. And they’re afraid angry Tea Partiers will get out the vote against them in their own primaries.

But Boehner is playing with fire. If the debt ceiling isn’t raised and the financial system begins to collapse, the GOP loses not only Wall Street and big business. It loses everyone who’s still sane.

Bobby, Bobby, Bobby... You're a good economist and usually you're ahead of the curve on these deals, but 'sane' and 'Repugs'? That ship done sailed, son.

Florida Outlaws Sex

When they outlaw sex, only outlaws will have sex! They'll get mine when they pry it from my cold dead hand... You get the idea. This is what happens when Repugs try to legislate science.

Southern Fried Science

Question: If your elected officials fail basic taxonomy, promote anti-science curriculum, and consistently attempt to undermine the fundamental unpinning of all biology, what happens when they start trying to legislate from this flawed view of reality?

The answer is this poorly-worded miasma of a law recently passed in Florida, which presumably was designed to prevent bestiality and promote animal welfare, but which has actually made it illegal, effective October 1, 2011, for anyone to have sex in Florida.

Text of law and a chart showing humans in the pantheon of animals follows.

So if you’re living in Florida on October 1, 2011 and would like to have sexual intercourse with a consenting adult, please check with your veterinarian or local livestock breeder first to make sure you abide by ”accepted animal husbandry practices, conformation judging practices, or accepted veterinary medical practices.”

Here's a coupla 'comments':

Jenea: So, um, what has been going on in Florida that made them think this law was necessary?

Ethel's reply: It may have something to do with the literacy rate?

Ah, yep...

F**PAC Goes Froot Loops Again

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