Where to start?

The words are in my head, but they don’t seem to want to come out my fingertips to the keyboard. I carry on conversations with nobody during my hour-long commute to and from work each day. I think, I need to write about that, and then I get home and peruse the blogs instead, or read Becoming Vegetarian, or play with the dogs.

There’s a big part of me that’s mighty discouraged and yet I take solace that there are people like Glenn Greenwald and his readers. I take solace in the fact that I have friends who are as horrified and disgusted as I am. 

I’ve taken to listening to “progressive” talk radio again just to see if there is some sort of awareness out there of the cliff that we are heading for and I hear rumblings. But for the most part it’s just a rehash of how awful the Republicans are,  Sarah Palin!!, Glenn Beck!!  and very little examining of themselves or their supposed leaders. Yeah, Republicans suck. Got it. Now, what are you going to do about it? Dave Marsh, whose show airs on Sundays, and listened to by me for the first time last Sunday, gets it. It isn’t about what THEY are doing, its about what WE are doing.

It’s funny, in a sad sort of way. There are some who were virulently opposed to Hillary Clinton who are now upset that Obama is not the liberal avenging angel they thought he’d be, but nearly to a man (and nearly all the show hosts are men – way to go progressive radio) they just can’t seem to admit their mistake. A couple of them step off the reservation every once in a while, and I even once heard Cenk Uygur admit that, knowing what he knows now, he would have voted for Hillary. Why? Because, he realizes, she wouldn’t have let the Republicans roll her. Nuh-duh dude.

Some of them are actually catching on that things are progressing exactly as Obama has intended. Perhaps the Alan Simpson episode has finally made it plain.  

Shirley Sherrod was fired when a snippet of a speech she gave on class warfare was taken out of context by a right wing rat-fucker. Alan Simpson, on the other hand, full bore antagonist of the every American worker and every Social Security recipient, and not taken out of context,  remains, with the full support of Barack Obama, as the co-chair of Obama’s Deficit Catfood Commission which is working in secret (so much for transparency) and has Social Security in its sights. Social Security, which has not added One Thin Dime to the deficit.

 There’s a class war alright. It’s just not the one the the Tea Partiers think is happening. (There isn’t enough time this morning for me to comment on the goings on on the other side,  but don’t worry, I’ll get there too).

In other news . . .

Tonight President Obama is going to give his version of “Mission Accomplished” speech. Oh yay. What was the mission again? Joe Biden was in Iraq for the “turnover” ceremony.  Maliki claims Iraq is now capable of handling all threats on their own. Except when they can’t I suppose.

“Iraq today is sovereign and independent,” Mr Maliki told Iraqis in a televised address.

“Our security forces will take the lead in ensuring security and safeguarding the country and removing all threats that the country has to weather, internally or externally.”

[...]

Around 50,000 US troops will remain in Iraq and will focus on supporting Iraqi forces. They will not participate in combat missions without a request from the Iraqi authorities, or if they are acting in self-defence.

The new Iraqi air force is still in its infancy, our correspondent adds.

Air cover for Iraqi ground operations is provided almost exclusively by US planes and helicopters, he says.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan …

Afghanistan bomb attacks kill twenty-one US soldiers in 48 hours

Deaths have risen consistently each year since 2001. Afghan police and civilians have suffered far higher casualties.

The coalition blames the rise in troop deaths partly on the influx of reinforcements, which is allowing commanders to target previously untouched insurgent safe havens where rebels are mounting stiff resistance.

Gen David Petraeus, senior US and Nato commander in the country, warned last week fighting would “get harder before it gets easier”.

 Sigh.

I’m off to work. Catch you all later.

Unfriendly

I unfriended someone over at Facebook last night. Oh, I know, big deal huh? But I just couldn’ take it any more. I’ve only done it once before and that time it was a former Hillary supporter who’d become a Republican, and not one of the sane ones. She was posting all kinds of hateful crap, and I’d finally had enough.

Regular readers know how often I’ve cast a critical eye upon Obama and his administration, but the disagreements have been about policy or his attitudes. I have never written anything about Michelle Obama (except to defend her or to call her on her unwillingness to be identified as feminist), nor have I written about his children.

Same thing with Sarah Palin. Yep, I defended her plenty against the misogyny of the 2008 election. This got me called all manner of idiot by so-called progressives. And yet, I continue to this day to despise her politics. I am able to separate the woman that is Sarah Palin from the politician. And her family? Off limits.

So when this “progressive” friend, who constantly cheerleads for everything Dem and Obama (with nary a critical eye), went after Bristol Palin in the wake of her second breakup with her Piece of Shit boyfriend, and the commensurate huzzahs and nastiness from her friends, leading to comments like, “Just like her mom”, etc, I just thought, “Enough.”

Seriously people, have you nothing better to do than beat down a teenage girl, who is probably trying to do the best she can given the circumstances she finds herself in? How very compassionate of you. How very “progressive.” But given the events and tone of the 2008 election, I know that this IS what passes for “progressive” these days and why I’ll never be one.

I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man’s ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves. ~ John F. Kennedy

As I said last night, I sure am glad my teenage romances weren’t played out on the national stage for people to snicker at.

Who?

I stumbled across this WaPo article that tells me something and yet, nothing at all.  Okay, there’s this group that has formed called One Nation. And it’s supposed to have, get this, “170 liberal and civil rights groups” who have joined together to forge a coalition to . . .  do . . . um . . . I’m not sure.

The large-scale attempt at liberal unity, dubbed “One Nation,” will try to revive themes that energized the progressive grassroots two years ago. In a repurposing of Barack Obama‘s old campaign slogan, organizers are demanding “all the change” they voted for — a poke at the White House.

So, they are mad at Obama? Or not? I can’t tell. What do they want to do?

Leaders of the groups have been meeting for about three months in a planning process that some participants called arduous, debating everything from the name of the coalition to what the branding and logo should look like.

Omigod…I’ve been in these sorts of meetings. 

The coalition’s first goal is to plan a march to “demonstrate to Congress that these agenda items have support across multiple demographics,” Jealous said. The demonstration, to be held Oct. 2, will center on pressing for more government spending on job creation.

In October???  And what agenda items? I don’t know. I can’t find them anywhere on the web. But methinks they should have given consideration to another name. There are a lot of “One Nations” out there.

There’s this One Nation all about the American Muslim Community.

And this one whose mission is to end bi-lingual education.

Or this one that is so anti-Native American that I don’t know where to begin.

ONU represents more than 300,000 American citizens who have joined together to defend our private property rights, protect the free enterprise system, and reform seriously flawed federal Indian policy for the benefit of Indians and non-Indians alike.

There’s this one in Australia.

Believing the other parties to be out of touch with mainstream Australia, One Nation ran on a broadly populist and protectionist platform. It promised to drastically reduce immigration and to abolish “divisive and discriminatory policies… attached to Aboriginal and multicultural affairs.” Condemning multiculturalism as a “threat to the very basis of the Australian culture, identity and shared values”, One Nation rallied against government immigration and multicultural policies which, it argued, were leading to “the Asianisation of Australia.”

The WaPo article only lists a few of the groups in the coalition, so I really have no idea who they are. No link to a web site, nada. I’ve googled, but can’t find.

This little bit makes me wonder if they will really be willing to hold the Democratic Party’s feet to the fire. Somehow I doubt it.

Their aha moment happened after the health-care overhaul passed this spring. Liberal groups, who focused their collective strength to push the bill against heavy resistance, felt relevant and effective for the first time in a long while. That health-care coalition — composed of civil rights groups, student activists and labor leaders — liked the winning feeling.

“In many ways, the bitter fight for health-care reform has painfully highlighted that we must go back to the grassroots organizing that won us the election in the first place,” said George Gresham, president of 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. “We must reassert our strength as the social movement that ushered Obama into office.”

Where to go from here?

I wake up every morning wondering, what do I do now? Where do I go? I feel very alone. Cut adrift. I alternate between absolute despair and blinding fury at those who have turned their backs on their principles to worship at the feet of Barack Obama and his New! Democratic Party.  I am sick at heart at those who parrot WH talking points and who accept on blind faith what is spoon fed to them via Access Bloggers and the so-called Progressive media.

On November 3, 2008 I wrote I Want to be Wrong, about the impending election of Barack Obama.

Progressives should not see this as a great victory. Obama’s words have often not matched his record and I strongly suspect that he will disappoint many who have placed their faith in him.

If nothing else, this election should inform Obama that the people have turned their back on the neo-con world-view. They long for something better. I only long for one thing: To be wrong.

At that point, I had turned in my Democratic voter registration card for a Non Partisan card. My heart then and now is staunchly liberal, and I don’t apologize for it. 

. . . have I mentioned that I really hate the label “progressive?”  From the very beginning of its modern usage amongst the Democratic faithful I understood what that word meant: capitulation to the right wing meme that all things “liberal” were evil. I’ll never run from the Liberal label. Please, don’t ever call me a Progressive.

So, here I am, nearly eighteen months later and the depression is keen and I wonder why I continue to care.  I am beat down, not by  Barack Obama (for I have no illusions about who he is), but instead  by the people who I thought were on my side who continue to embrace everything Barack Obama does and twist themselves into pretzels to not only approve, but to cheer his every rightward move.  Back in November I wrote:

I’ve read posts from many of you in the “progressive” blogosphere that once Obama is elected “we” must be sure to Hold His Feet To The Fire. I assume you are speaking to your collective “we” because I’ve already done that. I intend to keep on doing so. You, on the other hand, did not. Some of you, in full-throated approval, cheered his every move and justified his every stance and flip/flop. Some of you, in spite of your misgivings, cast your vote for him anyway and in doing so let him slide on so many issues, just to get a “D” into the White House. I cannot see how you are going to have any leverage. Why should Obama listen to you once he’s ensconced in the Oval Office? He got what he wanted from you. He won’t have to talk to you for another four years, when the contract is up for renewal.

When I go to buy a car I have one cardinal rule: I must be willing to walk away at any time. No matter how badly I want the car, and even if the salesperson knows it, I must be able and willing to walk away. The minute I sign the contract, I’ve lost all bargaining power. The time for Progressives / Liberals / Democrats to hold Obama’s feet to the fire has passed. You signed the contract. You own him.

I’m still waiting for that “feet to the fire” stuff.  Oh, to be sure, there are some people that are waking up. But too few. Far too few. Instead I’ve seen throwing women under the bus defended as “upholding the status quo” so that Obama could claim victory in passing a Health Care Reform bill straight out of the Heritage Foundation (and had GW Bush proposed it, would have been slammed by the “left” every which way from Sunday).  But it’s not just the HCR bill. Goodness no. It is the continuation and virtual embrace of everything the “progressives” hated about GW Bush and the neocons. To make matters worse, the progs would rather spend their time mocking the “tea baggers,” Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck instead of looking at their own complicity in the whole mess.  

Chris Hedges:

The Democrats and their liberal apologists are so oblivious to the profound personal and economic despair sweeping through this country that they think offering unemployed people the right to keep their unemployed children on their nonexistent health care policies is a step forward. They think that passing a jobs bill that will give tax credits to corporations is a rational response to an unemployment rate that is, in real terms, close to 20 percent. They think that making ordinary Americans, one in eight of whom depends on food stamps to eat, fork over trillions in taxpayer dollars to pay for the crimes of Wall Street and war is acceptable. They think that the refusal to save the estimated 2.4 million people who will be forced out of their homes by foreclosure this year is justified by the bloodless language of fiscal austerity. The message is clear. Laws do not apply to the power elite. Our government does not work. And the longer we stand by and do nothing, the longer we refuse to embrace and recognize the legitimate rage of the working class, the faster we will see our anemic democracy die. 

The unraveling of America mirrors the unraveling of Yugoslavia. The Balkan war was not caused by ancient ethnic hatreds. It was caused by the economic collapse of Yugoslavia. The petty criminals and goons who took power harnessed the anger and despair of the unemployed and the desperate. They singled out convenient scapegoats from ethnic Croats to Muslims to Albanians to Gypsies. They set in motion movements that unleashed a feeding frenzy leading to war and self-immolation. There is little difference between the ludicrous would-be poet Radovan Karadzic, who was a figure of ridicule in Sarajevo before the war, and the moronic Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin. There is little difference between the Oath Keepers and the Serbian militias. We can laugh at these people, but they are not the fools. We are.

The longer we appeal to the Democrats, who are servants of corporate interests, the more stupid and ineffectual we become. Sixty-one percent of Americans believe the country is in decline, according to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, and they are right. Only 25 percent of those polled said the government can be trusted to protect the interests of the American people. If we do not embrace this outrage and distrust as our own it will be expressed through a terrifying right-wing backlash.

“It is time for us to stop talking about right and left,” McKinney told me. “The old political paradigm that serves the interests of the people who put us in this predicament will not be the paradigm that gets us out of this. I am a child of the South. Janet Napolitano tells me I need to be afraid of people who are labeled white supremacists but I was raised around white supremacists. I am not afraid of white supremacists. I am concerned about my own government. The Patriot Act did not come from the white supremacists, it came from the White House and Congress. Citizens United did not come from white supremacists, it came from the Supreme Court. Our problem is a problem of governance. I am willing to reach across traditional barriers that have been skillfully constructed by people who benefit from the way the system is organized.”

We are bound to a party that has betrayed every principle we claim to espouse, from universal health care to an end to our permanent war economy, to a demand for quality and affordable public education, to a concern for the jobs of the working class. And the hatred expressed within right-wing movements for the college-educated elite, who created or at least did nothing to halt the financial debacle, is not misplaced. Our educated elite, wallowing in self-righteousness, wasted its time in the boutique activism of political correctness as tens of millions of workers lost their jobs. The shouting of racist and bigoted words at black and gay members of Congress, the spitting on a black member of the House, the tossing of bricks through the windows of legislators’ offices, are part of the language of rebellion. It is as much a revolt against the educated elite as it is against the government. The blame lies with us. We created the monster.

I don’t know if there is any controlling the monster.   Nothing seems to make a dent in our national discourse. I used to believe that it was possible to work within the system, but I no longer feel that way when I see how it has been rigged against any voices that represent interests outside those of our political and corporate overlords.

And so I wonder… where to go from here? Iceland? Not likely, or at least, not any time soon, so what do I do?

Any ideas?

What Cinie said

All of it, but most especially THIS:

Buy a clue, people.  The man sold out his own pastor for political expediency, for crying out loud!   As just about any PUMA hearted voter could have told you from Day One, the man has no motivating principles and beliefs other than self aggrandizement.  He is the equivalent of a picture of a hologram, a shape shifter, a charlatan, a fraud, and now, Spokesmodel-In-Chief.  He equivocates, pontificates and backtracks on things he said just minutes ago, because he doesn’t have a clue about what he’s supposed to say until he’s briefed immediately before the latest taped TelePrompTer reading.

Contrary to popular belief, many self-identified current and former PUMAs came to support Clinton not only out of a fervent belief that  she was the far better Democratic candidate, but by an equally unassailable conviction that Barack Obama was such an incredibly awful, unvetted one.  For those voters, me included, it was never a “six of one, half dozen of the other” proposition.  And, the fact that he prevailed without doing one single thing to prove himself better that her, or anybody else, or even independently worthy, for that matter, only adds insult to injury.

And if this makes me “bitter,” well then, so be it.

I’m 2L4O. Are you?

That’s right, I’m too liberal for Obama, and I’m proud of it.

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