Healthcare

My first thought - fuck, TPM has big headlines - Senate Passes Healthcare, House to Adopt Senate Plan - fuck that!

The reason you get good language out of the House is so you can fight for a compromise in committee! This is the most progressive House we've had in quite a while, and their public option was good, and the funding was better, and were it the bill, I'd be thrilled.

But all this 'roll over' language, it was getting to me. And then good old Progressive Left Democrat himself, Markos Molitsas on the TV. And his message - keep fighting, heck ya!

Once we have a final bill, and things are set in stone, then we can re-examine that bill. But right now, things can still change. To stop fighting for that change, to me, is patently ridiculous.

Any positive change from here on out is going to be because we keep pushing from the left not because we say, "Good enough. Let’s pass it."

Hear, hear. I'ma call Ellison and McCullom and tell them to stand up for this. Ellison in particular should.

My amazing new avatar

This came from the Mariowiki, where it's someone's user ID.Here's the link.

Robocop's Vocals, Super Pain Ray, Pittsburgh G-20

This is fascinating - the robocop vocals. And the tweetling - is this going to be the audiotrack of the suppression of people's movements?

About the radicalizing right wing

Pandagon? Rocks when it's rocking like nothing. Great writing there. This one - Amanda Marcotte gets this shit backwards.

Here's a big clip. Go read the whole thing

The widespread unwillingness, particularly in the mainstream media, to accept that anti-choicers are rather mean-spirited right wing nuts has led to a disturbing unwillingness to label anti-choice terrorism as “terrorism”. It seems there’s a sense that the obsessiveness of anti-choicers should work to contain their anger and violence, so they only aim at sexually active women and those who provide them medical care---which shows how much our society still devalues women, but that’s a topic for another post. But right wing paranoias are rarely self-contained. People who come in because they’re obsessed with female sexuality are open to being paranoid about Islam, and people who turned into right wing nuts after 9/11 often find themselves slipping into anger over women’s rights, anger they may not have felt before.

There was a lot of hubbub over this guy who brought a ginormous gun to an Obama event, and now it turns out that he’s a member of this church that Pam’s been covering, a church where the pastor is an over-the-top homophobe who has preached that Obama should die. What I want to point out is that the violent rhetoric that drove this man to actually threaten the President with his big gun is very specifically anti-choice rhetoric:

.....you’re going to tell me that I’m supposed to pray for the socialist devil, murderer, infanticide, who wants to see young children and he wants to see babies killed through abortion and partial-birth abortion and all these different things—you’re gonna tell me I’m supposed to pray for God to give him a good lunch tomorrow while he’s in Phoenix, Arizona?

Nope. I’m not gonna pray for his good. I’m going to pray that he dies and goes to hell.

The New Mob Order

After Bill Clinton was re-elected, American conservatives launched the impeachment campaign that tied up government for most of his second term. Now, with the town-hall meeting disruptions and campaigns like the 'birthers', American conservatives are trying to tie up Obama by destabilizing the rule of law.

Why is reining in bad practices of the insurance industry and cutting their profit margins for the purpose of public health something that triggers a neo-fascist conservative movement? Well, for no good reason at all.

As Hunter at Kos pointed out (commenting on a Ta-Nehisi Coates story)

Now, how it is that a healthcare reform debate has managed to raise a viciously angry, assertively fact-hostile and debate-hostile political climate that brings back national memories of American desegregation seems outright baffling. Except that many of the paranoid healthcare protestors are "teabaggers" as well, and many of those "teabaggers" are "birthers" besides, and the whole parcel is, from polling, clearly a fringe movement based most substantially in the southern states, the only remaining stronghold of the party that contains them. And -- there is no way around it -- America has just now elected the first black president.

The biggest log on the fire, and you can see it so clearly in the birthers - and my blog continues to get hits because I used these words in the title - is we elected a nigger president. (And about fucking time, if you ask me.) You see, the birthers have the idea that if they could only look at Obama's real birth certificate, they would discover that he's ineligible to hold the office of President on account of him being Black, and therefore only 3/5ths of a citizen. But not only is Obama a Negro, he's also smart, savvy, and about to make a level attempt to reign in the excesses of US Capitalism.

Which is the second log on the fire, which we see in the accusations of socialism. They're perfectly right, as are the birthers - Barack Obama's economic policies would, if carried out, somewhat diminish the vicious savaging of our throats (and the planet) by the piranha capitalists that have had the upper hand since Reagan. Since socialism is really defined as "Whatever the Rich Don't Want" I guess that setting up a low-overhead Muni Insurance shop is the equivalent of nationalizing pro sports.

So the racists and the rich get together and form an alliance, and the level of right-wing violence goes up, and the right-wing media aids and abets it, and they try to pre-empt us calling them fascists by calling US fascists.

I went back into the back catalog here because I was sure I'd written about this before. I went and found this, written on November 11 of last year, one week after the election. Fascism, Palin, and Right-Wing Paramilitaries: a glimpse of the near future. The basic thrust was that since they've lost control of the Presidency and the House and Senate, the conservatives will turn to extra-legal violence to gum things up.

Not to long ago, one of the fellows who would have been at one of these townhalls took himself out of the running. Jim Adkisson went out and shot up a Unitarian church in Tennessee. When these folks in the townhalls just claim to be using their freedom of speech, while they prevent the democratic process from happening, think about this man's manifesto. This is from his 'suicide note'

Know This If Nothing Else

I: This was a hate crime
I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country and these liberals are working together to attack every decent and honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them.

II This was a Political Protest
I'm protesting the liberal Supreme Court Justices for give the terrorists at GITMO constitutional rights. I'm protesting the major news outlets, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, PBS for being the propaganda wing of the Democrat Party. It's criminal what they're getting away with. They're traitors. They must be stopped. I'm protesting the DNC running such a radical leftist candidate. Osama Hussein OBama, yo mama. No experience, no brains, a joke. Dangerous to America. Hell, he looks like Curious George!

III This was as Symbolic Killing:
Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate, and house, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the Mainstream Media. But I knew these people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals and high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Some one had to get the ball rolling, I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It’s the only way we can rid America of this cancer, this pestilence!

Well, Jim, looks like you might have gotten that ball rolling.

Win the election for Paul Wellstone

I am happy and sad that Al Franken took the oath of office on Paul and Sheila Wellstone's bible.

The moment was the Wellstone memorial. The chapter in Frankens Lies and the Lying Liars about that event is perfect. Because the Coleman forces used their dirty tricks to smear the campaign of Senator Wellstone.

And thereby they benefited by Wellstone's death.

I think that the planecrash was sketchy as hell. Cold and quiet. Remote woods. The Wellstone campaign, starting to pull away after Paul took the risky vote against Bush's war. Remember, 2002 was the year that the invasion of Iraq saved the Republican's electoral bacon. The war was about to become bloody. The woods were bloody.

Norm Coleman benefited from the death of Paul Wellstone. Norm, who was beloved of Rove and Cheney. Cheney, who was spending a lot of time in those undisclosed locations. Doing what? Planning what? Pulling a Michelle Bachmann? "I'm not saying that Wellstone was assassinated, I'm just thinking someone should take a look..."

And so now Al used Paul's book to take the oath on.

I think it was magic today, magic that was connected to the debt of blood. The debt of blood that had stained Norm Coleman's senate seat, which is now Al Franken's. I think something is at rest now.

And just as Senator Coleman moved into Senator Wellstone's University Avenue office, Al Franken gets the fancy Washington Senate office they were holding for Coleman, on the off chance he would get the seat. So the perk that 'rising star' Coleman got now goes to the nice boy from Saint Louis Park who is Senator Al Franken. Good going, Al. We finally won the election for Paul Wellstone - it just took a while.

Icky Bill

This is an example of hatemongering propaganda.

Star Trek 2009 Part Two

Once again - this is full of spoilers. Beware!

CHARACTERS

Spock rocked. I think his character was far more the driver than Kirk's, and he got balls. Literally. I LOVE that he's Uhura's lover. His 'mother' moments were ehh, but overall the character who did the most growth and was generally the most compelling.

Kirk was fine. The role was pretty amusingly written, and the kid did fine at it. He was way more bloody than the original - that's the Dark Knight phenomenon - and I swear, he was hanging by the edge of a cliff so many times it's a motif. And if it's a homage to Kirk's kid hanging by the edge, or the I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU it wasn't that good. I thought he was too much of a horndog, but he was compelling a lot of times, looked amusing a lot of times, fit the role pretty well. I thought it was kinda lame to have him be in black the whole movie, basically. "It's like Kirk, but with a dark edgy edge!" "How we gonna do that?" "He'll wear... black!"

Uhura rocked. Hot, strong, making out with the Vulcan. Skilled. I might have missed something in the role, but I don't think it was misogynistic. I kind of think it was too bad they gave her long straight hair - like the recent post at Racialicous on Storm in the X-Men not being really black. There was a woman with the afro on the ship - they panned past her during combat; she had a command yellow uniform on. But the character was cool. I do wish she'd given the last punch at the bar fight scene when she and Kirk met.

Bones was bearable. He'd been written out of the canonical triumvirate in favor of Uhura, so he didn't get the same character development treatment and that was too bad. His delivery of the "I'm a Doctor, not a..." line was stilted, and when you make a movie, you can re-shoot the stilted lines until they get them right. The diseases stuff that got Kirk onto the Enterprise was funny, and he has a certain amount of hearty southern character.

Sulu for the win. The initial 'oops' moment was not so great, but the fencing was awesome. He wasn't Takei but he was Sulu, just as well as the new Spock was Spock. (A different Spock, however.)

Scotty? Well, he seemed way more Irish than Scottish to my ear, but that could have been because I don't know what lowland Scots sounds like. But I really liked this character A LOT. Like Spock, he'd been ret-conned, so he's not the very military engineer that James Doohan was. But cool. The 'you're a brilliant scientist' thing was awesome. BUT

The one amazing loser was the fucking midget. I apologize to midgets, and I liked the short nonverbal alien when the actor was acting the new Oompa Lumpas. BUT cute little characters like that are anathema. The "Beedee beedee" robot wasn't in Star Trek, he was in what - Buck Rodgers? This is the Ewok, this is the Jar-Jar. This is the marketable stuffed animal character so the under-six set has something to franchise to. That character alone was worth dropping to an A from an A+. (Or actually from an A- to a B+, because anything with a character like that won't be starting from an A+, because characters like that indicate an fundamental poor grasp on reality that would show in other areas as well.)

Whew.

Who am I missing? Chekov. My sweetie didn't remember Chekov from the original show, and this ret-con didn't work nearly as well. "We'll make him an idiot savant, brilliant kid, who's like a Russian chess genius. And he'll talk in an accent." OK - do you do any backstory on this? No - one is left to fill in the blanks. The scene where the voice recognition can't understand him was lame - see continuity errors.

Sarek: Very good. Of course, all you have to do is be stoic for a Vulcan, but you can do it with dynamism or not. Dynamic Sarek.

Spock's Mom: Uhhh - nice tit shelf? Sorry, the tit shelf really distracts. I guess she was Winona Ryder, whatever. Did a 1.5 dimensional job of playing her 1.5 dimensional character.

Captain Pike - good! As someone said - he looks like he should, from the Menagerie. And he gets old. And the final handshake has him in vintage old-skool Federation arm sleeve rank stuff. Except the fan service with the 'creeeeture in his boooody' was lame, and he spent the last chunk all tied up. That he's in the show, however, and does a decent job makes him a plus overall in the 'respect the source material' category.

Romulans: Fail. Sorry, just that. Fail. Orc ears, orc tattoos, orc tech, scary alien orc ship (how that was a practical mining ship is beyond me) and Nero? Good ranting, you're no Khan, it's not your fault they made you the Space Orcs.

More: Plot and stuff. Including list of stupid things.

Star Trek 2009 Part One

For those of you who get this in RSS - this is full of spoilers. Turn back now!

Saw the new Star Trek movie last night, and I wanted to write about it.

Dude, that was sooo cool!

Also - letter grade bobbing between a B+ and an A-. Definitely in the 'Pay full price for it' category - as a matter of fact, pay an extra buck for the Ultrascreen.

So I absolutely loved it, even when it bothered me, and I came away feeling great! Seriously, this movie invoked such a sense for me of the positive, of the crazy utopian post-capitalist integrated society of the United Federation of Planets - it put a spring in my step! Serious.

In the intervening time since walking out - floating out awash in positive endorphins - I've had to come face to face with some stuff. Like the fact that there were really quite some starship-sized holes in the reality, which is always a problem with action-adventure genre movies. The big stupid things like basic physics being ignored, inconsistencies from one minute to the next, stuff like that. And I'll be listing them, see if I don't.

But this is mythic territory. In my grading, I had to admit that I had a full possible letter grade of 'fanboy' that I could give this movie, depending on how well they serviced my fanboy-ness. And in this case, they'd already signaled that they would be changing the reality some, so not to expect full continuity. (The geek term for this is ret-conning, or retroactively altering the continuity of the world.) So if they did well by the source material, a full letter grade boost; if they did poorly, possible minuses.

And, frankly, the original was a three season TV show, with some good writing, some so-so writing, some simple hammy acting doing some simple morality play SF stuff. They do get props for first interracial kiss, that's fine. And they had the liberal utopian stuff I refered to earlier.

The movie also suffers from the Dark Knight phenomenon, which also befell Lord of the Rings. By this I mean the good guys are less good and the bad guys are twice as bad and three times as violent. I attribute this to the long brutal years of Bush, the torture and the warlike nature. Hopefully this will be less the case in coming years, but both of these adaptations feel a need to take the good guys and 'show the bad side' and then to EXXTREME the baddies. However...

Next chapter: Characters

The Field Negro

BitchPhD, where I've guest posted, has got some good race discussions. The reminded me lately of a blogger - the FIELD NEGRO - from who I ripped the following. Amazing.

Monday, May 11, 2009

I will take Rush over the black guy.

"Well, if I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I'd go with Rush Limbaugh, I think,"..." I think my take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn't know he was still a Republican."

That was the devil himself disguised as an old white man named Dick Cheney. He was telling CBS News and anyone who would listen that he would rather have a fat drug addicted [alleged]pedophile in his party, than a genuine "American hero", Colin Powell. Wow!

Now I am no political expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I am guessing that if you asked most A-murder-cans who they would trust more to be their leader, they would say the good general and not anyone from the new "axis of evil"; Cheney,Rush, and Newt. Just a thought.

First of May

First of May - Outdoor F'ing Starts Today (NSFW) (but cartoony)

OK - and for other light news; this comes from Rogers over at Kung Fu Monkey. It also made me laugh.

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

Organizing to get rid of Coleman

I love the floating out of focus Cornyn.

Protest Coleman - Who and Why

Off of a comment thread on Bitch PhD - is there any reason to protest against Norm Coleman? Or is it pointless, because it's just a legal case right now?

I think there are reasons to protest.

First, there's Norm Coleman, who is indeed an actor in the play but by no means the most powerful. He loses with the general public, somewhat, by continuing to twitch. But he gains with his Republican donor money base by delaying.

Then there's that Republican money base, which wants to keep the seat locked down in permanent NO territory. Can't invoke cloture when there's no-one in the seat! See here:

http://nihilix.blogspot.com/2009/04/letter-to-norm-coleman-concede.html

Then there's Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a progressive Democrat who wants to be seen as 'fair', and Tim Pawlenty, who I maintain has less power than previously maintained, what with the veto override last year (bridge fall down money overridden) and being passed over for Yukon Barbie for the VP nod. These two could certify, and protest could make a difference there.

THEN there's the US Senate, which could ignore Minnesota altogether and just seat him.

So there's plenty of political actors, not Coleman, in that mix. Protest could change media coverage, perception of strength, etc.

Actually, I'd target Ritchie to say he's willing to sign the statement in light of the not-so-expedited MN Supreme Court timeline. That would be calls and letter writing. Then would be Pawlenty, which ups the pressure on him and that's a good thing.

Or a 'Throw in the Towel' game - it's like lawn darts - paint a big open-mouthed Norm on a bit of plywood, cut to give the hair wave, and show up at festivals with towels with tennis balls wrapped inside and see if you can 'toss the Norm towel'. Winners get little bags of cash and a job at a right-wing think tank. Losers get one of their two Senate votes taken from them.

Hold them accountable

Right wing violence will occur and it will be backed by media like Fox and politicans like Bachmann and Perry from Texas.

When some nutbar goes off - like they do and have done - we gotta pump up the volume and challenge folks - what do you think about this? These people claim to be pro-life, but they use violence for their cause. As a pro-lifer, do you condone this action? Call them on it.

Obama: In it to win it

Good post at the Booman Tribune about poker and politics. Apparently, the Republicans overplay their hands, and in this case they don't have the political chips to back it up.

[Obama]... made concessions to the House GOP during the stimulus debate and he got absolutely nothing in return. In essence, he folded a good hand and lost a pot that rightfully belonged to him. The Republicans had been bluffing about bipartisanship. He's not about to trust them again over the signature domestic issue of his campaign: health care reform.

Ahh, what a difference community organizing and a spine and soul make. Steve Perry in Minnesota did a great analysis in 2002 about the Democratic Party - that they were in it to lose it. They didn't care. There needed to be two parties and they would take that role, with some jobs, some positions, some perks, and no control of the process. Keep things quiet.

Frankly, Bill Clinton was like that, at least as far as Wall Street and the military-industrial complex were concerned. Want some spending? Let's do some bombing. Want some deregulation? Here, and here's some more. NAFTA? No problem.

Barack Obama is in it to win it. The order of major bills is important and the order has been thought out and determined. Start like Roosevelt did - one for the banks, keep Wall Street happy. Then buy some votes AND do some good with the second one, some Big Old Federal Pork, Just What the Economy Ordered (I am very supportive overall of the stimulus bill, even if larded with corporate crap) keep the cities and states happy. And he opened the process and gave some to the Republicans and got nothing, and nothing again.

So now he has set the narrative, and can legitimately roll all over them on something that's very popular.

Obama's claiming power. While the USA may be a relative 'change of government is orderly' country, the assholes who were just in there are, well, assholes, and vindictive, and anti-democratic, and, well, neo-fascist. (OK, not EVERY one was a neo-fascist, but Cheney in the Undisclosed Location with a DOJ Memo sounds like the end of the Clue game on who killed the Constitution.) Anyway - ugh, and those dudes won't give up easy.

But Obama's chipping away. Got the northern banks vote to split the Republicans on the bank bailout, and got the stimulus through. Yes, the Republicans are filibustering EVERYTHING, which, of course, used to be anathema but is now best patriotic practice. And yes, Obama hasn't moved against the intelligence community (actually, he's setting up the opening steps of that dance) but he had a meeting with the credit card companies the other day about being jerks, and the meeting with the auto industry CEOs was not a love-athon (although not as dramatic, perhaps, as Ozymandius's meeting with the auto and oil CEOs in Watchmen. At about 1:50 in this video)

The corporate media is a problem. The world and the rest of the country are, statistically, in hot infatuation with Obama so far, as far as polling data goes. Really it is. But not if you watch cable news, where there is still a strong Republican bias. Not just Fox, mind you, but the rest of the news is acting as a Republican propaganda vehicle. (Fox is just off-the-edge, pure lies part of the machine. The kook who legitamizes the right-wing agends.) There is some MSNBC, but the heart of most of the networks and cable news departments are broadcasting a very biased political narrative. This will be a problem for Obama, but the existance of SOME outposts, and the great lefty Internet, help mitigate that.

This, actually, gives me hope for the labor bill. If Obama succeeds in getting a just plain policy / new program bill like the health care bill through, that'll grease the wheels for the Free Choice Act.

The only drawback to calling the Republicans bluff is that they're threatening civil war if they don't get their way. Or succession, or federal non-compliance, or whatever you want to call it. Their electoral base IS the south, after all. Nice to have a Yankee negro in charge to put down the War Between the States - the Rematch.

Labornerd FTW

Something I caught I don't know where - academic, radical, good sense of history - Labornerd.

Something I got there - 1935 newsreel on the split between AFL and CIO.



OH - and thanks for the last week's hit counts. I'd been averaging 5 a day (with the lame posting schedule) and this last one was about 10 a day. (I'll ignore the extra hits I generated myself when I plugged in on Mike's router.)

NYT Inanity: Dowd

LOL

I love being alive right now.

I've had this infection in my brain. A song I've been listint to over an over. It first came to me when I went to Slumdog Millionaire, finally, and I was like - dam, that's some hot soundtrack. Which I score from a friend.

So I'm listening to it, and then this cut comes on - I'd heard it somewhere before - comes to me and I'm like - dam, that's the song.

It's M.I.A.'s Paper Planes and I've listened to it about twelve times today. I was reading about it last night, and you should listen to it, here's the new official Fucking Smarmy UTube Link, which has the commercial and you can't embed it.

But that's another rant. This tune is really catchy. Like, I just restarted the video, put it on big screen, and watched it again. And cried. And sighed. And restarted it.

So I had to track M.I.A. down, and I was right, she was the Sri Lankan singer who'd been big in England, punk sensibility, and political - her dad was a Tamil Tiger and she supported the movement. And what she said about the song was that she wrote the chorus - all i wanna do - bang bang bang bang (click) ching - is take your money - because she's looking at white folks, looking at immigrants, and the white folks are thinking that all these dirty scum are there to take the money. Except she threw in the guns and money ching to make you think.

So - if you haven't or can't listen to it, the controversy about the song is those gunshots. Apparently, black people can't have songs with shooting or guns in it, but white bands can. So when she did this on Letterman? They first bent the shots different, which was OK, but then took them out totally when it was live. (I should link the article I read about it, I suppose. I hate digging for links, though.)

So then there's M.I.A. herself, Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam, who's hot and street and arty and sassy and in other words is another in the series of female vocalists I've gone gaga over.

And THEN, I'm reading about how it's got a Clash sample, and I'm like - dam, I like the Clash. Wonder which one it is? Wonder if I'd recognize the sample? And thanks to a commenter at the lyrics site, they said what it was.

This one I can embed. Heh.



Which is fucking amazing Clash lyrics too. So this chick's got her historic perspective in place (and recognition of what makes a mindsuckingly powerful beat) and it's like DANG.

I love being alive right now.

Fuck Nigger Haters

I use Sitemeter to see who's clicking into this blog. It tells me lots of things, like how many hits, how many page views, etc. etc. Since almost no-one comments here, the hit count is one of the few things that gives me the egoboost that's part of blogging. (Very like doing pirate radio w/o a call-in number - sending words into the void...)

So I'm looking at why people came here - what referrals were. What page they came in on. And the article about the racist, treasonous statements by Texas Governor Rick Perry when he encouraged Texans to fuck the Fed and stand for State's Rights got some hits. Which came from Google.

What were the search terms?

"fuck nigger", "The nigger president", just plain "nigger president", "fuckblack" (one word - looking for African American porn or what?), and the alltime loser "kill nigger president today" which this blog is now the seventh hit on Webcrawler.

Oy.

So for those of you who aren't racist, I wanted to share what darling gems our fellow e-citizens are tossing into the void. For those of you who are? Well, I'm of two minds. One mind wrote the title to this post. On the other hand, take a look at how your life has changed since this man hit the White House. Maybe not for the better - but that's the economy. Are you in a state that's getting federal aid? Why, yes, you are. Are you going to see some of that? Probably. Has the world ended in a firey apocolypse? Uhhh, no. So maybe you should take a deep breath, and chill.

Saul Alinsky, that dangerous community organizer, talks about language, about how sometimes you use it to shock. Like I did. And it looks like I get some of that shock as well.

Obama Scores in Trinidad!

People might freak out, and rightly so, about how the American Empire is flexing it's hard brutal muscle in the Middle East. But as Noam Chomsky first pointed out to me, the real game during the long Cold War was two empires putting down revolts inside their spheres - the Warsaw Pact for the Russians, and most of South and Central America for the US.

The Monroe Doctrine called it - we're the bosses in North and South America. After the Spanish lost it came the long slow squeeze of Team USA and our Manifest Destiny.

I've long written about the Americas; from the Zapatistas to the Contras, from the Colombian right-wing paramilitaries to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela there's some amazing things going on and basically they get swept under the rug.

And some of the stuff they do - amazing! The Indymedia movement was based on a Zapatista model, which laid a lot of groundwork for the blogosphere. The Zaps' focus on neo-liberal economics was a huge eye opener to me. And now that the US military has been tied up in the Middle East, the chance of American military action into the hemisphere has been reduced, which is one reason why, I think, we didn't invade Venezuela under the hardline Bush2 regime.

So here's Obama, and he's got some big question marks on how he'll act in regards to foreign policy. Al Giordono, who's 'The Field' has some amazing analysis, has long focused on the politics of the Americas. The Narco News Bulletin has been his passion and project for a long time.

His article, Trinidad - opportonities don't happen, they are made, covers pretty well some major points of the Obama Latin America trip. Thing number one - Mexico's president is a Bush clone, an fucker, and as legitamate as, well, Bush2 himself. (The election was stolen from the left by using the same kind of voter suppression tactics that were used in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004)

But number two and three - Obama's announcing that he's noticed the Cold War is over, and gave Chavez a photo op. The Cuba blockade is headed out, it seems, and Obama's not being an abject prick to Chavez, unlike some. While the Cuban thing will get more press, likely, Giordano points out

The bigger opportunity in Trinidad for Obama, should he seize the moment, is for the US president to begin to normalize relations with Venezuela. Although the Bush Administration denied any involvement in the attempted 2002 coup d’etat against Venezuela’s democratically elected president, most Latin Americans don’t buy it. At very least, Washington lent support to that coup by recognizing the illegitimate dictator-for-a-day, Pedro Carmona, before the Venezuelan people overturned his short-lived military regime seven years ago this week

Haven't read the full statement yet, but here's a thousand word comment.


US President Barack Obama and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

“At Times We Sought to Dictate our Terms. But I Pledge to You that We Seek an Equal Partnership”

Full Obama statement here

Texans to Nigger President - Fuck Off

I can't believe this. I guess the right wing is in some way going for it - trying to pull the South back out of the country, or something.

The Governor of Texas is telling people to rebel against the Federal government.

"Where’re you gonna’ stand? With an ever-growing Washington bureaucracy, or are you going to stand with the people of this state who understand the importance of state's rights"

Just in case you don't understand, the issue of 'states rights' was used by the racist Southern governmental system to defend their 'right' to discriminate against nigras. So when you hear Perry say "an ever growing Washington bureaucracy", just substitute "that damn Yankee nigger in the White House" because that's what a callout for states rights MEANS, and then they clap at the end.

Double-O Bama's Licenced a Kill

So the pirates and the captain and Obama and stuff... what a load of bullshit. I'm sorry, but a dude in a boat and a destroyer is a distraction, not an issue of world shaking import. I don't care. Seriously, if you want to fix something in Africa you could do something for Darfur.

However, it shows that Obama can give the order to kill. It's a blood barrier that's been crossed. He's made, he's no Jimmy Carter.

I think it was kind of shitty. Personally, you can talk with folks, and if they were at the 'please just let us go' stage? Maybe you cut that deal.

On the other hand, armed robbery with boats and ordinance IS a dangerous pastime. There was a bit of 'state of war' with the seizing and the use of force.

But again Obama understands his Chicago street.



He knows he needs to have that tough. Depending on how things go, he might be tough enough to keep us out of the next adventure that corporate America wants to get Uncle Sam to kick ass on.

OK Norm, you're done.

The ruling is out - the Minnesota 2008 Senate vote was legitimate, and Al Franken is the elected Senator. You're done, Norm.

You're like my bad dream of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. You rose to power on a corporate-fueled shift to the right, and you shifted with it. You grabbed camera time to diss the UN, and you got schooled by George Galloway, and now you've been schooled by the voters in the state of Minnesota.

Even your Independence Party stalking horse couldn't save you.

Time to throw in the towel, Mr. Coleman, and go into right-wing think tank obscurity. Hope you can pay your mortgage off.

Snippet of the Browse 2

Two good posts

Pandagon and Shakespeare's Sister are two of my long time regular reads. They're
brilliant, and have lots of brilliance, including the two awesome women who sadly showed that John Edwards wasn't quite ready for prime time. (no! Sheesh, you people.)

Anyway - Amanda and Melissa rock. And so do Jesse and Misty (and other folks over there.) Misty put together two things - this video, and this quote from Melissa on hate speech, or "is you trying to shut my freedom of speech down."



Melissa's quote:

...if you really feel obliged to complain about having to expand your vocabulary beyond gay and bitch and retard, that says something decidedly more unflattering about you than it does about the people who object to your lexicon. Plenty of us have managed to figure out that refusing to use language which perpetuates oppression is not enslaving oneself to the language police. It's just doing the basic work required of someone who doesn't want to be a fucking asshole.

Jesse Taylor, who cracks me up routinely, came up with this gem, which I'll link but rip in full...

Pulling A Full Grandpa Simpson


Is George Will even trying anymore?

Umpires—the only people who are on the field during the entire game and the only ones indifferent to the outcome—were depicted in pre-Civil War drawings wearing top hats and carrying walking sticks. An account of the (supposedly) first game between organized teams—June 19, 1846, in Hoboken, N.J.—mentioned the umpire fining a player six cents for swearing.

Grandpa Simpson:

One way to get rid of them is to tell ‘em stories that don’t go anywhere. Like the time we went over to Shelbyville during the war, I wore an onion on my belt....which was the style at the time...you couldn’t get those white ones, you could only get those big yellow ones...now where was I? Oh yeah, the important thing was I was wearing an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time, you couldn’t get those… (trails off)

I suppose it’s better than lying about global warming...sort of. Less likely to get you shellacked by every single other writer at the newspaper, as they’ll all be asleep.

A Letter to Norm Coleman: Concede

Dear Mr. Coleman,

In a short time, the three-judge panel will make some announcements. They will find that the Minnesota Senate election was sound, and that Al Franken won it.

It's time to throw in the towel. You lost the election in Minnesota to Al Franken. You should concede, and cease further legal challenge.

You can, of course, continue legal action. You have legal avenues available, and you have a goodly amount of Republican money to fund further expensive legal challenges.

You were my Mayor for two terms, and my Senator for one. I've demonstrated against you, voted against you, spoken and written against you, and I firmly and resolutely love writing these words: You lost. I won't pretend impartiality, by any means.

But I'm not here to gloat, I'm here because I'm upset with you. Actually, not you. More the Republican money sources.

So I guess my letter is to them - the people that have already donated $25 million to your legal cases. That's on top of the $25 million you spent DURING the election.

You guys are clever, sometimes. I have to congratulate you for coming up with a relatively inexpensive way to game the system.

You- the Republican financial establishment - have successfully bought a vote in the Senate. It's a limited vote, because it only votes one direction - NO. And it's not as nimble as other votes - doesn't really count in committee, but still, for the big budget and other votes that are happening right now, it's a solid NO vote. By keeping Franken from being seated, you have bought one vote.

So stop it!

I'm tired of you Republican financial people stealing one of my state's votes. It's profoundly undemocratic, although you don't really care about that. It's a good scam for as long as it lasts, until people start noticing and getting pissed off.

I know, it's hard to give up the access to the corporate welfare gravy train. It was a great run, but things have changed. Instead of trying to block moderate legislative reforms, how about you go back and figure out how to clean up your broken industries? Financial systems, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, energy folks - you've all got stuff you should be doing.

And Norm? You watched my job go because you were getting points beating up the unions. You got to office as a Democrat and switched for your own political gain. Wellstone would have beat you, but his plane crashed. You have my deep and lasting political enmity, but you had that before. Remember that press conference by the river?

You'll be kept around, of course; you are a decent spokesmodel, with your shiny teeth and all. And Laurie and you can finally get that divorce, that's fine, look at Gingrich. Anyway - one last thing...



Concede.


yours, nihilix

Twin Cities Catholic Archbishop Jumps the Shark

From the Minnesota Independent -

Archbishop Nienstedt calls Obama ‘anti-Catholic,’ vows to pull support from Notre Dame

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has called President Obama an “anti-Catholic politician” and has condemned the University of Notre Dame for inviting Obama to speak at the school’s graduation in May. Archbishop John Nienstedt wrote to protest the invitation because of the president’s support for women’s abortion rights, embryonic stem cell research and civil unions for same-sex couples.

OK - the Pope lets back into the Church some dudes who got kicked out around the time of Vatican 2 for, among other things, being a little anti-semitic. Then the new pope, who was a member of the Hitler Youth during WW2, decides that his conservative theology should advance in the Church and does things like re-allow Latin mass, and let these guys back in to the church - reversing their excommunication (for defying an order from Rome, no less.)

(Scary Pope)

So the new Archbishop Nienstedt comes in, all conservative, and he immediately starts going after "the Homosexuals," clamping down on two of the most left-wing Catholic churches, things like that. And now - he wants Notre Dame to not invite Obama for his abortion politics. (Oh - the Archbishop and the Holocaust Denier probably hung out together since they were both outstate Catholic priests for years together.)

What a load of baloney. I respect a lot of my Catholic roots, but obedience to a church hierarchy not so much, when the Archbishop defines 'Catholicism' as simply issues of fetal politics.

Obama is a very pro-Catholic politician. If you look at the ten points that the Office of Social Justice came up with, he hits home runs on a lot of them. Caring for the poor, being against the war and the death penalty, respect for workers. Catholic social doctrine is very much in line with Obama's administration. I seem to recall several times where he was taking a position that he was getting grief for from the left and thinking he was being kind of Catholic - can't remember specifics, though.

I'm sorry, but this is just too far to the right for me. Crazytalk.

Here's the letter:

Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
President, University of Notre Dame
400 Main Building
Notre Dame, IN 46556

Dear Father Jenkins:

I have just learned that you, as President of the University of Notre Dame, have invited President Barack Obama to be the graduation commencement speaker at the University’s exercises on May 17, 2009. I was also informed that you will confer on the president an honorary doctor of laws degree, one of the highest honors bestowed by your institution.

I write to protest this egregious decision on your part. President Obama has been a pro-abortion legislator. He has indicated, especially since he took office, his deliberate disregard of the unborn by lifting the ban on embryonic stem cell research, by promoting the FOCA agenda and by his open support for gay rights throughout this country.

It is a travesty that the University of Notre Dame, considered by many to be a Catholic University, should give its public support to such an anti-Catholic politician.

I hope that you are able to reconsider this decision. If not, please do not expect me to support your University in the future.

Sincerely yours,

The Most Reverend John C. Nienstedt
Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Merging my dice bags

I'm playing tabletop - dice throwing - gaming again. Dungeons and Dragons 4th Ed, is it? Jeez, I'm old. Anyway - there's two big stacks of dice that I had - the one in the old English candies tin, which I think has hella charm, but on the other hand is the velvet dice bag, that was FOR REAL SEWN CUSTOM FOR ME BY MY GIRLFRIEND. Who I met at Renaissance Festival. Where I became a Pagan. Which I was first introduced to by Dungeons and Dragons. My, how things are connected...

So - in addition to having to determine which dice container I will use, I have to customize the dice mix.

The reason for this - all those tabletop dice rolling games? They use a number of dice types. - not just your six sided dice but twelve sided dice, eight sided dice, four sided dice like pyramids. And the ones that they use vary by game. The candy tin, which had been the container of choice, had been used to play games that used lots of six sided dice (Champions, where a ten-die attack was common) and games that used percentiles like GURPS and Call of Cthulu, which were both excellent systems.

But now it's D and D, and that means not just 'sixers' as they are called - The primere gaming die, however, is the twenty sider.


The D and D standard is the D20 - the modern knucklebone, the geek die, the one they named the system after. It's a talisman for gamers, that one. The tin had a couple but not good ones, and I'd bought two at the gaming convention that I showed up at for an hour.

So those were the ones I would set aside, and decide what to base the set on. I had a couple of differnt color themes I could play with.
The dice are made with different plastics - transparent/translucent, solids, mottled survaces, green with white numbers, yellow with black numbers, and a set of big black sixers with deep red spots.

Actually, those two are looking good. The last set had had an emerald theme - clear greens, light greens and dark greens, green solids. But I think I have enough black dice to get away with a gothic underlay for this set.

The black sixers are in, and the really large dice are out. They're ok but they're just too big. The red set is black pipped, and I'm looking at them and omg - they're Gencon dice! The 'ones' side is a Gencon Origins 25 logo, which I don't even know for sure what that means. Could well be a direct connection to my geek prime; five years of a three round elimination AD and D tournament (creative team of five).

Yep - that was in 1992, which is what - now fifteen years ago? Oy, how we age.

I started role playing gaming when my dad was in treatment for alcoholism. No joke. We were up with my cousins who were gaming. This woulda been in 1977. This became VERY important at some point because it was cool to be into D and D earlier rather than later, when we played in highschool. Longer you were gaming, cooler you were. Joe was hardcore - been GMing at his highschool (this is college now) and had more convention experience. And has been hardcore to this day.

Anyway - I digress and the red dice make the cut.

The D20s get tossed first the ugly ones, then the smaller ones, keep the two new ones. Theres a long pause around the old skool low impact TSR dice (which you don't use but it's cool, they were crappy and in the first boxed sets) and then the D20 I played with the longest - a different plastic, light blue, totally did not go with the rest. I ditched that, but on restrospect I'm gonna dig it out.

I've clearly got enough black and red for a diabolic set.

All the green and white d-sixers are out. The vegas dice get tossed - very diabolic, but big and sharp cornered. There are a pair of d-12, which you don't use very often, are black and red, keep those but go with a legible one too. The old d8 from my first set, a red clear d8, and then I think about how Khaz has 2d8 on his dual attacks, so toss another one of those in. A red d4 from the early days, the other two go because the d4 is a hassle; you can't pick it up easily. They used to be called caltrops.

Then I toss them all into the tin, and see if the other black and red dee sixers can get included, and they can, and that's that!

Police Lookin' to do some Arrestin'

Twin Cities Indymedia reports

Video: RNC 8 Supporters Mobilize as Police Continue Intimidation

Submitted by haloka on Mon, 03/30/2009 - 10:57

On March 27, RNC 8 supporters delivered petitions and letters in song to Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner, demanding she drop the charges. Several plainclothes deputies were present and photographed activists. The next day, the National Day of Solidarity with the RNC 8, supporters held the Tour de Fletcher in Minneapolis, a bike ride to the sites of pre-emptive house raids last August. They were trailed by a disproportionate, multi-jurisdictional police presence which filmed, took photos and recorded license plate numbers outside the ride's conclusion at a benefit chili lunch. One activist was arrested, charged with disorderly conduct and released on bail. Long after the ride concluded and was declared a success, the cops stayed around, prompting many to draw the parallel between the waste of resources on the RNC 8 prosecution and the waste of 20-30 police officers to monitor a legal bike ride and lunch. Other events were held in at least 15 cities nationwide.

Dozens of Tour de Fletcher photos from photojournalist Alan Wilfahrt | Friends of the RNC 8/CRASS press release | Rowley: Prosecutor Gaertner Petitioned by Thousands to End Persecution | Letter to MPD Chief Dolan | Arizona IMC: Flagstaff Pillow Fight for RNC 8 and other targets of state repression | More photos below

Tim Pawlenty - Bush Republican

Why is it that Tim Pawlenty, who got aced out of the VP slot by Sarah Palin, is still considered credible in this town?

He's a tried and true Bush Republican. He's a representative of the failed policies of the last eight years - or more - and he's still able to stand up and say 'no, no new revenue' and people don't laugh him out of the Capital.

Of course, our corporate media, who are more obstreperous than ever, are helping in this. Politico does the Pioneer Press's dirty work, and Corporate Slashpaper Star Tribune (poor thing) carries his (and Norm Colemans) water like a good little corporate lapdog.

Tim Pawlenty - Corporate Lapdog, Bush Republican. Time to send Mr Hockey Governor to the penalty box and let the adults figure out the budget.

Black folks I first knew

Over at BitchPhD my compadre Taddyporter has a post up about guitars with some awesome Beatles clips at the end.

Anyway - I note he opens with black folks and then links to whitey, so since this post made me think about race, I'll give him some grief about that, and then link you to Berry.

Here's a killer performance of Johnny B Goode by Chuck Berry. Sadly, there's commentary in the middle, so to listen to it straight try this one. (and the youtube caveat - some prick with a lawyer might cause these to be dumped.)

Interesting that the first great clip has a bunch of white rockers in the middle. Anyway - Chuck Berry and Chubby Checker were two of my first ever 'black people I knew something about' as well as Uhura. I've been thinking about my experiences growing up in very white small-ish town Winona in the 70s with a lot of white faces.

First probably was Sesame Street, although living in Minneapolis until I was 1.5 years old I suppose I saw black folks up there. Ali in my grade school was from Egypt, the son of a professor. Not a black person in my grade school. I think the staff was all white.

Chuck and Chubby we had albums of. I remember doing the twist a lot...

We were Oz fans, and got dropped off to a showing of The Wiz in a hugely black audience when we were young. It was showing in the Cities, and I would have been 12 and my siblings 10 and 8. I remember we sat front and center, and that it was a marvelous movie. I was scared to be in such a different and black group. Everything went fine, and after the movie we were relaxed.

We used nigger as a swearword. Smear the queer, nigger in the tree, brazil nuts were niggertoes. I got in BIG trouble for that word, using it in front of my high-society grandmother when I was 8 or so. So I learned to avoid that.

It was the 60s filtering into smalltown, so feminism and racial equality were accepted as the norms. We hung with an academic crowd, though when Dad lost his job and the drink ramped up it was less folks around. I came out of high school a prochoice Republican, who knew racism and sexism were bad. But so were the Commies...

First college roommate was black. I was freaked, he was into heavy partying, we didn't get along. Probably all sorts of racial crap I did, not that I recall. By this time I was heading to the left, doing Renaissance Festival. I had a huge crush on one of the few black kids working at Festival, but there was definitely a weird 'taboo' aspect to it. One of her brothers caught me calling him 'boy' and he roundly yelled at me for that. I should thank him for that!

Anyway, this memory-lane trip is brought to you by a sore throat and a rainy day indoors.

Keith Ellison

I met Keith Ellison, who (according to my roomie) is now my new homie.

It was for work; there's an anti-Somali Muslim campaign going around. We were both at the storefront mosque in Saint Paul that was the second target (after the Minneapolis one). We were both showing solidarity.

I hear tell that there was a Katie Couric thing, and the Star Tribune, which has been pretty creepy and right-wing and kinda racist lately has been flogging it, but it's too much for my brain right now. I'll figure it out tomorrow.

Oh - Somali Terror Cells in Minnesota? Let me put it this way - Joe Lieberman's not been right about much of anything for a while now. He's wrong on this too.

The cats that make me laff

OK another week.

Once a week...

If you read the back pages of this blog, you'll find a number of goals; some met, some not.

So I was thinking... maybe if I blog once a week, that'll feel ok and be do-able.

I get all caught in stories, and it's work! To get a seven link story, two or three main ideas mushed around, it's like all night! What about email? What about gaming? What about downloading free audiobooks for your new ipod?

You see - that's a link, and I almost went to get a picture of the new ipod. and its pricy case.

Bitch PhD is rocking my world, I've been printing out lolcats - well, loldogs, mostly.

See, now I gotta post links on those! Or ADVENTURE DOG will get me!

Unitarian Shooter Jim Adkisson's Hate Crime Suicide Note

This is a rough rush re-transcription of the hate-filled, lie-filled rant of the man who went on a murder spree in a Unitarian church in Knoxville. Faced with a life of poverty - the poverty a Republican government would have given him - he snaps and blames everyone except Fox news.

I fully agree that Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilley and Ann Coulter have a constitutional right to say what they want. I don't want to legislate them off the air. I want them to decide to stop talking this hate-filled bile because it's mean, it's full of lies, and it brings on people like this.

I've written before about the Right mobilizing their whacko, Jesus-camp style armies of the Righteous. Typing it out, I was thinking - if I were to write a parody of an extreme right wing Fox loony, I would write it like this.

Anyway, I looked for a full text version and couldn't find one, so here ya go! Not warranted to be exact, but I wanted it up quick!


Start text of Adkisson's Suicide Note

To Whom it May Concern

I Guess you're wondering why I did this. Well, let me explain in detail.

Over the years I've had some good jobs, but I always got layed off. Now I'm 58 years old and I can't get a decent job. I'm told I'm "overqualified" which is a code word for "too damned old" Like I'm expected to age gracefully into poverty. No thanks! I'm done!

I've always wondered why I was put on the earth. For years I thought I was put here to dies as cannon fodder in VietNam but somehow cheated the devil out of it. Lately I've been felling helpless in our war on Terrorizm, But I realized I could engage the terrorists allies here in America. The best allies they've got.

The Democrates! The democrates have done everything they can do tie our hands in this War on Terror. They're all a bunch of traitors. They want America to loose this war for reasons I can not understand. It makes me sooo mad!

In a parallel train of thought; it saddens me to think back on all the bad things that Liberalism has done to this Country. The worst problem America faces today is liberalism. They have dumbed down education, they have defined deviancy down. Liberals have attacked every major institution that made America great. From the Boy Scouts to the military; from education to religion. The major news outlets have become the propaganda arm of the Democrat party. Liberals are evil, they embrace the tenets of Kak Marx, they're Marxist, socialist, communists.

The Unitarian Universalist Church

Don't let the word Church mislead you. This isn't a church, it's a cult. They don't even believe in God. The worship the God of Secularizm. These sick people aren't Liberals, they're Ultra-Liberals. This is a collection of sicko's, wierdo's, and homo's. The UU Church is the fountainhead, the veritable wellspring of Anti-american organizations like Moveon.org, Code Pink, and other un-American groups.

Those people are absolute hypocrits. They embrace every pervert that comes down the pike, but if they find out your a conservative, they absolutely hate you. I know, I experienced it.

I can't for the life of me understand why these people would embrace Marxism like they do.

I'd like someone to do an expose on this church, it's a den of un-American vipers. They call themselves "progressive" How is a white woman having an niger baby progress? How is a man sticking his dick up another man's ass progress? It's an abomination

It takes a warped mind to hate America.

It makes me so angry! I can't live with it any more! Then environmental nuts have to be stopped.

Know This If Nothing Else

I: This was a hate crime
I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country and these liberals are working together to attack every decent and honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them.

II This was a Political Protest
I'm protesting the liberal Supreme Court Justices for give the terrorists at GITMO constitutional rights. I'm protesting the major news outlets, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, PBS for being the propaganda wing of the Democrat Party. It's criminal what they're getting away with. They're traitors. They must be stopped. I'm protesting the DNC running such a radical leftist candidate. Osama Hussein OBama, yo mama. No experience, no brains, a joke. Dangerous to America. Hell, he looks like Curious George!

III This was as Symbolic Killing:
Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate, and house, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the Mainstream Media. But I knew these people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals and high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Some one had to get the ball rolling, I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It’s the only way we can rid America of this cancer, this pestilence!

In Conclusion:

No one gets out of this world alive so I've chosen to skip the bad years of poverty. I know my life is going downhill fast from here. The future looks bleak. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. I'm absolutely fed up.

So I thought I'd do something good for this Country . Kill Democrats until the cops kill me. If decent patriotic Americans could vote 3 times in every election we couldn't stem this tide of liberalism that's destroying America.

Liberals are a pest like termites. Millions of them. Each little bite contributes to the downfall of this great nation. The only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is kill them in the streets. Kill them where they gather.

I'd like to encourage other like minded people to do what I've done. If life ain't worth living anymore, don't just kill yourself. Do something for your country before you go. Go kill Liberals!
Tell the cop that killed me that I said "Thanks, I needed that!"

I have no next of kin, no living relatives, If you would take my sorry carcass to the body farm, or donate it to science, or just throw me in the Tennessee River.

Sincerely,
Jim David Adkisson

Blog for Choice day

Thanks to Sybil over at BitchPhD a reminder that today is Blog for Choice day. The 36th anniversary of Roe V Wade.

Even when I was growing up Republican, I was pro-choice. This is probably because my Republican dad wasn't a bible-thumper and my Democratic mom was hanging out (not letting it hang out, but hanging out) with hippies.

Like being pro-gay-rights, or anti-homophobic bigotry, it seems so immensely simple. It's not your body, what the heck do you think you get to legislate it. What hurt is it to you. Why the hell should men have ANY say in it. OK - wait; there's some participation. Men should have 15 minutes of say, women get 9 months of say.

I've fallen hook, line, and sinker for the line of reasoning that laws against abortion are part of a patriarchal control structure that makes women chattel and gives men rights over their reproduction; that this control structure excuses rape and limits contraception; and that this control structure usually privileges not only men over women, but straight over gay and white over black and while we're at it, rich over poor.

Next: what about the politics of choice?

President Obama

As someone who was to the left of Senator Paul Wellstone (and a former constituent) I'm glad that Bush is gone but don't have illusions that Obama will be the Great Black Hope. But I think he'll be better. Here's some more of what I'm thinking.

I think he's pretty exactly one tick left of center for the Democratic party (which makes him center-right in England). But the context is so far-right that his direction is going to be Left.

I think he might be organizable. And as a community organizer, I hope it will be easier to radically organize under his administration. (check to see how the police state powers are or are not curtailed.)

I think - wait, I HOPE that he will 1) raise taxes overall, and 2) improve the climate for union organizing. This is the 'economic minimums' standard I have for him. In other words, he can do a bunch of goofing around on other stuff, but if he comes through on these two things that will be real progress.

I expect the troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan to be down significantly in one year. I hope they will be down to next to nothing in two years. Insofar as he is a center-left Democrat, and Democrats have proven far too eager to bend to the military-industrial complex, this is the area I think he's most likely to try to hedge. But if we organize well, we can push him, I think.

My thoughts! And yours?

Heck yeah.

I was reading a comment thread on Pandagon and there was a Canadian anarchist who said - you know, Bush was worse than Gore. It's like being up to your neck in shit vs only up to your knees. Much easier when it's up to your knees but the smell still lingers...

It's like this - the Western powers maintained economic domination of the South by acting in concert since WW2. Bush broke that and went for a imperial military unilateralism. By contrast, Euro-American imperialism is a miracle of international cooperation.

Anyway - I woke up very happy today. It's like a spell of dread has been lifted.

I don't expect that Obama will lead us to the promised land; but he will make it possible for us to pull ourselves to it. I think he's organizable.

Happy Inauguration Day!

Snippet of the Browse

Dude, Wikipedia rocks. Sitting at the computer, wondering where I wanted to go tonight, and reading a few websites. Bitch is sad but good - the campaign helped goose the community. Nothing really interesting in the news and I'm fried from work. Reading Wikipedia I see that yesterday their main article was on 4chan and that 4chan was a place that the anti-Scientology movement Anonymous was at. The last SF con I went to had two Anonymous protest thingies, so I went to check it out, and then I found the Snippet of the Browse for this week; the "we will fuck you up" video put out by these kids who hate Scientology.

They also use the V is for Vendetta mask. Alan Moore said he thought that was most excellent.

Vote Bitch PhD in the 2008 Weblog Awards

The feminist academic website BitchPhD allowed me to post my RNC reports, and some of my followups like the 12 days of protest song.

The blog is in the running for Best Very Large Blog in the 2008 Weblog awards, and this is a last minute appeal to you to vote. It's three hours before voting closes.

I am very thankful for the blog for getting out the word about the police state and the convention, and I'm asking as a 'thank you' to them.

To vote: http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-very-large-blog/

The 12 days of Protest: http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/search?q=12+days+of+protest

by the Counterprop Coaliton

On the first day of protest
Bob Fletcher busted me –
And a steaming bucket of pee!

On the twelfth day of protest,
Bob Fletcher threw in jail …
Twelve shoppers shopping
Eleven gawkers gawking
Ten Machining Ragers
Nine Funkers dancing
Eight pagans praying
Seven poor folks marching
Six Massers biking
FIVE AN-AR-CHISTS (sorry - I know it was 8...)
Four journalists
Three peaceful nuns
Two rusty nails
AND a steaming bucket of pee!

Thanks!