Rev. Wright and Barack Obama

I've been taking part in a discussion thread at the Field, where Al Giordono's been making some great posts. He's more half time but the discussion follows his viewpoints.

This is my comment about Rev. Wright.

I think that I’ve not heard a real black radical on the news for a long time.

I think it’s great that he’s been able to grab Moyers, National Press and the NAACP to make three speeches on black liberation theology.

Look - the Right uses it’s fringe to get things done. The racist southern neofederacy folks like David Duke say the worst stuff, and then Pat Buchanan takes the same platform, chops off two points, and there it is - David Dukes’ platform as the acceptable right wing of the Republican party.

Wheras the Left piles on their fringe. No no you can’t use them as a wedge… you can’t use them to seem moderate against - they actually try to take out this stuff.

If Wright can push the dialog left, well then great. If Obama the politican would rather run from the center, and might have to move left to placate the base whipped up by Wright, great. The Republican fundametals are SO CRAPPY this year that it’s a perfect time to get some populist movement.

Take Wright’s position - that an attack on him is an attack on the Black church - and don’t just say ‘not so’, ask yourself if it is an attack on the church? Remember that one of the things that Black folk in America don’t get to do is be righteously angry. So if they attack Wright for being ‘angry black man’ then they ARE denying a fact professed by the black church.

If you haven’t already, turn off the corporate media in your life. Don’t watch two hours a day of cable news. Make a few phone calls.

President 2008 - Romney

I've been reading the New York Times, since they backed off registration and crap. And the Star Trib online suxxors so bad.

Anyway - now I get why people get so pissed off at the NYT.

Let's take this frontpage bullet:

Challenges and Miscalculations Dogged Romney From the Start
By MICHAEL LUO 9:57 PM ET

Mitt Romney spent more than $35 million of his own money trying to get himself elected, but his campaign faced challenges from the start, some beyond his control.

Now, I'm not even gonna follow the link, because it's right here - the horserace. The fake story. The big lie.

Mitt Romney, or any politician, is not simply competing in a skill event. They represent archetypes, images, sometimes issues.

Mitt Romney was campaigning as the empty suit frontman for the ruling mob. Mitt was saying to the neo-theo-cons and their corporate masters that he would parrot their logic, and that he was 100% on board this whole corporate america proto-fascist endless war trip that the Bush regime is on. His pitch - I'm rich, I've got name recognition. I'm a made man on Wall Street, and I look good on TV and will do whatever you want me to.

No wonder it didn't catch on.

Some other bad analysis was saying that it was just some kind of luck that Huckabee and Paul caught on.

Idiots: the reason Huck caught on was he's a true believer and the Christian Dominionist wing of the Republican Party coalesced around him. This was after the other Evangelicals left and
they decided that the Mormon was weird. And they clearly saw his soul, which is a Franklin Planner and a blackberry tied to his bank account, didn't have enough Fear of the Lord. So Huckabee has what they call a political base.

As does Ron Paul. The first red flag I had on Paul was the amount of support he gets from Stormfront, the white racist web group. I went through a "Paul was OK" phase, back when I thought he was just a Libertarian. (I went through a Libertarian phase, too - right before I graduated from high school.) But then the Stormfront support (link it yourself, eww) filled in the next part - he's one of those Christian Identity/Michigan Militia Libertarians. And then I read what he says about immigrants, and the whole proto-fascist thing came clearly into view.

But that's just his core and some of his money. His base is other white Libertarians, and young white suburban kids who think Bush and the war suck. Which is pretty much white Libertarians. So not all of them are fascist, but ask them what they think of race and decide for yourself.

Anyway - sorry to have been gone so long. I should get RSS up. Anyway - just remember that most everything you see on TV is a lie, and think for yourself.

Martin Luther King Day 2008

Visit Harper's for the amazing picture to go with this amazing poem:

O, sweep of stars over Harlem streets,
O, little breath of oblivion that is night.
A city building
To a mother’s song.
A city dreaming
To a lullaby.
Reach up your hand, dark boy, and take a star.
Out of the little breath of oblivion
That is night,
Take just
One star.

–Langston Hughes, Stars (1921) in The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, p. 85.

2008

Happy new year!

(I didn't smoke a single cigarette in 2007! Wow!)

Here's to a new president being elected. Here's to getting out of the torture and detention and immigration crackdown business.

More blog postings? Only time will tell!

peace, love, and solidarity to all!

nihilix

Devilstower's Religion Article

I'd bookmarked the religion article, or found it again. The author is devilstower and it's called Incompatible with Democracy

Does this mean that Christianity or Judaism are incompatible with democracy? Yes, to the same extent and for the same reasons that Islam is also incompatible. All three are intrinsically ill-suited to be the source of a democratic government. They're incompatible because theocracy is incompatible with democracy. Every step that any government takes in providing either recognition or authority to any religion, is a step away from democracy. That's unavoidable, no matter the religion involved. The moment you have a government that acknowledges any religion as the true religion, you have a government in which some animals are far more equal than others.

The Little People, Silly People argument would have it that Islam is particularly poorly-shaped for democracy. However, anyone who doubts that the principles of Christianity can drive just as much violence and intolerance as Islam is ignorant of both history and world events. The history of Christianity is replete with holy empires, holy kingdoms, and holy wars of conquest -- and many of them not comfortably ensconced in the distant past. Everyone who moans that the Ten Commandments should be posted in every school and courthouse, could benefit from contemplating the ultimate fruition of that philosophy in the God's Army militia in Burma. Under the banner of bringing a "government based on the Ten Commandments" to their country, God's Army has killed more than a million people -- far more than al-Qaeda.

Very nice.

Merry Xmas.

Fascism and coups and fundamentalists.

I really wasn't gonna blog - got some gaming to do - but here's three great things, in reverse order.

The Right Wing propaganda machine has been demonizing the Islam with 'they want to institute sharia law in the USA' line. I've heard it in three-five places; it's the Word of the Week.

I think it was on DailyKos where someone - their science guy? - says:

"Yeah, Sharia law sucks, because it's a theocracy. We're a democracy. Of course, you and your friends want one too."

So that's the comeback - that's a theocracy. We don't want one from anyone.

Coups - Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon (who had the good Edwards quote - the one of the lot with the greatest chance of showing some backbone against the Right if he gets elected.) and she wrote about the Clinton impeachment and the 2000 election. Good story.

And fascism - some great laffs on Jesus's General.

And besides this, Bush should resign. And impeaching Cheney would be nice.

Youtubes sure are funny.

The election, 2008 President.

I was chatting with someone in my World of Warcraft guild about the election.

She's theoretically Republican - pro-military (or at least more than me) and yet disgusted with the choices offered by party for President.

So I said that in my mind, both parties were controlled by the corporations, who had allied with the militarists, fundamentalist Christians, and 'the kind of spooks you shouldn't let out of the back rooms at Langley.'

She laughed, but I got to thinking about fascism.

Isn't this the basic constellation of power that you get for a fascist state? State military power, corporations, the secret police, and hate-based reactionaries?

Just sayin'.

Republican party, home of wingnuts

The best thing that America could see at the Republican National Convention would be the real face of the party. The evolution-denying, noose carrying kind.

Evil cop tricks foiled in Canada

This is hilarious. Three cops, agents provocateurs, at the SPP protests in Canada. They're there to start an incident, but this union guy gets on to them and tells them to blow it out their patooties.



In case you missed the whole thing, it goes like this - you get cops undercover to start an incident so the rest of their heavily-armed brethren have an excuse to beat the crap out of a bunch of protesters.

And besides this, Bush abdicandum est*.
(*Bush must resign)