Crossposted from MY LEFT WING

To call a spade a bloody shovel means more than speaking plainly; rather, it means saying something that is true but unpalatable — or impolitic.

During an otherwise stellar appearance on David Letterman’s show last night, Barack Obama missed an opportunity to deliver a kidney punch to John McCain. In my view, this missed opportunity vividly exemplifies a weakness in the election style Democrats have used over the past three decades.

(I’m not saying Obama’s campaign exemplifies this style; to the contrary, despite a few missteps — and who among us could do better? I submit that, given the fact that Barack Obama has steamrolled over every obstacle thus far, this man just might know better than anyone how to correct the Democratic Party’s mistakes of the past and finally, FINALLY beat these bastards in this rigged game. But I’m making a point here, so… bear with me.)

Letterman asked, and I’m paraphrasing,

“If you’d been able to pick your Vice-Presidential running mate after McCain picked Palin, would you have chosen differently?”

Obama answered — and again, I’m paraphrasing:

“I chose the person I want in the room with me, giving me wise advice and different points of view…”

Intelligent, cogent and sincere.

But I think he should have phrased it thusly:

“Maybe this is another difference between Senator McCain and me:

I didn’t pick my running mate because I thought he would help me WIN; I picked him because I thought he would help me GOVERN.”

Stark, simple and true. Did John McCain pick Sarah Palin because he thought she was the best of all possible candidates for the role of Vice-President in a McCain Administration?

The very suggestion is a joke. Nobody could make that suggestion wit a straight face unless he worked for McCain or Fox News. McCain picked Palin to help him win the election.

Just one more in an endless series of proofs that John McCain’s campaign slogan of “Country First” is an empty, shallow and insulting lie.

Last night, Keith Olbermann exposed another vivid example of John McCain’s craven, wanton priorities:

… Senator McCain said it most concisely in June.

“Look,” he said. “I know the area, I’ve been there, I know wars, I know how to win wars, and I know how to improve our capabilities so that we will capture Osama bin Laden – or put it this way, bring him to justice. We will do it. I know how to do it.”

Sen. McCain seems to be quite serious, that he and he alone, not the CIA, nor the U.S. Military, nor the current President  can capture bin Laden. Thus we must take him at his word, that this is no mere ludicrous campaign boast.

We must assume Sen. McCain truly believes he is capable of doing this, and has been capable of doing this, since last January. “We will capture Osama bin Laden… we will do it. I know how to do it.”

Well then, Senator, you’d better go and do it hadn’t you?

Because, Sir, if a man or woman in this nation, Democrat or Republican, had a clear and effective means of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden… If that person had been advertising his claim, Senator for eight months… But if that person not only refused to go to responsible authorities in government and advise them of this plan to catch bin Laden, but further announced he would not even begin to enact this secret plan to corral the world’s most hated man until the end of next January….

… you are to some degree great or small aiding and abetting Osama bin Laden.

… You, Sir, are blackmailing some portion of the American electorate into voting for your party, by promising to help in the capture of bin Laden only if you are made president!

“I’d rather win an election than catch bin Laden!”

… Senator, as you and your Republicans shed your phony, crocodile, opportunistic tears tomorrow on 9/1 “TM”, in front of the utterly disingenuous banner “Country First,” the fact is, you have shown that it is John McCain first, and the country last.

Now, hopefully most intelligent people can see that McCain’s claim is, indeed, a “mere ludicrous campaign boast,” –most intelligent people probably know that John McCain does not have a “secret plan” to capture Osama bin Laden, and that he is not so despicable a human being as to withhold it on condition of his election to the Presidency…

But Olbermann has a point, and it’s fairly clear: John McCain cares more about winning this election than solving any of the myriad grave problems this nation faces, be they terrorism, a failed economy,  the failing public education system, rising poverty and dismal healthcare… well, we all know what those problems are. And if John McCain truly cared about solving them, he’d be spending his campaign time talking about how he’d solve them, instead of spending it talking about — well, talking about himself and how wonderful he is and Barack Obama and how terrible he is.

The horrible irony, for liberals and Democrats, when it comes to “playing politics,” is that we constrain ourselves with rules that “conservative” Republicans never follow. A few weeks ago I lamented the differences between the conventions run by Democrats and Republicans, noting:

Here we all are, paying APPROPRIATE TRIBUTE to John fucking McCain and his honourable fucking service to his country, and the horrific tortures he underwent in Vietnam…

And all I can think about now is what the goddamned Republicans would do to him if he were the Democratic nominee. The purple fucking bandaids they’d be parading around at their convention, mocking that service and that torture. The talk radio blowhards’ belittling and questioning of his being shot down.

And, in a personal parallel, I think of my father, and what might have happened to HIM, had he survived and gone into politics as a Democrat. The SAME FUCKING THING that happened to John Kerry, that’s what. And the same fucking thing that WOULD happen to John McCain if HE were a Democrat — the thing that HE CANNOT or WILL NOT see, that his TOTAL LACK of empathy allows him to ignore.

They are fucking SCUM, these goddamned so-called “conservatives.” These motherfucking REPUBLICANS. They will waltz into Minneapolis or St. Paul — which is it, anyway? — and they will puff up their faux-patriotic chests and call themselves “lovers of country” and think THEMSELVES the TRUE PATRIOTS — all the while HATING HALF OF AMERICA.

And the Democrats in Denver will have stood to attention during the raising of the flag and the singing of the National Anthem and the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance — and they will have bowed their heads and nodded solemnly – AND SINCERELY — while Democratic politician after Democratic politican reminded them and the national audience that John McCain DOES love his country and DID serve his country honourably and suffer terribly for her…

And next week HORDES of “conservative” Republicans will JEER and LAUGH at Democrats and BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA and his RADICAL WIFE — those FOREIGN, WEIRD, BLACK BLACK BLACK LEFTISTS — and MOCK their LIBERAL, QUEER, UNAMERICAN-NESS and their LIBERAL, QUEER, UNAMERICAN supporters…

And THEY’RE the PATRIOTS???

And the fucking corporate media will lap it up and stoke the flames and goddamn if half this motherfucking country will go to the polls and vote for John motherfucking McCain and the party of HATE.

Sure enough, the Republicans remained true to ugly, predictable, hateful form; their convention was an exercise in shameless dishonesty and supposititious patriotism. Given four days to speak to the American people and make their case for John McCain, they chose instead to spend the vast majority of their time mocking, belittling and sneering at Barack Obama — and his proposals for solving this country’s problems and for this country’s future — and, by extension, his millions of supporters.

One of my few complaints about the Democratic convention goes to those rules we liberals always feel compelled to follow:

… to those of us more rabidly partisan among the “ANGRY LEFT,” the myriad acknowledgements of the laudable and honourable service of John McCain to his country were like icepicks to our lizard brains. “NOOOOOO! Kick  him in the NUTS!!!”

I could almost hear my fellow frothing left wingers in their respective living rooms screaming it with me.

My discomfiture extends to the post-convention period; I know I am not alone in feeling heartily sick of hearing Democrat after Democrat acknowledge that “John McCain is a patriot, John McCain loves this country, too — we just have different ideas about how to go forward…” Blah blah blah.

Look, I know the rules. Following them is the liberal, decent, moral thing to do. But there is a difference between (laudably) eschewing the politics of hatred and putrescence the Republicans embrace — and making this perennial decision to PUSSYFOOT around the FACTS because to state them plainly and baldly sounds… not nice.

THE FACTS… are not nice. To state them in the way that I would, and am — “These people do NOT love their country” — is the very definition of impolitic. I’m not suggesting that Barack Obama hold a press conference and quote ME.

But these guys are the best and the brightest, right? It sure as hell seems to me that Aaron Sorkin is on the team over there at Obama HQ. Surely he and his staff could craft a plethora of perfectly phrased statements that STATE these ugly facts in words that live in the middle ground between my sort of “These motherfuckers are full of shit” blog-stylings and the last thirty years of failed Democratic discretion.

I am free to let loose all manner of invective on John McCain and the Republicans — and as many can attest, I frequently do. Unconstrained by the rules of politesse or by the common sense required when one’s audience is not merely a relative handful of blog readers but an entire nation, I daily loose my cannons of rhetorical bombast on the mendacious, manipulative, maleficent swarm of miscreants that is the Republican Party and its right wing base of christo fascist neocon zombie brigade (see what I did there?).

Barack Obama and his campaign — being neither insane, self-indulgent nor politically suicidal fools — must to a great degree adhere to the rules of prudence and sagacity that require both expert timing and superb verbal craftmanship as they continue the epoch battle for the future of this nation. To date, they have proved themselves artful and astute…

I only hope that as the McCain campaign and the nest of vipers with whom John McCain has allied himself continue to prove themselves devoid of anything resembling honour, true patriotism or even common decency, Barack Obama and his campaign prove themselves willing to speak not only plain truth but brutal truth when necessary.

Sometimes a spade is not just a spade. Sometimes that spade is a bloody shovel, and you have to be willing to point to it and to the man holding it.

crossposted from MY LEFT WING

“I have a dream that my four little children

will one day live in a nation where they

will not be judged by the color of their skin

but by the content of their character.”

This election marks a potential turning point in American history. The American people will either elect the first black President, following the dictates of logic, self-interest and absolute common sense… or they will elect John McCain and prove that at least a slim majority of the voters in this nation are ignorant fools, religious extremists, blind believers of the partisan propaganda of the right wing, outright racists — or some horrifying combination of those descriptors.

If you hear the dogs, keep going.

If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.

If they’re shouting after you, keep going.

Don’t ever stop. Keep going.

If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.

They’re out there. We know they’re out there. And they will vote against Obama because he is a black man. Period. Some of them — probably many more than we’d like to believe — are registered Democrats. Such is the reality of racism in America in 2008.

This much is true: Many millions of people will vote on the issues and many millions will vote reflexively based on other factors like how they always vote, what propaganda they believe, which “personalities” they prefer and so on. This much is also true: Many millions of people will vote for or against Barack Obama because he is a black man.

Make no mistake: The single determinative factor in this election is the colour of Barack Obama’s skin. And there is nothing we can do about the people who will vote against him because of it, just as there is nothing the other side can do about the people who will vote for him because of it.

There are still many, many votes to be won on the issues; the Obama campaign knows this as surely as they know the Republican Fraud Machine didn’t shut down in 2004. They’re doing their job and, insofar as I can see, they’re doing it well, given the huge — albeit predictable — disadvantage the Democrat always faces in a hostile and Republican-owned media.

The question remains, then, for those of us sitting on the sidelines, subject to hourly mood swings based on polls and biased media coverage and the myriad other depressingly familiar and predictable factors we understandably experience as harbingers of doom in modern Presidential politics: What are we supposed to do about all this?

I could tell you to ignore the polls and the media, but that would be silly; you’re political junkies just like I am — telling you to ignore it all would be like telling a heroin addict to ignore the baggie of China White on his kitchen counter every day for the next two months.

We have options. First, and most important: If you really, truly care about the outcome of this election, then get off your ass and DO SOMETHING. Register voters, is my first suggestion. It’s the single most important factor in this race, next to… race. Nearly 8 million African Americans — eligible to vote — are not registered to vote:

Nearly one in three African Americans have yet to get registered

While Sen. Barack Obama’s historic campaign has injected a powerful dose of enthusiasm into America – particularly Black America – there are still 8 million African Americans that have not yet been moved to register.

Rick Wade, who handles African-American voter outreach for the Obama campaign says that some 32 percent of the Black voting-age population is currently out of the loop. “Our principal focus has been a 50-state voter registration initiative,” Wade told NNPA. “I think we all appreciate that if we increase the number of African American registered voters and then increase turnout and get people to the polls on Nov. 4, then Sen. Obama will be the next president of the United States.”

Four years ago, more than one in 10 voters was Black, he said. “If the percentage of African Americans was a mere two-and-a-half percent higher, 13.5 percent, Democrats would currently be running for re-election at this time,” he said. “For example in the state of Ohio in 2004, we lost by two percent or 100,000 votes. There were 270,000 unregistered African Americans. I use that as an illustration to show how the African American vote can make the difference in a state and across this country. So the African American vote can absolutely make the difference in this election.”

You bet your ASS this race is going to be about race. You don’t think the racists out there are voting based on race? Well, FUCK THEM. We’ve got the issues voters. We’ve got the intelligent voters. That still leaves us having to make up the deficit made by the racists and the fools. Get out there and register voters.

I want to say something now to those of you who seem to honestly believe there is little to no difference between Barack Obama and John McCain — that the differences are essentially cosmetic (pardon the expression) and that we’re dealing with Tweedledee and Tweedledum again. Now, I don’t agree. I just don’t; but that is an argument we can have another day. Surely we can agree on this: if for NO OTHER REASON, can we not agree that the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency is preferable to that of John McCain because of its historical significance and the defeat of the forces of racism — of ignorance, hatred and sheer fucking EVIL — amassing against it?

If you believe that there is NO DIFFERENCE between Obama and McCain and you consider yourself a leftist or a liberal, then are you not ALL THE MORE interested in seeing Obama elected on this point alone? There is no other viable candidate, my friends. Your pleas for Cynthia McKinney or Nader fall on deaf ears this year of all years: We have the opportunity to break completely new ground with this election, regardless of how you perceive these candidates’ positions on the issues.

Yes, I just said that: If you think it doesn’t matter which of these men is elected, then work your ass off for Obama BECAUSE HE IS A BLACK MAN and THAT IS ENOUGH OF A REASON.

Like I said: I do not believe for a second that’s the only reason to elect Obama. But if you NEED a reason to stop bitching and moaning and spreading your negativity around like so much stinking fucking manure — I just gave it to you. Don’t call yourself a liberal in my presence and tell me it isn’t a damned good fucking reason, or I will have to seriously question whether you ever took a history class, let alone have been paying attention during your lifetime to the realities of racism in this country.

You have choices. You can watch the polls as they come in on an almost-hourly basis and bemoan the state of things as they are — or you can get up and TRY LIKE HELL TO CHANGE THINGS.

“This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that’s not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that’s not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that’s not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

Instead, it is that American spirit – that American promise – that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance. It’s a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours – a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.

And it is that promise that forty five years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln’s Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

The men and women who gathered there could’ve heard many things. They could’ve heard words of anger and discord. They could’ve been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred.

But what the people heard instead – people of every creed and color, from every walk of life – is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can be one.

‘We cannot walk alone,’ the preacher cried. ‘And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.'”

DIGG THIS STORY

Crossposted from MY LEFT WING

It is the entirely wrong tack to take.

First — it’s mudslinging, for chrissakes. On a nominee. Does that sound like anyone we know?

Second… she’s a fucking GIRL. Did none of you take PSYCHOLOGY One-oh-fucking-ONE?

Stick to the basics. She’s a supremely unqualified nominee. Let the record speak for itself. SHE SUUUUCKS.

Blechhhh. This leaves a disgusting taste in my mouth.

She has to show up for her debate. No matter how hard she studies, there’s no way Sarah Palin can win that debate. No matter how bright and shiny and colourful, no matter how pretty the music, the advertisements they run cannot make up for her TOTAL LACK of EXPERIENCE and UTTER ABSENCE of READINESS for the office they’re trying to sell the American people.

Dragging her through the mud will make US look bad. Not her.

THINK, people. BE SMART about this.

Sigh.

Crossposted from MY LEFT WING

Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies.

Peter flung out his arms. There were no children there, and it was night time; but he addressed all who might be dreaming of the Neverland, and who were therefore nearer to him than you think: boys and girls in their nighties, and naked papooses in their baskets hung from trees.

“Do you believe?” he cried.

Tink sat up in bed almost briskly to listen to her fate.

She fancied she heard answers in the affirmative, and then again she wasn’t sure.

“What do you think?” she asked Peter.

“If you believe,” he shouted to them, “clap your hands; don’t let Tink die.”

Many clapped.

Some didn’t.

A few beasts hissed.

The clapping stopped suddenly; as if countless mothers had rushed to their nurseries to see what on earth was happening; but already Tink was saved.

Some people live a lifetime and never witness the kind of moment we did last night. I never thought I would; I thought reading about those moments in history books and having been born shortly after a few of them was as close to them as I would ever get.

Certainly, after the degradation of the past eight years, the terrible dissipation and usurpation of our collective energy and optimism that the current Administration’s crimes and misdemeanours, I truly believed a mere 24 hours ago that I had no more true hope left in me. That what was left was bitterness, rage and the cynicism of dashed hopes and betrayed ideals. Even the disappointed promise of Bill Clinton’s  Administration contributed to it; after all, did not those final ruinous months of that Administration add at least somewhat to the chaotic events that led to the catastrophic Bush/Cheney years?

But something happened on the way to the funeral for my Hope, and please, forgive me as I employ perhaps an over-effusive metaphor or two here…

I’m not saying the man is going to save the world or even the country. He isn’t Jesus or Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. — though if comparisons were to be drawn, closer to the latter than either of the others.

What Barack is, when push comes to shove — and he did a lot of rhetorical pushing and shoving last night, halle-fuckin’-lujah — is the most masterful speaker (and given that he wrote that speech, that makes him the most masterful writer and perhaps thinker, as well) I’ve seen in my lifetime; and with talents like that, untested though he may be on the greater stage, I’m willing to wager everything I’ve got that he just might be one of the more masterful politicians we all may have seen in our lifetimes.

Scoff at that title if you like, but it’s nothing at which to sneeze. Great artists and theoreticians and scientists achieve great things over time, but so do the great politicians. And as many note time and again with each day that passes in this political season, we stand at the edge of a new, raw era; the hands that grasp the helm of this vessel in which we all sit and guide its direction hold massive power. I, for one, am impressed that Barack Obama holds within him not only the strength to wrest that helm from the forces amassed against him but the instinct and judgement to steer a sound course — and surround himself with those who would provide a surplus of wise and widely-varied advice when warranted.

As individuals, we face a choice between despair and hope. Less than two days ago, I was ready to pack it in and do my best to stop caring altogether, rather than feel one more day of wretched, bitter rage and despair over the seemingly irreversible course of inexorable deterioration of this country. The politics of division and ignorance and fear that have dominated us for so long have worn me down to a dull, aching, throbbing, open wound of a human being.

The thought of opening my heart and mind to the possibility of a new beginning — President Obama? Change? Could it happen? Could Election Day arrive and…? And having it all dashed to pieces the way it did that Tuesday in November 2004… Ah, christ. It hurt SO BAD. I just couldn’t FACE it again, man.

But last night… That SPEECH. That CROWD. All those faces, those flags, that music, the lights, the laughter… And they were all clapping.

Yeah. I believe.

Again.

In spite of it all.

Oh, god, please please please please please please please.

Okay. I choose hope.

Crossposted from MY LEFT WING

Adam and I are hardened old cynics at this point.

But Terry was born on December 7th, 1999. He has never NOT KNOWN a time when George W. Bush wasn’t President.

And we’ve been sitting on the couch after Adam gets home from work, watching the DVR playback of the convention highlights… both of us WEEPING LIKE CHILDREN. Holding hands, looking at each other occasionally, realising that we LOST OUR GODDAMNED COUNTRY when they stole that election… and we knew it, we knew we knew it, but we DIDN’T KNOW what we didn’t know.

Oh, we railed, we thundered at the television, we shushed each other because the baby was sleeping, then we’d go out to the patio and whisper-shout at the heavens at the INJUSTICE of it all…

But we just DIDN’T REALISE what would happen — HOW COULD WE???

And we sit on the couch watching this Democratic Convention…

And we weep.

And I’m ALREADY pissed off about the Republicans. Jeff Lieber started me thinking and I haven’t stopped. Because YOU KNOW IT’S FUCKING TRUE.

Here we all are, paying APPROPRIATE TRIBUTE to John fucking McCain and his honourable fucking service to his country, and the horrific tortures he underwent in Vietnam…

And all I can think about now is what the goddamned Republicans would do to him if he were the Democratic nominee. The purple fucking bandaids they’d be parading around at their convention, mocking that service and that torture. The talk radio blowhards’ belittling and questioning of his being shot down.

And, in a personal parallel, I think of my father, and what might have happened to HIM, had he survived and gone into politics as a Democrat. The SAME FUCKING THING that happened to John Kerry, that’s what. And the same fucking thing that WOULD happen to John McCain if HE were a Democrat — the thing that HE CANNOT or WILL NOT see, that his TOTAL LACK of empathy allows him to ignore.

They are fucking SCUM, these goddamned so-called “conservatives.” These motherfucking REPUBLICANS. They will waltz into Minneapolis or St. Paul — which is it, anyway? — and they will puff up their faux-patriotic chests and call themselves “lovers of country” and think THEMSELVES the TRUE PATRIOTS — all the while HATING HALF OF AMERICA.

And the Democrats in Denver will have stood to attention during the raising of the flag and the singing of the National Anthem and the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance — and they will have bowed their heads and nodded solemnly – AND SINCERELY — while Democratic politician after Democratic politican reminded them and the national audience that John McCain DOES love his country and DID serve his country honourably and suffer terribly for her…

And next week HORDES of “conservative” Republicans will JEER and LAUGH at Democrats and BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA and his RADICAL WIFE — those FOREIGN, WEIRD, BLACK BLACK BLACK LEFTISTS — and MOCK their LIBERAL, QUEER, UNAMERICAN-NESS and their LIBERAL, QUEER, UNAMERICAN supporters…

And THEY’RE the PATRIOTS???

And the fucking corporate media will lap it up and stoke the flames and goddamn if half this motherfucking country will go to the polls and vote for John motherfucking McCain and the party of HATE.