Deja Vu (on progressives sleeping with racists)

Deja Vu (on progressives sleeping with racists)

somebody said "Matt, tell us how you really feel about the left and Ron Paul..."

I just wish the vessel of truth wasn't a f***king race-baiting homophobe classist billionaire's buddy confederate south-shoulda-won-the-war f**k poor and sick people d-bag. Is that too much to ask? That the person speaking truth to power not have so much potential to DISCREDIT the righteous? I am just amazed at how many people on the left refuse to engage that question in any meaningful sense. We're really that desperate--we're like a bunch of 15 year old boys who will have sex with some 80 year old nag with herpes because we're that deprived and desperate for something. And this whole episode has forced me to re-think the white left on the race issue. I used to defend us on that. I won't anymore. We are a bunch of myopic hippies who just don't care about racism. So yeah, that's how I feel.

Can Romney Win?

If Romney's people can take an out-of-touch, ADD-like billionaire who can't seem to say a single thing that sounds in the least bit empathetic to the life situations of 90% of the population, while getting hardcore evangelicals to vote for him, and somehow convince a few working class conservative Democrats to vote for him, all the while overcoming the most effective campaign team we've seen in 50 years (better than Clinton's, I think), then Romney edges Obama. I don't see it, but I've been wrong before; I thought Gore would get more votes than Bush, and...oh wait.

Quote of the Day: The Fall of Cain and What's Really At Stake in Presidential Politics

From Patrick Martin:

More significant is what will not disqualify a candidate for the highest political office in America. In the course of the past month, while Cain’s campaign collapsed under the impact of allegations of sexual misconduct, his rivals (and Cain himself) condemned child labor laws, supported mass evictions, endorsed torture, advocated war with Iran and generally lined up behind the “right” of American corporations to be free of taxes, regulations, unions or any other restrictions on private wealth.
None of these reactionary and semi-fascistic opinions was regarded as an obstacle to the nomination. Meanwhile, a largely bogus and irrelevant issue was manufactured to clear Cain out of the path of the eventual nominee, who, like Obama, will be a tested and experienced defender of the interests of the financial aristocracy.

Time for the GOP to get serious

I think I finally found a candidate that will give you what you need...

Analogies 101

Pamela Gellar endorsing Herman Cain:

Colovaginal Fistula endorsing Giardiasis.

one BREEZEBLOCK BOMB at your service...

Because sometimes only some compelling triphop will get me through the night...




This has been called "a gorgeous track with a nice pace of rhythm" and I couldn't agree more.

Not a chance...

Herman Cain is currently in first place among GOP presidential contenders. A princess among the trolls, if you will.

I'm not sure any GOP candidate could beat Obama, but if the nominee is Herman Cain, mark my words when I say he'll lose worse than a piece of prime rib getting thrown into a dog fight.

New from Cory Morningstar at politicalcontext.org

Go to politicalcontext.org and read Tar Sands Action and the Paralysis of a Movement --Cory Morningstar's investigative critique of the Tar Sands Action--the bourgeois environmental movement's obedient act of civil "unrest."

Just how non-serious were the protests against the Tar Sands project? This quote, in the article, from one of the arrested protesters pretty much says it all:

Getting arrested in the Tar Sands Action was fun and it felt like the right and responsible thing to do. The scariest part of it was navigating the D.C. Metro. No, that’s not exactly true. It was the anticipation of navigating the D.C. Metro that terrified me, not the actual navigation. … The female officer took my ID but stuffed my money back in my bra. Then they took my mug shot, handed me my ID and squeezed me into the paddy wagon with Kidder. It was very hot and close in there but we joked around with the cute police officers, told stories and had a pretty good time…. I was released at 12:46 p.m.

This is the first in a series of articles by Cory Morningstar on the Tar Sands Action as typical of the bourgeois environmental movement.

New at politicalcontext.org: "Corporate America Sends a Labor Day Message"

This is an incredible piece of investigative journalism by Walter Brasch. I've never been more proud to publish a piece on our web site.

Corporate America Sends a Labor Day Message

Walter Brasch chronicles how RR Donnelley, a $9 billion dollar corporation, ruined the lives of 284 loyal workers in Bloomsburg, PA.

Introducing: Focus on the Aftermath

An editorial at politicalcontext.org by my friend Alan Tauber, founder of an organization dedicated to keeping public awareness of disasters alive even when the mainstream media has moved on to the next news cycle:

Introducing Focus on the Aftermath

Libya: Raining on the Uncritical Parade

From Who really won in Libya? SocialistWorker.org:

No one who cares about justice will shed a tear for Muammar el-Qaddafi. He
was a tyrant, with the blood of many people on his hands. But no one who opposes
imperialism and its crimes can celebrate Qaddafi's downfall in these
circumstances.
The new government that will come to power in Libya won't
answer to the people of Libya and their desire for democracy and justice. It
will answer to imperialism--and that is a blow to the Arab Spring, which this
year showed the world the hope of an alternative to oppression, violence and
tyranny.

A Conservative Response to Those Who Would TAINT Saint Michele

Okay, so Michele Bachmann got a little confused and wished Elvis Presley a happy birthday on the anniversary of his death.
 
But the little conservative man on my shoulder (his name is Moe, I believe...) replies thusly:
 
"You liberals selectively apply 'truth standards' to deliberately play 'gotcha' with conservatives. Remember, Obama said he'd visited 57 states. So-called 'temporality,' like so-called 'science' is routinely applied selectively by liberals to mute God's higher truths, which are irreducible to the literalism of liberal academics. Also, Bachmann may have a low IQ, but that's meaningless, because 'IQ' is an artificial construct dreamed up by liberal 'social scientists' in order to justify things like eugenics and mandatory government-run education, which is the same as communist Nazism. Also, any attacks against Bachmann are, a priori, sexist. Finally, Bachmann is closer to God than you are, therefore, if she says today is Elvis's birthday, then it must be his birthday."

And that settles that.


"There is a higher truth!"



Progressives and Democrats: the agenda and mobilization arguments

Over at politicalcontext.org, I posted an article a few days ago about progressives defecting from the Democratic Party. It's been our most widely read and widely shared article so far, and it's inspired some Facebook commentary that is both vociferous and predictable: Why should we help the GOP win? Well, this argument has been hashed and rehashed for several election cycles. And I am not staking dogmatic ground here--the Context2012 project aims to make the public more aware of third parties; it's not a call to join them, necessarily. But still, I think there are some unanswered arguments on the part of Democratic loyalists:

The arguments that presently concern me the most are that Democratic Presidents (1) enact conservative agendas more effectively than Republican Presidents and (2) de-mobilize popular resistance to those agendas, whereas, Republican Presidents tend to mobilize widespread popular resistance. Social Security is the case in point: Bush wanted to destroy it and popular resistance prevented that. Obama is destroying it now, and Democrats are more concerned with defending Obama than saving Social Security.

Or, as Alexander Cockburn put it, in the excerpt from his recent Counterpunch essay that I linked to in my politicalcontext.org essay:

Indeed, the best outcome for the left in 2008 would have been a victory for McCain, Obama’s Republican opponent. McCain! But, you wail, he would have plunged America into new wars, kept Guantanamo open, launched an onslaught on entitlements, surrendered to Wall Street and the banks… McCain would have tried all these things, but maybe he would have quailed amid a storm of public protest. Under W. Bush’s two terms the spirit of opposition throve; the antiwar movement flourished; the labor movement was active; blacks militant. Amid a brilliant campaign mounted by the AFL-CIO, Bush’s hopes to gut social programs were dead within months of the start of his second term in 2004. But since 2008 a Democratic president has neutralized all these constituencies.

Even if not generally true, this seems indisputably true about Obama.

Special Report--Culture War Against Indigenous Alaskans 08/07 by SharedSacrifice | Blog Talk Radio

Tomorrow we're hosting this special report via podcast, at 12 noon mountain time, 2:00 PM eastern time:

Special Report--Culture War Against Indigenous Alaskans 08/07 by SharedSacrifice Blog Talk Radio

Gregory Vickrey talks to Norman Ayaugalria and Carl Wassilie about the violent culture war being waged against the Yup'ik in Emmonak, Alaska.