This from Matt Taibbi:

Listening to Obama talk about jobs and shared prosperity yesterday reminded me that we are in campaign mode and Barack Obama has started doing again what he does best — play the part of a progressive. He’s good at it. It sounds like he has a natural affinity for union workers and ordinary people when he makes these speeches. But his policies are crafted by representatives of corporate/financial America, who happen to entirely make up his inner circle.

The amazing and sad thing to watch is how his schtick works. It’s a stupid country, and The One does to even have to try hard to fool people. It’s that easy.

These people who are making a big deal out of gay marriage? I don’t give a f*** about who wants to get married to anybody else! Why not?! We’re making a big deal out of things we shouldn’t be making a deal out of.**

They go on and on with all this bullshit about ‘sanctity’ — don’t give me that sanctity crap! Just give everybody the chance to have the life they want.
(Clint Eastwood being a BAMF while discussing same-sex marriage in GQ’s October edition.)

**It’s called “wedge politics,” Harry.

h/t Meg, Cognitive Dissonance

So Dave Budge has taken a break from blogging. (His ‘hanging it up’ post disappeared, so he’ll be back. No link available.) It’s a familiar scene. We write, for me every day, and then a cloud descends, and from deep inside comes a voice asking why. Why put yourself through this? We try to be thoughtful, but I look at the number of readers, impressive, but comments are few. Any mining of the numbers only discourages. In my case, a post I wrote about Vince McMahon, of XFL fame, draws hit after hit, thank you Google. Really, it’s only a few people.

Rob Natelson offers homage to Budge in this post, and writes about a trip to Columbus, Montana from Missoula, about four hours, to talk to a small group of people. On arrival, he finds that he has to pay the gate fee of $40, and worse yet is limited to a ten minute talk! That is like asking Krakatoa to have just a little eruption.

Continue reading “Do minds ever change?” →

It’s going to be a long fourteen months, and I intend to ignore partisan politics. That means light traffic – the party-politics frenzy will suck up all the oxygen. Obama will win reelection easily, as he will have more money than anyone else, and so can buy more ads. That’s all that really matters. As 2008 showed us, he’s got really good advertising people behind him. His turd will blossom.

I won’t vote for him or any opponent, nor will I allow campaign rhetoric to replace reality. Elections do not affect public policy.

I did not listen to Obama’s speech on Thursday. I know he gives good speech, but there is seldom much content. I did read a summary of the “jobs” program in the Financial Times. It had some trial balloons, and one good thing – $85 billion in aid to state governments. That might help.

Continue reading “Obama = ‘W’2” →

John Lennon’s song “In My Life” seemed appropriate for some reason.

Wikileaks released evidence that in 2006 US soldiers executed four women and five children. The children were all 5 years old or younger. All were handcuffed.

I suppose I could attack someone with a corkscrew, but it would take some time to screw it in and there would have to no resistance. Nonetheless, our corkscrew was confiscated by alert security personnel here at Prague airport, and wrestled to the ground.

We have time to kill, and Internet is free here, and better than Internet that they charge for at American airports. To fly from here we had to go through some questioning by a very nice lady who is trained to look for signs of deception. We are presumed innocent and breezed through. Then we presented passports and headed to our gate.

No problems, we thought. We passed many gates to many destinations, and there are no further security checks for other desitinations, however … Gate B9, New York. Here we were scanned and patted down and our carry-ons manhandled, and that is when we were caught with …. da-dahhhhh … corkscrew!!! Call security. We so scared! We so scared! Passenger has corkscrew!!!

Here’s Glenn Greenwald, citing John Mueller, talking about the threat we face:

“The number of people worldwide who are killed by Muslim-type terrorists, Al Qaeda wannabes, is maybe a few hundred outside of war zones. It’s basically the same number of people who die drowning in the bathtub each year.”

Yes, America this is what has your collective panties in a knot. You’re a bunch of pussies, that’s what you are. Home of the brave, my ass.

Agitprop. They want you to be scared. That is all this is about – to convince you that you have enemies.

The following are hasty notes I scribbled down with my wife’s input last night, no time to edit as we are traveling today. Make of them what you will.

“Very nice conversation with young waiter, not young, 37. Talked to him two nights. Standoffish, reluctant totalk too much, not interested we’re just tourists. I asked him about 1989′ and he expressed no interest as if that too was a tourist thing. Sort of wrote him off disinterested, nothing wrong with that as we are no one of importance to him. tonight reengaged him further, and he was very communicative with my wife and slowly talked more about CZ. Says that borders are easy, too many people come from Romania, Hungary and that we have to be careful, and of course watch out for gypsies. He says that streets are dangerous at night, to be careful. He says there is a national park in CZ that is very pretty. 

He asks about USA, I say it is very big and that people are very afraid. I said that is why we bomb people and he understood. He wants to visit US, see nature.Wants to see NYC. Told him that Canada very big and wild, and that if he wants to see nature in US, that he has to come out west. Also told him people are very nice and that we do not control our government. Being 37 he understood that. 

He said there were cameras all around the square, motioning up there, that we were in, watching for criminal activity, but the way he said it seemed to indicate that he felt watched as well. We said that the US has many security cameras and metal detectors  as well. 

Went to Senato where they gave a pictorial history of events leading up to removal of Soviets in 1991. Almost all credit goes to Gorbachev, and Reagan was only pictured and mentioned once, along with SDI. MG is highly thought of, Reagan not thought of much as far as I could see,but not mentioned in negative light. interesting that they said that the pullback of Russian ground troops eliminated the threat of conventional war in Europe. they saw Soviet troops as a provocation, and not a defense. This is contrary to my view of situation. Must adjust thoughts. 

It’s hard to know the general sentiments of a people being tourists. General impressions when visiting tourist areas are worthless. The feel, police presence, attitude of non-interactive workers are all useful but not that much. Secret presence of cameras really bothered waiter, and he mentioned them with only eye movements. Arms folded in defensive position, yet ingratiating and interested in our thoughts as we were his. Is this hangover, or is this the present? It is as if 1989 did not change his life much. Waiter seemed to want something better. Had bad teeth, and NY to him seemed a bit of an unachievable goal, like a pony. I Felt sad for him.

We talked for long time. He did not look over shoulder, and no one hounded him to get back to work. He offered hand of friendship before we did though we surely would have. 

Tunisian man we met wanted to go back to his home. “

What happens to a person to turn him so sour on the land of his birth? What happened to the starry-eyed notions I had even in my late 30’s? Lisa told Bart Simpson one time that knowing things was not necessarily a good thing. Bart knows better than to know anything. Most Americans simply don’t know anything.

It’s not mere knowledge, but also an intransigent American population, heavily managed and deeply indoctrinated. To break away from that for a while has been a treat. That has been the freedom, the elation I have felt on this trip.

Continue reading “Alien nation” →

This is from a guide book, a place we will visit today if only to mourn once more:

John Lennon Wall

After is murder on December 8, 1980, John Lennon became a pacifist hero for many young Czechs. An image of John Lennon was painted on a wall in a secluded square opposite the French Embassy (there is a niche on the wall that looks like a tombstone), along with political graffiti and Beatles lyrics. Despite repeated coats of whitewash, the secret police never managed to keep it clean for long, and the Lennon Wall became a political focus for Prague youth (most Western pop music was banned by the communists, and some Czech musicians were even jailed for playing it).

Post-1989 weathering and lightweight graffiti ate away at the political messages and images, and little remained of Lennon but his eyes, but visiting tourists began making their own contributions. The wall is the property of the Knights of Malta, and they have repainted it several times,, but it soon gets covered with more Lennon images,peace messages and inconsequential tourist graffiti. In recent years Knights have bowed to the inevitable and now don’t bother to whitewash it anymore.

The imagery is potent. John Lennon was entering his home in New York when a hidden gunman stepped forward, crouched in military fashion, pumped five bullets into him, and then calmly sat down and read as he waited for police.

I don’t know what to make of Lennon the man. He was often angry and incoherent. His music was potent at times, and at other times merely a mush of drug-inspired lyrics. But Lennon the symbol has meaning for me. Somehow this complicated and confused man came to symbolize human freedom.

And this has more meaning for me than anything about him before: The communist culture could only paint over him, and he always reappeared. American culture murdered him, gone forever from life, but never from our memories.