Thursday, September 25, 2008

The Little Man Who Isn't All There

Hmmm, I wonder why John McCain wants to "postpone" the debate. Could it be he (and/or his staff) knows how sick he'll look next to Barack (and not just because of that white pallor)? Or could it be because he can't deal with two things at once (the bailout and the debate; chewing gum and walking down the street at the same time)?

It gets harder and harder to see how anyone could want this man to be president of the United States. And it seems logical that after they appear head-to-head, it will be almost impossible for anyone other than hard-core Repugs and those who are pretty much comatose. These people (his backers) are desperate; they know their candidate is almost literally on his last legs and they know that people are beginning to realize who he's chosen to back him up. Ugh.

Barack, go there and face an empty chair if necessary--that's my advice, and this blog is the only way I have to impart it.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Fleecing America

So now Wall Street is daring America not to bail it out. The market is down 375 points--I can see them sitting around saying to one another, "We'll just sell sell sell and scare them even further out of their wits until they give us a no-holds-barred bailout. Here we have a new Selling of America--it's an improvement in that we aren't killing anyone, as in Iraq--no, this time we're just destroying dreams and lives through foreclosure and unemployment and credit card debt--selling our souls for an uptick in the Dow-Jones. $700 billion--what would that buy in infrastructure, in education, in health care--somehow we find the money for this (and way more, I'm sure, in the end) and for the endless, grueling, cruel war but not for the great mass of people and their needs.

And just a blank check, no review by judges or congress or anyone, no equity for the people,no limit on CEOs--just shower Paulsen (whose own coffers are already swollen with his own ill-gotten gains from his recent stints on Wall Street) with money and through him the worst, the greediest robber barons in this greedy, out-of-control, stupid ignorant country--more more more for them. Please for the, what, 102nd time, Democrats--grow a spine. This cannot be allowed to happen.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

What's wrong with that?

Joe Biden says it's the "patriotic duty" of the rich to pay more taxes, and people fault him for it. Is it that the word patriotic and duty have lost all meaning? Certainly they seem to have been left out of the semantics of the richest tenth of the country, and especially the richest one per cent. One senses that those people believe the poor, the working class and even what's left of the middle class should still live their lives on the basis of those two words and the concepts they represent, but for them--no more of that, the air in their ambience is too rarified.

Where's the punishment?

No one so much as mentions (except for the Times Market Watch reporter Gretchen....? on Bill Moyers last night) any punishment for these incompetent Wall Street titans who are walking away from the broken [by them] economic system with millions, even billions of dollars of ill-gotten gains. How is it possible that they get off scot-free while the rest of us have to pay and pay though the generations? We take the risk, they take the money. It's wrong but.. no one (perhaps I should say no presidential candidate) says a word about it.

Impunity is obviously the word of the day, or rather, century. It's inevitable--when you let Rove defy a subpoena, fail to even begin impeachment proceedings for Bush and/or Cheney, and so on and on, you get in the groove of letting the worst criminals off without so much as a slap on the wrist. These people (W. and his v.p.) are after all responsible for thousands of thousands of dead Americans and Iraqis. If they get off (and they have), why shouldn't those who've merely stolen money from the public?

Such is the state of our people--cowed, dazed, perhaps hopelessly harnessed to the yoke of capitalism. (Ah that little "perhaps"; hope is not truly dead as long as that's there.) Oh Max Weber, where are you when we need you?

Monday, September 15, 2008

I keep thinking...

Americans are in such incredible denial. All these "funny" e-mails about Palin, etc. I can't laugh. But those of us--white, upper middle class,well-educated, liberal (well, limousine liberals really), seldom denied anything, almost always entitled to everything--of whom I'm speaking, are even more in denial than those others, whom we hardly know and who we accuse of being stupid and unable to see what's best for them, some may be in a lot less denial than we are. I keep thinking really of a Black woman at the post office window in NYC shortly after the Iraq War began. Her son was in the Army, and when I mentioned how awful and wrong Bush was, she replied, "Yes, but it's his world, and we've got to live in it."

I think this is all making me rather inarticulate but I'm sure you get it. Obama, please win, so I can think clearly again!

Brilliance of Rove Destroys A Nation

Yes, it seems that the Rove tactics are working again, and this time it's pretty sure they will spell the end, that's T-H-E E-N-D, of the idea of the US as a democratic, free, compassionate nation, beacon to the world. This time Hitler returns as a woman--Sarah Palin, who will no doubt (if McCain wins) serve as president of the US. If I don't laugh, I'll cry, but I can't find anything funny about the situation.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

It's like living in a nightmare

I come home from a searing, painful, moving film (El Violin) about restive peasants in a mountain campo beseiged by government troops who are there to put down their rebellion (in a country much like Mexico) in the cruelest possible way, thinking among other things how lucky we all are never to have experienced such hardship and such insanity. I turn on the TV to try to watch Sarah Palin, v.p. nominee of the Repug Party. As quickly I turn it off. I try a few more times but watching her makes me almost physically sick. This whining bimbo twit--the mockery continues. I see a horrifying future--they could actually be elected. Why not? We know now that anything is possible. I realize now that if it's true, as I've said, that in modern times each president is worse than the last, she is one of the few possible next steps. They could be elected and she could be president of the United States. This is what we've come to. My blood runs cold. My advice to my son? Nicholas, learn Spanish!

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Media Arrests at Repug Convention

I was so impressed by the two young producers who were arrested as they covered the protests outside the Republican Convention. (And of course by Amy Goodman, who was also arrested when she tried to talk to the "peace officers" who had her producers in custody.) In the Democracy Now program video, all three of them were consummate professionals, describing their experiences in such calm, rational terms, with no exaggeration or emotion. These people were all wearing very obvious press passes; all saying/shouting "Press!" as the police closed in on them, forced one (Nicole) to the ground, handcuffing all of them with tight plastic handcuffs.

Obviously, if the press can't even cover events, the country is a police state. The police (with the help apparently of the FBI)are out to hurt and imprison and stop anything outside the official way, but particularly they are out to intimidate protestors and especially the press, I think. I must say I would be intimidated by these actions and certainly by pepper spray, which apparently burns horribly and which was used liberally, even against a young woman I saw in a video just standing there holding a flower.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Amy Goodman Arrested!

And not a word in the Times so far (a few hours). I mean she is a fellow journalist, fagodsake. Do they just intend to let the police state take over? I saw it on video. She was talking to the cops--I guess they didn't like that, didn't like her asking for information on the two Democracy Now producers whom they had detained. They bent her arm behind her, roughly. They cuffed her. They put her on the bus. And so far no word as to what has happened since. If a journalist of 20 years isn't protected from arrest, who is? No one, clearly. This is what the US has come to. And I'm sure all this does discourage other protestors, no matter how brave they try to sound. I sure wouldn't want to get involved in a protest now. Nazis. Horrible.