Egypt

I thought of a simple rally cry for Egyptians:

"Fuck Mu"

The situation in Egypt can be mathematically expressed like this:

Barak * Mubarak = Mubarak²


It seems that president Obama has managed to make himself a disappointment to believers in democracy all over the world.

Walls and bridges

When president Ronald Reagan said to Mr. Gorbachev, "Tear down that wall." he was demonstrating an understanding of the moment and stepping into it. His message was simple, direct, and memorable.

As Egyptians rally for democratic rule and to escape the domination of Mubarak, what is president Barak Obama's message to the world?

If president Obama were president instead of Ronald Reagan would he have had a message for Mr Gorbachev?

The thing about a moment is, it doesn't last very long. Well, unless you embrace it, then people never forget it.

God's Will

I've always found it impossible to understand extreme selfishness and manic power lust, but in Mubarak's case I find it pitiful as well as perplexing.

This man has always put his own priorities (hanging on) above all else (Justice, Love, Human Dignity) , but to be decrepit from age and clinging with a skeletal hand at such a time is a sad, pathetic commentary on his state of mind.

One rationale that religious people offer for their beliefs is the notion of "free will choices". The argument goes something like this, "Yes there is evil in the world, but it is because God wants us to have free will." In my opinion this argument gets them out of the skillet to stand in the fire, as it means the will of the rapist is just as important to God as the will of the victim, and that the will of the tyrant supersedes that of an oppressed population.

Is the free will of a geriatric tyrant so important?

What ails America?

In Egypt the people are taking to the streets demanding democratic freedoms and American leaders are backing the dictator.

Wasn’t there a time when Americans believed in the right of the People to rule themselves? Wasn’t there a time in America when freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and equal protection under the law meant something more than two gold coins rubbed together?

Has dollar worship polluted our spirit?

MLK Quote

One of my favorite Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes is:

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

My all-time favorite is:

"We have guided missiles and misguided men"

Both of these quotes make you realize that there is something structurally wrong with the way we have organized our society. We give up too much happiness to inflict too much pain, and that is a fool's bargain.

What nobody is saying

Isn't it time for the National Rifle Association to back a bill that will keep guns out of the hands of lunatics?

I support gun ownership, but that doesn't mean I think criminals and insane people need unhindered access to automatic weapons.

There is a do not fly list, how about a do not allow this person to buy a gun list?

There can be clear-cut rules for getting people on and off the list, with an appeals process.

We have to start repairing some of the damage to our society and that means reasonable approaches to solving problems. I have heard the tired old canard that if guns are illegal only criminals will have guns. Well, I'd like to see a system where criminals didn't have guns but law abiding people did. That means some type of list.

Hunting is a way of life for many people and we should be able to encourage that without making it easy for lunatics bearing grudges to gun down children.

A good place to start with the list is to look at the recent rampage in Arizona and ask, "What would have stopped this guy?"

William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Easy to see, hard to stop

For a very brief time the use of incendiary political rhetoric will be tut-tutted. Immediately after that period such rhetoric will become headline-grabbing, and attention-obsessed people like Sarah Palin will step into that “opportunity”.

No patience

After a nine year old girl has been murdered I’ve no patience with people that identify as Repulicans and who defend Sarah Palin or listen to Glenn Beck.

At best Sarah Palin is a careless, ignorant woman, obsessed with self-promotion at any cost. She condones  violent behavior by using violent speech, using violent imagery, and tolerating violent behavior in her supporters.

Glenn Beck would be laughable if not for the size of his audience. He might be a jackass braying in a field, but he influences a sizeable crowd that stops to bray back.

This is the time for the “moderate” GOP members to put up or shut up. Either you get control of your party, or your party will get control of you.

Cajun water

I can't say why, but I was passing some time trying to come up with an expression for salesmanship similar to, "So-and-so is such a good salesman he could sell a nun a baby carriage."

Here is what I came up with, applied to Bill Clinton:

"Bill Clinton could sell powdered water to a Cajun."

A reminder

Here is the final scene from "The Great Dictator" by Charlie Chaplin.



The machine men are as tireless as they are tiresome, but they are mortal nonetheless.

Pin the tail

George Lakoff is one of the few messaging maestros that I like to read. In a recent article he writes:

" If conservatives succeed in cutting government by the people for the public good, our lives will still be governed, but now by corporations. We will have government by corporations for corporate profit. It will not be a kind government. It will be a cruel government, a government of foreclosures, outsourcing, union busting, outrageous payments for every little thing, and pension eliminations."

Source

It is a well written article and I recommend you read it. It was so well written it made me believe, at least for a little while, that the problem with the democratic party was messaging.

What I truly believe is that their messaging was sufficient to get them elected in droves, but their natures  dispirited a once-hopeful movement. Caesar learned that betrayal cuts deep and I fear the emptiness of spirit I see everywhere. If Brutus Obama really knew how much everyone was ashamed of him he might be less smug in his betrayal.

A mole by any other name

The president Obama is doing such a thorough job of turning opportunity into defeat for the democratic party that I am starting to wonder if he is a GOP mole.

He is costing the party money

He is costing the party credibility:

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He is dividing the party by routinely inflaming supporters.

His actions suggest that he believes in his bones in the right of corporations to rule.

He is essentially doing those things that a good GOP mole would, isn't he?

A divorce made in heaven

The president Obama seems to enjoy betraying  his supporters.


The president Obama doesn't want me.

He is either a fool or a tool and I believe the latter.

Felicity

Thomas Jefferson once said, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

How many of our modern papers would rather coddle corruptors rather than expose them? How many will sit idly by as Julian Assange is railroaded into prison for publishing leaked documents? How many would refuse to publish the epic Napalm Girl photo? How many refused to publish the Danish cartoons?



What is being lost, and what is being gained?

Drowning, not waving

The Obama administration is flailing about in the political waters while our "ship of state" is sinking.

My advice is this, "find the people that were wrong and replace them with people that were right."

For instance...

Paul Krugman said from the beginning of the financial crisis that the stimulus was too small to be effective, and as soon as the first wave of spending ran out the recovery would stagnate. He was right and even the Fed seems to concede the point via its recent actions.

Howard Dean is a fighter that knows the democratic party doesn't have to concede defeat in every red state, and on every issue. His 50-state strategy was a huge success and he was quickly thrown under the bus.

Kevin Drum keeps offering reasonable solutions on Healthcare, on Social Security, and on tax issues.

Washington is broken because what works cannot be spoken of and what doesn't is courted with polished shoes and dirty deals. A president must advocate throatily for what is right to be an agent of Change.

There is no  Greatness without Goodness.

Quotable

"One of the major reasons for government secrecy is to protect the government from its own population"

Noam Chomsky

Source: Democracy Now, November 30th, 2010

In the name of clean energy

News like this makes me wish GOP charges against Obama (i.e. that he is "liberal" or a "socialist") had an ounce of merit:

"In the name of job creation and clean energy, the Obama administration has doled out billions of dollars in stimulus money to some of the nation’s biggest polluters and granted them sweeping exemptions from the most basic form of environmental oversight, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found."

Polluting our way to prosperity

Obama never spent a day in the whitehouse representing the interests of liberals.

Of capes and spandex

Something tells me that democrats would fare far better politically if they listened to people like Roy Temple, who makes the case for heroic narratives:

How heroes help

The more I think over what Mr. Temple has to say, the more I am convinced he is spot-on.

I suppose I would add to his analysis that a hero needs to stand and fight, for instance for a single-payer health-care system, to have any credentials in support of heroic rhetoric. Superman wasn't one to compromise with Lex Luthor.

A porno scanner solution

My solution to the porno-scanner fury is twofold:

1. Let people keep their shoes on if they use the porno scanner (at least this cuts down on inconvenience - which is trebled for the elderly).

2. The scanners would be doing TSA a favor, as well as making the scanners less offensive to people, if they didn't produce a body image. I can say with confidence that a gun floating in mid-air is more noticeable than one sandwiched between a pair of breasts.

I have no idea if number one is feasible, I guess it depends if the porno-scanner can notice whatever the carry-on scanner notices. Number 2, however is self-evidently doable because what can see skin can choose to ignore it.