It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Craaaazy! Ev'rywhere You Go!

Man, I was gonna write about sitcoms today. Seriously. I'm always wanting to write about sitcoms. In fact, I've always wanted to write for sitcoms but that's a whole 'nother story.

Instead, I bring you...VERY ANGRY WHITE FOLKS! Yeah! Anger! Yeah! White! Yeah! White? Not much else to say except I really need to talk to the genuis at about one minute twenty seconds, who somehow managed to distort the space-time continuum and put a several hundred year old wooden warship inside of a small paper pamphlet! This guy's our next Einstein, I tells ya!



Did I mention crazy? Seriously, these folks have opened the Crazy Door, put out the Crazy Welcome Mat and stocked the Crazy Fridge full of Crazy Cola for the Big Crazy Party.

Personally, I don't hate them. I actually feel great pity for them. They are scared because the man in the White House ain't white no more. And evidently that's the only sense of identity they have. Their lives are meaningless without the prop of their skin color. Very sad. But they only get one boo-hoo from me and that was it.

Bye, crazies!

Angry White Racist Commended by Senator

It reads like an Onion headline, but it's true...



Now that Glenn Beck is on the run, maybe we can do something about Senator "Wally"!

Brown Skin Woman Scaredy Cat Blues

The Republicans are quaking-at-the-ankles terrified of a petite Latina jurist. Damn, but those white boys is funny!

Afraid she'll best them in a game of Trivial Pursuit - Non-White Male Edition?

BTW, there are some incredible old blues videos on YouTube. Like this one from Lightnin'.

Gawd, do I love Lightnin'!

Hey, Joe!

Joe McCarthy's ghost is haunting John McCain's campaign a lot these days, chortling with glee, shaking the red-hot chains of Hell wrapped around his bloated throat, egging McCain and Palin and their demonic surrogates and racist supporters on and on an on to greater heights of lunacy and depravity in their almost demonic obsession to keep control of the White House in the hands of the Republican Party and keep a black man out of it.

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Now playing: Roky Erickson - Stand For The Fire Demon
via FoxyTunes

Throw Another Book On the Fire, Sarah, It's Cold Outside!

I've come to one conclusion about Sarah Palin: She's a great agitator and manipulator.

I don't know if she truly believes a thing she says, but she can make other people believe her. She insinuates well. She gives hints to her base about how they should act. She empowers them, gives them the freedom to publicly act in ways they wouldn't condone from any other group.

Example:

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

This should scare you. But it gets worse:

The reception had been better in Clearwater, where Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Scared now?

Palin is telling her base that it's okay to express their inner racist child, to scream racial insults, to threaten death to African-Americans. Not a problem for her or John McCain, so long as it puts them in the White House.

What can we do about this? How can we react without acting like them?

One way - give Obama your time and your money. It's easy to donate; I've done it several times. Or volunteer if there is an active group in your area. If you can't volunteer, put a sign in your yard. It may not seem like much, but in this kind atmosphere its a symbol of your desire for change. It's even, depending on where you live, an act of courage.

And write your local paper. Again it may not seem like much, but most papers are actually starved for decent letters to publish these days. Some take emails, but many still don't and their In-Boxes are pretty empty. Give them your opinion, tell them why you support Obama, why we need to fight for the future.

Most importantly, really talk to people. Be the Anti-Palin. I know I mock a lot here, but that's not how I talk one-on-one with people. This is public play and political theatre, not interpersonal communication. Use your innate common sense and sense of decency to explain why you are voting for Obama and what an Obama presidency means to you. It's that simple.

I gotta go now. I think my lawn sign needs straightening.

Vote Obama!

Update: Paranoid validation. At least I'm not the only one using the eyes in the back of my head.

Update (x2): More about the violent rhetoric and fear mongering of the McCain-Palin campaign. With links to further stories.

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Now playing: The Chemistry Set - The Dreams That I Saw Yesterday
via FoxyTunes

What's the Word, John?

Miscegenation (Latin miscere "to mix" + genus "kind") is the mixing of different racial groups, that is, marrying, cohabiting, having sexual relations and having children with a partner from outside of one's racially or ethnically defined group.



Obama. Britney. Paris. McCain. This should be one of the stupidest attack ads ever, but ultimately it's not. (For actual stupidity, check out this RNC ad - must be seen to be believed).

But. But. What's really going on here? This ain't McCain taking a cheap shot at Obama's "celebrity" status. Too bad, because then he just looks cranky, as usual. I didn't catch it at first. My wife, though, nailed it instantly, without even seeing the ad, soon as I told her about it. (She's sooooo much smarter than me).

This vicious, nasty, disgusting ad is about the black mens and the white womens. And how the former ain't supposed to touch the latter. It's about a threat to the white womens! Rape! Why else juxtapose two comely young white ladies in striking profile shots against the vaguely threatening, kinda shadowy image of a black man, with sorta scary chanting in the background. That chanting has a purpose, too - it says the black man has somehow bewitched the white folk and fooled them with his mystical savage black powers somehow. This is so freakin' 19th century. Is Nathan Bedford Forrest McCain's Veep-pick?

But lookout, black man! It's John McCain! He's white and he's old and he sees through you and knows that all you really wanna do is get them white womens and do nasty things to them. John McCain will save you, white folks! Huzzah! Huzzah!

Postscript: So far, I've only seen Rachel Maddow and Keith Olberman go at this ad from any perspective other than "Huh? What?" And they see the racism inherent in it, too, enough so that Rachel tore Pat Buchanan a royal new one, basically calling him a racist to his face albeit very tactfully. They cut to commercially immediately after she did it. And even Keith was scared of really going for it in his analysis. This is a disturbing place John McCain is taking the election and it's on his head, his heart and his conscience assuming he still has one.

My Mind is BLOWN! (by Chris Matthews?)

Two, count 'em, two nights in a row - Chris Matthews is my hero! Damn.

First, he stands up to Pat Buchanan's racist meltdown Wednesday night with an honest and simple but bombshell effective response. And, now, tonight, he rips down the historically-challenged right-wing radio nutjob Kevin James with simple facts and reality. Damn.

If you missed either, check these out:





What's happened? Did Matthews get a new sense of ethics in the mail? Size twelve? With an extra hard steel-coated toe?

I dunno, I dunno, but I hope he keeps it up. Probably all that time with Rachel Maddow is finally having a positive effect on him. But keep it up, Chris, keep it up.

Postscript: For those interested in knowing about the REAL Nazi sympathizers in our history, check out this bit at Daily Kos and then follow the link to the full story. Bush should be ashamed of himself. Should be, but ain't. And we'll be lucky if even one major media organization dares to run with this story.

File Under: Huh? Wha?

I've written before about racism in this primary season, but I've been flummoxed this week by the Clinton campaign's recent statements about "hard-working whites" or whatever the exact phrase was. Honestly, I'm so equally astonished and pissed off by it that I can't bring myself to look it up again and get the quote right. I don't want to read it again.

What in the name of Larry "Bud" Melman (whitest guy I can immediately think of) was she thinking? This is the sound of the Universe falling in on her - that's the only explanation I can come up with. Clinton is assuring herself a place in the history books this week, if only as the candidate of the most openly racist presidential campaign of the last three decades.

I never thought I'd feel sorry at all for Hillary Clinton, but I kinda do today. Yet I still feel more anger than pity. Her political career, now, I hope, is in the toilet. After this I hope never to see her or her husband play a crucial role in American politics ever again. They have debased themselves and the Democratic party and insulted the American electorate.

Maybe the best thing we can all do now is what the Obama campaign has begun to do - ignore her. Screen all calls and mark her emails as spam. Don't let her play any reindeer games.

Things Going Zap In My Head

Rather than go insane the other day, I started a new series of posts, on our Secret American History. I hope you'll enjoy them. I can't say that they will come on a regular basis, as I expect they will be triggered by my head-on collisions with political unreality more than desire to create.

That said, I have to talk politics a bit today. I'd like to point you here, for a nicely done examination of the "third" reason why Obama hasn't "closed the deal" yet. I hate that phrase, "close the deal," but I'm making myself type it to reduce it's sick hold on me. Maybe I won't punch the flat screen tonight when it is inevitably uttered.

I'm also trying to be less negative overall today. When I started the political postings, it was with a positive attitude, but the hyper-abrasive media bombage (new word?) of the last couple months has soured my heart more than a bit. I'm going to see if I can lighten up a bit, okay? Okay.

That's all. Nothing more. But there will be some music today. In just a few minutes. Have a nice weekend.

And Now, the Rest of the Story...

There's a non-story this morning making the rounds about Obama and table-tennis money. (You know, "Big Tennis"!) It's sad, very sad - the media's attempt to spin this, I mean, not the story, which wins the "Stupidest Waste of Time and Energy Trying to Create a Political Scandal" Award without even trying.

What am I upset about regarding this? Well, I'm more convinced every single day that there is only one issue that the media really cares about regarding Obama, but they can't say it aloud - the color of his skin. Any way they can spin any story to the negative, they will. Because they can't come right out and start every story with:

"In case you hadn't heard, there's a BLACK MAN running for President! And now to Suzie with the weather..."

I'm probably just paranoid, but the giant cone of silence which has now descended upon the Rev. Wright story after he shows himself to be a smart, reasonable, caring, decent human being rather than the screaming white-hating racist the media (even the NYTripe) was painting him as, is the final nail in the coffin. It's the proof. If they can't go racist on Obama, they'd rather not touch the story.

This is the state of politics and political reporting in Amerikkka today. Ain't we got fun?!

BTW: That's supposedly Jelly Roll Morton, one of the icons of American music, in blackface in the photo. But I think, if you squint, you can tell it's actually Chris Matthews. The lady is about to kick him where he most needs kicking.

That's What She Said!

Note: The image for this post has been changed. In my anger, I had my artistic way with a photo of Geraldine Ferraro, which while funny in a juvenile way left me very uncomfortable. I have substituted a photo of a real hero, John Lewis, civil rights leader and U.S. Congressman for Georgia. I deeply admire Rep. Lewis and am proud to have had the opportunity to meet him, talk with him and shake his hand. Regardless of what Geraldine Ferraro has to say about him

Original Post: I'm a white collar education worker these days though I grew up in rural Wisconsin and live and work in a small Midwestern city ravaged by NAFTA plant-closings and a steady population decline, but not too long ago while an older, graying college student, I worked night-shift stocking groceries. Most of my fellow workers (the white ones mainly but probably even some of the black ones) would have bought Geraldine's race-baiting lines whole. And the one's Bill threw out in South Carolina. And I wouldn't blame them for doing so.

These folks are the working poor, badly served by our educational system, shat upon by our government except when it needs warm bodies for foreign wars, working multiple jobs just to stay even if they are lucky, and anyone who throws them a line on who to blame and hate for their current position in life is going to be listened to.

Everyone tries to manipulate and use these people and they know it. This goes for white and black, American and foreign born. And they are not stupid. They are hurt and angry. They see millionaires on TV crying because the paparazzi won't leave them alone, politicians spending 80,000 dollars on hookers, gasoline prices going up every day and they feel pissed and helpless - not a good combination. I ache for them. I work with their children and I see the hard effects of their lives staring me in the face every day. It's a goddamned hard world if you're not a rich bastard and these people know it.

As for Geraldine and Hillary, well, I think the Clinton campaign has been very systemic but none too subtle about playing the race angle. In fact, I think they veered away from subtlety on purpose, going for the gut reactions that would sway some of their perceived base away from Obama. Goebbels would be very proud of the Clinton campaign. They've learned well.

Note: I am scared to post this. It's really hard to say some of these things and I expect there may be a reaction from some quarters, but I am so very angry and I need to vent or I will explode. You should see what I edited out of this post...

Postcript: I really enjoyed my stocking job. It was hard, back- and knee-breaking work and the hours were rotten for crap pay, but the people were good to be with, even though I was the total odd-ball as usual. I waited two months before I cracked my first joke, but it was so nasty and dirty when it came out that it instantly ended my "initiation" period. The guy I was working with ran yelling through the store to repeat it to everyone else on shift. If you've never worked hard physical work with a bunch of guys, and been the odd one out in the group, you've probably never gone through it but believe me that you gotta prove yourself. We had about a dozen on shift, ten guys and two of the better sex, from 18-72 years of age. Yeah, a 72 year-old man had to get a second job to support his family! It happens, it happens. He was the best worker there, too.