Can you believe some of our less enlightened citizenry were  so ignorant of the special meaning of that brilliant expression that they would unwittingly use it to describe themselves? God! How retarded is that, Rahm!!

I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of who really started using the “teabagger” term first. Seems like the CW is settled science in the search engine results, but does it really matter whether the Tea Partiers  used it first– as MSNBC claims — thereby totally justifying the hilarious frat house onslaught that ensued?

The interminable sophomoric celebration of this loaded label by progressive retards such as the ones MSNBC is not simply juvenile, it reflects an ongoing tendency to forgo substantive argument in favor of personal partisan attack. Ridiculing people for not being up on the latest deviant slang lexicon says much more about those perpetuating the nonsense than those they wish to insult.

Those who delight in the sound this  innuendo makes coming from their mouths do well to ponder the implications of how they are currently positioned – politically speaking, of course –in this whole business of “teabaggery”. As I read in a comment somewhere shortly after the MA election: “How do those tea bags taste now, Keith?”

However the Progs feel about the Tea Partiers, they might at least thank them for helping destroy the abomination known as Health Insurance Reform. God forbid anyone who was a true advocate of single payer UHC would get involved with a movement that might prevent Dear Leader from the “success” of signing any old shameless insurance industry bailout scam.

Obviously, no self-respecting “progressive” would be caught dead endorsing the grass roots movement more or less co-opted by the likes of Dick Army and the dreaded Sarah Palin.

But perhaps the smell of AstroTurf will remind them of those heady days of the  2008 primary; and how kewl  it felt to be, like, a  revolutionary — demonstrating against “The Man” (or woman, as the case may be) –  as opposed to being some limp, impotent tool worshiping some Champion of the Washington/Wall Street corporate establishment elite.

It is sadly amusing to see how shocked many now are to realize (now that it is too late)  that ObamaCare (AKA RomneyCare) is under attack from the left  — as well as  from the right. I guess now the media will be forced to acknowledge that all  the opposition to this bill is not just from “whacked-out right-wing nut-jobs”. Oh wait…

When I’m finished laughing, I should mention that Big Media’s biggest job right now is  convincing all us idiots that Obama’s Health Insurance “Reform” is the best-est EVER Progressive FDR New Deal legislation — you know:  “for the people” — while  this  “historic” transfer of wealth from the middle class to your corporate masters is  finalized behind closed doors in Chicago White House back-room deals.

While Real Democrats and Liberals might oppose Obama’s Health Care Scam for very different reasons than the Tea Partiers, they both  sense the inherent uselessness (yes, it’s EVIL — HT Sarah Palin) of this “legislation”. Useless, that is,  if you are anyone who is not the insurance industry or the politicians  benefiting from their largess.

This all must be a terrible annoyance for those who know what’s best for us, and those interested only in “winning” — regardless of what piece of shit prize they are left holding. Because this issue really hits people where they live, the usual “us-against-them”  tactics used to  divide and distract the masses  may not be working as efficiently as hoped.  Outside Harry Reid’s “art of the compromise” beltway, the general consensus seems to have changed to: US (the citizens) against THEM (the  ruling elite class).

It was obvious early on in 2008, to any who cared to notice, that a Democrat cynical enough to advance his candidacy by scaring people with resurrected right-wing “Harry & Louise” TV ads  could not be all that committed to meaningful UHC.

Which makes it all the more ironic and frankly hilarious at this point (in a gallows humor kind of way) to realize that those who demonized Hillary for  her well thought out health care plan – which included mandates, will soon discover that delivering all those uninsured losers to the insurance industry (enforced by the IRS) was the only Health Care “Plan” that Obama  really cared about all along.

The Nobama coalition has had the “advantage” of scrutinizing — with Hopium-free vision — the stark contrast between Obama’s words and deeds over the past 2 years. We now have the dubious honor of witnessing — in agonizingly slow motion– the tragic “execution” of this “dead mandate walking” abomination as it plods along to its inevitable Bataan death march conclusion. Yes, it’s every bit as bad as we thought it would be — and then some.

Last year we watched in horror while our “reality-based community” worshiped their freshly branded AxelRovian creation; whipping themselves into a religious frenzy  rivaling the Bushies of yore. We gasped as much of the loyal Democratic base was branded as bigots no longer needed in the DNC’s “new coalition” majority.

The mass hysteria to which Hillary was subjected by Big Media was reflected tenfold in the “Progressive” Blogosphere, where all who dared support her were  relentlessly attacked– to an extent the general public is probably unaware. Because of the treachery  inflicted upon their own Party by Obama and his minions — the likes of which Americans have not seen in their lifetimes — the 2008 Democratic Primary is an open wound that is not likely to heal any time soon.

Now, as The Faithful begin to wake up from their Kool-Aide stupor, those who never succumbed to Our New National Religion find all the hand-wringing and rending-of-garments quite laughable, to say the least. “I’m shocked, SHOCKED I tell you. Who could have foreseen that he could be anything less than the second coming of St. Abraham Luther Kennedy?”

Most of these poor wretches will soon morph seamlessly into a  smug political cynicism, as if the last two years never even happened. They’ll conveniently forget about their childish behavior when they fell for all those “fairy tales” about The Hero and The Evil Witch, (and Obama the Peace candidate), and will deny they would ever actually believe any promises made by typical politicians. They will comfort themselves with the belief that Hillary would have been just as bad if not worse.

Although many recovering Hopium addicts now can’t help but see through the con-men in congress (on both sides of the aisle) for the corporate shills they really are; most Obama enablers still give  him a complete pass. They may be “disappointed”. They may even feel somewhat betrayed. But surely Obama is merely powerless before insurmountable forces, just as any well-meaning mere mortal man who fights for noble causes might be. Perhaps no God is he…but a devil? No way, bro!

If Americans continue to deny the part their own gullibility plays in this circus we for some reason still call the “democratic process”, the cycle will just repeat itself — with ever more disastrous consequences.

There are those who will never forgive voters for being “fooled again” by the likes of George W. Bush. Will those same people ever forgive themselves for the latest fairy tale  foisted upon their country and its ever dwindling reality-based citizenry? I think you know the answer.

There are obviously some realities that are just too painful to bear.

Single payer — the only option that could ever substantially lower costs — (and is NOT socialized medicine) was never even on the table. There is no “left” side of this debate. If anything, this bill is being written BY and FOR the insurance industry to ENSURE that all us losers who don’t want or can’t affort KrappyKare will now have to. And to ensure that the middle-class who now do have HC (and are so gosh darn happy with it, TYVM) get to be taxed for the privilege.

But rest assured, your HC will be equally “Krappy” (rationed, denied, etc) whether you end up on the private or the public “option”.

One thing we can and should all agree on is that this is one more case of the “shock doctrine” being used to shove legislation down our throats before anyone can discover the devil in the details.

Obama’s “Insurance reform” (Not HC reform) appears to be bassed on the Massachusetts model.

Why don’t they just call it RomneyCare?

VL and lambert  have surely  incurred the wrath of the oborg hordes as much as anbody. But, now it appears they are  getting it from two separate factions of the Progressive/Liberal community.   This is mainly because, while they saw through  Obama early on, they  couldn’t take that principled leap in the GE and oppose  a candidate they knew better then most was a shameless corporate tool.

I can’t necessarily fault them for not following the path to its logical PUMA conclusion. That was a hard choice for many.

I did, however, take issue when Lambert censured debate about issues like Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers, yet allowed the obnoxious mandos’ r@cist insinuations against the pumas.

BTW, here is Arthur Silber’s take on mandos:

“UPDATE: I will have much more on these issues when I get further into my Tribalism series. For the moment, I will note that this first comment is a vicious goddamned lie or, more accurately, it is a series of vicious goddamned lies. Very sadly to me, it is also utterly typical of a certain kind of reaction to my writing. To begin to understand why this kind of comment is so grossly wrong and unjust, you can start by reading the first three installments of the Tribalism series. As I say, I will soon have a lot more to say on this general subject. I also note that to begin by saying that my writing is “great” only makes the lies that much more vicious, and that much more unjust.”

I’ve been seeing more  links and references to corrente, lately (mostly at cannonfire) , and Lambert is a consistant advocate for single-payer HC. But, when I finally broke down and took the bait — damned if mandos isn’t still stinking up the joint!

myiq2xu (from comments — regarding corrente ): “We’re on the same side, we want the same things. Why aren’t we allies?”

And: “we (me, Lambert, RD, VL, Anglachel) agree on almost everything, especially on the issues. Our differences are minor in comparison to our common ground.”

Talk about circular firing squads…

I apologize for my absence. Jayne is quite correct that it is, indeed, very difficult to write, type, or even refrain from spewing one’s  milk through one’s nose, while overcome by the hilarity ensuing from such daily revelations as Blagojagate or the irony of Harry Reid’s racist tendencies. The thing is I’ve been so thoroughly enthralled by all the excellent coverage elsewhere of recent developments, I just haven’t felt the need to contribute.

I admit I  don’t have much stomach lately for mucking through the mundane minutiae of the daily news cycle. And, with the growing realization of the absolute corruption of the Corporate Media, I have become increasingly selective in my information gathering habits (mainly to avoid the inadvertent destruction of the inanimate objects that may have been involved in these transmissions).

Therefore I have, for now, temporarily retired to the “Alternative Echo Chamber” the Pumasphere  provides those who have developed an aversion to the first hand experience of those conventional news sources we once depended on to keep us informed.

I have nothing but admiration for those who daily brave that swamp known as the MSM — especially the cesspool of cable news I was once addicted to — to deliver the relevant buckets of slime for my perusal. This way, any exposure to “legitimate” news sources such as say, Mike Barnacle, or Chris Matthews and his ilk, are mercifully filtered through the lens of those I have entrusted to warn me about the insanity I am about to witness, before my delicate political sensibilities are subjected to them.

This is how I was informed of the latest projectile emanating from the Propobama Network, AKA MSNBC. Apparently circle jerk extraordinaire Barnacle accuses most of us here in the blogosphere of engaging in mere “therapy”, as opposed to – whatever the hell it is they do over there, I guess…

OK, I confess, Barnacle’s characterization does have some relevancy, but have you looked in the mirror lately, Mike?. Like so much of the “projecting” and “acting out” witnessed on that network and elsewhere, this particular hot-air-seeking-projectile’s explosion illuminates its launch site more than the websites which are its intended target.

There is such a fine line between news, opinion and therapy, isn’t there Mike? Without dwelling on exactly what it is they do do over there at the ICBC (Irish Catholic Boys Club), I propose there are much better places one can receive a reasonable assessment of the news (all of them on the internet) and that their network now performs a very lowly function, indeed, in the dissemination of “information”. It does, OTOH, serve as a classic example of the disinformation and propoganda that now permeate the MSCM (Main Stream Corporate Media-”sphere”).

When not fully engaged in their latest campaign to disinform the electorate, these MSNBC panels often indulge in what could only be described as various bizarre forms of “group therapy”. During the recent War on the Clintons (i.e.: the Democratic Primary), for example, when morale was at its lowest, sometimes even the most diligent propagandist had to take a moment to confront his darkest fears, before regrouping for the next assault.

More often than not, MSNBC’s current arch-nemesis has been the dreaded Clinton Monster. (One could even say the campaign proved too much for poor Timmy Russert. At any rate, with Hillary’s defeat his work on this earth was obviously completed.)

But, go ahead, please, try to convince me that Chris Matthews’ post-NH pouty-faced, hissy-fit  performance was about “informing” or even “opining”, and not about his own personal psychological trauma induced by Obama’s loss (more precisely by Hillary’s win). It was also about the overwhelming disappointment at not recieving the outcome he had so diligently promoted with all his half-wit CDS (Clinton Derangement Syndrome) giberings of the last year decade.

Likewise, after each Obama defeat there were similar episodes of confusion, bewilderment, disillusionment and… well, “therapy”. After a particularly demoralizing stretch of bad news and revelations for Obama sometime around the PA primary, ( I don’t have the patience to reference the exact revelations – take your pick…) we found Matthews assuming the roll of Bambi’s therapist – I swear he looked straight into the camera as if the Leg-Tingler himself was right there hanging on every consoling syllable of Tweety’s little pep talk. Ironically, the conclusion was that Barack needed to start getting tougher, scrappier – you know: more like Hillary!

I believe that was the last time I was able to endure the ongoing inner psychodrama of this particular pathetic creature.

OK, we all know about MSNBC – they are the new “progressive” FAUX news. But, even “legitimate” news  outlets that are assumed to provide relatively unvarnished coverage…well, I’m not really sure that kind of journalism even exists anymore, if it ever did.   EVERYONE has an agenda. I think AP has proven this beyond any doubt. My yahoo home page is set to display as many headlines from as many sources as possible. Even just scrolling through the headlines, it was ALWAYS obvious that AP had an extremely Obama friendly agenda.

Perhaps it was always this way and I was just too naiive or oblivious to notice.  Maybe it’s just that the MSM no longer cares about how blatant they are, and  keep pushing the envelop of what they can put over on an increasingly gullible public.

Just the choice between reporting one story and not another imposes bias — sometimes in the most subtle and insidious way, especially considering how little effort most voters devote to staying informed. When every “legitimate” news agency limits the choice of information in a similar manner, it is impossible not to imply some overarching agenda.

Often the driest roundup of “today’s top stories” is the most effective propaganda due to what goes unreported – and because the bias goes largely unnoticed.

Pages such as yahoo which feature the headlines from AP, CBS, etc, provide a hierarchy of relevance as the Corporate Media wishes events to be perceived. Print media headline wording and placement reflects the bias of the newspaper, and often doesn’t even reflect the true intent of the writer (One article: 4 different headlines).

One positive result of the PUMA “alienation” from the Democratic Party appears to be a willingness (through necessity)  to recognize and utilize — regardless of whether it may be  “mainstream”, progressive or  conservative — any source which is providing “reality based” information (usually whoever is the least invested in the impact of the information being reported).

It is now obvious that the SCPM (so called progressive media) is every bit as biased as the conservative media. Perhaps bias is not the right word here, as no one could expect a left or right leaning publication NOT to be biased. I am referring to the willingness to deliberately mislead, or engage in what could only be characterized as dis-information.

This is in some ways a reaction to the dominance of conservative media, talk radio, etc. witnessed for the past decade, and parallels the Democratic party’s  own “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” attitude toward using more blatant  tactics to insure they “don’t get fooled again” as in recent contests. The only real difference between now and then is in who’s disinformation the Corporate Media  seems invested in furthering.

Any given source  is assumed to have some ratio of facts & opinion, (and  perhaps even a little “therapy” thrown in for good measure). For most of us it’s just a matter of which “echo chamber” we trust to pass along the information we want to hear. But if one remains conscious of the inherent bias and propaganda on either end of the political spectrum, – but especially what normally goes unchallenged in the Main Stream Consensus — one is more likely to see where the most reasonable assessment of events is coming from at any given time. As much can then be  learned about the source as the subject.

In many cases, though, such as our friends Tweety & the Barnacle, we’ve learned way too much about the source already to even bother with them at all.

I just got that second copy of the New Yorker [she sent the wrong one the first time]. I was actually wondering where all the political stuff was you referred to in the first one. Ironic that the one “political” article I found happened to echo my own thoughts from the primary about UHC.

I thought the Woody Allen piece was hilarious. He takes some health food store “memory pills” because he can’t find his car keys, and then remembers a whole stream of consciousness chain of details all the way back to what was playing on the car radio when he was born in the back seat — or something like that. (I need memory pills, too)

I’ll check out this new issue and will likely let you know what I think. (why must you provoke me?) I notice there’s an article by Ryan Lizza who (ironically, again) wrote the piece inside that infamous “Barack and Michelle cover” issue that was completely overshadowed and ignored because of it. An excerpt from it:

“[P]erhaps the greatest misconception about Barack Obama is that he is some sort of anti-establishment revolutionary. Rather, every stage of his political career has been marked by an eagerness to accommodate himself to existing institutions rather than tear them down or replace them….he has always played politics by the rules as they exist, not as he would like them to exist. He runs as an outsider, but he has succeeded by mastering the inside game.”

I remember thinking at the time that the cover might have been an editorial choice on someone’s part to sabotage the prominence of their own story. (I know, sounds far fetched. It’s more likely they are just blissfully unaware of how many irony challenged people there are out there) That article was one of the only attempts (as far as it went) I recall in a main stream publication to objectively analyze Obama’s early political career, and probably would have been controversial (as far as it went) if not for the cover being more so.

Courage, T

I only single out this particular jackass as one example of why I’d prefer actors, musicians and other assorted “personalities” stayed the fuck out of politics. I probably wouldn’t have gotten into “Dirty Sexy Money” anyway, but just seeing the ads is one more reminder of the way so many of our celebrity class felt compelled to influence our vote this election, and of the veritable minefield of such jackasses I must negotiate every time I turn on the Teebee. Sure, he has a right to his opinion, but I also have a right to never watch another movie or TV show that he is in.

I won’t jeopardize my sanity by attempting to analyze the addle-brained logic of this idiot’s inane ramblings in Huff n Puff Post back in May. His lamentations of Clinton bias in the “punditocracy” were a unique perspective to say the least:

“It is incomprehensible to me that Mrs. Clinton can seriously be touting the notion, with the support of the punditocracy of CNN and Fox, that she is leading in the popular vote and should therefore be seriously considered as the most electable candidate in the November election…”

Sounds like Brazile, Martin, Cafferty, et al better cool it with all that blatant Clinton bias – we’re on to you!

No doubt he can picture himself receiving the academy award for “best Olbermannesque performance” as he brings this extra special comment to its melodramatic climax:

“And what about us? What about the American people? Haven’t we had enough of Mrs. Clinton’s mad antics in her pursuit of the realization of venal personal ambition; her ‘say anything, do anything, no matter what’ effort to manipulate our all too willing media to gull this country’s populace into believing that her wretched illegitimacy is indeed legitimate. How much mendacity do we have to suffer, how much brazenness do we have to swallow before someone, anyone, has the decency, the common sense, to relieve us of this terrible trifle, this pathetic madness?”

I implore you, Madame! Where is your decency?

But the reason I truly despise Donald so is that he and his ilk have made me see just what the right wing kooks are talking about when they complain about all those damn Hollywood liberals. I almost feel sorry for anyone who’s never been able to fully appreciate Barbarella because they can’t get past that whole Hanoi Jane photo thing.

No doubt you gathered from our last conversation that I am still less than taken with our new national religion. I’ve just never been able to reconcile how the corporate media and the far left could be in such perfect agreement over a presidential candidate. Obviously the pragmatic post-partisan powers-that-be know they can benefit somehow from a president who can manage to be all things to all people.

I do want the Obama presidency to succeed, though. Obviously, if he fails, we all fail. I’ve always been impressed with his intelligence (especially his ability to pronounce “nuclear” correctly), and he does seem to have an abundance of the self-confidence he’ll require. Hopefully his superior “judgment” is, indeed, all he has told us it is. I just wish more people had voted with eyes open and knew the difference between the product and the man. The media is mostly to blame in this regard. Most voters failed to notice the aptitude for lawyerly rhetoric and plausible deniability in the more underhanded tag-team tactics of an Obama/Axelrod/Media Whores campaign that I’ll bet made the Bush/Rove/Media Whores tag-team envious. (Witness the RFK assassination fauxrage where Axelrod was caught red-handed. What? Didn’t hear about it?)

Unlike many of Obama’s fans on the far left who are baffled by all the Clinton appointments (heads exploding) (“this is change?!”), I’m actually encouraged that there are not even more right-leaning appointees among them. Where’s Chicago School economist Goolsbee, for instance, who secretly assured Canada not to take Obama’s anti-NAFTA campaign rhetoric seriously? (By the way, when we speak of “Clinton appointments”, I’m convinced Hillary would have been much less centrist than both Bill and Barack in her choices.)

Thanks for the copy of the New Yorker. I’ve probably never given it more than a casual read, and always found the cartoons perplexing (Irony, they call it…). If this is an attempt to show me there is still unbiased journalism somewhere, it does seem remarkably Kool-Aide free — especially so close after the election, when most publications have gone into full Camelot mode. Who knows, I may even subscribe…

I was impressed with this piece in the Talk of the Town by Steve Coll where he states: (emphasis mine)

“The next Presidency has within its reach at least two generation-spanning causes: the need to jump-start a new energy economy, and, in so doing, help to contain climate change; and the need to enact a plan to provide quality health care to all Americans, and, in so doing, complete the project of social insurance that Roosevelt described in 1935. Each of these projects is urgent, but it is health-care reform that speaks more directly to the economic and human dimensions of the present downturn.

The accumulating failures in the country’s health-care system are a cause of profound weakness in the American economy; unaddressed, this weakness will exacerbate the coming recession and crimp its aftermath. A large number of the country’s housing foreclosures in recent years appear to be related to medical problems and health-care expenses. American businesses often can’t afford to hire as many employees as they would like because of rising health-insurance costs; employees often can’t afford to quit to chase their better-mousetrap dreams because they can’t risk going without coverage. Add to this the system’s moral failings: about twenty-two thousand people die in this country annually because they lack health insurance. That is more than the number of Americans who are murdered in a year.”

I agree with Coll’s assessment of the need for UHC legislation for the health of the economy as well as the health of individuals. This is why I was so alarmed by Obama’s use of right-wing talking points in his “Harry & Louise” negative campaign ads in Ohio and other states primaries, as I expressed in our “family forum” many months ago. (especially in an election when there was so much public support for such FDR solutions). If I may quote myself:

“The irony is that the health care dilemma does affect everyone, for it contributes to the “sickness” of the economy. As someone who is obviously out of my depth discussing such subjects, yet has done a little homework, if Obama is elected, even I can foresee no significant change will occur within the health care system (or maybe that is the best case scenario) — as he has signaled his love of market based solutions, bi-partisanship, etc., and it would appear SS would also be “in-play” and ready to be “fixed” for Wall Street’s investing pleasure.”

Nothing Obama has done has indicated a true commitment to furthering this issue. His stance has fluctuated throughout his career to serve his needs of the moment. When he was running for a state senate seat in a liberal IL district, he was for UHC (kinda like he was with his anti-war stance), but when he was trying to appeal to independents, republicans, and the youth vote who might be frightened by the specter of mandated insurance it seems he did everything he could to insure that real healthcare reform would be off the table. (It also doesn’t help when Dem establishment types like John Kerry are making statements like “UHC is a non-starter”.)

Coll’s piece was written, it appears, before we knew Clinton was being considered for SOS:

“Presidents who help right a wrong of this character are generally immortalized in granite, but to succeed they require a transformation-minded Congress, too. The next Congress will likely be without the active leadership of its great lion of social reform, Ted Kennedy. There is only one senator with the wonky expertise, work habits, and political stature to fill Kennedy’s place: Hillary Clinton. The psychology she would bring to this inheritance would surely be complex, but no health-care-reform bill will pass without her. Lyndon Johnson, also a person of complex psychology, understood this politics of legacy well. At the Medicare signing ceremony, he invited Jimmy Roosevelt, F.D.R.’s eldest son, and the aging Harry Truman, who had pushed hard for health-care reform, to share the glory.”

I keep bad-mouthing the NYT, but Paul Krugman is another person who understood that Clinton was the only candidate (besides Edwards) who had a chance of advancing UHC, considering the resistance from both sides of the isle.

I know you think I’m “obsessed” but obviously issues like caucus reform and campaign finance reform also will not be big priorities in the next congress; so some of us intend to keep “reminding” people about the things they never even heard this election. The manipulations of the DNC and abuse of power by party establishment like Dean, Brazile, and Pelosi, also need to be brought to public attention to avoid these tactics becoming SOP in the Democratic Party. The abuse of the role of Super Delegates, the Rules & Bylaws Committee, and the convention roll call vote to replace the “cigar-smoke-filled-back-room” were all issues that were swept under the rug in the name of promoting a pre-selected “historic” nomination over the will of the majority of Democratic voters.

And then there’s that pesky media — now indulging a few feeble attempts at self-analysis. By the way, I hear their star patient Chris Matthews (AKA Tweety Bird) is considering running in your state for senate in 2010 against Arlen Specter. Do you remember that french film “King of Hearts” where the inmates of the mental ward take over the town?

I’m sure you were surprised to find I’m still on my usual rant out here, but I still feel pretty strongly about some things. Since I express myself pretty badly over the phone, I figured I may as well lay out the basic arguments, so you don’t just think I’ve gone over to the dark side. I still consider myself a liberal Democrat but I’ve lately been stricken by the corruption on both sides of the isle. You’d be surprised how many feel the same about recent events (No, it’s not just my own private delusions, or exposure to Republican propaganda).

Well, there it is…now I won’t have to dread what I might blurt out the next time we speak. You did ask me what I thought about the election, though…

Love, T

P.S. I’m so sorry to hear about Aunt Betty. She’ll be in our thoughts and prayers.

]]> http://thenotionthatsomehow.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/letter-to-my-obama-mama/feed/ 1 thenotionthatsomehow http://thenotionthatsomehow.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/the-democrat%e2%80%99s-cannibalistic-bloodlust/ http://thenotionthatsomehow.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/the-democrat%e2%80%99s-cannibalistic-bloodlust/#comments Sat, 29 Nov 2008 04:41:06 +0000 thenotionthatsomehow http://thenotionthatsomehow.wordpress.com/?p=157 ]]>

In keeping with my stated mission – namely to relentlessly revisit, relive and re-open the festering wound and mass psychotic episode that was the War for the White House 2008 – I am republishing various of my posts and letters from those memorable times. When the PUMA movement entered national awareness, this article in Slate:

The Madwoman in the BlogosphereThe disturbing rise of the “Hillary Harridan.”By Dahlia LithwickPosted Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008, at 6:49 PM ET

was typical of the reaction of many “right-thinking” progressive? women. It was also typical of the Obama camp’s strategy to woo disaffected Democrats back into the fold — by insulting them. Boy, she really puts those hags in their place! Here’s a sampling:

“You know her. She’s got wild eyes and rumpled hair. At some point she stopped caring about the stains on her blouse. She’s hurt, angry, rejected, and she’s willing to take the whole damn place down with her. She is Lady Macbeth. She is Jane Eyre‘s deranged pyromaniac Bertha Mason. She is Cruella DeVil and the biblical Lilith. She is Snow White’s wicked stepmother, Miss Havisham, and Emily Bronte’s ghostly Catherine Earnshaw. She is the oldest literary type around—the bitter madwoman, hellbent on revenge and willing to act against her own interest to win some respect.”…

“Political campaign coverage is always driven by stereotypes… But the rise of the “Hillary Harridan” is a disturbing development. It unearths a creepy literary type that harms women a lot more than it helps them. The suggestion that irrational, emotional, self-referential women are swinging the election is not a theme any woman should endorse.”…

“But the intriguing new twist is that long after Clinton conceded the primary race to Barack Obama, some of her supporters have willingly embraced this same media image of the irrational madwoman and attached it to themselves.”…

“It was sexist when Chris Matthews called Clinton a she-devil. But in allowing themselves to be portrayed—over and over—as petulant harridans, unable to “heal” from the wounds of the primaries, these Clinton supporters are embracing the same she-devil stereotypes they once claimed to resent.”…

“None of this has anything to do with the legitimate outrage most of us felt about sexism in the coverage of the Clinton campaign.”…

It’s comforting to know that “most of us” can separate the “legitimate outrage” from the other nonsense. Perhaps she’s still recovering from all the righteous indignation as well. Here was my comment at the time:

The Democrat’s Cannibalistic Bloodlust
by men o’ paws
08/26/2008, 9:09 PM #

+2 Reply

The Democrat’s cannibalistic bloodlust is insatiable and must be a source of great joy for Republicans–who are rarely witnessed devouring their own on such a grand scale. Perhaps that’s why they win elections.

It’s sad to hear that “the media’s relentless focus” has been forced to focus on something that does not favor Obama’s agenda. But, it has been his own supporters—so many of them women–who have helped create this phenomena by relentlessly helping the media project these “she-devil stereotypes” onto “Shrillery” and her supporters. These vile women of whom you speak (mostly rank and file Democrats–you know–the type that volunteer, GOTV and such–and a lot more men than you realize) don’t seem to have the right to advocate or oppose whichever candidate they choose without being subject to ridicule and chastisement in the village square.

The rapid proliferation of this “creepy literary type” that terrifies you so is merely the tip of the iceberg and a reflection of the grass-roots movement (not the Astroturf variety) that has spontaneously grown out of the disgust so many feel at the disturbing direction the Democratic Party has taken. It’s not even about Hillary anymore or who she tells them to vote for, or about “disappointment”, “hurt feelings”, sexism, misogyny, or any of “the legitimate outrage that some of us felt”, as you so smugly put it. It’s about saving the Democratic Party from itself.

As for Party Unity…For me Unity went south in South Carolina when I realized how far some will go to inflame racial outrage for political gain, and it really went bye-bye after the mind-bending hysteria caused by a simple historical reference to RFK (Axelrod: busted). The eagerness of the so called “progressive” netroots to join with the Democratic Elite establishment and a compliant corporate media in adopting the vast right wing memes of the ‘90s to purge the Clintons from American politics was an “embarrassment” (just as Gov. Rendell says) and ultimately a failure as we are now witnessing.

The humiliation suffered by Democratic leadership over the past two Presidential contests has compelled them to embrace GOP tactics, and inspired a similar departure from the “reality-based-community”. The DNC’s continuing manipulation of the “reality” of the primary process to select rather than elect one preferred candidate over another has contributed to a rift that will not be healed by empty calls for unity. Many lifelong Democrats with “no where else to go” will do the unthinkable in Nov — not just by voting against an unqualified candidate who will likely lose regardless, but by refusing to endorse the corrupt process which led to the miserable choice our “leaders” have foisted upon us.

When the Democrats blow it once again in Nov, no doubt Hillary and her “vengeful madwomen” will be blamed, but it will be no one’s fault but those who foolishly enabled this shortsighted and suicidal attempt by the Democratic establishment of losers led by Dean/Brazil/Pelosi/Kerry/Dasch­le, et al to install their own selectable yet ultimately unelectable candidate.

I stand corrected on the “unelectable” part. But in an election where a generic Democrat should have won by a landslide, they came darn close to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, didn’t they? Thank goodness for economic collapse and scary, incompetant “running mates”…Stay tuned for upcoming post: “Sarah, Bill, and Everybody’s Crazy Old Uncle”.

This year American politics and the media — OK, most of our mass psychology — went so far over the edge that a door seems to have opened that can’t really be closed. Those who managed to escape with some semblance of sanity have found it neither possible nor desirable to retrace their steps back down that rabbit hole. When my ObamaMama mother tells me I’m “obsessed”;  I say it is just the opposite. If anything, I now feel completely liberated from the obsessive black and white duality, “anything-to-win” mentality of both parties. Sure, it’s a curse, too, as I am now forced to be a post-partisan equal-opportunity observer of hypocrisy. I can no longer go along with everything my team throws out there without questioning it — just because it helps the cause.

A disturbing trend in American politics is the toleration for that special brand of treatment reserved for women – the kind used toward Clinton in the media, by her own Party, and by her own sex (which is especially disturbing) which made sexism and misogyny an acceptable national pastime.

For those who were used to seeing how sexism was utilized to minimize Clinton politically, it was impossible not to notice how the same voices never missed a beat when they joined the chorus to demonize Palin. Unfortunately, the fact that most of my political views are diametrically opposed to Palin’s didn’t make it easier to ignore these tactics that I had been observing for a year. It only confirmed what I already knew: that misogyny and the general ridicule of women has, indeed, become an acceptable political tool, especially on the progressive left, and that it was never just about Clinton, as they always claimed.

Palin was an especially appealing target for vilification because as a woman, it appears, she “should know better” than to be pro-life. The fact that her most venomous attackers were women and feminists who felt compelled to set straight those misguided Hillary holdouts who might “vote with their vaginas”  “against their own better interests” was particularly insulting and patronizing to voters who may have fought for those rights decades ago but saw more important priorities this election.

But simply put: her pick as VP threw the Democratic Party into a panic because they knew she was a force to be reckoned with, and had to be destroyed using any means necessary. She certainly could have, and should have been attacked legitimately for her political views, but she never would have been subjected to the same “witch burning” (just like Hillary was) if she was a man. Imagine for a moment if McCain had picked a man who was a pro-life fundamentalist conservative governor with minimal foreign policy experience, like say Huckabee. Would he have been subjected to the same outrage, ridicule and mass derangement? I don’t think so.

It was just one of many ironies to me that of all the embarrassing behavior I witnessed in the media and in my own party this election, the demonization of Palin seemed the most transparently partisan mass psychotic episode of the entire year. (OK, I forgot the RFK assassination fauxrage) One need look no further than the proud smiles on those shiny new members of the “Party of Tolerance”  displaying their “Palin is a C*NT” tee shirts, to see how irony challenged they have become.

Yes, the thought of her as President scares me as much as any other conservative Republican would, but the concerted effort to assemble or manufacture evidence of her stupidity, incompetence and fanatical right wing agendas, for the most part, had minimal basis in reality. The mad scurrying to “vet” this candidate — more in one month than Obama was subject to in a year — was positively breathtaking.

And so (once again with the irony), I believe I may  be closer than most to what Obama was referring to with those post partisan proclamations. Yes, I really can see how all this partisan bickering is hurting our country.  The pols on both sides compete for their share of the electorate –pander to their respective constituencies, but rarely do anything substantial to change the natural order of things — which benefits their respective corporate benefactors. This is why the “natural order” goes berserk whenever they think someone might come along and actually “change” anything. And, this is why I am naturally suspicious how the corporate media could be in complete agreement with the far left over a presidential candidate. Communist or Corporatist? Obviously the post-partisan Powers-That-Be know they can benefit somehow from having a president who can manage to be all things to all people.