If Your Election Lasts More Then Four Months You Should See a Doctor

Ah, yes so the candidate I voted for for president (the socialist who some how managed to get on the ballot in Ohio) got less then 1% of the vote, which in a manner of speaking makes me part of a (not THE) 1 %.  Fewer votes even then the Green candidate.  Not that I expected that he would get many, but although I live in a "battle ground" state I could simply not bring myself to vote for one of the two corporate candidates.

So Obama won and we are now hoping against hope that Boehner prevents a "grand bargain" during the lame duck session of congress (although I'm not sure who will be able to do so in the new congress).  Lucky us.  I have waited a couple of days to post this, but Greenwald came out with his the day after the election.  Unfortunately, I think that he is probably correct.  We will of course be told by the usual suspects that whatever way we are sold out, it is all Obama and the democrats can possibly do, and also to when we voted for him we knew that he wasn't liberal or progressive, but rather a centrist, so I guess we shouldn't be shocked[?], disappointed[?], disgusted[?], or whatever.

One of the fascinating things for me is the reaction of the conservative/reactionary/christian base to the loss by Romney.  It is amazing.  Because my wife is a christian of the Beatitudes  type she seems to have more Facebook friends who are shall we say of the crazy persuasion then I do and she has been reading me their hysterical take on this election.  It is essentially "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," or alternatively we forsaken God our traditions and christian beliefs to follow the Kenyan socialist with some variations on that.  TBogg, I must admit, is fun when he deals with that sort of thing.

I simply cannot understand the incredible hatred of Obama by people who claim he is a socialist or communist Muslim who wants to introduce the homosexual agenda with Sharia law followed up with a socialist (by which I think they mean communist) program.  I do understand that there is some racism involved, but then that doesn't explain why most of these people held the same beliefs concerning Clinton.  If anything, Obama has it a little easier then Clinton.  Neither Obama nor his wife have been accused of having a kill list of their enemies (well excepting those who happen to be poor brown people

living in various third world countries), of loading cocaine on planes in small air fields in third world states in the U.S. and having their gay lovers killed (or do I repeat myself?).

Nor do I understand the willingness of the very wealthy to spend massive amounts of money on defeating Obama, unless it is as Counterpunch suggests some sort of strange convoluted double reverse incredibly long game.

What Obama is is a "moderate" democrat which means he is conservative, which means he is to the right of both Eisenhower and Nixon and the first Bush and not much if at all to the left of Reagan.  He joins a long line of democratic presidents that includes Cleveland and Carter and Clinton who really aren't all that into unions or working people.  They just don't consider them totally sub human.  So why is he hated with such a white hot intense hatred?

The simple answer for the very wealthy is that they always want MORE, without a lot of consideration as to where that will leave things for even their own great grand children.  I generally do not like those kind of basic simple explanations, but I really have no other.  Perhaps there is the added thought by the very wealthy that this time they and their descendants will make sure that the riff raff do not push them off their piles of money. Not this time.  This time it will be different.  And since it is only rarely that they get over thrown:  think France once and Russia once; they are playing the odds.

But where do the rest come from?  I've taken to suggesting that people actually look up the definitions of communism and socialism in even a cheap dictionary, but that doesn't seem to help.  There is the old joke that half of us all are below average in intelligence, or the mandatory Blazing Saddles reference.  Still?

To reiterate  there isn't much difference between the two so why the intense hatred?  Why the huge amounts of money invested?  Interesting questions Guy?  Why don't you provide some answers.

Gottcha Two Minutes of Hate Right Here

Perhaps this is a little too inside baseball, but there you have it.  I've been drifting around and reading some of the sort of progressive sites.  Although to be fair they may more properly be called democratic or anti-republican sites.  Places like Balloon Juice and Tbogg at Firedoglake have provided some interesting commendatory, in the sense that crap is interesting, I guess.
Tbogg is straight forward: no matter how bad Obama is the other guy (whomever he or she may be) is so much worse that, you've just got to vote for Obama, and I guess work for him also.  Not a position that I believe in, but at least one whose point of view I understand (perhaps because that was my position on Clinton, Gore, Kerry, and finally Obama in 2008).  In fact Tbogg is very explicit in the cut off the nose to spite, etc., position.

But the posters on Balloon Juice are, to me at least, more interesting.  Because they (or at least Mastermix and ABJ) have come out with the total and complete Two Minutes of Hate thing about Firedoglake and Hampsher in particular..  First accusing them of being in the pocket of republicans, second of being racist, third of being in it only for the money, and always of being liars whenever they attack Obama.  Larded in there are arguments that FDLis also incompetent politically, so there too, but that isn't the important stuff.  It is necessary to insist that FDL (and at other times Greenwald) are evil and that they are motivated by racism.  If not just racism they are in the pay of the right wing, or both. Essentially, they simply do not deal with the merit of any arguments against Obama and his policies, they simply skip that and go directly to..........well as I said the Two Minutes of Hate. 

Kind of sad really.  I came to a conclusion after thinking about the Tbogg post for some time.  I am not going to work for Obama and in all probability not vote for him either, but it doesn't seem worth while to seriously debate the True Believers (well except perhaps for my own entertainment).  My position is that you go right ahead and you work your little heart out and then if he gets re-elected come and tell me how he couldn't do anything but gut Social Security and most of the other "safety nets" in our society.  I will have the admittedly thin gruel of having been right.

Torture again.

Well it appears that it isn't just a few bad apples.

Good God. I was reading yesterday at different places Our All American Torture program was being justified by several commentators on various web pages.

"You know don't you that it might sometimes be necessary to harshly interrogate some very bad people who might be about to kill numerous innocent 100% Good Patriotic Americans much like Yourself. Also, that harsh interrogation might just cross the line. Although it wouldn't be the fault of the 100% American (much like Yourself) who is doing the torture (I'm sorry interrogation)."

Is it really necessary to say that I reject the basic premise of that scenario. How does the torturer know that the person they have in front of them knows anything about a plot to kill people? How does the torturer know that in fact there is a plot? If there is a plot, how does the torturer know that there is a plot? Why does the torturer know that there is a plot, but knows nothing about where or when or how the plot might come to fruition? And why can he (or lets be non-sexist she) only find this information out through torture?"

Of course, then we look at the real world and see that the vast majority of those tortured by your 100% Real Americans are not in fact guilty of anything except being brown. Of course that information was all available before yesterday. That does not dissuade those who make those arguments. Apparently, facts are irritating things and should not be considered when Real 100% Americans (much like Yourself) are discussing serious matters concerning Your safety.

God I'm glad I live in a country where mere facts do not intrude on discussions of serious policy by serious people, much like Yourself. I of course am completely non-serious and if I may say so myself something of a jerk. Otherwise, I would not be raising these matters.