Just a Little Memory

             

                 It was 1968 and there was a war on.  You knew it because you could watch it on TV at night.  You could watch the big B52 bombers dropping thousands of pounds of bombs on Vietnam every evening. Theoretically, you knew they were killing people, a lot of people, but you didn’t really see them die so it wasn’t really happening in real life to real people.

I was stationed at Utapao in Thailand on the Gulf of Siam “where the flying fishes play.”   I never did see a flying fish, but it was the Gulf of Siam and it was the largest B52 base in Southeast Asia outside of Vietnam.  The runway ended on a beautiful white sand beach.  We were just a few kilometers from Sattahip; the largest American military sea port in Southeast Asia outside of Vietnam.

                It was a wonderful way to fight a war.  The B52s went out from our base and flew for hours to get over Vietnam and “deliver their ordinance.”  At the time I didn’t much care. I was 22 and I was a sergeant in medical supply.  That’s a supply sergeant who only handles items for medical facilities.  I didn't even have to see any patients.  And I definitely didn’t have to deal with the war in any real way, I had a job that gave me more responsibility than any I would have for a decade afterwards.  Life was pretty good.  If I didn’t care what my job was contributing to, and I didn’t.

                We could go off base any night we chose with no fear. They were all Friendlies here.  Within a few kilometers of the main gate there were 25,000 prostitutes both freelance and in 500 bar/whore house combinations.  At least according to the military police, although I never got around to counting them all.  Alcohol was cheap and easily available and there were drugs, mainly Thai stick at $15.00 a key, less than an ounce cost back in the states. 

                On the base we had running water and all the other comforts of home and then some.   We lived in hooches, which were small wooden buildings and all the sides could be opened to let the air blow through.  There were about twelve to fifteen guys in each hooch and each hooch had a hooch girl.  She washed and cleaned our clothing and the hooch we lived in and we each paid her 20 baht a month which at that time was about a dollar.  We did no manual labor except what we had to do at work.  It was a great step up from wherever we’d been stationed before.  There was a Base Exchange and three movie theaters.  One doubled as a synagogue on Saturdays and a church on Sundays.  One was at the USO club which was run by young women who had come over from the United States to support the troops.

And one was an outdoor theater.  Where we set on wooden benches and watched the movie projected on an outside screen.  The screen had a slopping roof that went out about ten feet and angled down to the screen and on both sides there were walls that angled out away from the screen for the same distance.  If it rained we’d get wet, but the screen would stay dry.

We would sit with our backs to the runway while the screen faced it.  Often at night when we would watch a movie there would come a sound, a roar like the freight trains that used to run a block from my childhood home.  The roar would drown out the sound coming from the screen, but the movie would never stop.  It was the B52s going out on their missions.  The sound would roll over us and then hit the screen get caught in the overhang and roll back.  The sound would come in threes; the giant planes flew in three plane formations, but there could be as many as twenty or more of these formations.    One, two, three…………one, two, three…………one, two three……………….one, two, three…………...

And the next day you could watch it all on TV.

"This Country's Going to War"

The Clash : Westway to the World

New Toy -- Ok I'm claiming its work stuff,

I Wish I Could Say I Was Surprised

I guess since I blog as a lawyer I really ought to make some comment on the Zimmerman trial.

First, I figured once the jury was chosen that was the end.  A jury of six all of whom were women, five of whom were white and one of whom was Hispanic were not going to find this guy guilty under almost any circumstances.

But let's cut through the B.S. anyway:

1.  The victim was unarmed.
2.  He was stalked by the defendant for a good while.
3.  He was shot dead by the defendant.

Everything. Else. Is. Flash.

I did not watch the trial, I did not really keep up on the trial mainly because if one isn't actually in the court room, or at least watching the entire thing on T.V. one really doesn't know what the dynamics of the trial are.

I once had an arson case that for some reason was front page news in the little paper in the berg one berg over.  The first days description of the trial was more or less close to what actually happened.  The second day's coverage was bizarre.  The second day was when I put on the defense case.  We won.  But if you read the second day's coverage you would think that the jury was either drunk, crazy, or I had paid them all off to get to a not guilty verdict.

So I will not watch a little of a trial or the evening wrap up (of course it is helped that we got rid of cable several years ago) because all that you see is what the reporters think is interesting and that may not at all be what the jury thinks is interesting.

The second case I am familiar with that applies is of a friend of mine (this was during my dirty hippy only phase well before the lawyer part kicked in) who was busted in the early to mid 70s for taking some serious drugs over the Ohio river.  Well it was a federal case.  The case went to trial and after all the evidence was in (and by the way he was guilty as sin, but none of us thought it should be a crime anyway, and all of us had warned him off dealing with the guy who set him up) the jury came back eleven to one for conviction.  Since in a criminal case the jury must be unanimous it was a mistrial.

He told me later that he had wondered whose "10 speed" bike was chained to a tree at the court house every day.  Well as he left the court on the final day he saw one of the jurors get on the bike and peddle away giving him the peace sign as he went.  That case was over the day that juror was chosen.  (They did try my friend again, but the next jury hung six to six and the feds just gave up after that.  The point is that they wouldn't have gotten to the six/six jury if there hadn't been the one juror on the bike at the first trial.)

I would say a couple of more things.  From the little I could see the prosecution's heart just wasn't in it.  Their main first witness, the couple of minutes of her I did see, was clearly not prepared at all.  For the prosecution in a high profile trial like to this to make that kind of mistake is unforgivable, if that is they want to win.

Another point, is that while I said those three points I mentioned earlier were all that was important everything else is flash, it is the defense attorney's job in this kind of case to throw out that kind of flash and to make the jury focus on the flash and to try to make them get blinded by the flash.

The guy killed an unarmed kid.  He went to where the kid was and he confronted him and shot him. That is the case.  This is not the kind of case where there is or could be another person out there who committed the crime it was just this guy and he did it.  So what you've got to do is attack the victim and create as much confusion about things as you possibly can.

One final thing.  I've heard people say that there was only the defendant's evidence about what happened that night so the jury couldn't convict.  Bullshit.  A good prosecutor (or one who wanted to win) would put on their evidence and walk the jury through what they thought really happened.  Then they would point out that there is no reason to believe the statements of the defendant's family all of whom want to get the defendant off.  Believe the circumstantial evidence which really can't lie.  A defendant who was armed, who stalked a 17 year old kid, and who shot him dead.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

I made the mistake of going on a Tbogg thread about Snowden/Greenwald/etc.

Started when Tbogg pointed to some nasty comments on Twitter by Greenwald about and with Daniel Sewer who said nasty things about Snowden.

The comments are nearing 600 at this point and I should probably have stayed away, but every time I try to get away they pull me back in.  No it is just my own belief that I must be right and just one more comment or post will convince them.  Bawahahaha.

So I (well OK, it isn't only about me, there are many others in the thread that take more or less my position) am accused of being a purity troll and of defending a guy who is only a thief after all and violated his oath to prevent Americans from knowing what their government does I guess.  (Although to be honest, I really should have looked up the legal definition of embezzlement before that one comment.  But then I really can't spell it either, so there.)

The comments section and Tbogg was definitely part of this at first; then he just quit, although his point was, I think, that these people (Snowden/Greenwald) are dicks and everyone already knew everything anyway.  Although last I looked in the thread had deteriorated to discussing the oath one took. ( If I may Godwin, was the oath taken by the German army to Hitler worth upholding or was there a problem with it?  By the way I think Godwin is generally bullshit.)  There were others accusing Snowden of stealing stuff, which I guess is one definition of what he did and embezzling the stuff, which it turns out may be another. (That's where I got into my problem, by saying that embezzlement only involved money, which a moment's thought would have corrected.  But then when does [this] one put a moment's thought into an argument?)

Another point was that those who are supporting Snowden are just "purity trolls."  I'm not sure how this actually got going, it may be that we want Obama to do something that he has clearly shown he won't do and we are just demanding a perfection that isn't reasonable.  As I said I will match my willingness for most of my adult life to vote for what I knew was the lesser of two evils, with anybody's.  Hell I voted for Humphrey in '68 and for Carter twice.

Odds and Ends

Good god I don't know what it is about this blog, but it makes my Asus go crazy.  I can't even read my own blog on my own home computer.Although perhaps getting a computer run with Windows XP replacing it with Linux and then replacing that again with Windows 7 may have made it a bit schizophrenic.  So I'm writing this on the Galaxy that I just got along with the keyboard connected by Bluetooth.

Interesting interesting.  Soon I'll be like my grandparents talking about the flivvers I had as a youth and how these new finagled gadgets are the ruination of us all.

I keep the Asus because I put all the office stuff that I need, if I am going to work at home, on it.  And to be honest all of that stuff it does fine.  My problem is that I cannot "just" work, I also have to goof off and surf the web.  I'm not sure how I was able to work on a line or roofing because you can't really goof off on those jobs,  although you can smoke weed like an insane person (or at least you could).  You can definitely goof off working on the railroad and in the Air Force though (and smoke weed like and insane person, or at least you could).

So anyway I'm ADD or bi-polar or something, or not.  I mean I should be right, all my clients are.  I just like to put my feet up and day dream some times.

I've been thinking of Greenwald and Snowden and watching the kind of left wingers, like Tbogg and Lawyers Guns and Money point out that we all knew it any way a long time ago.  It really isn't that big a deal.  Snowden and Greenwald are drama queens.  And whatever.  The guy I'm most disappointed  in however is David Erheinstien.  There is always apparently a good reason for what Obama did.  Although, it does appear as though what he has been doing recently is just attacking the messenger.

The thing about Snowden's revelations are that they do appear to have freaked out the establishement and caused people to talk and to be for at least a little bit concerned, but I doubt it will last.

And I suspect we will be right back here:

Oh wait we already are.

Aw Fuck

Mr. Snowden has disappeared.  Even though nothing he has released is new and nothing is anything other then we really "knew" if we thought about it it.  Still the Powers That Be are bent out of shape and people are talking about “rights”. And as far as I’m concerned that is a good thing.

Manning was a traitor and besides what he revealed wasn’t important, we all knew it any way. Snowdon is a traitor and besides what he revealed isn't important and we all knew it any way.

So perhaps this can be a teaching and learning experience? Except of course for those who know that whatever happens while Obama is president is just well, you know swell. Add them to those who will use it until their guy is in power and you have a word I hate, but seems to be as accurate as any I’ve seen: tribalism.

There is no possibility that these people will collect it all and than if you get important enough and big enough will locate it and let you know that if you push against the neo-con agenda too much; it will all be released. Nope no problem there. No worries at all.
By the way how long should a violation of my rights continue before I should just say: “Oh well, its been there for many a year, so I guess its no problem at all any more.”

Same As It Ever Was

I don't know about this political stuff any more.  It does seem like the people who are getting all the power may be just a bit, how shall we say, fascist oligarchs (or is that redundant?). In my defense I think that fascist is a broad enough term to encompass Dear Leader's policies (absent the night of the long knives, of course), if I may bow to the definition by one of the original fascists:  "You should call us corporatists, that is really what we are."  B. M.  As far as an oligarch, I point to the delightful Bill and Hill and their spawn who started her climb up the corporate ladder with a mere six figure annual income in her first job.

The scoops that Greenwald has engineered this last week are something that if one bothered to think about it at all one probably assumed that the government was doing without the explicit confirmation that is now out there.  But of course most people do not bother to think about it.  And apparently the Powers That Be are sufficiently upset that they are prepared to do something to he who leaked and he who published the leak.

Strange, why should they care.  People will forget or stop caring in a week or two, if they leave it alone.  Greenwald will be criticized for being too pure and too verbose.  Actually, the verbose complaint is kind of weird really.  I mean complaining that a guy writes too many words for you to read, is well kind of like admitting that the guy is too smart for you to understand.  Or maybe that reading isn't really something you do all that well, which since the people I've seen complaining about it are bloggers says something about the bloggers.

So the sophisticated among us are saying to those of us who are pissed, well you should have known why are you so surprised and so upset?  Kind of like the way they treated people who got angry with Obama for being a right wing ass hole.  "Well you knew it when you voted for him so what are you complaining about now?"  The usual suspects rush out to belittle those of us who are a tad concerned (and to be honest, who try to use these scoops as a teaching and organizing tool).  Fuck them.

I've been kind of down and sometimes I wonder if those who are depressed aren't the ones who really know the score, to coin a phrase.

My Summer Vacation

Its been an interesting few months.  My wife has convinced me to try a coursera course.  My little bit to crash the traditional academic community, I guess.  My family are leaders in this sort of thing.  I remember my mother bringing home a couple of small tin toys when I was small and saying look at this isn't this exciting.  What was exciting was that they were marked "Made in Japan."  That very far away exotic land that at that had just recently been at war with us.  And we were now buying their toys (made out of recycled American beer cans by the way, on the inside was the beer logo unpainted over).  The next thing I know I'm driving a Honda and Detroit has closed.

A more interesting last couple of weeks.  Our youngest dog got sick and the second time we took him into the vets we were told that he had parvo.  We rushed him to OSU vet clinic (the same place we'd had our chow last year).  When we got there we were told not to take him out of the car and someone came out in a disposable hazmat suit and carried him into an isolation room.  We got him back the next day (they couldn't control him, or apparently keep him confined), but he was rehidrated and the virus was slowly going away.  A near thing.

In the meantime we took the other dogs in for a booster, but were told to keep them in the car they didn't want them in the vets for at least a couple of weeks.  So the vet came out and gave them their shots in the car.

The vaccine company will pay for the treatment.  A very dangerous disease which was only identified in 1978.  Only attacks puppies and mostly bully breads and rottweilers and dobermans.  However, our yard can stay viral [?] for up to a year and the dog will be contagious for at least two to three months.

The next weekend went well and I went into the office this last Monday.  Had a hearing across the street and came back to the office.  As I was coming back to the office I saw the guy I've been sharing the office with for nearly twenty years walking out the door.  I didn't say anything (we'd said hi to each other when I came in before my first hearing) and I figured he hadn't seen me.  However, the door was unlocked so I figured he had seen me, but hadn't wanted to talk.  I picked up my files for my next hearing and ran back out and across the street again.  It was a short hearing and I was back in the office in about fifteen minutes.

A couple of minutes after that my former secretary came in and said "Have you heard about Charlie?"  I said "No, whats he done now?"  "He's jumped off the bridge on 209."

I couldn't believe it and I walked out the door.  You could see the police cars from my front door, the bridge is only about a quarter to a half mile from the front door and in easy line of sight.  It had probably taken him less than five minutes to walk from where I saw him to where he jumped.

As I said later it was a shock, but not a surprise.  He's been seriously depressed for some time.  He has been trying to deal severe mental health issues for decades.  I do not remember when he first had a major psychotic break down that required his hospitalization, but it could easily have been nearly twenty years ago.   His most spectacular breakdown occurred on a Good Friday when he smashed through the glass door in the office and ran out screaming that he was Jesus Christ.  That was over ten years ago and he came back from that, but thinking back probably not completely.

He still did good legal work at times, but at other times he would just become overwhelmed.  He had apparently come to the conclusion that that he was a bad person (his words) even though he was a stand up guy and a very good family man.  I don't believe that he had ever consciously done a significantly evil or illegal act.

He had tried to kill himself a little more than a year ago by over dosing and had been rescued and brought back, but he was barely functional (as I now know when I look back) until he killed himself.

I don't know the name of his disease, but he clearly had psychotic episodes and was certainly very depressed and paranoid (he might have been bi-polar, but I don't remember him ever having the "highs" they speak about).  He had been convinced to apply to Social Security to attempt to get disability and had in fact been to the Social Security office that very morning, but he was convinced that he would not get it.  Once again he thought he didn't deserve it, he wasn't worthy.

Its a small town and the legal community is even smaller.  It has affected us all:  "If I had been kinder, more understanding, more sympathetic.  If I had stopped and talked to him that morning, or the day before, or the day before that.  If I had cared more. If I had done something else or more than I did.  If I had only been more observant.  If I had done something."

I am getting a great deal of sympathy and it embarrasses me.  He had a wife and three children, they deserve people's sympathy.  I cannot imagine right now what they are going through.  I was kind of on the periphery of his personal life and he on mine, my personal life was totally different and than his.  His was responsibilities and family, mine was drugs and parties and a single life until recently.

The problem with the disease he had was that it was one where the victim is made unlikable and irritating by the very thing that is killing him.  It was all I could do to come into the office some days and to be civil to him.  He chased away the last three secretaries we had by his unreasonable demands and his insistence on blaming them for all of his mistakes.  When I said no more secretaries did that eventually put him over the edge?   Who knows.

One of course looks back and remembers ones little cruelties (oft times unintentional other times not).  "Straighten up, get a grip, stop acting like a spoiled child."  One tends to forget that he was in fact more than irritating and difficult and now that he is dead remembers only that he was in pain.

Writing

Perhaps I should have been paying more attention to Mr. Vonnegut's instructions then I have been.

Full Press Godwin

“Naturally the common people don’t want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY.”

Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials.  

Who would have thought that this would be the political theorist most listened to by our rulers.

A BLAST FROM MY PAST

Now this is a blast from my past.  I remember being upstairs in a bedroom my uncle's and listening to this over and over (and over and over).  I suspect that the old place was so well built and insulated that they really couldn't hear the record down stairs.  There is also the fact that it was a farm and most everybody else was probably out working while I was inside goofing off.

I'd have probably been six, seven, or eight at the time and in that time and place the adults were out working and  the kids, even at those ages, were left on their own.  The only basic rule was that we not burn down the farm or cut off a major body part while the adults were out working.

Otherwise, we were pretty much on our own.  They did expect to see us during meals, and I would guess if one of us hadn't shown up they'd have begun to wonder.  But I suspect that we would have had to miss more than one for them to start worrying.  Closer to Huck then I could imagine when I was growing up.  I do feel sorry for kids now a days.

Bugger The Bankers THE OFFICIAL VIDEO

The Endless Night: A Valentine to Film Noir

Just Say Meow.

The Pogues - The band played waltzing matilda

Light Show

DECEMBER 29, 2012:  So the pop-up says I should mention people to get more traffic?  I think. I exed out before I bothered to completely read it.  A bad habit I have of closing out a page while I am still reading things at the sides and going "WAIT, WHAT?"  One can flip back when one is reading a book or a newspaper, not so much on line.

I was waiting to post until I saw just how badly Obama and the democrats sold us out, and I suspect that although I'm starting this on the 29th I won't be publishing it until the thirty-first, so I should get the chance to say I told you so, but we will see.

My wife had a good friend over yesterday who explained how we are all going to go bankrupt (as both a country and individuals, I think) because of the undeserving poor who get food stamps and Social Security Disability and all the other magnificent goodies our state and federal governments dole out to those who are below the poverty level.  So we must cut benefits, but not raise taxes.  She saw it on TV so it must be true, I guess.  She is also a millionaire so there is that also.  Most aren't Mr. Field after all.  Most of us do not over come our very limited up bringings, (that includes marrying into wealth or earning it with a single bright idea).

DECEMBER 31, 2012:  Last day of the year.  I'm glad to see 2012 go.  It was not a particularly easy year.   With our Chow so sick early in the year and then getting my Mother up here and finding out how seriously her mind had deteriorated.  She at least has a sense of humor left although no short term memory at all.  We go back in the "ward" although that is not what they call it and see the others there.  My Mother doesn't leave her room except to go to and a very few other things.  We take her out regularly, but still.

I wonder if one notices one's mind going before it gets so far along that one has no ability to do anything about it?  I suspect that I shall see.

On a brighter note went to Cambridge last night and saw the display at the Court House, but no horsey ride, no horseys.  At a local restaurant and managed to get several Jack Chick tracts, oh boy.

The Pogues Featuring Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale Of New York (Official V...

How about a Pogues Xmas and how about another drink?

Gremlins - There is no Santa!

And why not?  A little Xmas cheer.

History of Festivus, A Holiday Built on Seinfeld, Grievances

DeFazio explains the "chained CPI" and Gang of Six Plan

Happy Veteran's Day

Happy Veteran's Day or if you lived in the first half of the Twentieth century Armistice Day.

So the big military news is that the bestest general ever got caught with his pants down and had to quit his new job at the CIA.  Apparently Lincoln's advice to McClellan is wrong.  Generals no longer have to win wars or even battles to set themselves up as dictators.  Or at least to be considered by all the serious people as the next candidate for the top spot.

I no longer comment on people's Facebook posts when they tell me that I need to thank a soldier for my freedoms.  The reason being that they may have a family member who is a soldier.  Probably a higher percentage around here then nationally.  At least more then the Romneys who apparently are too busy with other matters like converting the heathens in Paris, I guess.

The point is that since the end of World War II, all those of us who served in the military have been are the muscle (as General Butler said in an earlier time) for our neo-colonialist corporate empire.  That's it.  Kind of sad really,

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.

Jethro Tull - Thick as a brick - live - 1978 - DVD

Damn the 40th anniversary edition comes out in three days.  God damn I'm old.

Henri - Politique

Whedon On Romney

o

I wondered what Buffy's position on this years election would be.

We're Fucked (Why be creative?)

"There might be a difference between Obama and Romney, but no matter who gets elected things are going to get worse."  Not me, but a friend of my wife's (no not a cab driver).  Just an average middle class middle aged woman.  Although she may not actually be average since she can clearly see which way the wind blows.

So I re-posted this thing from Daniel Ellsberg on Facebook about how one, if one lives in a "swing state" needs to cast a vote for Obama.to make sure that Romney doesn't get in, not because you want Obama, but because Romney is too bad to contemplate.  Chomsky made essentially the same point in 2008 about McCain.  Although to be fair to Chomsky we had not seen specifically how Obama would govern right then, there were his promises, and I suspect that even Chomsky couldn't believe just how much Obama was lying at that time.  We all expected him to be somewhat more conservative then he talked, but to have him nearly completely turn his back on everything he said was a little much (okay maybe only a 165 degree swing as opposed to a 180).

It is a hard choice, although to be fair to leftists like myself in all probability it doesn't matter.  It would be the red necks and the low information voters and those who thought they were going to get help from a democratic administration who didn't who will decide the election if Romney does win.  But it will be us loud mouthed leftists who will get the blame.  I've said it before, but it is interesting that people who complain and who point out that the emperor has no clothes who will get the blame if Obama loses, not the naked emperor himself.  Left wingers are constantly being blamed for Gore's loss, even though Gore ran to the right and backed everything that Clinton did including NAFTA and gutting welfare. But apparently, I wasn't supposed to believe him.  Silly me.  At any rate how one governs should really have no consequences as far a getting votes from the left if you are a democrat because if you are left you gotta vote for him (or her) no matter what  because the republican will be so much worse.

There are a couple of areas on which Obama seems to be better then Romney:  LGTB issues and the right of women to control their bodies.  Neither of  those issues will affect the money men.  And the LGTB issues will only peripherally benefit those who are being helped.  With women's issues, as Sanger said the ability to regulate pregnancies is absolutely necessary to ensure freedom for women.

Otherwise we march forward inexorably with our permanent war on just about anybody we feel like.  And as for various economic issues, oh hell.  ACA is better then what existed a couple of years ago, but the way we do it is to pour money into the pockets of the wealthiest insurance companies now, so it is another means of transfering money from the poor and middle class to the wealthy and as a side effect some people get medical care, who wouldn't have otherwise.

The Grand Bargain is still out there and watch, what happens after the election, no matter who wins.  Bye bye social security as we know it.

I would guess that the worst will take a little longer under Obama then under Romney, there is a value of having bad things happen twn years from now as opposed to five years from now.  We all rejoice that Tiny Tim survives even though we all know that he's long dead by now (and yes I do know that it is a novella).

"Eye Of The Sparrow" — A Bad Lip Reading of the First 2012 Presidential ...

Another vid.