All's Well That Ends Well

I've been wandering around reading stuff about the up coming elections (no really it is going to happen) and the kind of school teacher like chastising of the liberal base by the Obama people.

I've come across a couple of points from different blogs. One on Crooks and Liars points out that most if not all of the liberals are not going to be going around telling people not to vote. What is going to happen is that people are not going to work for these candidates nor give them money. And in my case probably not vote at all.

Another other point made by a commentator on another site (I wish I'd marked it and I didn't) who pointed out that the democrats could accomplish nearly nothing that they wanted with super majorities, so how will the republicans with smaller majorities, probably in only one chamber and no control of the White House accomplish anything? Or perhaps I missed the sarcasm.

I know I know. Republicans can do every thing while democrats can do nothing, unless the republicans let them. Still it is an interesting point.

But do remember: First, and most important is the naming of a scape goat who is not the president; Second, and almost as important is to make people think that Obama is not a minion of our very own plutocracy but is prevented by ...............someone or something he has no control over. (Cough bullshit cough).

True Believers

Well, maybe I can't leave it alone, I am trying to work out my thoughts on just why Obama and the democratic party are not worth my support as they are now and why so many people become so angry when one dares to seriously criticize them. I would guess that the thing that bothers me most about the "enthusiasm gap" is not so much the attitude of the politicians themselves who simply can't understand why we don't love them any more, but the attitude of so many of their supporters.

Greenwald wrote a pretty good essay (again) not succinct, but insightful dealing with the issue of political leaders actually attacking their base for not being enthusiastic enough and questioning how they think this will help with the enthusiasm gap. "Does it help to insult the people who might be your voters when you are already going out there with the message, We're not quite as bad as the other guy?"

The other thing that interests me is the need to believe by the Obama centrist voters. Perhaps I should go back and re-read Eric Hoffer.

When I go and argue on other blogs I find that the people are angry with me for criticizing the president and angry with me if I threaten to use the only weapons I have against him: my vote, my energy and my money (little as it is).

"You do not know how serious things are going to become if you do not get out and work and vote for the people who wouldn't do a whole lot for you before."

Been watching World at War videos and in one of the early ones there was an interview with a German who was not in Hitler's thrall. He talked about going into a speech to see if there was anything to hear and it was all the same nonsense he said. He said he looked about him and wished he could believed like the others there, but could not. That is kind of how I feel.

And No Obama is not Hitler, he is not even like Hitler, except they both give good speeches. I am talking about the followers being willing to excuse anything.

Perhaps I Should Give It A Rest

Mary McCarthy

I have started a new folder in my Yahoo bookmarks called Fake Progressive, Rumproast was the first placed there, there will be others.

Going to Rumproast and engaging in the comments section as I mentioned before was interesting to say the least. OK, not interesting irritating in the extreme, OK not irritating in the extreme it pissed me off and made me wonder about the ability of the commentators to grasp reality. Also, being accused of being an ivory tower purist and unrealistic "progressive" just pisses me off, given that I've voted for and worked for the (marginally) lesser of two evils in almost every election that has been held since I was 21. That would include Carter, Clinton, Gore, Kerry and people too numerous to mention or remember in various congressional and state races. Obama I actually thought was different at first (boy was I dumb), by the time it got closer to the election, I was just afraid of Sarah Palin. It looks like McCain would have survived so I might as well have voted for him.

The positions for the other side boil down to: Obama couldn't really accomplish any real progressive stuff, Obama did accomplish real progressive stuff, Obama accomplished the most progressive stuff he could given the make up of the country/congress. I am an asshole (which begs the question really), I am too purist, no one could be good enough for me. No one has explicitly told me to take the crumbs from the rich man's table and be happy, yet.

UPDATE: I went back and read the comments after my last comment and yes they did essentially tell me to take the crumbs from the rich man's table, if not in those specific words then that was the specific meaning. The brutal attacks on bloggers who strongly criticized from the left were amazing. There was an interesting and wilful ignoring of the control that oligarchs and plutocracy has over our election process.

I am reminded of an essay by Mary McCarthy (I wish I could remember which one) where she talks about leftist intellectual life in the 1930s. She talks about the arguments over Stalin's show trials. People would defend Stalin against all kinds of arguments that marshaled large amounts of evidence showing that the allegations could not be true and it would not matter. Then sometimes, some small bit of information would get through and the next week the person who had been adamantly defending Stalin, would be on the other side. She said that it was often only a small thing. I guess I can hope for the same thing for these folks because I just don't think I can grab each one by the collar and shake them until they see reality.

Hiring Half the Working Class

I drifted over to Rumproast from No More Mister Nice Blog to read the essay concerning Susie Madak and her calling out Obama mouth piece Axelrod on the way Obama and the whole democratic party treats progressives. I think she told him that the administration treated progressive bloggers like the girl they hooked up with under the bleachers and don't want to be seen with out in public with. The vapors flew fast and furious. Although to be fair the metaphor was an only slightly cruder version of "You should dance with them what brung ya."

People pointing out failures doesn’t turn off the base, it is the failures themselves who turn off the base. Well that and the clear contempt shown for those of us who are progressives and who worked for the democrats. The vast majority of commentators seem to have spent their energy attacking the messenger.

The lists of bills passed have a lot of nice names, but the bills themselves leave more than a little to be desired. Let us not forget (or have we already) that HCR started out with secret deals (that turned out not to be so secret) with Big Pharma and went down hill from there. It was the real left that pointed out that this bill was going to be a disaster in terms of electoral strategy. It isn’t progressive complaints that are destroying the party at this point.

Continuation of two wars,secret detention, arguing against repeal of DADT in court with little or no real support for repeal in congress, expanding executive privilege, refusal to deal with torture ordered and justified at the highest levels, assassination of American citizens, fighting against regulation of the FED, fighting against real credit card reform, developing a foreclosure policy that doesn’t work and appointing the three people who basically lead us into this economic mess as his main economic advisers. And of course, if you want to simply point to form over substance lets look at the Fat White Homophobe who gave the invocation at the inauguration.

Combine all this with an insane attack from the right that claims that Obama is a crazed leftist communist and Obama has managed to destroy progressive politics for a generation.

It is the left the administration spends most of their time attacking not the right, and by anyone's definition that was the people that got them their jobs.

It is one thing to see the failures of Obama and the democrats, and by failures I not only mean the bills not passed, but the attempts not made. It is another to see the people who will come out in droves to fight those of us who point out the emperor's lack of attire. Fight with vicious attacks. "In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. In the land of the insane the sane man is hanged." These people are so invested in Obama that they cannot back off.

Just Crap

So ......... once again Obama and his tactics have proven to be brilliant now that the repeal of DADT has been stopped dead in it's tracks. Although they will bring it back in December when I am sure the senate will be more than willing to pass it after the democrats are decimated (possibly an entirely literal description of what will happen in November) in the coming election.

There seems to be an argument amongst those on the left (who count as opposed to people like me) as to who to blame for this specific fiasco as opposed to the fiascoes involving health care, the stimulus, financial reform, etc., etc., etc. I suspect that there is more than enough blame to go around myself. Also, when assigning blame one assumes that Obama wanted a different outcome than the one he got. If he got the outcome he wanted then clearly there can be no blame assigned to him. At least none concerning his abilities to get his programs through or prevent those he doesn't want to get through from getting through.

The democrat leadership in the senate has to be nailed to the wall for not aggressively attacking the rules that currently run that house. Do we blame the republicans for holding on to their power and attacking their enemies (or at least those they consider their enemies) I guess the same way one attacks any right wing reactionary, but they have accomplished just what they want to accomplish.

There really appears to be no leadership at all as far as the White House is concerned, unless as I say, Obama continues to get just the outcomes he is looking for. Although in that case I think that one could argue that he isn't doing a very good job since he is looking like an asshole and an incompetent. If his goal is to screw his base and get them to think he wasn't that doesn't appear to be working very well either.

So we are back to the age old question: Obama incompetent, corrupt, drunk, or all of the above?

UPDATE: Of course that leaves out a similar question concerning congressional democrats. Would that I could make money betting against them, but I don't think anyone would take the other side.

God I Hate This

Over the weekend I got a mailer from the SEIU telling me what a prick my congress man Zack Space for voting against HCR. Nearly contemporaneously Space sent an email telling folks that under no circumstances will he vote for lowering Social Security benefits (including raising the retirement age).

I called the SEIU this morning and got a person after several tried who said complaints was over there and sent me to a message machine. I called Space and told the person that given the SEIU mailer and his position on Social Security I would be voting for Space, although up until all this I was simply not going to vote.

I've been on a couple of blogs and made comments about the mailer, but no one has commented back on it.

My point is that it is a waste of money for the SEIU to send out something like this which will only depress the turn out of people likely to vote democratic in this house district, up and down the ticket. They could have spent this money on Mary Jo Kilroy in Columbus if they wanted to spend money in a congressional election in Ohio. I live in congressional district 18, Bob Ney's old district. The only real candidate running against Space is a conservative republican and if that candidate gets elected then he will be the representative here from now until the end of time (or until he is arrested, whichever comes first).

I didn't even go into the problems with HCR or about how it is a conduit for middle class income and taxes to be funnelled into the pharmaceutical and insurance industries in near unlimited amounts to help about half the people who are currently uninsured, fore instance.

But the over reaching point is that it seems that the union is not really thinking this thing through and has decided it must punish him for what is really a pretty poor reason, believe me there are a lot of reasons to dislike him. There are enough really serious problems with HCR, that this isn't one.

Unless of course it is a double reverse flip, and since HCR is so disliked sending out this mailer attacking Space for voting against HCR is a secret way to help him. Hmmmmmmmm?

UPDATE: Although my imput was important to them and they will get back to me as soon as they possibly can, they haven't been able to do so yet I guess they are pretty busy in the complaints and concerns section.

I Loved The 60s and 70s, But Oh You Kid

That's the main buildings at the time, I can't find photos of the dorm.

So I graduated from Wright State University in 1975 in no particular class. That is I kind of stumbled on graduation after having completed the necessary credit hours in my major: History, American. It seemed easy enough and no real competence in a foreign language was actually required.

I wasn't really in a class as I said, and didn't attend any graduation ceremony, although I guess they thought I was (PTSD: too much alcohol and too many whores in Thailand). They mailed me my diploma which is on the wall of my office where I had to go and look in order to see what year I really graduated. See I moved into the co-ed dormitory (at that time the only dormitory) after my second year at a branch campus. I was one of about 300 students who lived on campus in a college of about 4000 at the time. We were a little different. Ok, there were an incredible amount of great drugs in that dormitory and you could go from one room to another and enter different drug experiences all without leaving the building. Most people's grades dropped by about one point on a four point scale, mine went up one point.

Today, I opened Community, The Magazine of Wright State University and turned to the Almnotes and the first thing I see are notes about someone from my graduation year and then from two years latter from a couple of Jesus freaks who are clearly religious nuts attacking the Daily show and another church of god guy.

I remember being there (no I really do) the group I hung with were major drug users and dealers and we thought that we were the college representatives. I guess not. Or perhaps we were at the time, but the Christians have actually survived.

UPDATE:




OK, here is a photo of the front door and part of the outside looking in at the rooms. It is now called Hamilton Hall, when I was there it was called The Dorm. Just like the team is now called the Timberwolves and when I was there they were called the Raiders, I think.

So anyway about six hours later. If you look to your right, no your right that would be the women's wing the men's wing was at a 90 degree angle back from the door and on the third floor of the men's wing lived the WSU men's basket ball team. That was as close as I got to a game, but I was a good friend of several of the players and also an even better friend of the team dealer. Well ok, he wasn't the only team dealer, but he was the dealer for most of the team. No drug dogs, no drug tests, just drugs. They were all more or less up for all the games.

The first two quarters the dorm was open at 10:00 p.m. men had to leave the women's side and women had to leave the men's side of the dorm (interestingly enough most did). What that meant in practice was that we would meet in the lounge and continue the many private parties as a public one until 1:00 or 2:00 unless it was the weekend when we would not stop until sometime Monday. I don't remember many (ok any) of us stopping to go to church.

Fuck You Hippy

I am now officially confused. My congressman, Zack Space has sent me an email that says that he will not vote for any cuts in Social Security Benefits and as part of that pledge, he promises to vote against raising the retirement age.

Now just two days ago I loudly announced for the two or three people who read this stuff that I will not vote in the election. I am kind of re-considering that position right now, at least as far as Space is concerned. He is a blue dog, but he took the right positions on possible the two most important domestic issues: Health Care (he voted against the final bill, he now claims that was because there was no single payer or Medicare buy in) and Social Security, that have been out there since the last election. His positions on other issues suck, but then so do those of his opponent. The opponent is a main line republican who won because at least three and maybe four (I don't care enough to look it up) teabag candidates fought it out among themselves for the really obviously crazy part of the primary vote.

In other (not really) news Obama takes time out at a $30,000.00 a plate dinner to tell his base that liberals are whiners and just like to bitch when they don't get their perfect world. This coming on the heals of Biden telling us that we have got to get enthused about the mid-terms. Not because we've got anything to be enthused about, but by-god because we've got to, damn it. And Dean telling us that we shouldn't get mad until after the elections.

The press then goes all gooey and giggles like three year old girls about the administration's hippy (I know the main stream spells it with an 'ie' instead of a 'y,' but fuck 'em, I was one and I'll spell it any way I want) punching.

I guess I can understand how the democratic party leaders would simply not understand how it is that some people want their leaders to really work for the issues they ran on. They have no firm or real beliefs so that they can turn on a dime, except they are not turning in their minds, they are simply following their buds and the money, something they have done all the time. Of course, if the party leaders look around at the people they hang with they can see what is most important to their people, now can't they? The masses who came to the rallies and worked and voted, why we are merely extras in the movie of the important, with definitely no speaking parts.

Loyalty to the leader or the party is valued above all so even those who were screwed over by this president will keep their mouths shut and go quietly (Van Jones/ Dawn Johnsen). If they do that then they will still have some influence, certainly more than the little people with those non-speaking parts, although not as much as the big money people. I remember when Clinton was president only a couple of mid-level people resigned in protest over some of his policies.

Well fuck.

Step Right Up Rubes

So Elizabeth Warren has been appointed a special advisor to our glorious leader and Geither. Whoop fucking eee. I will make a prognostication. She will be gone before the 2012 election season is even remotely underway and some plutocrats' suck up will be named the head of the bureau that is to protect us consumers, but won't.

Now if I could just figure out how to make some money out of this most recent round of fuck the average American and make liberals (or progressives, if that is what you want to be called so conservatives won't make fun of you too loudly) think that they are getting something out of Obama, that would be helpful, to me at least and isn't that what this great country is all about?

How About A Fix Instead

I would welcome some serious drugs for my extended personal use at this point in the history of my country. Something I can take and just drift away into some Cloud Cuckoo Land. I'm reading at Salon and Greenwald about how the President has said that if we don't kill that dude (Anwar Al-Awlaki) who has as far as I've been able to figure out not really done anything, but encourage people to, well not to put too fine a point on it, but to kill American citizens. Then we should maybe charge him with something and arrest him.

Now apparently that is a crime (Fire Crowded Theaters, etc. , a bad decision written by Holmes and expanded by the vile little fascists currently on the court) now. It just isn't a capital offense. Not that that seems to matter to most Americans and to no people with real power in the government (not I think "our," certainly not "my" government).

Therefore, when I say that I will not vote in the next election (probably for anybody, but certainly not in the congressional race) it is not because I have any illusions about who is running against the current office holder (Congressman Space), but that I have no illusions about any of the current office holders either.

I understand who came after Wiemar. But to be honest I just do not see how the current crop of corporate shills who call themselves democrats can lead this country in any direction except down, even if the down is not as steep as the teabagger or republican down, it is just as deep. So I guess really that I should just STFU and vote democratic and hope that I die of natural causes before the entire country really goes down the shitter.

Souls For Sale

It occurs to me that after the elections this November, if the republicans sweep, the exact same thing will happen that happened after the Massachusetts' senatorial election. Those at fault will be the DFHs who refused to vote for warmed over cat piss. Or the democrats in Obama's image as I like to think of them. Those people who sold their souls to our corporate masters. I would guess that is the difference between the republicans andthe democrats: the democrats have souls to sell, the republicans never had them to begin with.

Then I read at Crooks and Liars that the republicans are outspending the democrats almost 10 to 1 and I sware that it was only a few months ago that I was reading how the democrats were awash in fat cat cash which they were getting for the afore mentioned selling of souls on various issues such as health care and others too numerous to mention. They were going to be so flush with cash that they didn't need us peaons out there working for them, they were going to get by without us. What happened anyway? Where did all that money go?

So essentially the republicans aparently have their souls (if they have any, which is a real question) on permanent lease to the big boys, where as the democrats, no matter how much they really want be owned by the plutacrats who run our country can never be trusted to stay bought I guess.

I'm Just Living In A Bad Novel

This world would simply not make it as a movie or novel .Well, it might, but it would be called unbelievable and not worth watching or reading.

We've got a president who was elected to end a couple of pointless colonial wars control the wealthiest 1% put people back to work and give the average person a safe and secure old age not endangered by overwhelming medical bills. A small d democrat who immediately turns around and doubles down on two colonial wars and decides to protect the people who started those wars and everything that went with them. Domestically he cuts deals with large corporations so that money can be funneled directly from his supporters to these corporations against all that he claimed to be in favor of and what the people who voted for him really wanted. He does all this more or less openly or ineptly (secret meetings that turn out to be so unsecret that they become known within weeks of their occurring).

He fills his administration with people who are "very important people," but people who have been wrong in everything they have attempted or proposed in their public lives.

While all this is going on and during all the debates on his programs he personally strongly discourages his supporters from demonstrating in favor of what were thought to be his positions and therefore allows the opposition to grab and control the message and to whip up anti-administration fervor.

He makes no real attempt to pass legislation that will help the majority of people who voted for him. But then all the stops are pulled out to pass legislation that in its final form is widely hated by large numbers of his supporters.

Top this off with a fan base that essentially remains loyal no matter what the leader does and we have a very bad political novel or movie I think.

If I were to read this I would simply throw it down half way through and say unbelievable.

Labor Day?

Alicublog takes us through the hate that is being spewed out by the current crop of those who can be hired in this day and age to (so far only metaphorically) kill the other half of the working class. Not to suggest that those who write that crap are working class, but they would certainly not be considered part of the ruling class, at least not by the real ruling class. Rather, they are considered by the ruling class their lackeys. At any rate these are the people Jay Gould referred to when he made his rather nasty, but I suspect accurate comment.

So we start the day, called Labor, with a little remembrance of how bad things are right now (and were except for a few decades recently passed) and how both the political parties have joined together to screw the working man and woman, but by god we will see that you all get a three day weekend to drink beer and cook out. On the other hand, it does certainly follow the original concept of labor day as conceived by Grover Cleveland, another great progressive democratic politician.

Oh yes, please forget that other labor day that is celebrated by most of the rest of the world, on May 1, as a commemoration of a little something that happened in Chicago back in 1886 right around the time of our previously mentioned heroic democratic president's term in office:

So maybe it's a good idea to remember that in almost all the rest of the world that is what labor day is all about: the killing of union demonstrators who were asking for an eight hour day, by police thugs. Now they were good old American police thugs who were killing foreigners so we should be proud I guess about how far we've come, right?

In the mean time we go from Triangle to the most recent mine disaster in a non union coal mine in West Virginia.

Have a happy holiday, and don't hold your breath for card check, the unions worked and voted for the guy, and his co-president still says; "Fuck the UAW." Welcome to post class America we only have two classes here the very wealthy and those of us who are just too lazy. And if you are reading this (unless you are a computer owned by the NSA) you are definately not one of the very wealthy.

On the other hand I guess we could celebrate the birthday of Jane Addams something good out of Chicago.

Isn't the Hole Deep Enough Yet?

Was over at Balloon-Juice earlier to read a post and some comments on the post about, well the post was "we" (we being liberals, I guess) shouldn't worry as much as we are because really the democrats are quite possibly not going to lose as badly as is now thought in the up coming elections (this linked to another post, but anyone who is interested can go over and follow it there).

My very first thought, which I kept for a nano second, was whew, thank god maybe the democrats will keep control. But that thought was followed almost immediately by "Who cares?" I am somewhat embarrassed by the first thought, no matter how short it was, but I am proud that I almost immediately rejected that and moved on to the who cares.

I have no doubt that control by republicans and tea baggers will make things worse and perhaps worse than I can imagine right now. But, I also have no doubt that the people who are in control now will make things worse and I do think worse than I can imagine, although probably not quite as quickly as the republicans, but who knows.

My position is still that things will have to get worse (I used to think just some worse, but now I think a lot worse) before they will get better. And no matter who wins the next election things are going to get worse given the candidates out there. Of course, it is not at all assured that things will get better after they get worse. But that's all we've got.

UPDATE: So after I write this I go over to Greenwald for an all in one place explanation of why it doesn't matter, at least not in the sense of choosing between living in a plutocracy or kleptocracy, which seems to be the only choice we are being given anymore.

Empathy, I'll Show You Empathy

I'm reading Digby and I see that it appears as though the younger voters, those who really came out last time for Obama and the democrats do not apparently feel that democrats care and that perhaps republicans do. My first thought was that "Gee that's too bad." Then I thought: "Why is that bad?" And you know now that I think of why that is bad.

Several unions are out after my congressman, Zack Space's blood, but apparently it is because he voted against HCR. There are a lot of other reasons for liberals to oppose Space, but that does not seem to me to be one of them. Apparently, that is for many who back Obama the make or break. Very strange. This is what Obama and his people decided to make their crown jewel and on the whole it more than sucks, and that is what these unions are using as their criteria for opposing the guy.

What we see from the White House and Obama's people from Rham's "Fuck the UAW" to Gibbs saying that liberal critics need to be drug tested is a point of view and an attitude that simply excludes those of us who were expecting some real change. Further, it clearly shows that there is simply no hope that this administration is going to change their activities or point of view. I am now completely excluded and my ideas are not just excluded, but I am mocked.

To suggest as Joan Walsh does that Obama has accomplished a great deal is mind boggling. What is the great deal he has accomplished, unless destroying the democratic party was one of his goals, I'm not sure he should get a lot of props for his accomplishments, at least not from democrats or liberals (certainly not the same group any more).

There is simply nothing that this administration has done, nothing at all that has been truly liberal or progressive if the L word scares you. Nothing. Any help they have provided to middle class or poor people has simply been a bi-product of their propping up and helping the very wealthiest. They don't care about you and they don't care about me. They cannot even bring themselves to pretend to care, which if nothing else, one would expect politicians to do.

The only good thing is that there will be a lot of Quisling democrats going down the drain the sad thing is that they will simply be given really well paying jobs by their friends and end up wealthier than they would have been if they'd stayed on as tribunes of the people.

I Am Just Thrilled

Massive amount of serious (at least to the clients) stuff going on. I just feel that I have no time to do anything else.

However, on one case, today I get a Motion from the Prosecutor that says that: Oops, did we say that we want to place these two kids: one who is a cancer survivor who will need to be tested every six months and the other who is at seven a sexual predator whom Children Services has not bothered to get any psychological help even though they've known about it for at least nine months, with the sister who has two small children. We meant we didn't.

Combine that with an entry from the court that seems to say that Children Services can give me discovery any time they want (or not at all) and information that Children Services workers are telling people I'm a using drug addict (information that is essentially correct, except the using part) which I will be more than happy to share with the judge (who already knows) at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way, when it will be most damaging to Children Services. And it has been an interesting couple of weeks at the personal level.

UPDATE: Well, well, well. On the other case from hell involving Children Services my client got put into the mental ward, which is the best that could have happened to us at this point. Strange how things work in groups.

It's Not the End, It's Not the Beginning of the End, But It Might Be the End of the Beginning

So after the ticket for the Stop Sign (it is probably better not to run a stop sign if there is a cop sitting watching the intersection) and having CSB taking the four hour old kid we finally got a break.

Children Services pushed, I think, a little too far. We had an emergency hearing and a neighbor came to court and was pretty impressive. CSB was to go to her house and check it for safety issues to determine if they were able to care for the baby, with the understanding that the Mother would be there to assist, under supervision, to care for the kid. The house was safe as CSB admitted in their subsequent filing, but they had several other (new) reasons to deny these people temporary custody and delay so that they could put the kid where they wanted to. I got the GAL and the father's attorney to file, with me, objections to this determination by CSB. Further stuff was filed this morning by CSB and I suspect that is where they went too far. Essentially, they basically said fuck you judge we are going to do what we want.

Guess what? The judge said: Oh yeah, I'm the judge you do what I tell you not the other way around. We left the court room on Tuesday with everybody understanding that this kid would go to these people if they could show that their place was fit and they would protect him if necessary from the mother. They are fit and they will protect him.

UPDATE, FRIDAY: Well it couldn't last. Last night the neighbor went to get the kid and CSB lied to her telling her that the mother couldn't be around the child at all and that the father (of whom there were never any allegation concerning his mental health) could only be around the kid for brief periods with intense supervison. I had given my cell number to the parents and apparently the mother had written it down and then refused to give it to anyone. So I didn't find out about it today and it is now too late to correct it. The neighbors are now unsure of whom to believe. They heard the mother screaming in the back ground and are unsure if she might be violent.

So the end result is the kid goes where CSB wanted in the first place.

Is This Week Over Yet?

This has not been the most pleasant of weeks so far and yes I realize it is just Tuesday.

Monday I was set to have a hearing in Juvenile Court with my client who was almost 9 months pregnant with her eighth child. The other seven kids had been removed and placed about two hours away. My client is a paranoid delusional person who does not think that she has any problems. The hearing was a 9:00 a.m. at 8:30 the husband calls me to tell me that they have just had their eighth child.

I go to court and continue the case and see that Children Services are on their way to get an order to take the kid. I call my client who insists that the court has not authority to do this and will not do anything I suggest. By 1:30 the kid is in the custody of CSB and my client is again telling me how it is illegal to remove a nursing child from its mother.

One of my OVI guys comes in to tell me that the cops have been by his house and taken his license. In Ohio if one tests over a certain level then the driver's license is taken at that time "administratively" by the cops. In this case the guy gave a urine sample and it was sent away. When the cops got the sample they immediately went to his house and took the license, something that they have the legal right to do, but that I've never heard of being done before. It is worse because my guy is on Suboxon and apparently that is what put him over the limit, although he was never told not to drive while using it.

Meet with my accused felon who is probably moderately retarded, but who probably knows what he helped another guy do was wrong, so I try to figure out how to keep him out of jail.
Out to another two pre-trials, of course I go to the wrong court first and so am about 30 minutes late to the second court.

Back to my office where the mother of a client is weeping in the waiting room while being yelled at by a probation officer. Apparently because her son (the client's not the probation officer's) cut off his ankle bracelet and is on the run because the prosecutor was mean to him and (I know learn) possibly because he has traumatic brain injury from being beat up a year ago (no reason to let me know too early in the game, I guess). You have to understand that no body ever runs permanently away from this hick town. I once had a guy who committed a brutal assault and robbery on an older woman who ran all the way to Mexico and was back here in five (yes five) days.

Tuesday, started out with my meeting with the husband of my delusional client who is actually pretty normal from what I can tell (although a little weird religiously) and trying to talk to my client again. Luckily she didn't feel up to coming in to the hearing, so that was good. Talking to her is very strange, she is tangentially talking about the issue at hand but in a kind of parallel conversation. An hour trying to get something set up and then a two and a half hour hearing. It went as well as could be expected, perhaps we were able to get the baby to a neighbor's who would let the mom and dad stay there while this case drags on. The custodians of the other seven kids say that the mother would be allowed to visit the baby once a month if they had her.

Then over to muni court and a change of plea on a 21 year old 5 month pregnant woman who had been driving while well over two times the legal limit and had a wreck Her second OVI, in addition she had gotten out of prison for drugs in May.

Back to the office and a 45 minute phone conversation with a client I'll meet for the first time tomorrow on yet another Children Services case. These first meetings or conversations are very difficult because the client feels like they have to tell you everything about the case from their point of view and in no particular order. It is almost painful, but I haven't figured out a way to avoid it. After the initial interview I have a little background and I can start to figure out where to go from there.

Well, that's been my week so far. Came home to a nice dinner and then watched a Rumpole of the Bailey, a kind of bus mans holiday, I guess.

Hummm?

So Obama makes a speech about how we are all Americans and all have First Amendment Rights and therefore we should be cool about those folks building Cordoba House (who just happen to be Muslims) you know. It starts me wondering why it is that both Obama and Bush II seem to have the same position on our relationship with the Muslim world in general and also have similar positions on immigrants. to this country. Both of them seem (or at least seemed) to have a pretty good position on both those issues. Of course, Obama had to, within less than 24 hours, walk back his statement on Cordoba House. To clarify and to make clear that he thinks they have the right, but it is still kind of icky for them to build it in Manhattan. (Calling Henry Lewis Gates.)

I figure that right now I'm not up to, once again, trying to figure out why Obama is such a worthless piece of chicken shit when it comes to backing any position he takes that is even remotely liberal (such as supporting the First Amendment a position which doesn't seem to me to be particularly liberal). The guy is an empty suit (which isn't exactly true, since he seems to be willing to go to bat for large corporations and corrupt and reactionary politicians, but it's all I've got time for right now).

But what I want to try to understand is why these two guys who we will have had the unfortunate experience of having as our presidents for at least twelve years and who support nothing that doesn't put money in the pockets of the wealthiest 1% or maybe all of the wealthiest 5% of our (or is it the world's) population, while screwing the poor and what is left of the middle class. Why these two guys take what appear to be progressive or liberal positions concerning illegal immigrants and our relationship with the Muslim world (that is: Muslims aren't our enemies, certain people who are terrorists and who just happen to be fringe Muslims are our enemies).

So I thought, is it possible that on these two issues these two guys could have independently come to thee right and most just conclusion independently and simultaneously because it is the right thing, kind of like Darwin and Wallace or Leibniz and Newton.

Nah.

Money.

Look there are millions of immigrants in this country working their behinds off for significantly less than citizens, they are essentially non people. They get on a track to become citizens they will have to continue to keep a job and they will have to continue to do what their bosses want at a lower wage then all most all citizens are willing to work for. Who do they work for and who makes major profits off them? The richest 1% or maybe the richest 5%. Who are these wealthy people friends of? Oh come on.

Muslims control vast amounts of wealth and sit on huge amounts of oil that we want and need and our friends who run the great corporations that get this oil to us need the friendship of these Muslims. Well really the friendship of the Muslim rulers (don't forget that the Bush family is really very close personal friends with several Saudi oil chieftains), but you can't really tell the great unwashed that we should be friendly with only the wealthiest 1%, even Americans would eventually catch on to what is going on if you tried that.

So maybe it is like Darwin and Wallace or Newton and Leibniz, after all.

The Mask Slips (Some More)

Gibbs. Went over and read some stuff on Pandagon where most of the commentators are angry, but will still vote. The difference is I won't vote.

Gibbs won't walk back what he said and clearly if it mattered to his boss, he would be fired or apologizing left and right. Democrats are in a position they do not find particularly comfortable. The people at Pandagon seem to think that if they simply reason with the prez. and his people and the elected democrats they will eventually listen, or that for some reason they want to listen. I see it all the time when commentators complain that the democrats or Obama have caved on some issue. That point of view implies that the politician[s] in question had some sort of desire, no matter how small, to do something different than they ended up doing. One sees it in the discussion of HCR, the stimulus, and now Financial Reform among other things.

For whatever reason the people who are elected democrats do not want to do democratic things, or at least things that were considered to be democratic by the likes of FDR, Truman, JFK, and LBJ (with the exception of colonial and neo-colonial wars or opportunity). But the people who (still) vote democratic expect them to do democratic things. So they have to say that they will do these democratic things to get elected. To get people to vote for them.

Once in power they feel free to simply ignore us. When we irritate them a little too much they get pissy, they simply consider themselves the rulers of this country, in much the same way Louie XIV was (one can hope it is more like Louie XVI, but don't bet on it). Why when they believe these things they run as democrats instead of republicans is something I'm not sure I completely understand. But there you have it.

The other part of this strange situation are the people who think of themselves a liberal who will continue to vote for them and support them even after getting screwed over again and again. Because the other guy would be worse, maybe sooner rather than later, is all I can figure. I guess at my age I should be hoping to see someone not quite as crazy as say Palin as prez. so that we can drag out the final death throws of this empire until I have naturally shuffled off this mortal coil. But I really would like to see this mess blow up in my contemporaries faces, unfortunately at the best in that situation, I would be collateral damage.
UPDATE: Well this is even more interesting now isn't it, more bullshit to confuse the easily bamboozled.

All Dressed Up And No Place To Go

So the trial didn't happen today. All dressed up and no where to go as the judge told the jury. The prosecution made an offer to my guy he couldn't refuse. They offered him two weekends instead of fifteen days straight.

I thought that we might win this case and I told the guy that, what he heard, of course was the "might." All judges charge rent on the court room and I would expect that if we lost then my guy would have gone for thirty to forty-five days at least. I understand his thinking. I could see myself sitting next to him and saying: "Well, I really did think we'd win, sorry about that." I suspect that he could too.

The case was an OVI (that's DUI in the other 49 states) along with several different charges of driving under suspension. This was my guys first in six years and he blew the "super level" above .17. On the other hand they did not catch him driving.

He was at home and had had about ten beers between noon and 8:00 p.m. and then he ate. At about midnight one son called from where ever and was clearly wasted. The family told him not to drive home and then they called back and realized he was on the way. After a wait, and long after the son should have been home client and other son drove off to look for him. The son driving. A small town they knew which way he was going. They drove by a wreck and recognized it as the first son. The son who was driving was so freaked that he became really unable to drive and they stopped and client took the wheel. They drove back and dropped the second son off at the wreck and client went on home.

At home client says that he grabbed a whiskey bottle and took a serious swig, then he took a mixed drink his wife said was her's and had at least a couple of shots in it and chugged it. Then daughter him back to the wreck and the cops recognized him as the guy who had driven by about 10 minutes before and arrested him. I think that everyone agreed that he had the defense of necessity for his driving, which does let him out of the driving under suspension charges, but who would believe that he would have downed 3 or 4 shots in ten minutes? On the other hand I have done just that.

At any rate it was his call.

Early on in the video the cop was having a very hard time pulling the guy up on his computer. He kept putting in the guy's social security number and nothing would come up. Finally, my guy said: "I've never had this much trouble getting arrested before." Well maybe you had to be there.

How I Spent My Summer

Well OK, not the entire summer, just the last two weeks, which should be culminating in a Jury Trial this week, unless they come up with a much better offer.

One thing most people don't understand is that almost no cases go to trial any more, certainly almost none go to jury trial. Too expensive and they take up too much time. On the other hand the Judge is pretty excited since they have just opened the new municipal court building with the new trial areas so it should be interesting for all of us.

In the mean time I'm still slogging away on the various custody cases from hell and last weekend I was working as a co-chair at an Arts Festival here in Y-Bridge City. Well, really the whole thing ended in working for the entire time the festival was open, but to be honest the work before the festival was almost entirely my co-chair, otherwise known as my suffering better half.

In the mean time I'm looking at the disaster that is the ongoing economy and the liberal/progressives (should there be " " around that?) willingness to continue to back the slime ball in the White House and congress. I shall return later. I think maybe.

Wikileaks Again

Ooopsie. Note to self before one opens one's mouth to pontificate on facts (as opposed to pontificating on one's own opinions, I guess) Google for a few minutes to make sure of those facts. Point in case: number of foreign troops in Afghanistan. It took me five minutes this morning to find out the answer. I think I should have done it before I went and commented at Lawyers, Guns and Money last night on one of a series of posts by one of the people there concerning Wikileaks 90,000+ document dump. She was opposed and busy attacking him because he (according to her and her unnamed sources and other people and their unnamed sources) put people in Afghanistan in mortal danger because with only some work the Taliban could find out who ratted them out and then exact retribution against them and their family. So the question she raised was should Assange be prosecuted. Of course, she thought he should be.

There then began a very heated thread which included the argument that he isn't a United States citizen, so we really had no legal grounds (as though that has stopped us in the past). The response was that other countries including Australia have troops there so they could prosecute him, since he is an Australian citizen. I then said they only have a few hundred. Which it turns out is obviously wrong (see above). Now the point was that in relation to the USofA they have few, and that is true (see above again), but my entire point is seriously weakened because I didn't bother to do the little research necessary to give the correct figures. Further, that they are there because we want them there and they are doing this mainly to give us cover and so in the end they don't really care, the governments I mean.

Which gets me to my main point. There seem to be five lines of attack on Wikileaks and this specific leak: First, it's old news nothing new here so move along, and besides that everybody already knows their major points; Second, it's unimportant (which may just be a corollary of the first); Third, it endangers our Afghan allies (since the documents stop at around the end of 2009 they can't really argue that it endangers our troops, although there seemed to be some attempt to do that early on, but that appears to have petered out); Fourth, that it isn't doing any good anyway; Fifth, Assange is a media hog and not very nice and ugly, too (I would have thought that was not a particularly compelling argument, but it does seem to be repeated quite a bit).

The third point seems to be the one that the poster is flogging at L,G & M. Perhaps I have been reading too many novels that have flash back sections to the Second World War, but Quisling was executed wasn't he? Not to confuse the Taliban with the freedom fighters of WWII, but when a person's country is invaded It is natural for him (in this case not her) to resist the invader and to consider those who support that invader a traitor deserving of the kind of punishment a traitor should receive. At any rate to reveal the truth which may lead to people getting killed because the truth was revealed, is in this line of argument something one must not do.

The fact that people are getting killed in a war that it appears that we can't win so we've got to stay there forever, does not seem to be something that people who make that kind of argument consider. So who is going to get killed: our minions or the various people we are killing right now (along with fewer of our minions). In passing I'd suggest that the only government that has provided a good deal of freedom to women in Afghanistan was the one the Soviet Union put in place and we helped to destroy with our allies who turned into (or in all probability were always) the Taliban.

In the end her position seems to come down to the belief my government is just right and there are certain things that I as a citizen should not know and therefore my government will prevent me from getting that information. Any one who reveals any of those government secrets can be accused of doing injury to out country or our allies or someone or thing and should be punished to teach us all that this must not be done. In a freedom loving way of course. This does not seem to be a particularly viable political theory for a real functioning democracy or representative republic. That may explain its use here and now.

More Nihilism

Crooks and Liars has a post up about NetRootsNation in Vegas and about the divide there between those who see Obama as mostly a sellout and those who apparently applaud him for his "realistic pragmatic" approach to governing. I started to read the comments and then realized that I had a ten year old DVD of Midsomer Murders to watch.

I went back this morning, and saw that there were nearly 200 comments and since I generally don't bother with threads that are over about 75, I'm probably not going to bother to read all the comments.

The post is a "one the one hand there are some people who think, but on the other hand there are other people who think differently" kind of thing. I guess it is interesting to see someone admitting that there is that kind of divide, but all I have to do is to go to Balloon-Juice and then to Firedoglake to see that kind of fight going on between one kind of liberal and another kind. Particularly, if one reads the comments sections.

One of the irritants of that post, is that if one goes to B-J and reads those comments there are a great deal of gratuitous swipes at FDL, but not so many the other way around. Although to be fair (and why should I do that?) I haven't done any real statistical stuff, it is more anecdotal, so I guess I could be wrong, but I doubt it. So I'm saying that it is a false equivalency and more or less like the MSM: He said, She said.

Essentially, I think that what is going on is that those who have put their trust in Obama and the Democrats have to believe, no matter what they do, that their trust has not been misplaced. The longer they refuse to admit what is going on the less likely they are to look at Obama's policies in a rational and critical light and therefore they continue to insist that we must support him, no matter what. That is what happened with Clinton after all. After NAFTA after GATT after gutting welfare leftists still went all out to back him in the 1996 election. I suspect that 2012 will be a version of "second verse same as the first" if one considers the first verse to be Bill Clinton. Whether the re-election of the president will be the outcome is another question.

Remember that the republicans are crazy and corrupt where the democrats are only corrupt. I think that those who continue to back Obama and the democrats think that is a good thing.

So all I can say is: Nihilists of the world unite.

UPDATE: So as soon as I write about the BS along comes Balloon-Juice.

More Economic

So I'm watching this economics thing, that is I mean our economic continuing melt down in a kind of goulish sort or way. Kind of like a slow and cheaply made slasher movie. Those who are in the know, or rather those who are in positions of power and who belive in the all powerful elites (you know those who got us into this situation: 9% uncmployment and the housing bubble and stock market crash) insist that we must not spend on the unemployed and limit our spending on well gee just about everything, except wars. Also we gotta maintain the tax cuts for the wealthiest 10% because if we don't well then they will all go Galt, don'tcha know.

The first chart being the actual deficit and what causes it, although of course it really isn't important in any real way at this point, because the inflation rate is so low and the unemployment rate is so high. So our government can spend a lot of money and print a lot of money and there will be little or no effect on the rate of inflation, or at least the effect will be so small that it would not matter in the scheme of things, but that isn't what our betters are telling us. The other aspect of that is to look at the above chart and see where the deficit is coming from. The wars and the tax cuts for the wealthy. It doesn't seem to be an area to discuss for anyone who matters. Hell even Noble Prize winners are ignored.

Of course the real problem here as far as I'm concerned, is that I'm one of those teenagers who has just had sex and smoked a joint (metaphorically, of course), so I'm next in line for a visit from the slasher.

Oh: more good news from the ST. Louis Fed:




A point being that we are getting ourselves into a position where those of my age and only slightly younger are simply not going to be able to get jobs, ever.

Wikileaks

OK, not much here, but I think I would be remiss if I didn't link to Wikileaks document dump today. Comment

Whatthehell, whatthehell

Drifting back into the living here. Finished with a lot of stuff and am starting to look at the Shirley Sherrod thing.

It is all over the net, but it does look like the MSM has decided that in reality the real victims here were Brietbart and Fox, not really Ms. Sherrod at all, I guess. The other interesting part of this is that the right and left blogs haved staked out their positions: Right wingers, it is the disgusting Obama administration and the NAACP that really screwed over Ms. Sherrod and not Brietbart; left wingers it is Brietbart and Fox and the rest of the noise machine of the right, not the Obama people or the NAACP.

As I've said elsewhere I, personally, have enough contempt for all of them, and in fact the only person who seems to have come out of this whole is Ms. Sherrod. Conservatives are fond of the parable or fable of the Frog and Scorpion. "You knew my nature." While liberals prefer the more modern version: Animal House: "You screwed up, you trusted us."

How the NAACP and Obama could have jumped in accused both Sherrod and in the NAACP's case their own members of racism is nearly beyond me. Especially, since this guy is the same guy that did the ACORN video, which was later proven to be nearly totally lies. But buy into it they did. There does seem to be a cowardliness that simply overlays the progressive community in a way that didn't exist when I was younger. I do not know what it is, but there you have it. These scum on the right have a sort of power over the minds of the "responsible" left. To cow or frighten them into groveling supplication when in fact, nothing untoward was ever done.

Trying To Get Heads Out Of Asses

So this is a nice place to review a lot of the arguments concerning the reason that the Keynesian's are right and those who drove our economy (and by our I mean the entire world's) into the shitter are wrong (again?, still? continuously?). It appears as though Japan is the waive of the future even though they screwed up their economy for a decade by following just these policies. Of course it also shows (looking back at the Japanese) just how stupid the electorate in a liberal and highly educated democracy really can be.

The businesses will spend millions/trillions to.........do what exactely? Defeat this president and this congress, neither of whom has done much, but enrich these very business and the voters will lap it up. The three quotes that come to mind are: Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public, Mencken; There's a sucker born every minute, not apparently P.T. Barnum, and Never give a sucker an even break, W.C. Fields.

Those three saying taken together could and probably are engraved in gold somewhere in every corporate boardroom in the country. Certainly, the major political parties must have them some where engraved on their souls (if they have any). Although, given that I started by pointing to the Japanese perhaps I am being a little too parochial here and just not giving enough credit to the world influence of these ideals.

Happy 4th I Think

I think that this is a great song, like Bruce says. I would have posted the version with him and Pete Seeger at the inaugural, but that was a little too painful remembering the hope in the air and seeing what has become of it.

I have never seen a man given as great a power and expected to do real good with it come down as Obama has on the wrong side of almost every issue presented him. And before anyone says it, no I don't think that every thing he has done is 100% wrong, but there is nothing that he has done that is even close to being even three quarters right.