the defeatists!

Let’s all drink to the death of the clowns with Ana Marie Cox’s new band, The Fifth Woman!

 Years ago, a wise tribal elder -- while that's cliche, most of them are batshit crazy ignorant fools, but Dave was anything but -- told me that as the tribal chairman, he didn't think anything was true until he heard it three times from three separate people on three separate occasions. So, Ana Marie Cox is definitely on to something when she Tweeted "Totally naming my new band "The Fifth Woman." I've already volunteered to play lead guitar, but would step aside to rhythm for AGI or Frederick. ( I admit to envisioning something awful, Nerds on Ice or something...)

Anyone surprised at the unraveling of the Penn State Football program needs to get out more. While jokes about lesbian gym teachers are really common in the canon of American locker room lore and humor, the homo erotic aspects of men’s sports is something that people don’t pay as much attention to…as they should. It’s not really about sex of course, unless sex is the exercise of power over the weaker and the intimidated. Since it’s not, in a healthy situation, the problems for Penn State are not peculiar to Happy Valley. Paterno ran a pretty clean program over the decades, but it was clean from a NCAA point of view. He trusted people, and they betrayed him. And, when the top ultimately blew off, everyone in the vicinity got scalded.

Which is one reason the Herman Cain thing is pure farce instead of tragedy, and the Penn State thing tragedy over farce. Again, if you think that in the late 90s sexual harassment was chained by the reaction to the Clarence Thomas thing, you need to stay away from Bridge salesmen. I always made certain I differentiated as a manager when I was dealing with these issues and will continue to do so should I unfortunately find myself having to do so in the future – language, looks, and proximity are probably harassment; physical contact is assault. If HERB Cain actually touched any of these folks, it was assault; it was always assault; and the self-righteous should realize it before someone does it to them, their sons or their daughters. Or, if Rick Santorum is around, their pets.

 Seriously, how Rush Limbaugh and his ilk can think that defending Cain by comparing his situation to Clarence Thomas’ situation is a sign of ignorance.  Clarence and I were contemporaries and acquaintances at Holy Cross, and he was a straight arrow there…largely, I think, from fear. He was a poor, black scholarship student with outsize ambitions and frankly, not the academic skills needed for what he was doing let alone what he wanted to do. Justice Thomas surely benefited from Affirmative Action Programs and his hypocrisy on that point is fascinating. But, the amount of work he had to do to be competitive enough to get the special consideration to get into Holy Cross or Yale Law School, the concentration and effort required along with working to make money for things like books and clothes and his leadership role in the Black Student Union at the Cross makes the point. He earned the consideration that he received. He then cunningly forgot the earning part, and signed on with the slime who think that any special consideration is obviously wrong. Unless it’s for athletes or legacies…

So, Thomas’ social and political views shifted while he was in Law School. Instead of being one of the oppressed, he decided to become one of the oppressors. I don’t think there was any OMEGA-style initiation ceremony into the Yale Law School version of Skull and Bones. Rather, he sucked up to conservatives who put him in place to reap the benefits of being a “good black,” one of “OUR BLACKS,” to steal a phrase from Anne Coulter, banshee of the RRRIghtwingnut RRRRevolution. He succeeded. Then the Bush administration decided to do something awful. And, they did…

And, it came out that Clarence had possibly been doing awful things. He aggressively denied it and his various sponsors told us about how wonderful he was. The Democrats folded lest anyone think they were racist – about as racist an approach as possible to the situation – and he was confirmed. But, the jury has been out now for over 20 years on whether or not he treated Ms. Hill inappropriately, and in today’s climate, he would not be confirmed. Talk all you want about a high tech lynching, but given his lack of sophistication when he was doing the things he was accused of doing, I suspect that he’d have been sunk in today’s environment. We are, to some extent, less naïve about sexual assault and harassment. I’m sure Poppy Bush believes he was totally innocent; I suspect that Barbara, on the other hand, was never so convinced.

So, it’s been what, two weeks? A week? Ten days? More and more stuff will come out about Cain and at some point in time he will explode. The Coulters, Ingrams and Limbaughs won’t express dismay when he withdraws to spend more time with his family or whatever; they’ll let it roll off their backs like cinnamon off Yak Balls, and go on to the next logical contradiction  and crime against humanity. And we’ll see what happens next.

In 1981, I was a staff NCO on a battalion staff. Our commander was a guy I called Sunny Jim. Charismatic, relaxed, leading from out front, total wildman – we were a loose group, but we were great at our jobs. Anyway, some genius decided to send a Hollywood flack to our battalion to get some insight for a TV ripoff of Private Benjamin. (Not the TV Private Benjamin but another approach to that early 80s American version of Antigone.) Anyway, while taking him around to meet soldiers and see what they did, we discovered some horrendous problems with sexual harassment and assault in our line companies. The three or four of us who were escorting this guy adjourned to the golf club bar and tried to figure out what to do. The colonel joined us and said that “It’s not your problem, it’s my problem…” and turned it over to the Brigade IG immediately. Later, when one of his junior officers knocked up a clerk in the headquarters, his response was “This is my fault, it’s my command climate, and it’s my ass..” and he went to the Brigade and immediately submitted his retirement and asked to be administratively relieved immediately. He took responsibility, held himself accountable, and tried to do the right thing. Now, he had allowed and encouraged a command climate more appropriate to SAS than to a Signal Battalion in the US with 40 percent women. He was wrong. But, when he discovered it, he did what he needed to do; and then, feeling dishonored, stepped aside.

In the overall scheme of things, something that happened 20 years ago to some obscure leaders in an obscure base in an obscure time isn’t that great, but in terms of how to do the right thing when confronted by a situation totally out of control, Sunny Jim gave us a great example. Now, in JoePa’s place, the situation was similar. Except, he didn’t do what great leaders do – he didn’t properly evaluate the threat when he learned of the accusations, and he accepted the coverup. In chain of command bureaucracies, there’s a tendency to think ACTION PASSED/ACTION COMPLETED. No, not in a case like one of possible homosexual rape of a minor in the shower of the football team locker room. How out of control does someone have to be to try that?  How much of the response – or lack thereof – was based on a combination of good old boy networking and “We’re Penn Fucking State and nobody will believe that!” Well, unfortunately we probably will. It’s happened too many times before.

Well, unfortunately, we’ve learned that often it is true and always has to be taken seriously. Power does odd things to people – Herman Cain is not a giant of American industry  the way that a Jack Welch or a Joe Paterno is. (If you don’t think DIV I NCAA Big Ten, top tier football is an American industry, go find a cloistered monastery someplace, because you have no business wandering around in the cruel realities of life.) Burger King? Godfather’s Pizza? The National Restaurant Association? His rather bizarre motivational speaker business? The guy is a dweeb who became a successful businessman before drifting into irrelevancy…until he decided that somehow he needed to run for President. Why – did America need his stack of platitudes like a pile of his pizza on a plate? Did Trump teach him how to eat pizza?

But, no one stood up to him when he bullied women. No one stands up to him when he bullies people now. He’s a loudmouthed, abrasive and probably profoundly ignorant bullshit artist. There’s some tragedy in the Penn State thing, and there’s a lot of tragedy in the Clarence Thomas story. But, the Herman Cain story is pure farce…Othello, as played by Jackie Gleason in blackface and high heels, with Jason Bateman as Iago and Victoria Jackson as Desdemona... 

 

 

Hop aboard the dipshit express and fall in the pit full of vipers...

My brothers are all pretty much convinced that the absurdity of the last election was no big deal -- the Republicans are idiots, the Democrats are idiots, most Americans are idiots and what the hell, AXE, go play some guitar and drink so coffee and chill out, a little, ok? Well, some of my brothers in the Defeatists and assorted associated Malcontents have children. The spouse and I will leave behind...cats. If that. If I wake up in ten or twelve years and find myself spouseless and catless, I'm setting fire to everything and heading for the nearest ice flow. There's some dignity in that...I'm not killing myself, I'm just going to go watch the scenery.

However, if you've bothered to have kids, you probably care about what their future is...or, what the fuck is wrong with you? Seriously, if you aren't interested in the future of the country, the economy, the world why are you having children? Trust me, condoms are cheaper than kids. If you're going to make that sort of investment in the future, you probably ought to care about the future.

Once again, Paul Krugman who plays David Hume to my Immanuel Kant so often, provides a bit of clarity on his blog. The Republicans are proposing rules changes in the house that will make it easier to vote legislation to cut taxes while harder to add programs and far more difficult than at present to raise taxes. In other words, they're saying that so long as the deficit grows through generosity to people who don't need it, things are fine with owing all that money. The only way to cut the deficit is to cut spending...In other words, the deficit hawks are really lackies and pigeons for the nonsensical ideology of starve the beast. Krugman call them frauds. I think he's generous...being a fraud requires that you have the sense to pour piss out of a boot and not all over your own feet and rug. You pour it over some other guys feet and rug. Since most of these guys and gals aren't that rich, they're pouring it all over their own feet, their own rugs, and their children's cots.

In addition to the rules issue, the Republicans are floating the idea of passing a law to allow the states to declare bankruptcy, with the requirement that the bankruptcy judges will be prohibited from raising taxes or requiring the states to do so. The theory appears to be that being required to cut expenditures will result in the necessary re-negotiation of things like union contracts, pension agreements and so on. This will reduce the burden of those things -- the good faith and credit of the states -- on the state governments. Of course, the pensioners of New Jersey and Florida will find themselves destitute...however, as Antony says of Greeks in Rome, "Fuck 'em."

I expect that I will head off tomorrow to get the car serviced and while I wait, I may wander over to see the Coen Brothers version of True Grit. I was kind of indifferent toward it -- I always considered the Duke Wayne version a less than wonderful experience, and while I'd enjoyed the novel, I wasn't going to spend the money. However, Stanley Fish's column in the Times this morning has made me want to at least consider the argument, especially in line with the Krugman column. While Fish begins with and sees a meditation in the movie on the disconnect between heroism and virtue, I found the conflict between the issues of fairness and grace to be key in exciting my interest.

Mattie gives a fine (if terrible) example early in the novel when she imagines someone asking why her father went out of his way to help the man who promptly turned around and shot him. “He was his brother’s keeper. Does that answer your question?” Yes it does, but it doesn’t answer the question of why the reward for behaving in accord with God’s command is violent death at the hands of your brother, a question posed by the Bible’s first and defining event, and unanswered to this day.

In the novel and in the Coens’ film it is always like that: things happen, usually bad things (people are hanged, robbed, cheated, shot, knifed, bashed over the head and bitten by snakes), but they don’t have any meaning, except the meaning that you had better not expect much in this life because the brute irrationality of it all is always waiting to smack you in the face. This is what happens to Mattie at the very instant of her apparent triumph as she shoots Tom Chaney, her father’s killer, in the head. The recoil of the gun propels her backwards and she falls into a snake-infested pit. Years later, as the narrator of the novel, she recalls the moment and says: “I had forgotten about the pit behind me.” There is always a pit behind you and in front of you and to the side of you. That’s just the way it is.

The pit, for Mr. Boehner and friends, is the disconnect between what they're saying and what they're going to do. I don't know if they will be able to totally fuck up the tax code or overwhelm the Senate and the President. I suspect not -- John Boehner is too much of a politician to want to have eveything go totally south on his watch. Because, he wants another watch. However, he's at least proposing a score to march to that has traps for him. If he's able to pull the trigger, utterly slash spending while cutting revenue from the only people who will be able to afford to pay it, we're fucked. And, he may not have any choice...assumming the Democrats can overcome the tendency to move toward the middle of the divide, then we will have two years of nothing. However, if they do what is in fact natural in negotiations and in governance -- grant a concession to get a concession -- we'll have chaos. I already expect to see no infrastructure, no education funding, no increase in benefits for the 99ers, no jobs bills, no further aid for Veterans. Expect programs for seniors, children and infants to be slashed. If States are allowed to declare bankruptcy, expect greater and greater problems. These people are threatening the nation, so that their constituency of nutcases and uberrich can buy more crystal chandeliers. If the states, in some pattern of randomness start declaring bankruptcy, what exactly happens to the good faith and credit of the United States? The idea that a bankruptcy court will not be able to force a state to increase revenue -- another idea floated in this bankruptcy thing -- is just irrational nonsense. If you have a deficit that you are concerned about, you try to control your spending and to increase your income. Slashing spending is actually easier than increasing your income, because increasing income requires thought and making smart choices.

If John Boehner and Eric Cantor and Michelle Bachmann decide to do something totally nonsensical, we will be forced to depend on the good sense of the Republican Senators in conjunction with the Democrats and the courage of Barrack Obama as president and the wisdom of the Supreme Court to prevent it.

See why Crusader AXE is worried? Well, the Huntsman family and the Koch brothers will all get to buy more yachts and collections of pornography...and hell, human organs. Why not? Let the rich stockpile livers and kidneys from cops, firemen, teachers, librarians, farmers, and soldiers. What the hell -- they're not rich, and they're not needed for these people.  Boehner will be able to afford some Merlot to swill while the Capital goes up in flames while Jeanne Schmidt and Michelle Bachmann play canasta in the Lincoln Monument and shantytown...

Taking a dip in the cleansing waters of ice cold intellectual purity

One of my brothers alerted me to this post over at IOZ. I was impressed, and I dislike Frank Rich's smarmy feel almost as much as IOZ, so it seemed like a reasonable thing to do to import the link and then cross-post my comment. Well, it seems like a reasonable and lazy thing to do. Visit Who is IOZ and check Monsieur's current bete noire...

My comment at IOZ:

I am always glad to take a dip into the cleansing waters of IOZ's thought. It's been stunning to me that Obama has been called socialist for embracing a number of positions somewhere to the right of JFK. Looking at the numbers, I find it equally amazing that materially, the world was far more equitable and hopeful in 1960 than it is today. There was a lot wrong, no doubt, but fellow alum's Michael Harrington's The Other America did get somethings to happen that were good for the poor. I think the problem is that the spiritual/existential/social is not directly tied to the material. Thus, a gay closeted man in 1957 might have felt more financially secure what with the social safety net and basic expectations of near lifetime employment; at the same time, looking at another guy could result in being beaten up, arrested and/or ruined by gossip and innuendo. I suppose the beating can still occur -- not being gay, I have no experience here; and, we all risk arrest anytime we step outside the police's acceptable range of deviance. Gossip and innuendo can still happen of course. So, basically, nothing has changed since 1956 except we're all in danger of being fired, dispossessed and driven to a life of migrant farm working in West Virgina...or some other fate that is merely a prelude to death.

So, fifty years on all we've lost is hope. Existentially, that is...

On a totally unrelated note, glad to see that while IOZ still leads in articulate insanity and argument, you have some of the same admirers like Mac Cosmetics grace the site. I'm glad to see he contributes as much to you as he does to The Defeatists on-going dialogue with a evil and unhappy multiverse.

I do want to acknowledge that MAC COSMETICS also seems to read and enjoy IOZ. I recommend, MAC, that you visit Protean Wisdom, the Guys from Area 51 and of course, Shakespeare's Sister as well as Monsieur's site and ours...

Clearest statement of our debacle yet...

If you need bipartisan coalitions involving the president, the majority of the house and 60 senators of wildly ungovernable dispositions to agree to get anything done, the only things you will accomplish are tax cuts and the occasional war -- Gail Collins

Any score less than a B should spell defeat! But, it won't...unless...

"Support the troops!" "Care for the VETS!" and yet, here we are. The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America is a reasonably non-partisan group and has published a legislative score care of its legislative lobbying and then looked who voted for what. Crusader AXE was not surprised at the lousy scores posted by lots of Republicans, but was kind of amazed at the extent of the correlation. In Arizona, for example, both Senators scored D. Really, John McCain. Linsdsey Graham scored a C and his buddy, Mr. Teaparty DeMint scored a solid F. Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning both scored Ds. Only 3 of the 57 Democrats posted  a score below a C in the Senate was Russ Feingold (who manages to piss everybody off), Carl Levin, and Arlen Specter who was a Democrat for about 60% of this congress.

It would be interesting to compare the ratings of the Senators in the IAVA poll against a more right wing organization. It's hard to be an upstart organization for Vets and be totally nonpartisan but IAVA tries. But, take the Club for Growth -- they rank people by their adherance to their ideology. Since Vets  Download Comparison of Senators , CFG -IAVA does it on a more specific set of issues, we might see more mix than perhaps between other rankings. Well, we don't...Of the people with the top scores from the Club for Growth, all were Republicans, 1-15. Of the bottom scores, 86-100, all were Democrat, except Arlen Spector who was a Republican since Nixon. Four of the Club for Growth's folks top folks were Vets; four of the Club for Growth's bottom folks were Vets. One of the bottom 15 for the Club was rated by the IAVA as INC; however, Senator Al Franken of Minnesota is trending toward a B, and has voted with the Vets on 6 of 9 issues.

The lowest score of the Club for Growth's Top Performers was 70.16; the highest score for the bottom 15 was 3.01. Conversely, the highest score from IAVA for a Club for Growth Top Performer was C; two of the bottom 15 were rated C by the IAVA, two were rated A and the remainder were rated B. A couple of other interesting trends: one Democrat in a tough race went from an A+ rating to an A (Barbara Boxer) while another went from an A to an A+ (Blanche Lincoln).

Another interesting trend is the VOTE FOR/VOTE AGAINST TOTALS from the IAVA. In the House, I looked for names I'd recognize on the lists. Since Nancy Pelosi doesn't  vote as Speaker of the House unless there is a tie, I really don't know a lot of the Democratic House Members. So, this is totally subjective and perhaps odd, but I would guess that the vast majority of the Democratic Members were listed as C or higher. In the House, since they babble more than Democrats in the Senate, I was kind of stunned at the Republicans on the list that IAVA explains as "These legislators must improve their voting records if they are to legitimately claim that they support Iraq and Afghanistan veterans." Such great patriots as Michelle Bachmann, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Joe Barton, Roy Blunt, Dan Burton, Darrell Issa, Ron Paul Jean Schmidt and Louis Gomhert all claim to totally for Veterans and the Troops, but scored an F. Not a D, but an F. Now, a few Dems are probably sprinkled in here, I suspect but the only one I recognized was John Conyers of Michigan, who is a somewhat unrepentant leftist. Still...aren't these the people talking about impeaching the Senate and supporting oddball candidates who wander around in Nazi uniforms, worrying about GAYS, GODS, GUNS and "unAmerican congressional members," and so on? Oh, and apologizing to BP? Really -- the district that Joe Barton represents in Texas bleeds RED, WHITE and BLUE as well as Gray and AGGIE Maroon. Joe Barton hates the troops...And, Ron Paul? Seriously...Ron Paul? At least he's consistent. Not unlike Conyers and Feingold, he's not going to pander to a voting group but a D? On Vets issues?

Similar and starker in the Senate. There are nine members of the IAVA's A Team, defined by IAVA as "These legislators showed a consistent commitment to support our troops. On behalf of all veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we say thank you." All 9 are Democrats, and several -- Boxer, Lincoln and Wyden are in tough to relatively tough races. Some of these folks have nothing to gain electorally by pushing a pro-Veterans agenda. Christin Gillabrand and Chuck Schumer are from New York; the big concentration of veterans in New York are upstate and as a dumbass Irish guy from Syracuse, I know the liklihood of people in upstate going overwhelmingly for the Democrats. Gillabrand is not having a hard time against her opponent, but this is not what's going to put her over the top. 

Now, the Senate's D team is really interesting: Thirty-three members, and 32 of them are Republicans. Russ Feingold is a contrarian asshole, and if he loses, he loses. The Democrats need more party unity, and voting against the Reform Bill because it wouldn't require the appointment of Elliot Spitzer as Witchhunter Profundis with an auxillary of Brandeis Law Students as his sans coulettes for Wall Street showed that he's too pure for the world. And, it's consistent -- he's opposed to all entitlements, even those earned by blood. Fuck him. On the other hand, the Republicans... All those great patriots like Saxby Chambliss who won his seat from a Max Cleland by lying, innuendo and basically pissing on those of us who wore the uniform of this country; Lamar Alexander who took Al Gore's old seat in 2000 and used to look like a moderate Republican. Now, of course, that's a very endangered species. The two Senators from Arizona and the two from Texas are waltzing across the bridge of sighs; Kyl is just a rightwing jerk but McCain, Cornyn and Hutchinson claim strong patriotic, pro-troop, pro-veteran credentials. Well, you can claim whatever you want to; it's up to voters to pay attention. They probably won't but...maybe they will. I can understand Jeff Sessions place here, since a lot of Veterans are people of color, and he's pretty consistently shown he's not in love with people of color, except Clarence Thomas. He's also joined by his leader, Mitch McConnell and Sessions' (the temptation to type Secessions was extreme, but I managed to avoid the pun!) partner from ALADAMNBAMA, Richard Shelby. Of course, that favorite son of the south, John Thune of South Dakota is there...I know that the plains states have a relatively high proportion of veterans so this makes little sense, except he's counting on those farm boys as either being unable to read and count -- fingers and toes having been lost at Inchon or shot off in other conflicts over the years -- or he just plans to lie. Of course, the saints -- Coburn and Imhofe of Oklahoma (which also has a lot of Vets, what the hell is wrong with us? and our organizations? Are we stupid? One must wonder...)are joined by the sinners Ensign and Vitter.

I can dislike Feingold's position and still say that if he's defeated it will on balance be a bad thing; I can admire Ron Paul's attitude toward the Federal Government even though I don't agree with it and respect his consistancy. But, the overwhelming majority of these assholes are the guys who were upset when President Obama didn't wear a Flag lapel pin, and love nothing more than going to a Tea Party Rally and being cheered by folks who think that these guys are for them. They're not. They never have been. They never will be. And, it's up to us to help our deranged brothers and sisters to see the light.

Hey, if you think it makes sense to cut consumer protections and aid to Veterans, the aged and children, more power to you. Goddamn it, campaign on that. However, saying you're for liberty while wanting to cut Social Security benefits or VA medical care is simply impossible. Like an atheist going to Mass, Temple and the Mosque you're nothing more than a goddamned hypocrite. And, maybe someday we'll wake up...

Beck Bitchslapped by a Brit--err, British American

I've been reading Christopher Hitchens more often of late, making the time because I accept that he may not be around much longer, and is still saying things worth saying. I just finished his discussion of Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man and am about to begin his book on Jefferson. In some ways, Hitchens is a spiritual descendent of Paine, Burke and the other 18th century pamphlet writers. His books are generally short, and really pretty topical. Yet, like Paine and Burke, I suspect his stuff will be read for some time to come.

This week, in Slate, Hitchens decides to take the Tea Party apart. He sees it as a racial and religious thing -- as the nation becomes even more diverse, and as the WHITE MAJORITY is faced with demographic demise, they become worried about things that aren't there, missing the things that are.

In a rather curious and confused way, some white people are starting almost to think like a minority, even like a persecuted one. What does it take to believe that Christianity is an endangered religion in America or that the name of Jesus is insufficiently spoken or appreciated? Who wakes up believing that there is no appreciation for our veterans and our armed forces and that without a noisy speech from Sarah Palin, their sacrifice would be scorned? It's not unfair to say that such grievances are purely and simply imaginary, which in turn leads one to ask what the real ones can be.

What indeed? It's 160 years since the Know Nothings burned a Ursuline Convent and Orphanage in Boston out of ignorance and fear of the 1840s Muslims, the Irish Catholics. They had rallies and speeches and things too -- so, I suspect in 100 years people will trace the lineage of the Tea Party to the Know Nothings, the Klan, the America-Firsters, the Birch Society, the YAF and so on and so on. My neice's and nephew's grandchildren, Kwame and Shoiboan Cowmeadow will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about. And, go off to the neighborhood YMCA/Mosque/CYO to play basketball. And, hopefully, to read some Hitchens at some point in their education.

Beckapolyspse? WTF, over?

Crusader AXE was fairly pissed off by the Beckapoloosa or whatever it was to begin with. That said, it doesn't appear that he shilled gold, cried or was annointed by angels. It happened, and I guess a lot of people went home feeling...What exactly? They left the illiterate racist signs home, some we now know who is really in charge...Glenn Beck. No obvious gun violations, which since the Memorial is in the District and on Federal Land, is probably reasonable. No Biker Chicks to suck start your Harley...no Hells Angels providing security. Oh, yeah, that was Altamont. You know what would have helped -- a crowd of drunken frat boys chanting, "SHOW US YOUR TITS, SARAH!"

But, I guess it was what it was; from my point of view, a disappointment. Seriously, it strikes me like a very crowded Hemp Fest -- lots of true believers, some jam-band/wing-nut riffs from the stage, and I'm sure a bunch of people wandering around selling love beads and hash pipes/NoBama and ProPalin stuff. It was about stuff. Not good stuff, not the best stuff, just stuff. And, a lot of people wandering around trying to either figure out what it's all about or trying to score or trying to get laid. Probably as unsuccessfully as at Hemp Fest...

Things get better before they get worse...

Seriously , Atticus Finch /Atticus Flinch? Dulcinea Dowd is really stretching the Dorothy Parker thing. However, she's still incisive and rapier-witted, as well as Irish and lovely. 

The president who is always talking about wanting to be perfectly clear is ever more opaque. The One, who owes his presidency to the intense feeling he stirred up, turns out to be a practical guy who can’t deal with intense feeling.

He ran as a man apart — Joe Biden was enlisted to folksy him up — and now he must deal with the fact that many see him as a man apart.

Too lofty to pay heed to the daily bump and grind of politics, Obama has failed to present himself as someone with the common touch. And to the extent that people don’t know him or don’t get him, he becomes easier to demonize.

Obama is the victim of the elevated expectations he so skillfully created in 2008.

He came as a redeemer and then — tied up in W.’s Gordian knots, dragged down by an economy leeched by wars and Wall Street charlatans — didn’t redeem. And nothing bums out a nation that blows with the wind like a self-appointed messiah who disappoints.

If we’re not the ones we’ve been waiting for, who are we?

I think the problem Obama faces is the problem of the ironic. He's the guy who sees the absurdity, and refused to act like it's OK to be stupid or to pander. No Bush drumming and dancing day for him -- no Indian feathered bonnet or cowboy hat. He's a skinny black guy from Chicago by way of Hawaii, Indonesia, Columbia and Harvard Law. He knows that he looks stupid with hats and he's willing to be funny, but not stupid. No fish-throwing in Seattle on his recent visit; he was in Pike Place market, but no salmon sailing for him.

The turkey pardoning last Thanksgiving said it all. He knew that it was silly, but he also knew he was supposed to do it. So, "some days you change the world, some days you pardon a turkey." At least, he hasn't pardoned a turkey like Scooter Libby yet. 

Dulcinea does miss the point, wondering  is so terribly misunderstood. There is a background level of racism that flows in this country -- and probably every ethnically divided country because, as Kristofferson put it 39 years ago, "Everybody's gotta have somebody to look down on/Who they can feel better than at any time they choose/Someone doin' something dirty decent folk can frown on/If you can't find nobody else, help yourself to me."

Well, In the case of this administration, their effort to impose rationality on the bread and circuses of this late Republic has made them the someone decent folk can frown on. They have already got it coming to them because they're black. And, he's got a funny name. And, his kids are smarter than most of our kids. And, their dog is hypo-allergenic. And, and, and...did I mention he's a Muslim?

Yeah. He got bitchslapped two years ago because he was attending a mainstream Black Church. I've listened to Reverend Wrights sermons, and read a few and he's as traditional as Billy Graham or Martin Luther King in his style of homiletics. He has a different perspective, but he's as Christian as they come. There is no difference between his message and that...

BLACK MAN:
And now... This weeks sermon is from our Beloved Reverend Cleophus James!
REV. BROWN:

And now people. And now people. When I woke up this morning I heard a disturbing sound. I said, when I woke up this mornin' I heard a disturbing sound! What I heard was a jingle-jangle of a thousand lost souls! I'm talkin' about the souls of mortal men and women, that departed from this life. Wait a minute! Though the lord take the souls, without them seein' 'em on the earth, seekin' the fine light! They will not find! Because it is too late!! Too late!! Yeah! Too late to find the light, they chose not to follow! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Don't be lost when the time comes! Dont be lost when the time comes! For the day of the lord cometh, as a thief in the night! AMEN! Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Well Well Well!!

Somehow, the Christian who was slapped for listening to someone influenced by Liberation Theology and Martin Luther King has morphed into Obama the Muslim. Yeah. Franklin Graham, who bears more resemblance to Billy Sunday than Billy Graham, babbles some lunacy about Obama is a Muslim because his father was a Muslim because the religion passes through the male line, like Judaism passes through the female line. He then went outside, got upbehind the whore of Babylon and roade off on the beast with many heads leading the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse...only instead of Famine, Pestilence, War and Death they're Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy and Rudolph. My father was a Republican -- does that mean I'm doomed to wear sansabelt style pants up around my armpits and vote for idiots?

President Obama is obviously not a Roman Dictator, yet in a way he reminds me of Caesar. We forget, because it doesn't fit our concept of the man or the times or the mores to steal a line from Cicero --O Tempora! O Mores!" -- but Caesar didn't want to kill people or take power to just take power. He wanted power so he could do things, so he could fix the shit that was all fucked up by the failure of the late Republic to function because of faction, greed, the influence of mystery cults and the disenfranchisement of the Roman people. Nothing worked...He didn't want to kill Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, Pompey or Cato -- he wanted to be in charge but wanted to work together to find bi-partisan solutions. He wept at the deaths of Pompey and Cato. Ptolomey's first mistake was letting his eunuchs plan the murder of Pompey; his second was giving Caesar Pompey's head. Ultimately, of course, it worked out so well for him... 

We are blessed with a president who can think coherently, who can think in complete sentences and paragraphs, who can do the math. We are also blessed with a Democratic Republican form of government that protects the rights of the minority. We have recreated a structure that depends on people working in good faith to solve problems. Not for ambition, but for the common good. We're fucked.

A liberal arts education prepares you to get angry at the oddest things...

I’m working on a screenplay now called “Grand Theft Pundit,” about gangs of outlaw columnists dealing drugs, running guns and saying rude things on “Morning Joe.”The role of me was going to be played by the late Suzanne Pleshette or Adrienne Barbeau, assuming there is a difference. -- David Brooks

But, angry in a coherent way. I haven't tossed a lot of Dulcinea Dowd's stuff up lately because I've been utterly pissed off by the world in general. It's more fun to make the Defeatists a music blog. The Bros don't care, on the rare occasions they regain consciousness from the stench of bicycle shorts and baby diapers. El S is fixing the webs, Agi is teaching his daughter the Lydian mode on his acoustic guitar, and Mr Fun is going to Phillies Games, even when he's not. Holier is long since gone off to a self-imposed metaphysical ashram, and Captain Capitulation is channeling Leibnitz. Me, I'm still on my own road, headed toward another point of view...

However, the oil gusher in the gulf is exciting some interesting things. The top kill method is interesting...although I'm a fan of pumping old tennis balls and tampons into the damn hole. Where's the goddamn Glormar Explorer when you need it? What this country needs is more secretive billionaires who dislike bathing and cutting their nails to serve it better. Anyway, my personal beacon of hope at the Times pointed this out -- we're being fucked over repeatedly by things we've never heard of and with acronyms that make no goddamn sense at all. And, when they do make sense, they make no sense -- I'm wondering how many Department of the Interior regulators and officials lost their jobs and , oh, I don't know, WENT TO JAIL over the orgies and snorting meth off the microwave thing. As Dulcinea points out in her lead ...

It’s unnerving, disorienting. A particularly noxious blend of helplessness, fear and fury that washes over you when you realize the country has again been dragged into a costly and scary maelstrom revolving around acronyms you’ve never heard of.

Our economy went in the ditch while traders got rich peddling C.D.O.’s and C.D.S.’s. Even many bankers — much less average Americans who lost their shirts — were gobsmacked by the acronyms, and scrambled to figure out how collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps worked.

And now a gazillion gallons of oil have poisoned the Gulf of Mexico, thanks in part to unethical employees at a once-obscure agency known as M.M.S. — the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service.

And it goes from there. Enjoy...Gail Collins and David Brooks have an ongoing dialogue, and frankly, I've avoided it because Brooks perturbs me. He's too smart and too well grounded in, what do they call it, oh yeah, reality to really mean the things he says and writes. However, today's piece makes me think I've been skipping something. Beginning by talking about Lost -- which I never watched, never will watch, and have no interest in at all, Ms Collins talks about how all the characters were dead and it was like St Elsewhere and a snow globe. Brooks said he's still trying to figure out how Adrienne "Swamp Thing" Barbeau and Susan Pleschette were different, which led inevitably to a discussion of the BP nonsense. Brooks and Collins don't get our current spate of righteous indignation demands from the punditocracy. He points out that unless the president has a degree in underwater engineering he hasn't told us about, the president needs to keep doing what he's doing. However, Brooks has taken on the Rand Paul approach, which I find interesting...accidents happen, risk is inherent in human activities, and when a risk filled enterprise goes tits up, we should react somewhat more appropriately than running around screaming at fate and coming up with wild draconian measures...Collins and Brooks disagree about the role of government oversight going forward, but they do so with good sense and humor. Collins steps into Dowd's dream with this insight --"Obama must have known, when he took office, that there was some agency somewhere — probably tucked away in the governmental attic — that was going to hand him a disaster. If you’d asked him to guess, I bet he’d never have fingered the Minerals Management Service..." and Crusader AXE has to agree. This is so Bush administration...obviously, the 2000-2008 really screwed over the government. Collins raises the issue of what to do going forward, and Brooks points out very well how we're basically screwed by the nature of risk, reality and the economy. "The fact that an industry with inherent riskiness sometimes produces catastrophes hasn’t really changed my view of the industry. Less offshore drilling just means more oil tankers, a more environmentally risky mode of getting our energy." Well, since about once a quarter I throw up Yeats' centre will not hold thing, I guess I can't argue with this...

It's that damn day again...

Seriously, when I see Shane McGowan in his current glory, I see where I probably should have been. When I drank, I never had a St Patrick's Day that I enjoyed after I was about 13. My parents would let me drink some Wild Irish Rose under the mistaken belief that it had something to do with Ireland when I was in my early teens. Graduated beyond it, but never really had fun. Now, I don't not have fun. Yeah, confused, as is my relationship to theatrical Irishness.

On the other hand, it's not all that big a deal. Kind of a phony deal, and all the folks who suddenly decide to celebrate their Irishness, especially those that aren't Irish. Fuck 'em. If it's St George's Day, should I shove a poker up my arse and call myself Henry Tudor? Columbus Day, should I wear a black suit with a black shirt and a black tie and grease my hair and mutter insanely things that make no sense from old gangster movies? On St Louis'Day, should I refrain from bathing and gargle a rendering of cheap wine, garlic and snails? So, having Poles tell me their name that day is O'Slavikbuggeringnightmarewithnotenoughvowels to pronounce kind of pisses me off.

Anyway, the Catholicism that was traditional to Ireland prior to the great Crusade led by Henry II and Thomas Becket to liberate the Catholic Irish from St Patrick's and the Irish theology which was more liberating and fit the culture. Since it  didn't kick in 10% of everything to the Holy Father , a Nicolas Breakspeare/Pope Adrian whose father, interestingly was a monk either before, during or after or some combination of his boy's childhood and was from Hertfordshire. Not that there's anything wrong with an Englishman who happens to be Pope selling the authority to Crusade against Catholic Ireland...actually, there's a lot wrong with it. The Crusades would be funny if the various things didn't screw up the world and kill thousands if not millions of poor ignorant bastards. There are complaints in mainstream history about the Albignesian Crusade and the sack of Constantinople and various other military adventures that had far less to do with faith than in lust, power and money. Ireland is largely ignored...I guess they figure that the french playwright and   Peter O'Toole screwed over actor enough. Breakspeare may not have been the only Pope from Britain, by the way. Pope Joan who may or may not have existed as Pope John...according to a quote in Wiki

Pope John VIII: John, of English extraction, was born at Mentz (Mainz) and is said to have arrived at Popedom by evil art; for disguising herself like a man, whereas she was a woman, she went when young with her paramour, Frumentius, a learned man, to Athens, and made such progress in learning under the professors there that, coming to Rome, she met with few that could equal, much less go beyond her, even in the knowledge of the scriptures; and by her learned and ingenious readings and disputations, she acquired so great respect and authority that upon the death of Pope Leo IV (as Martin says) by common consent she was chosen Pope in his room. As she was going to the Lateran Church between the Colossean Theatre (so called from Nero's Colossus) and St. Clement's her travail came upon her, and she died upon the place, having sat two years, one month, and four days, and was buried there without any pomp. This story is vulgarly told, but by very uncertain and obscure authors, and therefore I have related it barely and in short, lest I should seem obstinate and pertinacious if I had admitted what is so generally talked. I had better mistake with the rest of the world, though it be certain, that what I have related may be thought not altogether incredible (Bartolomeo Platina

--Vitæ Pontificum Platinæ historici liber de vita Christi ac omnium pontificum qui hactenus ducenti fuere et XX).

Now, Crusader AXE is obviously proud of his Irish heritage, and will easily and gladly stipulate that Ireland is a marvelous place, and at times very friendly to Americans. At the same time, we're an angry bunch of fuckers, and while Seamus the WWE idiot is a parody, there's some truth to the portrayal. I saw the new Prime Minister meeting with Obama on TV today, along with the White House fountain pissing green, and he seems avuncular enough. But, the IRA is not that far behind or buried in all of us; except the Protestants, of course, and there the UVF is fairly close as well. It's not necessarily religion; it's really about anger...and, a lot of that goes back to St Patrick and Breakspeare and Strongbow and Cromwell and the Catholic Church. Without the Church, no Ireland; without no Ireland, probably no Church in Western Europe for another 500 years; and the whole symbiotic relationship has never been resolved.


Well, ultimately it's all about class and power and money. Let Mr. Earle sum it up...