Nov 8, 2012
Dear Friends
To all those good folks who made all the phone calls and did all the canvassing and donated a bunch of the money and turned out to vote - all for the Repubs - and all for the privilege of seeing a great big bunch of your candidates get their butts kicked (after having been practically promised that they were all going to win by big margins) - I have to wonder: How much longer do we have to point out that you're being misled and lied to before you get the message?
Charles Krauthammer was wrong
Karl Rove was wrong
Rush Limbaugh was wrong
Larry Kudlow was wrong
George Will was wrong
Dick Morris was wrong
Mike Huckabee was wrong
Ann Coulter was wrong
Tony Perkins was wrong
Newt Gingrich was wrong
Sean Hannity was wrong
and on and on and on
All of them told you Romney would win - not 'could', but 'would'. Some were a little less enthusiastic than others - they all strayed a little, and Coulter actually ran away for a few days, but every one of them came home and said it eventually; some as late as Nov 5 (even in light of very solid polling to the contrary), and some of them told you Romney would crush Obama in a landslide reminiscent of Reagan vs Carter in 1980.
If you guys are depressed and sullen and feeling lousy in general about losing so big, ya gotta start looking at how you keep letting yourselves in for this kinda shit.
Charles Krauthammer was wrong
Karl Rove was wrong
Rush Limbaugh was wrong
Larry Kudlow was wrong
George Will was wrong
Dick Morris was wrong
Mike Huckabee was wrong
Ann Coulter was wrong
Tony Perkins was wrong
Newt Gingrich was wrong
Sean Hannity was wrong
and on and on and on
All of them told you Romney would win - not 'could', but 'would'. Some were a little less enthusiastic than others - they all strayed a little, and Coulter actually ran away for a few days, but every one of them came home and said it eventually; some as late as Nov 5 (even in light of very solid polling to the contrary), and some of them told you Romney would crush Obama in a landslide reminiscent of Reagan vs Carter in 1980.
If you guys are depressed and sullen and feeling lousy in general about losing so big, ya gotta start looking at how you keep letting yourselves in for this kinda shit.
Smart
Many many times, Rachel Maddow is just really annoying. Just as many times, she shows herself to be among the smartest political analysts anywhere; and why it's a good idea for me to listen to people who frequently annoy me.
Yeah - About That Squeaker
Obama's re-election wasn't the close call we kept hearing about during the last 3 or 4 weeks of the campaign.
And the spin being peddled by the GOP and RIght Radicals and Corp Media yesterday - about Romney winning the popular vote? Bullshit, as usual, which raises the same old question about why these numbskulls have such difficulty getting a firm grasp on real things. How is it they never learn not to spout off before they know what's goin' on? It wasn't close, and once Florida gets its shit together, we'll see how 'not-close' it really was.
Seems like you'd have to get pretty tired of being wrong all the time.
I don't think I can call it a strong mandate in the traditional way the word 'mandate' is used, but when I consider the circumstances - low-growth economy, high unemployment, stagnating wages, ginormous deficit and debt; plus all the hyper-partisan obstruction in Congress and the true ugliness of the personal attacks, etc etc - re-electing Obama seems nothing short of miraculous.
So maybe it's just relative to the alternative, but keeping Obama on the job seems like a very clear message.
We'll see if he can keep his staff and his cabinet together; and somebody has to be on the ball to avert the 2nd-term scandal that pops up with annoying regularity. But here's hopin'.
And the spin being peddled by the GOP and RIght Radicals and Corp Media yesterday - about Romney winning the popular vote? Bullshit, as usual, which raises the same old question about why these numbskulls have such difficulty getting a firm grasp on real things. How is it they never learn not to spout off before they know what's goin' on? It wasn't close, and once Florida gets its shit together, we'll see how 'not-close' it really was.
Seems like you'd have to get pretty tired of being wrong all the time.
I don't think I can call it a strong mandate in the traditional way the word 'mandate' is used, but when I consider the circumstances - low-growth economy, high unemployment, stagnating wages, ginormous deficit and debt; plus all the hyper-partisan obstruction in Congress and the true ugliness of the personal attacks, etc etc - re-electing Obama seems nothing short of miraculous.
So maybe it's just relative to the alternative, but keeping Obama on the job seems like a very clear message.
We'll see if he can keep his staff and his cabinet together; and somebody has to be on the ball to avert the 2nd-term scandal that pops up with annoying regularity. But here's hopin'.
Nov 7, 2012
Now What?
Take a short while and enjoy the feeling of winning something important. But then we have to get on the phones and online, and start telling our Congress Critters to do everything necessary to get some shit done. Especially the Repubs and Blue Dogs. Steady pressure works. Just make it a habit to call or drop an email on 'em about specific issues. It's not necessary to obsess and do nothing but watch the news. Just get an idea about what you want your representatives to do, and then tell them what you want from them - and do it regularly.
Like any other employee, they need to know what's expected of them; and once in a while they need to hear a strong message of "get it done or get out".
Like any other employee, they need to know what's expected of them; and once in a while they need to hear a strong message of "get it done or get out".
Irregularities
For every complaint from the Repubs about Black Panthers and Voter Impersonation etc, there's at least one or two real stories about this:
It's a big deal. Even when my guy wins, it's a big fuckin' deal. The legitimacy of the guy who gets elected depends directly on the legitimacy of the voting process. Process counts. That's why the framers put it in writing - in about a hundred places and about a hundred different ways. Because if we're careful about how we get to the conclusion, we're more likely to get to a result that's fair and right, and doesn't make for sore losers.
It's a big fuckin' deal and we have to fix it.
hat tip = Addicting Info
It's a big deal. Even when my guy wins, it's a big fuckin' deal. The legitimacy of the guy who gets elected depends directly on the legitimacy of the voting process. Process counts. That's why the framers put it in writing - in about a hundred places and about a hundred different ways. Because if we're careful about how we get to the conclusion, we're more likely to get to a result that's fair and right, and doesn't make for sore losers.
It's a big fuckin' deal and we have to fix it.
hat tip = Addicting Info
Nov 6, 2012
Today's The Day
GOTV, baby.
If you were expecting a big glorious post about Election Day - sorry - everything that went before is done and gone; everything that happens over the next several hours depends on our individual actions. Nothing is written; our destiny is in our own hands.
I'm set to spend most of my day at the Earlysville fire station. Gitcher butts out and vote.
God willin' and the crick don't rise, we'll be listening to Willard's concession speech about 18 hours from now.
Later.
If you were expecting a big glorious post about Election Day - sorry - everything that went before is done and gone; everything that happens over the next several hours depends on our individual actions. Nothing is written; our destiny is in our own hands.
I'm set to spend most of my day at the Earlysville fire station. Gitcher butts out and vote.
God willin' and the crick don't rise, we'll be listening to Willard's concession speech about 18 hours from now.
Later.
Nov 5, 2012
Inequalities
An unfair advantage is not necessarily a bad thing (I've probably posted about that before, but I really don't remember). If I can take the same resources that're available to everybody else and build a race car that's faster than yours, then I have the classic unfair advantage. And if you can't keep up with me, that's your problem not mine. But that assumes there are no artificial advantages that impede you while not impeding me.
From The Firebrand
(btw - try to resist the knee-jerk rejection to which you may be inclined due to the name of the author and his references to Marx et al):
So while disparity can be a good tool for promoting healthy competition, I can also use it as a weapon to subjugate people who by right should be my peers.
From The Firebrand
(btw - try to resist the knee-jerk rejection to which you may be inclined due to the name of the author and his references to Marx et al):
‘All men are created equal‘ declared by Thomas Jefferson seems to be, at first glance, an utmost agreeable proposition. But a quick examination reveals this to be fundamentally untrue, at least in practice, on many specific levels. The gender inequality is a hot topic in the recent months, with Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock (along with their colleagues Iowa representative Steve King, Pennsylvania Senate candidate Tom Smith and Wisconsin state representative Roger Rivard) trying to convince women never to vote for the GOP again. Of all inequalities between people the most prominently discussed is the economic inequality, most commonly associated with the distribution of wealth. The observed concentration of capital was predicted by Marx in Das Kapital, and believed to be one of the main reasons for an inevitable crisis, with a select few wealthy capitalists confronted by vast, poor masses. The concentration of capital is believed to be the most important factor in the overall inequality, but I think that this may be an incorrect assumption, as the inequalities may be a function of another one, in my view deeper in its nature: information inequality. Neither the debates nor the public discourse at large is taking a look at information inequality, despite it being a foundational problem, greater than most of the topics discussed.These relatively simple premises are what Conflict Theory and Critical Race Theory are all about - ie: the basic fact that the existing structure of any society tends to perpetuate (and over time, to amplify) artificial impediments that serve to widen the gap between the classes (delivering more power into fewer hands) and to push more people out of positions of power and towards poverty.
So while disparity can be a good tool for promoting healthy competition, I can also use it as a weapon to subjugate people who by right should be my peers.
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