The calm before the storm

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Four years ago I was uncharacteristically optimistic. Eight years of Bush/Cheney lawbreaking were coming to an end. The only question was which Democrat would be the next occupant of the Oval office. I felt like there was no way we could lose.

Boy, was I wrong! I switched back to pessimism and I’ve been pretty accurate in my predictions ever since.

Tonight they will hold the Iowa caucuses. I’m not gonna try and predict the result. I expect that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee next November. I don’t know who the GOP nominee will be, nor whether they will win or lose in November.

The single biggest difference between Obama or the GOP nominee winning next November is that if the Republican wins the Democrats will finally resume making token efforts at opposing the conservative/Wall Street agenda. I would consider that an improvement.

John W. Smart:

Almost nothing shocks me in politics. But the wholesale degradation of the Left in the Obama years remains an eye opener. And a depressant. It’s not Obama’s fault directly that Occupy became such a joke immediately. But his presence has given cover. Just today OLA had a protest parade after the Rose parade. Think about how stupid that is. There are BoAs on every third corner in LA. Any Occupy protests at any one of the branches? Nope. A month and change after they were evicted the best OLA could come up with was to march pointlessly down Colorado Blvd. as a kind of snide, childish stunt. The Rose Parade? Really? Last time I looked the flower and float queens had nothing to do with the financial meltdown. Everyone gets the joke that is Occupy – except Occupy. I’m sure the 16 people who saw the march were deeply engaged before heading off to Hooters for a New Years drink. Good God, I could organize a more useful movement from a phone booth in Fresno with 3 quarters. Yet, can anyone imagine that movement disintegrating in 6 weeks if Bush was President? Hell no. 50,000 people would show up to protest bank malfeasance every week. I’ll predict right now that 50,000 will the month after President Romney is inaugurated. Are we REALLY so dumb and empty that the D and the R are all we see? Obama has a D! He can’t be a power mad prick!

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You can do one of four things on election day next November:

1. Vote for Obama

2. Vote for the Republican

3. Vote for an alternative candidate who has no chance of winning

4. Not vote/vote downticket only

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For most of us it doesn’t really matter what we do. I live in California. If Big Smoggy is “in play” next November, Obama is already gonna lose in a landslide. On the other hand, if the election is close and you live in a swing state like Florida your vote could be one of a handful that tip the balance for the entire nation.

If that’s the case, choose wisely. Anyone who thinks there would not have been any difference between Bush and Al Gore in 2000 is a fucking moron.

On the gripping hand, no matter where you live you may be able to help choose which GOPer wins the Republican nomination. That situation remains to be seen.

BTW – California moved up its primary to Super Duper Tuesday in 2008 so we could have more influence in the nomination process. Imagine if we had waited until June like we usually do. We would have reached the end of May with a virtual tie between Hillary and Barack and the single largest chunk of delegates still up for grabs.

What would have happened when Hillary won the state by 9 points but the DNC announced Obama was the nominee?

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I see an asshat taking the oath of office . . .

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I’m warning you now

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One of the bad things about living in a small town is your doctor’s nurse goes to church with your sister so when the doctor says change your ways or die your mom knows about it before you get home.

Actually he said “Remember when you were thirty and you were warned that if you didn’t change your diet and start exercising you could be at risk for a stroke or heart disease in twenty years? Well, you’re fifty-one.”

I’m warning you now, this won’t be pleasant. I have to give up everything that makes life worth living. The only good thing is I never started smoking so I don’t have to quit that too.

What are your New Year’s resolutions?

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Purity Trolls and Other Scourges

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Glenn Greenwald:

Then there’s the inability and/or refusal to recognize that a political discussion might exist independent of the Red v. Blue Cage Match. Thus, any critique of the President’s exercise of vast power (an adversarial check on which our political system depends) immediately prompts bafflement (I don’t understand the point: would Rick Perry be any better?) or grievance (you’re helping Mitt Romney by talking about this!!). The premise takes hold for a full 18 months — increasing each day in intensity until Election Day — that every discussion of the President’s actions must be driven solely by one’s preference for election outcomes (if you support the President’s re-election, then why criticize him?).

Worse still is the embrace of George W. Bush’s with-us-or-against-us mentality as the prism through which all political discussions are filtered. It’s literally impossible to discuss any of the candidates’ positions without having the simple-minded — who see all political issues exclusively as a Manichean struggle between the Big Bad Democrats and Good Kind Republicans or vice-versa — misapprehend “I agree with Candidate X’s position on Y” as “I support Candidate X for President” or “I disagree with Candidate X’s position on Y” as “I oppose Candidate X for President.” Even worse are the lying partisan enforcers who, like the Inquisitor Generals searching for any inkling of heresy, purposely distort any discrete praise for the Enemy as a general endorsement.

So potent is this poison that no inoculation against it exists. No matter how expressly you repudiate the distortions in advance, they will freely flow. Hence: I’m about to discuss the candidacies of Barack Obama and Ron Paul, and no matter how many times I say that I am not “endorsing” or expressing support for anyone’s candidacy, the simple-minded Manicheans and the lying partisan enforcers will claim the opposite.

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For generations left-wing politics has suffered from what we now call purity trolls. Even in the days before Al Gore created the internet, the Ideology Police would cause schisms and conflict within left-wing movements and demanding absolute political correctness. These are the people who would object to holding a car wash to raise money for the starving kids in Darfur because cars pollute the environment and a car wash would send the wrong message.

Purity trolls disagree with Neil Sedaka – they think breaking up is easy. If they are in control they will kick you out. If you are in control they will leave, but then go around talking shit about you behind your back.

The thing they fear most is a free and open debate. They want opposing ideas suppressed and silenced. Despite their apparent belief in their own moral and intellectual superiority, they act as if exposure to opposing ideas will taint their pure essence.

That essence is, of course, made of 100% pure, unadulterated bullshit.

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