Question du Jour

So, riddle me this: with all of the Obama-love™ going on over at Daily Kos, why is is that no one over there (from what I've seen) is bothered that this so-called "progressive" candidate who promises them the liberal nirvana they claim to seek (and will not come anywhere close to providing anyway) has completely snubbed that site since 2005 (when he was roundly trounced for trying to start a round of Kumbaya in the Democratic party after the John Roberts nomination)?

Now I can see why Obama wouldn't bother with that bunch considering the insanity and inanity that goes on there, but they just don't seem to care that he's not rushing over to pull them all into his grand new plan. Or, maybe they do care but they don't want to mention it because that might make him look bad.

I think it's the latter.
 

John Aravosis: Elitist Wanker of the Day (2nd Day in a Row)

Originally I nominated the dude strictly for the following post:

Thursday, January 24, 2008

The Dems just gave away your stimulus check
by John Aravosis (DC) · 1/24/2008 10:23:00 AM ET · Link
Discuss this post here: Comments (20) · reddit · FARK ·· Digg It!

According to AP, congressional leaders have reached a deal on those economic stimulus checks. And rather than being geared towards helping the economy, they're apparently geared towards redistributing wealth (that would be our wealth) to the poor. What a surprise. Folks in the middle (i.e, those who are not rich or poor) are screwed by the Democrats (and Republicans) yet again. Let me give you the details that just leaked, and again this may not be the final deal, but it sure sounds like it:

Families with children would receive an additional $300 per child, subject to an overall cap of perhaps $1,200, according to a senior House aide who outlined the deal on condition of anonymity in advance of formal adoption of the whole package. Rebates would go to people earning below a certain income cap, likely individuals earning $75,000 or less and couples with incomes of $150,000 or less.

That means that if you make $75,000 or more a year, no check for you. Forget that fact that you live in NYC or DC or San Francisco, where prices from property to food are outrageous. No, forget that. Some guy living in a mansion in Topeka making $74,999 a year will get his little gift from the US Treasury and you, living in NYC making $75,001 out of a 300 sq ft studio apartment will get nothing. How about my friend who bought an entire house in Baltimore for $275,000 when that would get you a very small studio in DC. I know someone who got an entire house in Ohio for $2000 a month when that would get you a one-bedroom apartment in DC. I have a friend who moved to North Carolina and got offered a bit over $75k a year. He said it was a king's ransom in NC. In DC, well, again, keep checking out those studios. And another friend has a 900 sq ft condo, and paid more for it than another friend's parents paid for their 6000 sq ft house.

That's because far too often the Democrats don't give a damn about anybody who isn't a minority or starving to death (both valid causes to be sure, but are they the ONLY causes out there?). If you're in the middle, you're on your own.

And don't think this is only about a stupid $300. It's about health care. It's about education. It's about every single issue you care about. The powers that be simply aren't in this to help people in the middle. The Republicans want to help the big pharmaceuticals and the big business hospitals, while the Democrats want to help uninsured poor people and kids. And while all of that's nice, what are the rest of us supposed to do when our premiums hit $2000 a month and, God forbid, something catastrophic hits us?

The Republicans ONLY want to help the rich, and the Democrats ONLY want to help the poor. Screw everybody else. I am so sick of these people.

Unfortunately, I guess Aravosis became both unhappy with the negative feedback that he received in mass quantities, so he killed off the original post (thus decoupling it from the 500+ comments it had received), reposted, got yet another set of negative feedback (which he subsequently censored heavily), and then deleted the post altogether. Like Sir Robin, he "bravely ran away." So, for a second day in a row, Aravosis has earns the top honors for wankery - this time for cowardice.

Never Comin' Home, b/w Stolen Moments

Loyalty oaths are a crock of shit. Almost as bad as the kind you have to consciously sign are the ones you find you'd unconsciously signed. You think you've found a friendly lodging where at least a few people will share your quirks and then just like that, you realize that you can't live there any more.

I've bailed on debunkingwhite. I was there for about a year. It's a great little livejournal "grand central" for anyone interested in anti-racist work. I've learned a lot from the space and made what I think are some valuable connections. Maybe the folks I've connected with will now be done with me, too. So be it. Frankly I can't abide all the pro-Obama hype over there and the subliminal fine print that seems to say that nobody can be a committed anti-racist unless they want to genuflect before the glory of Obama. I don't genuflect before Democrats. I think the party is a loathsome pile of shit that more or less gave Bush a blank check to do whatever the fuck he wanted. Which includes continuing to wage both a global and domestic race war that's plenty vicious even if it doesn't quite measure up in clarity to the baroque fantasies of villain-du-jour, Ron Paul. I don't sign loyalty oaths to any Democrat, in the name of any cause, anywhere. For that reason and many, many others.

Strange though it seems, I would still recommend the space to lurkers interested in the hard work activists do and (especially) the White privilege we Whites need to dismantle before we can do anything for anybody outside the personal arena. I wish I was more like these folks, but I came up short when stamina was handed out. :o It infuriates and grieves me to see good people falling for Obama, a charlatan in a party full of charlatans. I just don't, in my heart of hearts, believe that he gives a damn about the things they give a damn about. I think he's a user running with other users. More anger and more grief is something I don't need to seek out deliberately, as it finds me on its own most of the time. I've been through this before. I've been the "bad feminist," the "bad Unionist," the "bad Jew," etc. because I left the DP and refuse to come back. Life goes on.

...If people ask me why I have to roam
I say that 90% of all accidents occur in the home...
-- Peter Case

I leave you with some "Stolen Moments" from the Anti-Divine Madman:

...Just put the damned ballot boxes on an altar while we’re at it. It’s a mystery what’s happening in them already, might as well go the rest of the way with it. Let’s just hold elections on sanctified ground. Anoint voters’ foreheads with holy water or ashes or the blood of a virgin or something as they are welcomed into the sacred offering of their futures to another pious fraud...

From Prey: Our Souls, 1/09/08 Liberal Street Fighter

...[I have] no patience for the cozy lies and the careful obfuscations anymore. I would like to believe that this was really a country of diversity, that we really were willing and able to confront and reconcile our centuries of enslavement and debasement and theft and genocide. Part of me smiles to see a black man building such momentum in a country as benighted as this one. I’m a sap. I want to believe all of the hallmarkian drivel of the “promise” of America. I want to believe that WE really believed in cooperation and openness and we’re not really a nation of greedy, warmongering racists eager to expand our hegemony over the globe.

The Invisible Man may very well be the Democratic (sic) party’s nominee for President. He is willing to practice the right sorts of misdirection to keep our eyes away from the real problems we face, willing to parade his beautiful assistant/wife to captivate and enthrall. He is willing to disappear behind a fog of beautiful words and high-flown promises, encased in the cozy nostrums of faith and family and a “new generation” of “change”.

I wish I could believe, but I just can’t fill in that blank anymore. I can’t allow another corporate lawyer to coax me into seeing in him what I wish he was. The exploited lower classes in this country will not find a champion in the Invisible Man anymore than they did in Bubba Clinton...

From Fill In The Blank, 1/6/08, Liberal Street Fighter.

[Cross-posted with minor alterations to Ms. Xeno's Remainder Bin.]

How Soon They Forget

Markos on January 2, 2008:

Obama has made a cottage industry out of attacking the dirty fucking hippies on the left, from labor unions, to Paul Krugman, to Gore and Kerry, to social security, and so on. People think I was being ticky tack with the Gore thing, and in isolation it would’ve been but a minor non-event. But it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back for me, yet another in a pattern of attacks against Democrats and their constituencies.

Markos on January 20, 2003:

But it's not even just ANSWER. It's every yahoo with a pet cause. I turned on C-SPAN's coverage for 30 seconds before listening to a speaker make a pitch for slavery reparations. Nevermind that reparations is about the dumbest cause in the country today, what the heck did it have to do with opposing war against Iraq? Jeez.

Problem #2: I don't care for many of the participants. You know, those eager to relive their 60's activism using the exact same tactics as they did in the 60s, or the younger generations trying to capture a bit of that old time religion. Call me cynical, call me an asshole, but the world is a bit more complex than "make love, not war". There is a time and place for war, and blanket outrage at the concept of war is simply naive. By contrast, WTO protesters seem to be far more educated about their cause and have far more of an edge (for lack of a better word) -- which, to me, makes them more effective. Anger is good (short of smashing storefronts, that is), and far better than this "smile and sing folk songs" crap. Or the "support my pet cause and, oh yeah, oppose war while you're at it" crap.

Markos on June 5, 2005:

And I certainly won't let the sanctimonious women's studies set play that role on this site. Feel free to be offended. Feel free to claim that I'm somehow abandoning "progressive principles" by running the ad. It's a free country. Feel free to storm off in a huff. Other deserving bloggers could use the patronage.

Me, I'll focus on the important shit.

Or here's Markos on October 17, 2005:

I'm increasingly convinced that the biggest intra-movement divide nowadays isn't ideological -- we mostly all agree on the same things -- but generational. Old school activists view politics and the activist realm differently than new school activists (very generally speaking). Those differences manifest themselves in arguments over single issue groups, effective activism, partisanship, tone, style, pragmatism, the types of candidates we should run, etc.

New school progressives are also less tolerant of ideological orthodoxy. We don't fall in line with the "acceptable" liberal position, frankly, because we're not trained to fall in line. We are more likely to be educated in an economy that values "proactiveness" and "self-initiative" and "problem solving" over blindly following the orders of our boss. We have the tools to research any and every issue in a way inconcievable even 10 years ago. We no longer need to rely on our "leaders" or the media to tell us what the "right" position on any one issue might be. And our own individual life experiences will color our perceptions of any issue. If you are an inner city parent with shitty public schools for your kids, school vouchers probably look pretty darn good even if the theory offends progressive sensibilities.

[snip]

The political landscape is different, no doubt -- the politics of old where "leaders" told us how to think and act is dead. The media landscape has changed -- the era when a few editors and producers determined our "leaders" and excluded other voices is dead.

Markos on May, 2006:

“If I was antiwar, I did it very poorly,” he says. “I supported going into Kosovo and Afghanistan. I’ve earned a lot of enmity by dismissing the antiwar protestors and the hippie mentality of the far left, this whole ‘all-war-is-bad’ bullshit. I grew up in war in El Salvador. I served in the military. I understand the concept of a good and just and fair and necessary war.”

Dude, given how you characterize Obama, and given your own past behavior of dissing core constituencies within the party you claim to be promoting, he should be your ideal candidate. There's an old saying about casting stones while living in glass houses. Might be a good time for old Markos to brush up on that one.

Bonus: of course Kos isn't the only one to indulge in the Big Orange fetish for hippie-bashing. There are others (e.g., Lestatdelc).

Happy 2008!

I stole these fireworks from Sydney, Australia. Enjoy.



Oh yeah...I almost forgot the...

cheesecake!

Happy New Year!

(2008 has to be better than last year...right??)