Dems and Repubs

Bush x Obama + Trump = Raising hell in Yemen.

Read Scahill's "Dirty Wars" and get back to me.


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Spooked

Here’s why I ask. Maddow devotes many minutes on MSNBC stirring up hatred of Russia in order to establish that there is a vague possibility that President Donald Trump might be corrupted by a foreign government.

But that’s already established beyond any doubt. China’s state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is the largest tenant in Trump Tower. It is also a major lender to Trump. Its rent payments and its loans put Trump in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Every building approval, extension of credit, tax break, subsidy, or waiver of normal rules that Trump’s businesses get from numerous foreign governments, state governments, and the U.S. government define him as quintessentially impeachable.--DS

To question her would be politically incorrect, I'm afraid.

A saner view of things.


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Pre-Existing Conditions

Barack Obama ran on campaign promises to promote peace and ease tensions and unrest in the Middle East. Under the Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton’s service as Secretary of State, weapons exports to countries in the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia, exponentially increased. Those weapons in turn have been used to commit human rights atrocities in Yemen. Weapons exports more than doubled under the Obama Administration compared to the Bush Administration. U.S. bombing campaigns increased to seven countries. The Obama Administration embraced the highly controversial use of drone strikes, increasingly relying on it despite the lack of oversight and accountability for the program killing civilians instead of intended targets.--MJS

Don't resist this.


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Big Losses

Oregon has fallen to 13th after Saturday's poor performance and loss to Colorado in Boulder.

The Dylan Brooks flop against Utah was funny at the moment it happened, but it is being overplayed by this writer, among others.

It was a silly moment, a part of the game, like Grayson Allen's antics. Shouldn't have happened, but you can't stop the ridiculous.  Time to move on.


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Fighting Oligarchy

Thus, an effective resistance to Trump with an agenda of democracy, equality and justice must work outside the American duopoly and be untethered to the Democratic party, which sustains the corrupt capitalist and imperialist system. In fact, prominent Democrats are currently busy approving Trump’s cabinet appointments and normalizing his administration. No more Clintons, Schumers or Pelosis. These corporate sell-outs, warmongers and sheepdogs have too long served to anesthetize people into passivity, cynicism and selfishness, while colluding with their benefactors to rob public resources.--YL

While many people continue to mourn for Clinton and blame each other for Trump's rise, this writer is among the leftists with an actual, inclusive vision of the future, and an understanding of how we erred post 9/11 by empowering the corporate agendas of neoliberalism and militarism.

A better analysis is sorely needed by the willfully ignorant and/or corrupt elites who support the Dems in Congress. (Check out how the Dems are okaying Trump's ludicrous Cabinet.) Too many sold out and sat by passively as the destructiveness of  the "war on terror" made a Trump feasible in the first place.

It's good to see so many fighting back in the streets. About time. Maybe the people can take back Congress while curbing the hypocrisy of today's narrative.

I have heard plenty of illogic in the blame game.  While it is true that many intellectuals didn't like HRC and pointed to her flaws, the vast majority voted for her anyway, led by none other than Chomsky and Reich.

Point:  All the leftists--I use that word rather than "progressive" because I'm not sure anymore what qualifies as progressive--whom I study couldn't of had a significant impact on the election's outcome. Many are great writers and thinkers, but in the main people don't take them seriously enough to create the ripple effect liberals insist happened. The most disinterested are liberals themselves, for whatever reasons.

Some of them may have voted 3rd Party, but hardly enough to make a difference.  "Hillary bashing," as some mainstreamers called the perfectly reasonable debate around Clinton, didn't cost her the election!

To insist as much is a tiresome trope, a false narrative, ridiculous.



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Walden and the Boyz

The only way that Trump will be impeached is if Republicans turn against him.   Before long, it is bound to dawn on some of them that this would be in their interest.--AL

I've already said this will happen, and as Levine promises a Pence presidency will rock y'all.

It's funny that people thought Trump was the terror when the real problem has been sitting in Congress since 2010.

Here in Oregon, this guy is a real menace to common sense.

His district is pro-Trump, now he must deal with voters as they discover the ACA has some worthy provisions.

Besides, they wanted Obamacare repealed, not their health plan!



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Hoops Action

Some serious hoops action to watch today as I struggle with the blues.

The Kentucky/Kansas showdown starts at 3:30, and I'll certainly watch for the pure pleasure of seeing Kansas kill John Calipari's team.

Tonight, Oregon goes for its 18th straight against Colorado.  About this one I'll say, no soccer-like flops please, and no kicking some poor guy in the balls again.

Who do you think you are?  Duke?

Speaking of which, how about it Wake Forest?  Just underway.

UPDATE: Damn it, Luke Kennard is too good, saved Duke's bacon in the 2nd half and Danny Manning's Deacons fall...

Good news, a couple of others ahead of Oregon fell today.  We hope Oregon beats Colorado and moves up a couple of notches, not that it matters as much as the experts would try to make you believe.

If you're a 5 seed in the tourney (Oregon won't be any lower than that no matter what happens) and you win them all you're then the NCAA Champion.

As opposed to college football's phony final-four "playoff," hand-picked by idiots like Condi Rice.

Goddamn:  Oregon can't beat Colorado in Boulder, lose by 9 tonight. I blame it on altitude, ha! Seven losses in a row.

Ducks now at 19-3.  Home against the Arizonas next week.  Better be sharper or things could suck.


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Awfulness

I'm at the the end of my free trial on CBS All Access, which I originally signed on to for its college basketball programming.  That didn't work out.

Tonight I watched the local news, more like the local weather report and nothingness.

Then listened, for the first time in years, to the national news, haha.

Free trial is over, thank the good vendor Lollipop Inc.

It is no small wonder America is filled with such rife stupidity!


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Good Questions

The election of Donald Trump has sent millions of people pouring out onto the streets to protest a man  they think is a racist, misogynist, xenophobic bully who will destroy US democracy in his quest to establish himself as supreme fascist ruler of the country.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe Trump is a fascist who will destroy America. But where were these people when Obama was bombing wedding parties in Kandahar, or training jihadist militants to fight in Syria, or abetting NATO’s destructive onslaught on Libya, or plunging Ukraine into fratricidal warfare, or collecting the phone records of innocent Americans, or deporting hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers, or force-feeding prisoners at Gitmo, or providing bombs and aircraft to the Saudis to continue their genocidal war against Yemen?

Where were they?--MW

I've been wondering the same thing.

I come to it from a slightly different angle here.


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WTF?

Wow!

UCLA was the darling until just days ago.  Now they're 6-3 in conference!

Fell to USC tonight.  UCLA has great players who can't defend and shitty coaching.

Not saying they can't still win it all with that roster, but what the hell?

If Brooks gets healthy I like the Ducks.

Bunch of losses in the Top 10  this week, my guys are poised to move up if they beat the Rocky Mt. schools in S. Lake and Boulder.

But who knows?  That is what I like about college bball this time of year.


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Special Pollack

Two by the good professor, Pollack.

Doesn't get any better in these special times.






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In Summation

I've heard the question again and again since Saturday's Women's March: What now?

By most accounts the protests were a rousing success on various levels, but it remains to be seen if their long-term effects carry on or fizzle out.

There are derivations on this theme throughout the leftist media--even bleeding into the mainstream. All are thoughtful, most make cogent points, and several approach my thinking, clarifying,  praising the diversity of the moment and offering a path forward in both logistical and philosophical ways.

To my thinking it is not simply essential that the resistance must carry on; how it progresses needs nurturing.

The best commentaries reiterate that the status quo of the Democratic Party, destroyed from the inside, need be drastically altered, shunned, or banished.  The corporatists in charge don't get it, and their supporters are oblivious if they expect different results from their bosses or the electoral system as it exists.

The best commentators point out that a movement has not been born as of yet, but cite trace possibilities in the vast size of the undertaking and the jumble of concerns participants carried with them to the protests.

I say protests, because there was more than one--had to be on such a grand scale.  I'm not speaking here of the many protests around the world, but rather the protests within the big one.  Agreement on how to proceed is likely to never happen--historically it's been hit and miss--but certain criteria need to be addressed as far as overthrowing the duopoly of concentrated power that has stymied and divided the larger segment of the polity.  Without meeting such criteria, nothing will change but the weather.

Foremost, the thing that just happened must not be co-opted if it is to maintain meaning.  I've written of how that works and how it has worked historically. Stopping co-optation is the most difficult obstacle confronting even the faintest sounds of revolt.  That is, co-optation is a fundamental scourge of capitalism, and has been since modern nation-states arose from the struggles of the past.

Identity, though an unavoidable aspect of every life, must be on equal footing with an understanding of how class differentiation drives society and evolves as distinct social causes mount up.  At those times identity and our differences become the focus, the struggle for economic equality loses impetus and, finally, power. This is not a presumption; it is an historical imperative.

The overthrow of capitalism will take care of identity by default. Under a new system that can only be built out of a new consensus, a better democracy you might say, equality will be nurtured and expected/expanded, not a divisive tool used to separate people into social stereotypes that they unwittingly embrace and too frequently use to attack others.  The rhetoric of exceptionalism, imperialism and consumerism--and worse, their enactments--followed by hasty retreats into individuality doesn't work, indeed hasn't ever worked, in achieving the common good.

History is misery digested and expunged.  It is repeated time and again, altered for epochs (and other measures) and exterior circumstances.  It is never twice exactly alike.  Yet natural and human forces remain constant, the call for good vs.something inferior.  Marx was mainly right, yet he is persistently denied, harangued and overturned by inferior logic. Capitalism at this stage is a pure failure in terms of addressing the commons.

I'm 66, and I've given it a lot of thought; there is one reason for where we are.  If where we are is bad it is because of greed. I wouldn't be here discussing anything at all if I didn't believe that the paramount concern ought to be the destruction of capitalism as we know it.

Anything less is pissing in the wind.  Anything less than achieving a new socialized democracy is allowing capitalists to piss on you.

So march on brothers and sisters.


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Dennis Smith Jr.

NC State, behind super frosh, beats Duke in Durham!!  First time since 1995!

I knew a kid in high school named Dennis Smith.  Good baseball player.



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Prose Poem

Resistance

It's working much the way
I thought it would if the fascist
got elected.
I didn't expect he would, but the
silver lining was there as refuge.
The lesser-evil voters wailed at me.
The demigod must be stopped, you're
throwing your vote away, he's wicked,
we must elect this women or else!
Or else what, I said; more of the same,
more war, more death, more poverty?
Haven't we had enough of that already
in all of these years of endless madness?

I said not her, the other one; she should
be the first. No, not Liz, the
Omnipresent faithful Democrat.
The other one who couldn't buy TV time
or impress the mainstream media moguls,
their advertisers, with her visions
of green peace, love, womanly bravery.
But, would the new revolutionaries have
marched in the streets had the status quo
been maintained?  No, of course not.
It takes a King. It takes a Tsar.
It takes an Asshole before
the multitude can find a voice.


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Serious Stuff

The destruction of democratic institutions, places where the citizen has agency and a voice, is far graver than the ascendancy to the White House of the demagogue Donald Trump. The coup destroyed our two-party system. It destroyed labor unions. It destroyed public education. It destroyed the judiciary. It destroyed the press. It destroyed academia. It destroyed consumer and environmental protection. It destroyed our industrial base. It destroyed communities and cities. And it destroyed the lives of tens of millions of Americans no longer able to find work that provides a living wage, cursed to live in chronic poverty or locked in cages in our monstrous system of mass incarceration.

This coup also destroyed the credibility of liberal democracy. Self-identified liberals such as the Clintons and Barack Obama mouthed the words of liberal democratic values while making war on these values in the service of corporate power. The revolt we see rippling across the country is a revolt not only against a corporate system that has betrayed workers, but also, for many, liberal democracy itself. This is very dangerous. It will allow the radical right under a Trump administration to cement into place an Americanized fascism.--CH

Transcript of the lecture Chris Hedges gave Saturday amid the Inauguration Protests in D.C.

Others were there.


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