Seriously?

CD has a lot more faith in Hillary Clinton than I've ever had.  I didn't like her from the get-go.

He seems to be captivated by gender politics these day, which I could give a fuck about. My position on all politics is that it would best serve all of our interests to find capable and honest leaders for every political job.  I could give a shit if they be men or women.

The playwright is now claiming he'll vote for her if he has to in a close race against Trump.  I figured he would, because I've read a lot of CD at his blogs over the years and he's never had a bad thing to say about the woman, never an argument against anything she has tried or said.

I can recall reading a blog post he once made lamenting that Clinton hadn't taken down Obama.  As irksome as I've found Obama at times, I never veered near that cliff.

He likes her, again fine.  I'm not disposed to argue about popularity contests.

But then CD goes on to make an outrageous claim--out of misinformation or a willingness to obfuscate--I don't know, but it reminds me of the Twain quote that I had on my masthead for a few months until recently: "Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."

CD claims that Clinton attempted to draw up a health care plan (remember, she came charging out of the gate in 1993 with one) similar to what Sanders advocates, which is single-payer-one-stop-fits-all expanded Medicare.

Socialized medicine, in other words.

Bullshit must be called bullshit when it's ripe.  All Clinton has ever argued for, since her own failed effort, is maintenance of the Affordable Care Act.

In fact, Clinton has repeatedly vowed during her campaign that single-payer is off the table.

Women apparently love it.  Well, not the poorer ones.  They voted for Bernie if they voted at all.

What HC advocated for in reality from her White House hair salon was something similar to the ACA, the Romney-inspired, Obama-driven, health-care-industry-juiced charade that exists now.

Jesus, she's not about to piss off the big insurance and pharma industries and do something so utterly detrimental to their interests and her career!

Where in the hell do people think she got a big chunk of her money for this fiasco?

The Clinton Health Plan was but the first of her failed endeavors on the national stage.  It won't be her last, particularly if the left can stay somewhat motivated and energetic throughout her time.

Not to mention the more violent players in the Middle East and Africa. (Pssst...she's not going to subjugate them, and she doesn't make deals like Trump.)

The women of the world can unite around the symbolism and all of that, I suppose.  Join the Army and Marines, ladies.  Go get shot up over empire if it'll make you feel better about things.

And yes, I know some of you already have.  That's just not a category that earns my respect unless you saw the ravages of war and changed your mind about its advantages.

Funny, I can recall a conversation CD and I were having just the other day about voter naivete. Imagine that.


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W. Burnside Looking East

(Buddy Dooley photo)

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For and Against

The Onion nailed this one.








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Hep Cats and Cool Chicks

Cool Beatnik stuff from Tom Clark's blog.

Bonus link.








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Richie Havens

The End:  2016 election special, Richie Havens' "Handsome Johnny."

Poem of the Day: Henry Reed.


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California Blues

I have one of those sinking feelings that wash over me at times.

It's more pronounced than the one I suffered after Barack Obama became the first black president amid the hope and change I was all for at the time, but which quickly metamorphosed into a sucker-punch to the gut.

I can remember being goddamned happy that the phony "maverick" John McCain and his chosen idiot Sarah Palin were run off the scene in 2008, but things quickly soured.

In no time--or in a flash of time as it played out--Obama made a mess of an historical opportunity. Just as suddenly as he came to power, he caved.  He gathered around him the usual assortment of Washington power players and holdover Bush plutocrats and made a mockery of  everything, including the Nobel Peace Prize (War is Peace!).

In short order, he led a new wave of violence in Afghanistan.  He spoke fleetingly of his Gitmo promises and then let them slide without conversation.  He dosed the public with further bromides regarding U.S. exceptionalism. He played a lot of basketball--something new!--and golf.

He pulled out the new tech in the spirit of drone assassinations and other forms of sanitized death. He swore off the word "terror" but unleashed the American variety.

He revealed himself to be long on talk and short on substance.

He nodded to his racist fellow "public servants" when they callously obstructed his every move. Rather than fight back when a little struggle could have moved the day, he played it safe.

He had a mandate, which he squandered, not so much because he could have changed anything, but because he could have moved his trembling lips and fought back--he was positioned to shred the fuckers, but didn't.

He lost his nerve, if he ever had any.

So nay, this year's sinking feeling is different, more pronounced and obvious, as translucent as a Hillary Clinton diamond. No waiting for the ax to fall.  No expectations that she'll make a mess; she is the mess.  There was no learning curve this time, no discovery, no illusions about the future.

I see Hillary and Bill frolicking in the White House; old, wrinkled sex in America's illicit porn shop--with separate bedrooms, of course.

I wasn't sucker-punched this time.

One thing we can legitimately hope for as our summer turns to dark autumn and this oblivious season culminates. Trump should pay Lewinsky a couple of million to discuss that blowjob.

If she doesn't appear on the network pundits' programs to talk about it--the more often the better--somebody will have failed as far as choice programming is concerned--good solid American programming.

Fittingly, Madam is about to give us a national reaming.


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Ah ha...

Plan B will prove to be a harsh learning lesson for many determined young reformers. What they are now experiencing is a learning process with the hardest lessons yet to come—i.e. to discover that there is no way out of the U.S. current political crisis through either wings of the Corporate Party of America. Maybe then a grassroots movement of the growing legions of the discontented in the U.S. will be able to emerge into a truly independent political party in the U.S.--JR

A sensible analysis.

Come on, Jack is only saying maybe...


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Picnic in Philly, Or Cheese Without the Steak

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, other activists and I will march with Honkala. It is not as if we have a choice. No one invited us into the center or to the lavish corporate-sponsored receptions. No one anointed us to be Clinton superdelegates—a privilege that went to corporate lobbyists, rich people and party hacks. No one in the Democratic establishment gives a damn what we think.--CH

Despite his well-grounded recognition of the fraudulent nature of "democracy" as it is manufactured and packaged by our corporate overlords, Hedges will join Stein and other Leftists cum "revolutionaries" at the DNC.

Apparently he has deluded himself into believing a point can be made there, though it's hard to imagine what it is or why he would want to mingle with the rabble who know nothing about politics. Maybe he's just crazy enough to think, despite the teeming stupidity, er naivete, that will surely surround him at the dais, some disparate voices ought be heard.

Good to hear he hasn't thrown in the towel, I guess, but man what a waste of time!

Oh, have you heard?  Clinton has the delegates to win already.  My guess is Hedges will look away when Clinton and Sanders hug, and that will be disparaged as unrealistic and rude.


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Marley

The End:  Marley's "War."

Poem of the Day: W.H. Auden.


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Where is the Radicalism?

The problem I have with this--and it's frequently the case with CD's rants about Sanders--is that they usually offer nothing about the issues or what will make HC a better prez than her primary foe; it's all personality-based, all a rejection of BS because he won't quit and just shut the fuck up.  Or because CD is upset with the man's campaigning style.

Maybe CD doesn't think Clinton is classy either--it's hard to tell.  He seldom mentions her.

He isn't bound to, of course, but I wish he would.  Be nice to know what the critic actually believes.

CD's basic rant goes like this:  BS is too loud and abrasive; he's not calm and skilled like Robert Kennedy.  It's always about Sanders' stupid kids.  Sanders' uneducated rabble.

I'm sorry but this stuff comes off like the author is an implicit Clinton supporter who would rather bash her foe than talk about the woman's virtues.

Hey, even Ali finally admitted Foreman was a good dude.

But again I wonder if this is even the point.  Does CD care who wins? A lot of what he says indicates he may well not care.  His disgust for Sanders is the important thing to keep in mind.

There is nothing here that either attempts to validate HC's worldview in CD's eyes or takes BS to task for anything other than his campaign style.

I can only assume that CD is on board with everything HC says if he's not going to express areas of concern about her.  While focusing on what has admittedly been an at times shoddy Sanders' effort, it all sounds somewhat politically unhinged.

Here is another thing; you can claim to be a progressive and say that others don't "understand American politics" just because you disagree with them, but it doesn't resonate or even ring true.

Clinton went into this thing like she had it won without lifting a finger.  That is her arrogant nature. That is a major reason she's having to wait so long to officially close out her delegate count.

Personally, I think her arrogance makes Sanders' look like a field mouse.  I want to see some leather flying in Philly.

You can call millions of Sandernistas stupid because they don't understand American politics in the same fashion as you do, but simply dismissing them out of hand is short-sighted, and actually somewhat anti-intellectual.  In fact, there is a lot to be learned from what has happened this election.

While CD doesn't seem to think there'll be a carry-over of  "leftist" talk after Clinton's inauguration, I suspect otherwise. I think Sanders' showing has made a mark.

It certainly seems to have pissed off my esteemed friend, and it is very good from my prospective to see a little giddy-up in the process.

Clinton has as many or more blind followers as does Sanders, but I wouldn't presume CD believes that, either.

I don't like Clinton with a similar passion that CD has for Sanders, but one thing I'll always be sure to do in my critiques of her is talk about issues, foreign and domestic policy, the real nuts and bolts of democracy--not just a critique of style.  Style can get you there, can even make you popular--look at Obama--but it is hardly substantive.

I just don't understand the energy that it must take to continue beating down a candidate whose core principles I might have imagined would appeal to CD more than they evidently do.

CD has every right to disengage from debates about income inequality, foreign policy, educational policy, etc., but I say such a tactic makes for flaccid politics.  It's TV stuff.

A major problem with American politics is that people don't bother with issues; but curiously, the increasing distinction between the Democratic candidates sort of gave that truism a rest this year.

My defense of BS when he started--and I too wished he'd run as an independent or switched to the Greens--was based on his willingness to take on income inequality and a host of other issues HC is unwilling to confront.

Believe me, I'd vote for Hillary Clinton--if she wasn't Hillary.  Perhaps CD is pissed that the whole enterprise has been a waste of time and will come down to Sanders formally turning his back on his kids and declaring for Hillary.

I think there is more to what has happened than that, but on that morbid day when he calls Uncle! I'll cuss BS out as thoroughly as the next guy.

Maybe I've underrated my patience all of these years.  Rather than seeing all of this as an opportunity to shout back at Sanders, I've rather enjoyed watching it play out.  It brought some rare excitement--as tame as it is--to this election.


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Priorities

What’s the difference between education and obedience? If you see very little, you probably have no problem with the militarization of the American school system — or rather, the militarization of the impoverished schools . . . the ones that can’t afford new textbooks or functional plumbing, much less art supplies or band equipment. My town, Chicago, is a case study in this national trend.--RK.

Let's bitch about something other than important stuff.


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Faux Progressivism

 The Sanders campaign, unmentioned in the Democratic front-runner’s speech, has increasingly offered a different kind of foreign policy — one rooted in diplomacy over war, global egalitarianism, and accountability to international law and broad movements against war and for justice. Yet in her bid to prematurely claim the Democratic nomination, Clinton failed to mention her more progressive rival even once.

Ultimately, Clinton’s failure to engage with this real, robust alternative — rather than just the cartoonish one offered by Trump — may say more about her own war-driven foreign policy than anything else.--PB

The calls to silence dissenters is rapacious, unending, boring.


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Mingling of the Classes

(Buddy Dooley photo)


The building on the left is an expensive condo complex. The building on the right is Section-Eight housing.  This is integrated Portland.


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Gordon Lightfoot

The End:  2016 Election special.

Poem of the Day:  Lynette Roberts.


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Every 15 Minutes

Cool way to beat the heat.


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