Monday in October Open Thread… 23 October 2006
Posted by marisacat in DC Politics, Divertissements, Europe, Germany, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, The Battle for New Orleans, WAR!.trackback
Post what you like… FYI: site remains on full moderation so comments may be delayed…
Brave New World? Hardly… Reinforced New World:
[T]he concrete foundation plunges eight meters (26 feet) into the ground below. Concerned about the risk of car bombs, the building’s planners decided to cancel their initial plan to include an underground parking garage. The decision has puzzled German construction personnel involved in the project. “I suppose the diplomats will have to arrive on foot,” says one of the German experts, referring to the fact that the plan seemingly ignores the need for a place to park the embassy’s bulletproof limousines. According to embassy officials, there will be a spot for the ambassador’s car, but no parking spaces for anyone else.
Instead of an underground parking garage, the €120-million structure now sits on a three-foot concrete plate, which, according to one expert, is strong enough to “support a nuclear power plant.” “You won’t see any moles getting through that,” says one of the German construction foremen. [snip]
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An [un]happy little ditty from the Southern Poverty Law Center…
[A]t last year’s European American Conference, a racist pow-wow Duke organizes annually, he implored audience members to enter politics — and start small.
“State representative races can be won with modest budgets and small staffs, while affording the winner possible major media attention and the ability to file and promote legislation that can materially improve our people’s plight,” proclaimed Duke, citing personal experience.
“Most importantly, a state representative office is winnable for political novices and provides an excellent springboard for higher office.”
This electoral strategy for building an extremist political movement in the U.S. was recently echoed by neo-Nazi John Ubele in an essay posted on the website of the Nationalist Coalition, a white nationalist group. In “The 2006 Elections: A Call to Action,” Ubele expounds upon the positive uses of local campaigns, even failed ones, in helping lay the groundwork for a “national pro-White political party.” These include heightened exposure for extremist ideas and organizational and management experience for activists. [snip]
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NYRoB has a Joyce Carol Oates article on Margaret Atwood. JCO extracts a particularly dark few lines from Atwood to present near the top:
…and Power Politics (1971) with its wonderfully terse, mordant prefatory lines:
you fit into me
like a hook into an eye
a fish hook
an open eye
Ah… I think Margaret Atwood does not waste her time looking forward to a future where we neatly choose to care for one another. Which is what the government sells… faith based, privatisation – and that standby: white, itinerant charity.
So 19th c. So feudal. Fine for serfs. Or slaves… Not for citizens. And, that is the thing the government wishes to make malleable. The rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
The very picture of New Orleans, of Katrina. Once they refine it for the next time… Once the fish hook is readied for the open eye.
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That is enough for now… if I see other things will pop them up… 
Blog Maid Festival.
Inadvertent comedy, no other description fits…
LOL
Oh vomit.
“Thank you oh wise one, you have changed the course of history”
…. riiiiiiight.
The constant need for attention is just laughable.
Okay, now on to BooTrib from the last thread.
What bullshit tripe Martin now has to resort to since his site traffic is so horrible. Dredging up stuff from the past to have a good ‘laugh’ over? Cross-posting to dkos? Nice to see Armando, pastordan, and spoon make appearances to laugh along. Wal-Mart, God and consultancy. How fitting.
He really is a piece of work — no critiques of Chevron allowed! No critiques of Wal-Mart allowed!
How’s that American Exceptionalism stance working out for him now that all the lefties are gone and all that remain are the cheerleaders or the people in the cafe. The only reason I still go there is for Steven D’s excellent pieces… and to say howdy to those who remain every once in a while. But other than that he really needs to figure out a better way to make his living… YouTube videos may not be free to post forever… and I don’t think his CIA buddies are hiring…
It has fallen away to nothing. Or nearly nothing.
Enh.
Perhaps Wal-Mart will hire them all.
As for the other, well the naive are often grateful. Leave it at that.
Those may be the only lines of Atwood’s poetry that I actually know. Or at least the only lines that I retain; they do stay with you.
thank you oh mighty koz as i was an ignorant halo player until i discovered i could get two or three syncophants and chase perceived trolls from your holy site who dared to diverge from the groupmindthink…
thank you so fucking much for a place where chevron reigns and we can attack anybody that isn’t making bank like you off pimping DNC approved candidates while claiming we’re the rebels.
thank you thank you thank you for bringing light into the darkness of my life. please allow me to prostrate myself.
followed by a hundred ass-kissing sheep…
Little Orange Footballs
Ezekial:
Thanks for that link. I happened upon it earlier today, what really strikes me about it is that I don’t think the people quoted here (the first comments that currently appear in that thread) really wrote these remarks, they cut-and-pasted them from the hundreds of similar diaries that have appeared on Big Orange Slop over the years:
I find it amazing that anyone posting at that site as regularly as LondonYank does could without irony use for his signatureNo Pasaran!, the battle cry of the Spanish Republican forces holding Madrid against Franco’s collection of North African mercenaries and German/Italian air squadrons. Just what side of that issue does he think Kos, Armando/mcjoan, Judas MB Goat, et al., would have been on 70 years ago? Next, I suppose I’ll see a bunch of lobbyists parading down K Street screaming “Power To The People!”
Next, I suppose I’ll see a bunch of lobbyists parading down K Street screaming “Power To The People!”
JJB
LOL CLub for Growth describes themselves as “grassroots”…
and as aemd linked to several posts back, “netroots” was coined by a Republican – in 1996. IIRC A Republican from more or less the Viguerie era. Not surprising.
LOng ago I began to see Blahhgs as a form of push polling. Not unrelated to direct mail adaptations that the Repubs have made… But LOL without the precision and honed data mining.
Basically shit thrown into the air. And now a lazy reliance on MSM. It lands where ever. Mostly on the ditto head choir. Filler for MSM. And cash exhortations from the rank and file.
Basta…
JJB,
London Yank is female. And PP is there too. It is a festival.
Did your invite get lost in the mail, MCat?
Two post from Billmon. Both very good.
“Babbling Idiots”
http://billmon.org/archives/002863.html
He takes you on a walk through the lookin’ glass. Watch where you step…;-)
and
“Tickling the Limbic System”
http://billmon.org/archives/002861.html
In the second link Billmon writes:
“No, what’s interesting is that the Rovians felt compelled to volley back on the sex stuff in a way they never have with more garden variety corruption charges, like those raised in the Abramoff-related scandals. Clearly, something in their polling or focus group work has convinced them this is different and far more dangerous.”
Knowing some fundies, I’m gonna throw my worthless 2 cents in the pot. It ain’t that the GOP has some minor (as in child minor) stalkin’ types. It’s that they have any ho-mo-sex-tu-als, at All, in the party. GASP. Beleive me, the volunterin’ and diggin’ deep into the pocket fundies are shocked to find out that they are asked to donate and
work for ho-mo-sex-tu-als like Foley (and he does bring in the cash). After the Reed/Abramoff scam, well…the last straw. All the hate backfired, bigtime.
Is it enough to get a solid majority in the House and Senate? IMHO, no. A couple of things are working against the Dems. First is over a decade worth of high tech, balls to the wall, GOP fundin’ and work on their GOTV. While the Dems are playin’ catch up, the GOP is moving to the next level. Second is, well, ego, the final coup. In a year where the GOP is so down in the polls, what a final stroke for the Rove machine to come out on top. Talk about makin’ headlines!
Last is the illegal immigration issue (mixed and melded to those brown “others”). I feel this is the under the radar issue (like the anti gay bills were in 2004) of 2006. IMO, this is the October surprise.
The Dems can pull it out but they are so busy fightin’ for top dog position they will let this election slip away, again.
Fundin’ “a small gang of 20-something kids from DC” (Woo Hoo, let every (rich) flower bloom) ain’t gonna do it!
Ezekial,
Thanks for the correction. So I guess she sees herself as “La Pasionaria.” Actually, she and some of the others remind me of the girls in my schools mooning over JohnPaulGeorgeRingo and DavyMickeyMichaelPeter 40 and more years ago.
Just read some more of the comments. Really embarrassing, almost as bad as what happens over at Froggy’s Bottoms when they get to talking about what that site means to them. I hesitate to proclaim any of these comments the worst, but I think this one wins the competition from the pool or 50-75 that I’ve glanced at:
Yeesh.
JJB,
Good analogy. Maybe someone who went to YKos can tell us if there was screaming and fainting when the boys appeared. Surely people were swooning left and right when Kos started to play “his music.”
In a year where the GOP is so down in the polls, what a final stroke for the Rove machine to come out on top. Talk about makin’ headlines!
aemd
Very on target your post. or so it seems to me.
The R ability to hone in on slices of the electorate is a big problem for the Dems.
AND some of the GOTV for the Dems that was operational in ’04 is not still a going concern. Even Charlie Cook admits this, even as he shoveled out stuff to make Daschle smile at CAP the other day.
Most of what I read in the MSM seems to be setting the Dems up.
There are bound to be some upsets tho, it seems to me a lot of races are cliff hangers. But, who knows. LOL Duelling polls…
Agree on immigration. They have built that fire and stoked it hard for two years.
Plus they are shifting hard and fast on The War (helll pick a war, by now)… elements of simply co-opting, out yelling the Dems… who have been so scattered for so long. Shoulda cleved to Murtha, just for the solid talking points. A full year ago.
Ah well. I give it 4 more cycles of loss. And this one will hit the naive, the believers, very hard. Even a skid in the door with 16, 17 seats will be smashed by the R.
Ezekiel… LOL… they knew the invites went in the round file long ago…
You know, speaking of PP, I still am waiting for an answer from her as to why she deleted her “orange revolution” diary which called for US citizens to act like the Ukrainians after the 2004 election… one minute it was up and I was commenting, the next it was deleted and she was ignoring my query as to why in an OT… I wonder what the excuse this year will be for not standing for democracy?
I’ll wait for the requisite puppy pic.
Ooops. Not supposed to protest the possibly stolen vote. Nor protest long lines to vote. Nor protest for Democracy.
As I say, they work to shore up the status quo.
however believers cannot see it.
The sublime Princess Katterfly (my left side) and I sat watching the end of GE’s nightly news when the bit about Bush and a computers from his recent CNBC interview came on.
PK on Bush’s avoidance of email, “I am the president and I wouldn’t want to incriminate myself”
Sublime…
damn, I used sublime twice in the same comment…anyhoo
The upcomming Simpson’s Cartoon Halloween Special looks like it will be fun:
anti-Iraq War is tres chic, no? But, of course, the Simpson’s writers have made numerous equal opportunity digs at our overlords for years now…kinda of like a talented jester in King Murdoch’s court.
I bring all this up to get at a graf from the second page in the story that caught my attention:
Disney News
Surely the present cyber-company are cognizant of the fact that Murdoch’s politics are not “drifting left” but merely his donations are turning a different shade of purple (such a royale colour!)
Which brings my to my point (other than the four on my head:o)) I am beginning to think we’re witnessing a re-branding going on, and despite the dueling polls obfusticating the gerrymandering, better funding, and endless ballot tricks, open and secret, at the Rethugs’ disposal notwithstanding we will see a shift in November. Nothing as earth shattering as the hype, but an ostensible house “victory” maybe the 16-17 skid that Mariscat mentions maybe a little more…I don’t know. I really barely scan the minutae of the many races.
My reasoning surely would be termed the CT over at daily cocks and cockettes, and I can’t claim to arrive at my answer through any identifiable and verefiable instrument other than my own native internal calculus of intuititive integration of what info I pick up.
I have to disagree that the press are “setting up” the democrats but I think we are getting a dose of hype that won’t be lived up to. (I’ll freely admit that I ay be having a pipe dream, though)
I’m going toss circumspection and caution to my overblown wind as well as abandon my obsession with the satanism of sarcasm and make my own serious prediction of 23 and 5 (hmm those are some familiar primes)
I may have over used my alotted space already so I won’t blither on why I feel that though “meet the new boss, barely distinguishable from the old boss” only begins to sketch the labyrinthe of lies, corruption and patronage that will pose as the representation of this undead revenant misnamed a republic.
Cheers!
wow, step away for a few & irrelvant fires all over. & as you said somewhere, all this energy 2 weeks out from an election.
Greg Palast has this:
I’ve got a long post up on Nate Mackey & quite enjoyed re-reading this poem snippet in light of the convo here:
(that’s a fragment, but the ellipses are his. I’m assuming the lines are going to get messed up here – they’re actually staggered & floating)
um, think I forgot the Palast link
& a little more Mackey not in my piece (I’m reading it tonight in light of progressive netroots!):
“They the would-be we talking of talk of / election, devotees of Iemanja. Glass- / green water they were in up to / their / shoulders, each the other’s moored / recess… The way she said his name stayed / with him. More made of what wasn’t / there than what was [...]”
heh!
wah! at least run on and fucked up link the CT link above should go to the orange bug zapper…
dammit, that should be :
“talking talk of / election . . .”
I probably should quit while I’m behind, but I’m ornery as hell so perhaps as by way of explanation for my illteracy tonight I offer the following for your illumnitation
denverpost
I’m certain that the nation wide decriminalization of cannabis would change the political landscape in as profound a way as the end of segregation.
As mentioned to madman at LSF I may be a pipe dreamer, but I’m not the only one…
oh ti should be decriminalised. Absolutely.
But I am sure you have noticed all the raids lately on various growing enterprises and whatever else.
It has NEVER been my drug (never been able to smke anything)… I can hardly even smell it, but very very rarely… but ti should be decriminalised.
LOL George Shultz donates money every year or everytime an initiative comes up. Not the only ca Repub who does…
Yeah the raids are fucked and the feds maybe just beginning their crackdwon but besides the incredible numbers of small scale non-commericial growing the counties in the north are totally chill…a lawyer buddy who also owned totally legit hemp food and fabric concern in the midwest recently retired to mendo and met with the county DA to discuss med growing… my friend said that he was told to “keep it under a million a year and you’ve got no problems”…I have know idea what he’s up to currently. :0}
I think the electorate in many areas across the nation are open to decriminiliation (not to mention the obvious industrial uses) but whether a drug that inspires many to question the status quo would ever be allowed to be widely availble does remain dubious.
But ya can’t blame me for dreamin’.
I think if Colorado decriminlizes small amounts(again dubious, but theoretically possible) the feds will have big problems and and if AZ were to follow (again not likely, but not impossible) then look out!
The oddest raid was the suburban pseudo Mediterranean villa that was unoccupied but totally given over to pot plant growing. ANd had been abandoned. Most of the plants were dry as could be.
Very odd.
You know the one scary thing about the CA med law is that all the card carriers are licensed by the state and so are in a database…yet another reason why I refuse to escape the BP to NorCal
Very odd…a huge problem with the illegal status is the amount of money that comes into to play because of the mark-up of contraband…scary dudes with gunz get involved when prices can command the same as gold on a gram by gram basis.
But one of the beautiful things about the state of affairs in CA right now, and a major problem for any fed effort to roll back the tide, future SCOTUS decisions notwithstanding (ha! by jah, I think I got it right), because large numbers of individuals have availed themselves to legally putting together “closets” for the cost of a nice entertainment system.
In norcal right now its viral, and I think that huge numbers of soccer moms and nascar dads are toking blueberryxwhitewidowx afhi-goo in the bathroom on saturday nights.
One thing that flashed thru my mind after all that has come down from 9/11… I used to fly to TX to visit a friend, back in the late 70s and early 80s. For a bout a year his mother was dying of cancer. I would pick up marijuana here from a dealer i knew in Marin, fly with it to TX, and right away as we got to the house we’d start cooking suppositories in the oven (as we poured whatever the poison was, champagne for me, gin for him… LOL).
Sort of like a special batch of cookies for his mother.
Made all the difference for her. But totally not-do-able now.
“Ain’t me who complains about ads, or pushes the stuff in the shop, or worries over lack of diaries… and that all goes back months, iirc.”
I think it possible that by next spring a good many people are going to come to the pragmatic, reality based conclusion that a career as an internet community consultant or a political operative isn’t in the cards and that they’re going to have to get an actual job or go live with their parents. At which point perhaps idiots like Josh will reconsider using Dana’s talking point terms like ‘jaded’ and ‘bitter’ and finally grow the fuck up.
Along with the rapid decline in visitations to BB blogs (and in an election year yet, tsk, tsk, tsk) I discovered a flaw in the Daily Kos myth. In my hour or so of checking it out 2/3rds or more of the user Id’s were from individuals who have never commented or rated. It’s as if someone has a job creating false user ID’s.
I discovered a flaw in the Daily Kos myth. In my hour or so of checking it out 2/3rds or more of the user Id’s were from individuals who have never commented or rated. It’s as if someone has a job creating false user ID’s. – colleen
LOL… pick a number, use an active commenter, diarist. Then move 10 numbers in either direction. Pretty barren landscape. And it has been that way for years.
Bubblemania. Tulips sprouting from Tulipmania.
Boychicks, imo, re worked some of what they learned, knew, from what I call “dot com dot died”.
There will be apparatchik sites, Dem Party sites, online pressure and money funneling (and other things) and many a “volunteer”, “amateur” working the margins, but some radical changes are coming up. IMO.
One reason KosLeader talks about “going dark”, various ways of talking of, about being offline for a period, on a few occasions over the summer.