Opera Glasses and Popcorn
.. all I can manage… but it will hold up a thread... 😉
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An Opera Glasses and Popcorn view of Politics and the Assembled Multitude...
Marisacat -
- Real independent observations on current events with a particular fondness for the follies of the Big Box Blahgers.
Deflates bloated egos like a champion fencer in a balloon warehouse.
- Alan Smithee
Marisacat -
"...polish on a mud wallow"
- Meteor Blades [May 24 at Mcat]
Marisacat -
"... doyenne of donkle deconstruction"
- Who is IOZ [January 2 2007]
Marisacat -
"... hardened professionals and their primary strength lies in their being completely unconflicted."
"... the primary difference is that on the level of criticizing other blogs and bloggers, they can actually do some damage."
"... Not what I look for in a liberal blog product."
- peeder - MLW, Daily Rant [3.24.07]
Democracy NOW! / Amy Goodman Electronic Intifada / General Content Press TV / Middle East News Press TV McClatchy Headlines The Real News Reuters / Politics
on one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.
If you click on La Louche the picture or the words, it leads to the Amazon PayPage, a way to ... oh let's say help with the cat can deliveries.
Thanks to all who made the very kind suggestion.
Marisacat 
this latest development should keep everyone entertained for a few hours:
http://www.myleftwing.com/showComment.do?commentId=259021
BTW, for those who like to take a look at polls… RCP gathers them together.
I see there is a NEW poll for Iowa, since the newsweek I quoted in the last thread (that one had Obama-rama up by 4 pts)…. the new poll has Hillarius the First up by 6pts.
All hail the polls!
It seems Iowa will be a bar brawl for both parties, while Hillary will coast in NH and FL. Iowa should be entertaining.
Will Bowers, Stoller and Kos endorse Richardson? How does everyone interpret the Richardson ad starring the men who are closing the door on the Left?
Ok, so is Chelsea going to be all over the Sunday talk shows next week?
And then….Socks?
Will Bowers, Stoller and Kos endorse Richardson?
John Nichols is talking him up.
sorry anti hege
I just found 5 of yours in spam (one to this thread, 4 to the last thread). The filters at WP are pretty blunt and buggy. Sometimes they just start snagging a series of comments that look too much alike.
Sorry!!
thank you. i just thought everyone here may be interested in this strange comment i happened upon earlier this evening.
did all of you already hold a discussion about stoller and bowers starring in a richardson commerical?
I ahd not heard that Bowers and Stoller were listing Richardson.
There must be a reason. Like ArmandoWando listing Dodd.
As if it matters. They will line up.
Snap! that whip!
Miss Devore: Socks the cat long ago went to kitty heaven (yes, there’s a heaven for cats but not for humans).
And Socks’ corpse would make a more interesting interview than either of the Bush spawn or the Clintonbit.
I see that Romney is leading (just) in New Hampshire and Iowa. But Giuliani will lose his infamous temper and blow what should be a close race.
Romney’s the one.
If Stoller and Bowers endorse a candidate, they got paid for it.
So did Armando get paid if he endorsed Dodd.
Either that or it’s…a principled…stand…sorry I couldn’t finish the phrase “principled stand” in connection with the Three Dollarteers without bursting out in maniacal laughter 😀
Marisacat:
Snap the whip? You’ve been reading Armando’s private diaries, I see.
Armando’s or Warhol’s. 😉
warhol would have been a great blogger.
Mike Allen and John Harris in politico (I have read 5 articles on The Cackle, from NYT Caucus Blog to Joan Venoccio in Boston Globe):
I’m almost 100% certain Armando wears leather undies on a regular basis. Don’t ask me why I think that, it’s just a gut feeling I have. First time I had a “conversation” with him, I said to myself: “Shadowthief, that chap’s got cowhide knickers.” It’s a gift I have; I can guess people’s undergarments with eerie accuracy.
Mitt Romney, for example, wears briefs with L. Ron Hubbard’s face imprinted on them.
16-this is a test. guess mine.
Pigskin, deerskin, lambskin, ultrasuede, thinly pounded layers of tanned edamane pods… so many choices. Well, at least I know that MissD can’t be wearing frogskin. That would have to be BooBooHead.
Read that label!
Pink Angora fur? There might be sunspots…I’m getting some electromagnetic interference 🙂
I just had a thought, Miss Devore. Couldn’t you just check and then tell us? I don’t know why we didn’t think of that before.
“ok, but no cigar”
I actually thought I was more obvious.
Miss D – thong!
Clinton wears boxers as we all know.
That Blitzer interview with Nancy was a laugh. She’s ‘going to hold him accountable.’ So sick of that phrase. I’m glad he pressed her to explain it.
And her answer it that they are holding hearings. He will never be held accountable. The only way was Impeachment, which no one is talking about anymore. So they got their way.
There was a sit-in at Constitution Ave. in DC yesterday, still going on last night. But there was no media coverage. I couldn’t find out if it continued through today.
it’s too early for the polls to mean anything … they reflect which press releases the press puts out there, that’s all. They don’t start meaning anything until the real campaigning starts, the heavy local ads and coverage.
I may be wrong about Huckabee, but I remind everyone that Clinton and Carter both were nobodies until their primaries heated up, and if polls meant anything we’d be yelling at President Dean right now. Huckabee is gonna get the evangelicals. He’s gonna get the Hallmark-channel-watching white mothers. He is fairly charming and non-threatening, and other than that one parollee, I haven’t seen anything else hanging over them. He sells the whole bi-partisan lie like a motherfucker, and he does it with a smile. They will not vote for a Mormon. They’d vote for a Jew before they’d vote for a Mormon.
I do think it’s likely to be Clinton, but that’s because it seems nearly every institution in this country seems to like the idea. The only hope of not-Hillary is if Obama and Edwards cut a deal and do to her what Kerry and the rest did to Dean … and frankly neither of them has the balls or is willing to swallow their ego enough to follow the other.
I will not vote for any of them. I refuse. It might be meaningless at this point, but they tell strikers that it’s meaningless too. When money and access have completely swamped everything else, the only thing left is the numbers of the mob or the threat of violence, and the only way the mob can get someone to woo them is to show that their numbers matter, and the only way to show that the numbers matter is to withhold those votes … otherwise there is no threat of latter withdrawal, and thus no real reason to deliver. Like strikers going hungry and turning down the heat, the left will have to weather letting the far right run amok for four years (or at least two), but remove the centrist hacks who ratify what the right is doing. Any lefty in a “red” state who votes for someone like Warner or Webb or Tester is making real change even harder to obtain, they’re slitting their own throats.
I understand why Miss D and others lean for Obama. The idea of seeing the first black man take office is thrilling, but the fuckers will kill him. If he’s willing to chance that sacrifice, then he’s a braver man than I’d be. If I was going to bite my tongue and vote Donklephant again, he’s probably the only top candidate that I’d be tempted to do it, and I’d be doing it for history, that’s all, not him. Sadly, Clinton has made me distrust her so much that I can’t feel the same thing for helping a woman take office, but I will not vote for another Clinton.
Sorry, had to get all that out so I could sleep.
Nancy Pelosi is the Barney Fife of Congress.
There’s your obligatory pop culture reference.
Miss Devore, sorry I disappointed you with my knicker-guessing skills. I guess it’s a good thing I never turned pro.
Just had a flash.
Madman is wearing a thong.
I agree with Madman that if any of the “obscure” Repub candidates have the potential to catch fire (figuratively, not literally, NSA monitors), it’s Huckabee.
The GOP, however, doesn’t quite work that way. The GOP likes to coronate its candidates rather than let them slug it out, which is what the Democrats appear to be doing this go around, as well, with Serena Joy receiving the sceptre and crown.
That’s why I still say it’s Romneybot.
This is too good not to steal:
And this man born in 1946 is considered brilliant
the the Encampment blog and a report in DC Indymedia.
I cannot vote for Obama. And to be honest, his wife is vulgar. I do not know for whom I will vote. Maybe I will vote for Biden, only because he is obnoxious.
on the undie question, unlike you pussies who hide in armour, I’m all about going commando, my friend.
Listening to the stupid conventional wisdom on Timmeh’s panel today was priceless, with Buchanan pushing the idea that crazy lefties were going to outlaw smoking and beer (and of course no one challenged him on it), and gay marriage, and all the rest. Timmeh bitching that no one will take a “real position” … god, I want to slap them, all of them. Tavis Smiley was being just another pundit weasle too.
Bill is not very smart. They caught a clue or two, as they pounded the hustings in ’92. It was over fast.
It was going to be all about THEM, which is exactly what it has been.
oh, and lengthy screed not withstanding, I only said I’d be tempted to vote for Obama, but I’m not gonna do it. That line is gonna be marked for some third party, or be left blank.
oh what pandering. Obama opened his first campaign office in CA, – today in Oakland.
Bow wow.
They were both here today. Gavin endorsed her.
bow wow.
Obama hiring a major lobbyist to join his campaign recently killed his candidacy for me. Politicians only hire lobbyists for campaigns if they need donations bundled. He is such a liar, and his foreign policy stance is hegemonic.
30-vulgar wouldn’t be the adjective that came to my mind about Michelle O. She’s an accomplished woman, and would be without Barack. Jayzuz–she wouldn’t even have to be medicated like Laura Bush.
My new guilty pleasure, Lucy: the Daughter of the Devil
blasphemy, bad taste and really strange animation … what could be better?
the whole lobbyist game from the three of them is a joke.
The runners up, Edwards and OBama like to parse between DC/Beltway lobbysits and state lobbyists.
Geesh, get real.
I say vulgar, as she seems hungry for money and for power. There is also a lot from her past that I find objectionable.
39-do tell. and if so, is she hungrier for power than Hill?-is that possible?
Wal Mart connections, which she only severed after Barack claimed he would never shop there.
History with The University of Chicago Hospital as community outreach coordinator at a time when the hospital rejected patients from the surrounding community and through the university’s graduate students under the bus with a terrible student clinic and insurance program.
The money chase is interesting. Hill and her team have put out the message that they have a broader based appeal and Obama’s Q2 fundrasing reflected his appeal among high dollar donors. And the media simply repeated that without comment.
As of 6/30 Hillary had fewer than 100,000 donors and Obama 250,000. Using the100,000 donor base (which is high) her the average contribution is over $500. Obama’s average is appox $230. However among scheduled donors (200+) he beats her 30,000 to 21,000. He beats her in on every measure except two. They are roughly equal on donors at the 2,300 level. But where she shines is in her numbers for donors above 2,300 to 4,600. Of course that money above 2,300 can’t be used for the primary. What I don’t understand is this whole transfer of fund from a prior campaign. The same people who gave to her senate campaign are giving to her POTUS run and that simply skirts the individual campaign contribution limit.
to be frank I think both parties are slush fund events. And all candidates are as well. And the so called “leadership PACS” are close to criminal.
Creative book keeping and whatever else.
I looked up a prominent Hollywood couple last week and in sseveral instances they are doubling their donations. he gives for both, and so does she. To the same candidates.
I just stumbled on it, as I was looking at mouthy anti war types and where they are putting their money.
”Cuz underwriting the Dems is NOT NOT NOT anti war.
It is pro war.
Or people just LIKE swallowing the Pelosi bullshit from the WOlf interview. Which is all she has said for a year and a fucking HALF. Nearly two, actually.
Marisa #43 – a lot of the big money donors give to all the primary candidates. Like Barbra Streisand gave $2,300 to Hill, Barack and John. Their politics is party and not so much the candidates. Michael Douglas has given $4,600 to Hill, Barack, Richardson and Dodd.
well I know that Marie.
But 4.600 To Hillary from the husband and 4.600 to Hillary from the wife.
sorry if I was not clear:
I looked up a prominent Hollywood couple last week and in sseveral instances they are doubling their donations. he gives for both, and so does she. To the same candidates.
Haven’t looked up any couples but not surprised that they both give. In either 2000 or 2004 there was a website that was better than open secrets. Anyway, contributors to GWB didn’t stop with the doubling down for the couple but their college age kids each gave the maximum. And we all know that the kids donated our of their own pockets.
guess I am still not clear. They both give for the COUPLE. To the same canddiate. He maxes out what is a donation from BOTH, and so does she.
Sorry, cannot make it clearer.
Not getting it. Only individuals, not couples, can donate. So if a donation $1,000 is made in the name of Mr & Mrs X for legal purposes it would have to be defined as a) $500 from each
b) $1,000 from Mr or c) $1,000 from Mrs.
If you are saying that Mr. X donated $8,600 in the names of Mr & Mrs. to Hillary and Mrs. X donated $8,600 for Mr & Mrs. to Hillary, Hillary’s campaign has to return $8,600. This is too easy to spot as a violation and the campaigns know that.
hmm, is that you louisiana girl/point coupee dem? your rhetoric is showing through again.
well Marie that is what is happening.
On May 27, the husband gives 4, 600 to Hillary.
A few days later the wife gives the same amount to Hillary. The sum total of two donation limits. Not to HilPac. Not to the DSCC, not to anyone of the many Democratic fundraising systems.
Same thing with Obama from the same couple and as well to a couple other candidates.
I tried to make it clear.
I suspect it is widespread and occurs in both parties.
wu ming,
although the IPs are different… I think you are right (and I was emailed with the same thought by a commenter a couple weeks ago).
AND I think that anti hege is also “thereisnorape”.
Wal Mart connections, which she only severed after Barack claimed he would never shop there.
Isn’t Hillary on the board of Walmart?
From the last thread
mccain’s “muslim president” comment is totally aimed at obama. it’s a wingnut dog whistle for those that freak out about his “two muslim fathers” as some bizarro-world islamofascist manchurian candidate fantasy. i ran across one just the other day on a local politics blog discussion of the architectural merits of a new mosque in town that got very weird very fast.
Part of me thinks this. Obama’s also not a member of a “real church” (as defined by the Xtian right).
And he’s also black (and “Islamofascist” in the wingnut world is an expression of white male anxiety for a lot of different nonwhite people. It’s the expression of anxiety for the idea that the USA won’t be majority white in 50 years).
Hillary was on the board of Wal-Mart from (iirc) from 86 to 92.
It was barely reported in the press in ’92, but it was covered in the UK and continental press at the time.
Speaking of Campaigns and Cave Men
I recieved a high gloss / Won’t you join us? /.piece from the
Jersey State Democratic Committee – Local and Statehouse election Nov 6..
BHHM re-folded,piece sailing through air towards trashcan…
The pander piece was disgusting, quote:
Yeh? Ram it, ram it, ram it up- you get the idea…
Why not just come out with;
This is precisely the kind of shit that has emboldened the winger agenda.
I also got a pre printed piece entitled
(for not being registered to vote ) with voter reg form with my name already form field laser printed — picked up probably from fallen off D registration or ex- donor data base no doubt)
Not shocking, I know, but it’s the kind of step-to-itiveness they should have been doing for the last thirty years. Too bad they have no traditionally democratic principles or candidates left to stand for them…
As for “”What’s my Excuse?”
LOL- DO THEY REALLY WANNA KNOW?? How much time they got?
Like they – or I – give a fuck now about sitting down to talk it over…
THE LAST THING Jersey needs is sucking up to the local police. Aside from the mythical Mayberries, Jersey local PD’s are almost thoroughly corrupt, as anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock here knows….mob infilltration, mobs of their own, moving in on small businesses for more than a fucking donut. So many scams, not enough cops to pillage the village it seems…….
I know of a guy who had a cop’s wife working for his artisan business for a year before he was looking to retire. The guy wanted to sell out and retire The cops wife tells her Hub-Thug-in-Blue and sets up a meeting with her husband. The cop proposes a sale of the business with owner financing. The local business guy says he wants to cash out, going to get it evaluated, field some offers..the cop tells the guy “he might not want to do that “. The cop then suggests staging a burglary – the biz owner collects the insurance money then the cop takes “his share” and buy the place too.
Biz owner begs off, gets lawyer who advises not to report it just sell , which he does inventory included. Shortly before settlement the store is cleaned out in a middle of the night break in. Inventory stripped clean (Hours of work). The biz owner moved as planned evidently the new owners recieved some settlement. The cop’s wife set up shop across town months later inventory from her former place fully stocked ready for sale. The new owners of the original shop folded within a year. Apparently the locals were told to put off certain purchases for a few months to get a really good deal when Mr and Mrs Gestapo opened THEIR new place. Which they did. Right around the time the Pig got promoted in the local Jackboots….
Ed: Voter Reg Piece was entitled “What’s Your Excuse?”
Let me count the ways —the fuckers know I changed my reg to Independent…
Next stop for police owned businesses?
Preferred vendor status for everybody from the local school boards to the Boy Scouts and volunteer fire departments….it’s a cesspool.
hmm I see Barbara Lee on the stage behind Hillary (oakland this weekend). Feinstein was there as was Gavin, Jackie Spears, Don Perata… others… think they all have endorsed.
So………………… if Barbara has endorsed… waht of Out of Iraq?
All you can do is laugh.
the cops are in charge.
Barbara Lee backing Hill?? It’s gonna take me awhile to laugh.
well I don’t know specifically that she has endorsed, but the front and second row on the stage – behind Hillary, that I saw – have endorsed. She stood next to Feinstein, so well within camera.
Unless Barbara Lee has her fist clenched in a Black Power salute in the photograph, Marisacat, then it’s an “endorsement by proximity”.
As for Hollywood celebs–I have the inside scoop on their “politics”. Used to teach at a school that caters to the rich and famous, and their politics are an inch deep. Yes, almost all of them are Democrats and even consider themselves “liberal”, but none of the ones I encountered even uttered a word of concern about the plight of the poor. It was always environment and civil liberties, and even on those, it was the shallowest take possible: Republicans bad, Democrats good.
Hollywood politics, in other words, are elitist, superficial, and partisan.
The delusional world in which the Hollywood celebs live is so complete that they actually think the people of California would vote for Rob Reiner for Governor.
Madman: Commando, eh? I wear combat undies, and I’m not worried about whether or not some guy is checked me out when I change into them. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
I need coffee. Bleh. “some guy is checked me out”? Appalling. “I is Shadowthief. I bit of English speak. USA #1! GI Joe! Uncle Sam!”
I honestly do think I’ve had a minor stroke and these bits of mangled grammar are my brain’s way of telling me. I never used to make those mistakes. It can’t be because I’m getting old; I mean, I look at least six weeks younger than I actually am.
Truthout has pciked up the Hersh from the new yorker (due in the oct 8 newstand edition).
Couldn’t figure out what to excerpt, so gave it up.
Mrtha Slush
Is this guy DeVos related to Michigan Amway DeVos wingers and Blackwater founder in laws??? Murtha is a real Toad. Nothin’ happens in his district without him knowing about in and orchestrating the funneling of money – I mean really, the guy’s sitting in Richard Mellon Scaiffe’s backyard….
Screwed up blockquote last para my own…..Sorry.
no, wu ming. sorry. and even if i was, i do not think it would matter. i decided to search online, and it seems you enjoy following that person around. why are you so focused on that person?
Don’t let the Huckster fool you, he’s as crooked as the rest of them. Huckabee is also a low class theif, and quite brazen. He even stole the office furniture on his way out of town. As governor,at taxpayer expense, he regularly used the state plane to promote his presidential campaign, his religious missions and to promote his diet book. His wife also often used it for political reasons. Not that was any chance Huckabee would be criminally prosecuted, but just to be safe, Huckabee ordered the hard drives on all the computers which contained record of his thefts physically crushed during his last days in office.
Huckabee knew there wasn’t worry of criminal liability because there is no http://www.arkansasleader.com/2007/02/from-publisher-state-plane-flies-again.html in Arkansas whatsoever. The US Attorney at the time, Saint Bud Cummins, was a former employee of the Hucksters, so he wasn’t interested. The state AG is a good old boy as well. The state guy called himself a Democrat so he could be elected, but everyone knows how the game is played. Huckabee had an answer for everything, most with the plausibility of an average fourth grader lie, but since there was no real investigation that was the end that.
Oh yeah, that wasn’t any old parolee he liberated, Wayne DuMond was a vicious rapist who Huckabee had freed apparently because DuMond’s victim was a relative of Bill Clinton’s. Immediately after his release rapist went on to assault another women and murder, whoops. Huckabee denies the well documented pressure he put on the parole board to release the guy, as well as the reason he pressured them. That’s all that matters, if there is no confession these people can get away with murder, almost literally.
Not that it is about Huckabe directly, but it does say something about the household that Huckabee’s son David was arrested recently as he attempted to board a plane with a gun. That wasn’t the first time the 350lb boy was in the press. As a 17 year old son of a sitting governor he was expelled from his job as counselor at a Boy Scout camp. The camp said the reason for the expulsion was that Baby Huckabee violated the part of the Scout Law which requires Scouts to “be kind.” It seems David Huckabee and a buddy caught a stray dog, hanged it from a tree while it was still alive then tortured it to death. Naturally, no charges were filed because that’s how things are done in Arkansas.
I could go on for days, but I don’t want to bore you. It is clear that Huckabee has the right stuff to become President.
just saw a good fact. if that woman was in a cell, WHY was she STILL handcuffed.
Boohoohooman:
Yes, he is related to the Mich. Amway DeVos wingers, and Eric Prince, founder of Blackwater through his wife, I believe.
In the thread on Pff on Blackwater, this was discovered. I’ll try to find it again ….
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/1/81636/9034
Racist Drug War Bust at High School #1 African American Basketball Star Arrested
by redstatehatemonitor
Anti heg, Wu Ming follows no one around. That, like a lot of your statements, is inaccurate.
Thanks Sabrina.
Blitzkrieg. Everything has been methodical at first but this blitzkrieg assault on our sensibilities, liberties and well being is the best way to describe the massive equal opportunity looting, the bipartisan criminal war enabling… I wrote a blip of a comment on the DailyMail board overseas to see if someone can arrange to invade us…..
Sticking my head in for a bit – I was away all weekend and will be traveling again starting on Thu. I just have a couple of contributions:
1) Fuck off, anti-hegemonic, you’re an idiot.
2) I thought you MCatters would enjoy this, from former state senator Mark Hounsell. It was also published in the Conway Daily Sun.
I like Edwards and would have attended the event if I’d been here, but I had to laugh at this. Way to piss off the locals!
I like Hersh for many historical reasons but one is just for the fact that the PTB have to pause at least to from time to time on their way to pressing the button… His new article says mostly that the Admin is dusting off attack scenarios since the summer packaging them with a political sell as a teeny weenie wittle strategic airstrike campaign.
He has gotten beat up over revelations that didn’t bear out within a narrow time frame, but I think he has been on top of it all along, the diff before being mutual WH/GOP concern over interim elections.. Now with their policy and payola legacy apparently ready to be continued by the Dems anyways , the White House could giva shit about their own Hill, ….
I still find it unfathomable that the GOP (hell anybody) would let Hillary drive the car despite her willingness to follow directions. I think the central truth is she can’t be trusted to serve anything other than immediate Clintonian needs…That said, This Dobson fundie threat of third party action could play well to the Bushista Masters agenda……conventional strikes in Iran further setting the hook in ME mil presence, then on the domestic side play it down the middle in 08 GOP intramural battles , pulling the plug on Rudy or Mitt come Election Day, then row hard to the Dobson/ Robertson gun nutter ilk four years hence saying we were with ya all along. Come 2012 sell the whole exhausted country on “We told ya so” when everyone despises Hillary and might see a killer asteroid or nuclear winter as more of a welcome engagement… Nice set up for Jeb’s turn at the wheel in 2012, no???…
Welcome, Bhhm. Found the info:
http://politicalfleshfeast.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=541
There’s a lof of info with links in this thread. An excerpt from on on Eric Prince and his family connections etc.
Doesn’t look as if Daniel R DeVos is related to the Amway folks. The freepers were all over this guy – a financial supporter for Murtha and has given small amounts to others, DEMs and GOP. If there is a scandal on this one, might be one for the DEMs.
(Marisa – the individual contribution limit is $4,600 – $2,300 for the primary and $2,300 GE. Total for a couple $8,600. Of course they can also donate to Hill’s PAC and her 2012 Senate campaign.)
Creepy DeVos Links
http://www.ctc.com/news/2006/06oct31_pr.cfm
Daniel R. Devos must be a brother or nephew or something
http://www.mediatransparency.org/funderprofile.php?funderID=17
Dan and Pam’s Foundation (pass me a non alcoholic hot toddy}
based in grand Rapids Mchigan a lot of the same ultra winger causes
(seems like double and triple dippin’ is a theme here)
Murtha is in….thick as thieves with these peeps…..never a serious challenge…
Out for a while.
Just passed by a small impromtu demonstration about the Jena 6. About 150 boisterous tightly packed people parading up broadway. Good thing to see – excellent energy. It kind of reminded me of the day the Diallou killing cops were acquited. About 1000 people [myself among them] descended on city hall and screamed until the cops came in and busted everyone they could [I snuck away as soon as I saw the SWAT trucks].
In other news, LL Cool J and entourage just exited a white cadillac to go shopping on the corner of Bleeker and Broadway, which leads to this pressing question: does his bodyguard go into the dressing rooms with him when he tries on slacks? Or does he just stand by the door?
Still catching up – thread & a half behind. 🙂
#75 – Daniel G DeVos is part of the Mich. Amway family.
Daniel R DeVos of PA appears not to have any close ties to those in MI.
sorry! let
out of water
SV
and Paul out of moderation…
77
the same couple is doubling up for upper plains senatorial races. for the ’08 cycle.
It is not that I care, just that i noted it.
I think there are a thousand and one money scams. Also tangible property scams from election cycles.
Again, not that I care… LOL
I was under the impression that AH was LA Girl from the beginning. Exact same spamming MO with links to comments from BBB’s and a phrase along the lines of ‘I found this interesting’…
That and the just plain mean comments about various women. Michelle is ‘vulgar’. Elise must be beaten down, etc., etc.
And for the confirmation ‘why are you following me around’????
I mean – I’m paranoid, but this type of crap is crazy… hey maybe all of them are Janet Ritz? Wouldn’t that be a hoot.
He’s Baaack!
Laugh:
Speaking of Cannabis sativa
Then cry:
The Devil You Know
The devil you should know:
I Was Able To Interpret This Feeling
[fixed the links — Mcat]
Marie – that map at IOZ is quite funny. The other 2 links appear to be broken.
I was under the impression that AH was LA Girl from the beginning. Exact same spamming MO with links to comments from BBB’s and a phrase along the lines of ‘I found this interesting’…
Same here, Lucid. Same games. The Elise diaries and comments were a dead giveaway.
let’s try those links again:
Then cry: The Devil You Know
The devil you should know: I Was Able To Interpret This Feeling
[fixed the links — Mcat]
Just go to WhoisIOZ – I can’t get the links to work here or at TLC.
Are the money boys jumping on the bones of the old whore one last time? Dow record above 14,000
Marisa, thanks for fixing the links. Still not sure how they got messed up.
The real dirty hippies are the black-masked anarchists, the sign-waving ANSWER kids who the imagined leftwing of the Democratic party roundly condemn for daring to bring up the School of the Americas or IMF shock-therapy economics at an antiwar rally. The real dirty hippies don’t care what Katie Couric calls them.
Hmm. I get his point but I’m on the cusp of middle age and I wasn’t even born in 1968 and Jerry Garcia died in 1995.
So maybe the term “hippie” should be retired forever.
the links went buggy as for some reason they picked up an extra set of quote marks around the URL.
It happens from time to time, not sure why.
91 HC
agree.
It was misunderstood in every direction possible at the time – and still is.
One hard core reality, if I may speak as a native, by the so called Summer of Love, it was effectively over. Certainly the earlier gentler versions of a sweeping societal phenomenanon… that was over.
By the Summer of Love, it was the second season for Gray’s Tour Lines to be going thru the Haight.
9/11 has made us stupid.
To this observation, the ever-forgiving Jim Henley avers that it “has also made us cowardly and mean,”
Here’s what I think.
The forces that would coalesce around 9/11 were already there before 9/11.
1.) The anti-immigrant movement
2.) The religious right
3.) The aggrieved militarists
Had Al Gore not had the election stolen from him in 2000 these same forces would have coalesced around him instead.
Think about it. I have a better chance of getting hit by a meteor here in suburban NJ than I do of dying in a terrorist attack. So does the idiot next to me with the “Support Our Troops” magnet on his SUV.
But he’s projected his fear of weak kneed liberals letting Mexicans date his daughter onto the next terrorist attack.
The trick isn’t to imagine that 9/11 created something out of thin air. The trick is to prevent them from using 9/11 to scare you into going along with them.
If the “netroots” would just train themselves into hearing “Clinton got a blowjob” every time some fascist says “9/11 changed everything” they’d be amazed how much their spines would stiffen.
Hardball on abortion.
Tony Perkins representing the “pro life” side and Peter King and Matthews representing the not so pro-life side.
The spectrum now goes from extreme extreme fascist right to extreme fascist right.
BTW, the typical black masked anarchist or Answer Trotskyist would be rather less than pleased to be referred to as “hippies”.
There’s actually a rather broad redneck streak on the far left.
When I think ‘hippies’, I think Ken Kesey & the pranksters – and that was around ’64, ’65. Most of the original ‘hippies’ beat it out of SF before the summer of love, except for the diggers. It is quite a shame that most in this country associate the word hippie with the entire ’60’s counterculture. Hippies were actually pretty apolitical. I’ve seen accounts where Kesey would speak to the Berkeley free speech movement and basically tell them that politics was full of shit & they should just move out to the redwoods, drop acid and put dayglo paint all over the trees…
I jokingly refer to myself as a hippie, owing to my pacifism and my penchant for all things Jorma Kaukonen… and the fact that I never came back from my first acid trip… but I’m really more of an anarcho-syndicalist with a renaissance fascination with pretty much everything.
HC #96 – wouldn’t call it “redneck streak,” but very authoritarian. It was obvious to me and many I knew that at some point the far, far left meets up with the far, far right. That could explain how someone like Janice Rodgers Brown went from being a Marxist to the far, far right ideologue. She didn’t flip, only took a few more steps along the path she was on. We should probably lable these people authoritarian/totalitarians – doesn’t really matter who exactly runs the industries if they are controlled by an elite cabal.
Finally got around to reading Maureen Dowd’s latest. From all the DEM screeching about it, I expected it to be biting. It’s a weak piece and she isn’t even responsble for what seems to be the most objectionable part; it was a quote. She may be a wanker but the DEMs are also wankers. What the article did remind me of was the privileged white housewives or financially secure new divorcees from the early seventies to early eighties. They knew everything and expected to be handed good grades if they had returned to school, rapid promotions if they went to work in private industry or to immediately put in charge of a non-profit, etc. if that’s where they landed. In their minds, 10–20 years as a housewive was MORE valuable work experience than what other women had gained by reminaing in the workforce. And rarely were they the hardest workers around. Those are the women who can relate to Hillary.
#97 – lucid – tought to define “hippies.” It was composed of three distinct strands. The earlier beatniks (roughly those born before 1940), the “free speech” movement (born ’40-45) and the early boomers. Many of those in the first two participated in or were sympathetic to the Civil Rights movement. The boomers who were political mingled with the those two as well. The apolitical, sex, drugs and rock-n-roll types later discovered religion, capitalism, that there was no place like home or became drug addicts. Not that any group was immune to the lures of drug and alcohol addiction. It’s just that the first two groups weren’t as young when the flow of drugs increased.
And there were of course people who went to Greatful Dead and Phish concerts when I grew up and I suppose people who did were more liberal and left than conservative.
On the other hand, I knew as many apolitical and downright conservative Deadheads growing up as I did liberal Deadheads.
My cousin used to keep a picture of Jerry Garcia up on his wall and crack racist jokes at the same time.
And if you look at any of the “Gathering of Eagles” crowd at anti-war rallies, you’ll see as much long hair as you’ll see crewcuts.
In other words, the idea of being a “hippie” has long since been assimilated into the mainstream of American culture and has very little to do with politics anymore.
And the idea of any of these people
calling themselves “hippies” just seems strange to me.
HC #100- who are those people? Except for Bill and maybe the other grey haired one, none of them are old enough to have any memory of the seventies much less the sixties.
Marie – true, was being to narrow, and having not been alive then, should probably shut my trap anyways… But ‘hippies’ to me really denotes those at the forefront of the psychadelic movement & that is what distinguished them from other forms of the counterculture & other strands of political activism in the ’60’s. Of course, with the boomers all of that stuff got mixed together – the drugs, politics, lifestyle, etc.
But Kesey & Ginsberg & the Dead are really what I would consider to be ‘hippies’ properly speaking. They sought a transformation of society through the open use of LSD to broaden human perception… what that transformation would be, no one could say… perhaps Jerry’s descent into heroin addiction? Who knows. I had a certain affinity with then when younger & when I could still do acid without winding up in a terminal depression for weeks.
But if I were to really look back at ’60’s countercultural movements today and identify with any of them, it would be the Panthers. Their blend of community based activism & civil rights were right on the money imho.
LOL I have not clicked on the link, but i am sure that is the Day Trippers Go to Harlem and have Red Velvet Cake with Bil and Peter Daou.
That poor fucked bunch of whatevertheyare.
The Panthers scared the living daylights out of the government.
And if you look at any of the “Gathering of Eagles” crowd at anti-war rallies, you’ll see as much long hair as you’ll see crewcuts. — HC
one reason I called it a societal phenomenanon (or however it is spelled, that many similar pairings of vowels and consonants will defeat me).
I might add, a lot of the original ‘hippies’ ended up forming rather authoritarian, sexist communes based on everyone else supporting the endeavors of the ‘leaders’ in the group. The Zendiks would seem to be a perfect example of this.
While I highly respect the broadening of perception enabled by psychadelics, they alone cannot do much to ‘transform scoiety’… which I think is why the ‘hippie’ movement ended up as the hell hole the Haight became by ’68.
It’s the expression of anxiety for the idea that the USA won’t be majority white in 50 years).
I hate to break it to them, but unless they’re willing to go out and commit hundreds of Rosewood and Tulsa style violent ethnic cleansings, the US WILL NOT be majority white in 50 years. Demographic waves are a bitch.
OOW
I’m not endorsing Huckabee. He’s a scumbag. Hell, just introduce someone to me as a baptist preacher and I’ll make sure my wallet’s still in my pocket and will hurridly try to get every child I see as far away as possible. I’m just saying he plays pretty well on tv, has less overt baggage than the rest, and could very well be the second Arkansas gov to come roaring out of a campaign season as a dark horse winner.
Identifying a threat, not cheering it on.
The Zendiks would seem to be a perfect example of this.
Oh stop bitching a start a revoution already.
Hmm. He looks a bit like a certain serial killer
http://www.zendik.org/new1/wulf/wulfbio.html
scroll to the bottom
Damn Marie # 90! LMAO!
Definitely no run of the mill profanity! LOL
IMHO nothing is to be gained by shortcircuiting the natural flow of changing realities and perceptions. Or trying to speed it up. Drugs are drugs – experiment with them or use them if you so choose- but except in traditional and highly controlled religious rituals among some populations, they don’t lead to a higher plane or consciousness.
The world in the US changed so dramatically between 1942 and 1964, that it’s not surprising that the generational gap would have been as large as it was. This is a good article by Myerson describing what it was like for boomers. Why it has taken so many (and many are still not there) so long to see what we’ve all lost.
Hair Club –the Zendiks are a fixture in DC around Georgetown GW etc
they have T shirts and Lit “Quit Bitching, Start a Revolution” that’s about it worked opposite streetcorners from them in DC right before Bush’s State of the Union ’06 We drummed up support for the protest on one side of the street, they sold T-shirts in January…..They’re still around war still on..maybe they’ve done a better job….
I just reflexively guard my wrists talkin to any dude named “Talon” LOL
The only thing that transforms a society is open communication between groups, freedom of movement and people willing to tolerate being uncomfortable in return for a vibrant civil, social and artistic life.
Most Americans are unwilling to be open to any of that. If you listen carefully to a lot of the racists, homophobe, misogynists, nativists … if you were to capture all of the noxious fumes roiling up from them, distill it down to it’s essence, you’d be left with a cloudy thing that boils down to this …
“Those people are icky and make me feel uncomfortable.”
Speaking of Jena protests:
well I don’t see the hippie movement by itself as transforming society.
Then again I never thought anything would ‘change the world’.. tho I did hold some very real, rational hope for the legislation of the post war era, which would be thru 3 decades.
Frankly all I see now is a fast regression. A pitiless time. Another bust following another boom. Exhortations for people from the 90s. We are collapsing time in my opinion. NOt going forward into a future…
It was years before any defined hippie movment that I first saw a pink towel blasphemously placed over a small window in a huge ranging Queen Anne mansion, on the corner of Broadway and Webster, across from my school. It was my 5th grade classroom…
Reverend Mother Williams, who was tied in politically in CA thru her family, was having none of it. A group of young people had rented the old mansion… that pink towel was the only sign of rebellion that I saw.
Large empty flats and houses, cheap rent in San Francisco is what fueled more than the so called hippie movement.
Rev Mother Williams carried out a political campaign, they were evicted, eventually the lovely old corner house with an immense view of the bay and a large sloping garden behind… also with a view of the bay, was pulled down. A not too awful mini tower went up in early 70s. Not too tall.
CHARGES DISMISSED AGAINST AFRICAN-AMERICAN MINISTER TARGETED AND TACKLED BY CAPITOL POLICE
Yet another example of why Religion, or at least it’s
child rapistsleaders are dangerous to human life:Of course, I think that condoms are more important to prevent PREGNANCY, but what do I know?
Sy Hersch is on Countdown.
new thread:
LINK
Stress of Racism May Advance Black Infant Mortality Rates
I weep for this nation.
Planned Parenthood’s Fight in Aurora
speaking of how meaningless “hippie” is now, I just heard Canned Heat’s “On the Road Again” used in a commercial for Total cereal, complete w/ ’60s-style graphics.
American commerce swallows everything and shits it out the other end in big smelly turds.
HC #109 Hmm. He looks a bit like a certain serial killer
There were lots of “Zendiks” around in those days. They all loved Krishnamurti (can’t recall if I didn’t read him to be stubborn or tried and couldn’t get past the first page). Not many were good artists or writers but those that gathered around them didn’t know the difference. They could also be very boring and pendantic.
Looking at that picture, it hit me why those young kids could so easily have been attracted to Manson and not perceived that he was a seriously disturbed con-man. Or how so many others rallied around the “new age” “gurus” that shared more with those weird Mormon fundmentalist sects than anything else. Of course all of it seemed to be imbued with a science fiction quality which was a natural turn-off for me.
Marisa #115 Large empty flats and houses, cheap rent in San Francisco is what fueled more than the so called hippie movement.
That’s also why it died out quickly in SF. Those cheap rents were mostly gone before anyone heard “Come to San Francisco.” Had none of that happened I might actually have managed to fulfill my childhood dream of living in SF.
I don’t know Marie. I am a native. There were cheap rents for decades. It persisted well into the 70s.
When I took a flat alone in the early 70s I looked on Russian Hill and Nob Hill. Not the cheapest parts of town, I looked at 4 room flats, usually for 150 – 175.00. No deposit, no first and last month, usually a 25.00 cleaning fee. Freedom to paint and do small refurbishings as you pleased. A lot of absentee ownership and and low key onsite managers. Which is exactly what I got on Russian Hill when I found a flat I liked. IWth a view. Others I had seen did not have a view. 175 to move in, plus 25 cleaning deposit.
Armistead Maupin’s stories were set in the 70s and that shifting, floating world depends on cheap rent, easy in and easy out.
Many many people I knew lived in less expensive areas for 100 – 150 for large Victorian era flats.
Friends of mine had 3 sharing a large flat on New Hampshire, 3 bedrooms and a room just for the ironing board. 125 a month.
That was not uncommon. Gentrification had begun in the early 60s, depending on neighborhood. but it was slow moving, it did not really ramp up for years… and finally was largely fueled by the condoisation of existing duplex to 6 units properties.
The great call to come to SF was mid to late 60s (after that of the beat era or the post war era, etc). Cheap rent went on for years, then Rent Control came in around ’78.
My and my mates had a big two bedroom apt on the corner of Stanyan and Oak where the panhandle enters the gates.
$225 per month and all the cockroaches you could eat.
Also lived on the coast in Pacifica for awhile. It was pretty cool. Frog shrouded, dangerous tides, blue collar. I will right about it one day, when I can locate any of it in my memory.
Marisa, wow. If I’d only stumbled on one of those back then. Has a couple of friends who moved into the city but it took two or three of them to afford a place. That would have been in ’70-73 and they still paid more than I did in the burbs. I looked more seriously in the late ’70s but except for newer ugly buildings it was almost impossible to find anything. Then my employer began making plans to relocate out of the City; so, it seemed stupid to move in.
this is my theory. rents have risen in purportion to the “greatest generation” dying off. I know in one area near the golf course just sat stagnant for years. but by the end of the 90s the residents starting dropping. Many grand children moved and started rehab. some where owned by out of town family who just wanted it gone and they started selling. The flippers got in. its so expensive now.
but even rents. many rentals used to owned by old people who didnt know what shit cost anymore.
I had a lot of friends go thru their landlords dying and then having to deal with kids. I get pissed everyday. Friends had lived somewhere 12 years, Forced to move in 30 days. kids sold it and it was bulldozed. Its 12 years after that and its still a vacant lot.. someone is just holding to sell at the right time..
someone is just holding to sell at the right time..
Those someones might have missed the RE peak. Maybe not in some very exclusive neighborhoods or the better parts of SF and NYC and a few other places, but the seller’s market is over for now.