Gas | Marisacat

Gas 23 May 2008

Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.
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Indonesian taxi drivers face higher fuel costs after the government announced that heavily subsidised prices would have to rise in response to soaring oil prices. [AP via BBC]

I was wandering thru the BBC pics… and this taxi had some moxie. Attitude… animation. And, you know, gas… gas … gas.

San Francisco officially over $4

Enjoy…

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

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1. CSTAR - 23 May 2008: Maybe that’s subsidized gasoline from Tio Hugo. I’m OK with it.

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2. marisacat - 23 May 2008: yeah I have no problem with subsidised gas. Esp in any country with little or no transportation infrastructure.

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3. Intermittent Bystander - 23 May 2008: Trucker rallyon the (New York State) Northway today. Glens Falls Post-Star:

WILTON — When Paul Collins started trucking almost a half-century ago, diesel cost just 22 cents a gallon.

The posted price for the same variety of fuel on Thursday was $4.99 — an all-time high in New York and more than a 60 percent increase from just a year ago.

“Park every truck, and you’ll see this stop,” the Hudson Falls resident said, before a rally to bring attention to the ever-ascending price of the commodity, which the large trucks suck up at a rate of four miles to the gallon.

::snip::
Earlier this month, the Republican-led State Senate passed a measure that would put the state’s gas tax on hold between Memorial Day and Labor Day — a move that 61 percent of New York voters said they supported in a Siena Research poll released this week.

But Gov. David Paterson and Sheldon Silver, the speaker of the Assembly, oppose the tax break and have prevented it from advancing.

::snip::
Charles Claburn, the director of the group Truckers and Citizens United of New York, said if truck drivers didn’t get some cooperation from lawmakers, they would simply stop driving.

“We are going to refuse to haul goods into the city of New York,” he said, blaming the increasing costs on Wall Street speculators.

Assemblyman McDonald said downstate residents, who can rely on mass transit, don’t realize how reliant the economy is on truck drivers moving goods into New York City and elsewhere.

“There is geographic discrimination,” McDonald said. “They forget that we exist and that everything we do depends on being able to travel these roads.”

Several truckers in attendance also said the tax breaks were only capable of providing short-term relief, and that a serious look at the oil industry was in order.

To that end, McDonald reiterated a call he’s made for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to band together with other state attorneys general and investigate oil companies.

“How come they are making billions in obscene profits and saying this is tough times?” McDonald asked. “This is tough times — but not for them, for us.”

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4. marisacat - 23 May 2008: But can congress charge the CEOs of oil companies with using steroids.. and can a low life trash-ass bad actor turn states evidence…

May they all congeal.

Someone should listen to the truckers… but I am unsure who will….

Again, a West Coast worker strike, building off the dock workers… maybe someday.

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5. Intermittent Bystander - 23 May 2008: Remember when they laughed at Jerome a Paris?

With $150 a barrel the next major milepost, and rumbling drumrolls for $200 already mainstreaming, underway, things really do seem to be accelerating.

Saw some article detailing dawning panic in the SUV sales lots somewhere today. That sure as hell took a while.

Like everybody’s a trucker.

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6. marisacat - 23 May 2008: hmm everyone i knew who bought a Prius/other, did so in 2000/02… roughly in there… and iirc there was a tax credit as well. Not too shabby.

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7. moiv - 24 May 2008: My SIL is a “cable guy,” and the gasoline expense for his work truck is now at $180 a week. The truckers are fighting for their very survival — and by extension, ours.

But never mind crying over spilt gas and split families, not when we can cry over Olbermann hyperventilating about Hillary instead.

Makes a timely diversion, doesn’t it?

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8. marisacat - 24 May 2008: 7

yes precisely what it was… highly orchestrated. You can always tell when they light a match on a line of gas drool.

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9. marisacat - 24 May 2008: CRose has the Fed Ex guy on… first conversation, price of oil/gas

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10. Intermittent Bystander - 24 May 2008: Almost forgot – everybody’s a steer-wrangler, too.

Not to mention Jesus!

But right after Katrina, in the mini-spike (to today’s prices) that I think they’re still “investigating,” some highly rueful dude offered to trade me his shiny-red, utterly empty, yet super-sized pick-up, at the pump. Only half-joking about the trade for a (then) 11-yr-old Toyota.

The things ordinary people drive around here are ridiculous, even given the weather.

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11. liberalcatnip - 24 May 2008: 7. not when we can cry over Olbermann hyperventilating about Hillary instead.

Obama must be so proud of them.

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12. marisacat - 24 May 2008: well we (my childhood family, I don’t drive) always had VW bugs… and an old 4 door MG roadster. I never felt unsafe in the bugs and the mileage in the 60s was 27 – 32 depending…

But LONG long long commutes got to be common in this area even 20 years ago. How on earth people who came into SF every day from outskirts of Sacramento (really ramped up in the mid late 90s) are holding up, I don’t know.

I have no idea the mileage of a big SUV a Tahoe or Suburban or whatever…

Working trucks…

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13. Intermittent Bystander - 24 May 2008: And don’t get me started on what the pick-up or SUV installment payments already do to their prospects and options in life.

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14. marisacat - 24 May 2008: “Even before I fully understood the history of the Jewish people, the Zionist movement was something I connected to,” Obama said in the ballroom of the B’Nai Torah Congregation, west of Boca Raton.

During his remarks, Obama repeatedly drew parallels between civil rights campaigns in the United States with Israelis’ struggles for peace in the Middle East.

Just getting to the Sun-Sentinel

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15. liberalcatnip - 24 May 2008: You know the world has turned upside down when Power Line seems to be a voice of sanity.

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16. liberalcatnip - 24 May 2008: 14. Moses, MLK, JFK. All things to all people. Hallelujah.

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17. liberalcatnip - 24 May 2008: Kanjorski Caught On Tape Saying Dems Oversold Ability To End Iraq War

Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) was caught on a year-old video clip telling some of his constituents that Congressional Democrats oversold their ability to end the war during the 2006 campaign.

“We really in this last election – when I say we, the Democrats — I think pushed it as far as we can, the envelope. Didn’t say it, but we implied it — that we, if we won the Congressional elections, we could stop the war,” Kanjorski said in the video.

“Now anybody who is a good student of government would know that wasn’t true. But you know, the temptation to want to win back the Congress, we sort of stretched the facts — and people ate it up.”

A voice in the wilderness…

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18. marisacat - 24 May 2008: hmmm Angry Arab had an extended phone conversation with Kucinich. Sad, there is no where for him to go but hold onto his seat in the House.

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19. marisacat - 24 May 2008: San Francisco “liberal” talk radio tonight sounds just like Rush. Or Savage Nation. Or Hannity. or any quacking duck on acid.

Hey go for it.

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20. bayprairie - 24 May 2008: re; 123 and 124 last thread. im not sure what that afhgan squeeze box is. but how lovely, even if half seems missing! haven’t seen anything one squeezes played flat like that.

it isn’t a Bayan. its not a Trekzak. not an Accordeon, Accordian nor an Akkordeon

doesn’t come close to a concertina. only slightly resembles a Dragspel or a fisarmonica.

its too big to be a garmon or an Organetto or a Pedalowka

and it isn’t possibly a Schwyzerorgeli
or a Zieharmonika
.

afghanistan is too far away for it to have been made in beaumont. or played much in church point, louisiana.

yet in a comforting kind of way they all sound a little bit like home.

😉

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21. lucid - 24 May 2008: this is completely OT… but there are just so many fundamentally mean people in my life right now. Yet they’re my friends, or roomates, or…

I know I’m a magnet for, well, repulsing magnets, but it fucking tires me out. I’m the eternal diplomat, peacemaker, negotiator… and it makes me want to sleep. For a long fucking time.

I’ve been this for a couple decades. I don’t know how, why. Why am I the mute matter which conducts invective between exceedingly nasty parties?

Why do I tolerate individuals’ bile for the world and somehow transfer that to my own failings?

Why are my friends so fucking disfunctional?

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22. ms_xeno - 24 May 2008: I work doing paper shuffling for a small fabrication company. Hard to think of a better place to study Capitalism 101 when you’re an amateur.

2-3 fuel companies to deal with, fuel costs at least in the neighborhood of ten grand a month. Heavy equipment has to move back and forth somehow and it’s not going to move without gas. The suppliers of metal, tools and everything else keep raising their rates because they can’t move a thing without gas, either. Those fuel bills get paid before anything no matter how bad the month is, because if the field crew is out on the road with a company charge card and the line of credit is exhausted, well– where are you then ?

We just switched insurance companies at the controller’s urging so we could get lower service fees and a higher deductable for the employees. Cut corners everywhere else to keep the fuel coming in. What else can you do ? Well, I guess the big guys could take a pay cut, but we’ve all been through 101, so we know that’s probably not on the agenda.

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23. ms_xeno - 24 May 2008: bayprairie, I found a treasure trove of Uyghur, Turk, Kahzak, Afghan, etc. sound just by typing “dutar” into the search engine of Youtube. I have a CD bought used at a benefit sale for KBOO last summer, The Red Rose. A China-based ensemble playing traditional Uyghur music, and that gourd-shaped string instrument with the long neck, the dutar, had several solos pieces on the disc. So I took it from there. Glad you enjoyed that.

I love that Louisiana sound, too. Have some Beausoleil, some of the Ardoin clan, the Cheniers, the Balfas, the Magnolia Sisters and a Canray Fontenot cd (the last from Goodwill). Can’t get enough of it.

Geeky But Intriguing Uyghur Music Article here.

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24. ms_xeno - 24 May 2008: lucid, around here everyone would be nursing silent, passive-aggressive vendettas against each other because that’s how we do it in the glorious West. Maybe you just need to abdicate the mediation job and get out of town for a week, if you can afford it.

I’d love to tell you that it’s just because you’re in show biz, but I’ve seen ridiculous stare downs and choked, snarly arguments at work over the dumbest shit you can imagine– especially since they moved me to the front office where ducking out is pretty much not an option.

My sincere condolences.

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25. Intermittent Bystander - 24 May 2008: lucid – Are your friends human beings? As we all know, the species doesn’t alway behave very well under stress. :< Look after yourself with the care you’d give to that guitar, eh?

catnip from last thread – gorgeous torched cheesecake! With lavender, yet.

bayprairie – Thanks for the squeezebox round-up and morning tunes! After some more Googling around, I think the portable reed organ in question is a type of harmonium (a.k.a. harmonya) common in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. (Apparently the instrument was originally introduced by Hindustani musicians; much later, the Russky army brought regular accordions to the region, too.) BBC story about an Afghan harmonium player here. More about Afghan musical traditions at Radio Free Europe.

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26. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 May 2008: Poor ticket sales, expected protests scuttle Bush-McCain fundraiser at Phoenix Convention Center

Sources familiar with the situation said the Bush-McCain event was not selling enough tickets to fill the Convention Center space, and that there were concerns about more anti-war protesters showing up outside the venue than attending the fundraiser inside.

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27. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 May 2008: Mr. Fish

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28. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 May 2008: Democracy and deference

I blame my parents, which is trite but traditional. Six years after stepping onto the troubled shore of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s America they had a son and promptly began to fill his head with nonsense. In America, they taught me, talent and hard work were all; allegiance was automatically owed to no one; respect had to be earned. In America, the president worked for us, and knew it, and the house we allowed him to live in for a time—that great white outie of the Republic—was known as The People’s House. Would that I had been suckled by wolves.

Turn on the TV to almost any program with an office in it, and you’ll find a depressingly accurate representation of the “boss culture,” a culture based on an a priori notion of—a devout belief in—inequality. The boss will scowl or humiliate you…because he can, because he’s the boss. And you’ll keep your mouth shut and look contrite, even if you’ve done nothing wrong . . . because, well, because he’s the boss. Because he’s above you. Because he makes more money than you. Because—admit it—he’s more than you.

This is the paradigm—the relational model that shapes so much of our public life. Its primary components are intimidation and fear. It is essentially authoritarian. If not principally about the abuse of power, it rests, nonetheless, on a generally accepted notion of power’s privileges. Of its inherent rights. The Rights of Man? Please. The average man has the right to get rich so that he too can sit behind a desk wearing an absurd haircut, yelling, “You’re fired!” or refuse to take any more questions; so that he too—when the great day comes—can pour boiling oil on the plebes at the base of the castle wall, each and every one of whom accepts his right to do so, and aspires to the honor.

The real problem we face is not the Bush Administration’s imperial pretensions, its quasi-cultish stress on loyalty, or its instinctive suspicion of debate and dissent but the extent to which the administration’s modus operandi is representative of a society increasingly conversant with the protocols of subservience. In the long term, it is this tilt toward deference, this willingness to hold our tongues and sit on our principles, that truly threatens us, even more than the manifold abuses of this administration, because it makes them possible.

Over a century and a half after its publication, Tocqueville’s Democracy in America has largely calcified into a reference work, a Bartlett’s Quotations for journalists in a hurry. To those who still bother to read it, however, it offers something invaluable—a chance to plot our position on the road from, or to, despotism. Like any map, Tocqueville’s simply charts the terrain between two points—call them freedom and tyranny. Which direction we happen to be traveling, and how quickly, is up to us to determine; which “goal” we are currently approaching is the question at hand.

It’s not a difficult question to answer. On the contrary, unless one has been in a deep sleep for the past seven years, the answer is glaringly obvious. Tyranny isn’t something up ahead; it’s right here. It’s in the soil, in the very air we breathe. It’s the other climate change, and no less real. The old tyranny, from which we emerged as a nation, has been transformed by the wonder-working ways of time and advertising into a powdered wig, a tricorn hat, and the God-given freedom to burn hot dogs; the new tyranny, meanwhile—infinitely more dangerous, Made in America—looms just ahead, so large as to be very nearly invisible.

Why haven’t we noticed? Perhaps we’re too busy, or too stupid, to recognize the political beast when it stands before us, slavering in the road. Perhaps we’re so confused by the rope-a-dope tactics of our would-be dictators—just look at them, falling back into winking buffoonery one moment, attacking the enemies of righteousness the next—that we don’t quite know what to think.

There’s another possibility. Maybe we’re not out on the street protesting this administration’s abuses of power because we’re no longer the people we once were, because we’ve been effectively bred for docility. Equality, Tocqueville pointed out, “insinuates deep into the heart and mind of every man some vague notion and some instinctive inclination toward political freedom.” And inequality? Might it not, by precisely the same calculus, insinuate “some instinctive inclination” toward political tyranny? Of course it might. Once the idea of inequality is allowed to take root, a veritable forest of ritualized gestures and phrases springs up to reinforce it. The notion that some bow and others are bowed to comes to seem natural; the cool touch of the floor against our forehead begins to feel right: from classroom to corporate cubicle to the halls of Congress, deferential way leads on to deferential way, and at the end of the road, as Tocqueville foresaw, stands a baaa-ing polity “reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

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29. liberalcatnip - 24 May 2008: I think the danger to Obama and his family is greater than it has been for anyone else ever.

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30. liberalcatnip - 24 May 2008: The War Over Michelle Obama

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31. liberalcatnip - 24 May 2008: I was in a cab last year that had interesting music – reminded me of a mix between Ukrainian and Middle Eastern. Turned out that it was Croatian. A nice change.

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32. bayprairie - 24 May 2008: I think the portable reed organ in question is a type of harmonium (a.k.a. harmonya) common in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.

listening to my liszt again instead of of checking it.

dam!

and how about the complete meltdown in the media, old, new and nutter. full blown martha stewart!

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33. Intermittent Bystander - 24 May 2008: 26 – Someone should niche-market a cardio-respiratory exercise tape just for bloggers.

Well, it ain’t C or W, but one DKosser has put up a diary titled “Definition of Hillary Clinton = Ignorant Bitch w/poll.”

Apparently she has burned a hole in the consciousnes [sic] of the US, and a new genre of literature will shortly arise to address her lack of honor, etcetera.

The poll is instructive:

Hillary is an ignorant bitch

true 51 votes
false 16 votes
theres no such thing as an ignorant bitch ( i live in a world of happy happy joy joy) 8 votes

Oops . . . admins must have administered. Title’s got the asterisk treatment now, and the tags have switched to “Hillary, misogyny.” No clean-up option on poll responses, kids?

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34. Intermittent Bystander - 24 May 2008: “Ignorant Bitch with poll” in moderation.

Sounds like the Santa Cruz wildfire is still going strong, and has crossed into Santa Clara County. Hope you’re not too badly affected by the haze, Mcat.

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35. cad - 24 May 2008: KO must be stroking himself to the weeping of the drama-queen Kossacks. What a pompous ass he’s become.

Not all the sheeple there are on the wailing wall:

Get a Grip (1+ / 0-)

Recommended by:
alt hitman

Keith Olbermann is perilously close to jumping the shark. His outrage is about HIM and his desire to be the center of attention.

Yeah, HRC’s comments were bizarre, but Obama’s going to take this thing, so why the histrionics from everyone?

::scratching my head on this one::

by beckperson on Sat May 24, 2008 at 09:33:10 AM PDT

*
yea what you said (0+ / 0-)

I don’t get it either? huge Obama fan here, occasional KO fan, not liking HRC these days etc, but this diary has me utterly confused. Your comment and DreadWolf’s above sum it up neatly for me. “why am i crying”?? more like “why am i cringing.”

+halfway between Beware and Crime+

by alt hitman on Sat May 24, 2008 at 10:14:07 AM PDT

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36. Heather-Rose Ryan - 24 May 2008: 7: moiv, that’s quite a diary. More wretched writing I have seldom seen:

But this is a woman also who has fallen victim to her own painfully obvious delusions of inevitability, and whose ugly underbelly seeped through when that inevitability proved false.

Don’tcha just hate it when the underbelly seeps through? It’s so embarrassing.

Get back where you belong, you uppity underbelly!

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37. liberalcatnip - 24 May 2008: Get thee a girdle, Hillary!

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38. Heather-Rose Ryan - 24 May 2008: Beat me to it, guys, I was going to tell bay it looks like an Indian/Pakistani harmonium.

Speaking of Croatian music, here are a few very good friends and drinking buddies of mine from Slovenia, playing in Mexico recently. I’m going to see them this weekend in NYC. Lucid will remember them – except for the drummer, who just joined the band. The tempestuous violinist is Bosnian.

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39. ms_xeno - 24 May 2008: Well, this is embarassing. One of my posts is in spam, but I can’t tell which one. Probably the one with the Uyghur music link.

[sticks a pitcher of sangria in the fridge for when Mcat gets back]

All praise to IB for the musical knowledge, and to cad for his iron stomach. Etc.

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40. ms_xeno - 24 May 2008: Meanwhile, here in the land where it’s all fun all the time, Ex-Cop Lindsay Hunt is quite understandably not happy.

Former Portland Police Officer Lindsay Hunt filed her lawsuit against the city today alleging she was fired for whistle-blowing while on probation.

The suit, a copy of which makes for interesting reading and can be downloaded here, goes into more detail than Hunt’s original tort claim, particularly concerning the conduct of Hunt’s training officer at Northeast Precinct, Quency Ho. Ho told Hunt it was alright to take items from a convenience store without paying… Hunt alleges. He also allegedly pointed his gun at a drunk man in his apartment, ordering him to “open the fucking door you piece of shit,” before roughing the man up, and leaving. When Hunt asked Ho to explain how his actions had been in police bureau policy, he is alleged to have stated that he didn’t care what the “official” policy was, because, “who are they going to believe, us or these scrote-bags? Come on, we’re the fucking police!…”

— Matt Davis, Portland Mercury, 5/22/08

Hunt’s erstwhile buddies in blue respond in the paper’s follow-up.

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41. marisacat - 24 May 2008: Sorry for the delay…

Madman out of Spam and Moderation…

Intermittent Bystander out of Moderation

ms xeno out of Moderation…

and Heather-Rose out of moderation.

Sorry! they languished so long~

8)

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42. liberalcatnip - 24 May 2008: Striking live tornado video from OK on CNN.

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43. liberalcatnip - 24 May 2008: 33. she has burned a hole in the consciousnes [sic] of the US

Sucks when that happens, doesn’t it?

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44. ms_xeno - 24 May 2008: Thanks, Mcat.

catnip, if you only knew. Mine makes this horrid whistling noise whenever I’m outside in a slight breeze, but I can’t afford a doctor’s visit. Stuffing gauze in the Consciousnes hole is unsanitary and not advised by professionals.

Fuckin’ Clintons. They’re always doing this sort of thing.

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45. liberalcatnip - 24 May 2008: What’s hilarious about the responses to that “Ignorant Bitch” diary is that people are calling for it to be deleted and apparently the user is now banned, but it’s okay to have a rec list full of diaries saying that she wants Obama assassinated. Look no further for the rabbit hole.

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46. liberalcatnip - 24 May 2008: 43. Maybe Kotex has a suitable product?

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47. marisacat - 24 May 2008: 34

The Summit Wildfire

well the haze did make it up here… but I have all sorts of eye drops and nasal saline solution at hand anyway… so we just snuffle thru.

Seems the fire will be tough to control… last I heard barely 30% controlled, it has burned 5 miles. Old growth redwood among what went. It trickled out early, VERY early – first morning – that it started at the site of a controlled sanctioned burn… an area of land that was OK’d to be cleared, and neighbors had noticed a series of clearings and burns with notices pinned up to trees. Have nto caught a report on examination of dates permits were issued… but that is another slow burn ready to blow. No one has died, but so far 17 homes or structures went…

They say the vegetation has a moisture of 6% so it was beyond tinder dry.

Very depressing this early…

I noticed from aerial shots that some homes did sit in an obvious clearing… but a lot of homes had vegetation right up to the house. This year I would be afraid of that up on mountainsides, in canyons … if I lived at the end of a small twisty road.

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48. marisacat - 24 May 2008: 44

oh not to worry… one caller to “liberal” talk radio, which was its own burning raging fire last night in SF, said she killed John Kennedy jr.

I mean, the Clintons have done so much, that they really did do… one hardly has to fabricate.

Lovely,

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49. wu ming - 24 May 2008: gas is $4.05 at the cheapest station for unleaded in davis, diesel’s pushing $5. do those road trips now, folks, this is the good ol days of cheap gas, compared to where it’s headed. congress can’t legislate or sue more oil into existence.

funny to see that pict6ure from indonesia. must be in jakarta. in yogyakarta, in ’97, most people just used becak, the indonesian version of the cyclo or pedal rickshaw.

hopefully those make a comeback stateside, it’s far better than using gas to move 3,000 pounds of metal just to move a person.

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50. Intermittent Bystander - 24 May 2008: Ignorant Bitch Poll update:

true 105 65%
false 40 25%
no such thing as igno bitches happy joy joy 15 9&

More than half of those votes were cast after the tags changed to indicate the diarist was banned.

43 – Once again, I renew my resolve to refrain from complaining about blizzards.

Big fire in the Everglades, too . . . almost 40K acres burned since May 14, and the fire only 85% contained as of yesterday.

44 – Revisionist was posting dark, unsourced hints about Clinton connections to small plane crash deaths yesterday, up to and including Wellstone, I think.

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51. marisacat - 24 May 2008: well I think the heaviest thing on that cab is the baling wire. Or adhesive tape. But it chugs on.

gas in SF hit 4.07 this week, for regular…

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52. marisacat - 24 May 2008: Big fire in the Everglades, too . . . almost 40K acres burned since May 14, and the fire only 85% contained as of yesterday.

50

I get the feeling this, Summit Fire, will burn on for a while too… they showed hot spots licking back up to flames in scorched areas. I had not heard of the Everglades fire. What a shame.

Not only Revisionist but PJ as well. Denali seems quite the little shit kicker.

Quite the posse over there. To say nothing of “Zapbruder” … a seeming reverie on the metaphorical head shot.

All of that will burn on.

The reaction to this seems very organised. I noticed some MSM commentary that it kicked up and spread fast. Well DUH.

Blog Snots love a fresh kill.

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53. CSTAR - 24 May 2008: Has there been a sighting of the C*** word for Hillary yet? Maybe there has.. I just haven’t been looking.

I’m thoroughly disgusted by this misogyny.

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54. marisacat - 24 May 2008: CSTAR

well that is the thing. I expect politics, especially the Super Bowl, the run for the presidency, to be fraught, nasty, hell bent for leather. Blood in the streets.

And over and over if you point something out about sheer rolling hatred of women, well then you are fingered… you are FOR Hillary.

which I am not. I so wish the Clintons had never appeared on the political landscape, but they did. I can ovte for neither HIllary nor Barack, but I can SEE the attraction of both.

The sheer hatred went way beyond Hillary… and I thnk she was prepared for it, frankly. It comes iwth the territory.

Clearly racism has to remain coded, stealthily crafted and carefully apologised for, etc. it is its own game and I would never say the Clintons did not race bait. They did.

But not sexism and hatred of women – no need to apologise. Just claim it is not there, then do more. Lay it out and keep moving. Lay out more.

I did notice.

BTW, this gave me a real laugh during the night. ”Obama must now mend broken hearts”, by Tilove … it is via RCP but he writes for Newhouse News.

Good luck chuck. He wrote that before this latest wham bam no thank you ma’am

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55. bayprairie - 24 May 2008: thanks to everyone for all the fascinating youtube/musical links! im having fun with that today as well as last night. i’m really enjoying it.

later!

as far as this goes

Blog Snots love a fresh kill.

what goes around comes around and all that. obama hasn’t cleared the media gauntlet by any means, and i’m assuming that some is being held back for when he’s the solitary target. i hope the boyos recall the vigor with which they apply the lash when it falls on them.

in case they don’t i’m saving links.

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56. liberalcatnip - 24 May 2008: 54. ”Obama must now mend broken hearts”

He will be greeted with flowers and candy as the true liberator he really is. 😉

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57. liberalcatnip - 24 May 2008: Cheney’s going-away present

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58. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 May 2008: Banished From Home

Williams is primarily a documentarian. His last two major works, In Search of Our Fathers and Two Towns of Jasper, meditated on race. The former, about Black families, began from a personal experience (he filmed meeting his father for the first time), while the latter studied the psychology of a town (he teamed with a white director, Whitney Dow, to study Black and white reactions to a murder trial). In Banished, his concern is not really with lining up the historical facts as much as it is with understanding how reconciliation could happen. Should white residents feel responsible for the past? If so, how should they make amends?
Reconciliation has both an economic and a moral imperative on those who benefited from exploitation, and reparations dominates the content of the film. However, the moral imperative seethes beneath every interaction. When Williams asks the first female mayor of Pierce City, Carol Hirsch, if the descendants of those run out are owed anything, she pauses and answers, “Probably owed an apology.”

Today, Forsyth has manicured lawns peppered by signs touting homes starting at $300,000. Harrison is also a cozy home to Thom Robb, the leader of the White Knights of the KKK and other interviewed retirees like Bob Scott, who said he moved there because “probably more important than anything else, [there was] a lack of Blacks.”

The documentary is at its best when it is uncomfortable. In Forsyth, when Elliot Jaspin, the hard-nosed reporter who wrote about the racial “cleansings,” confronts Phil Bettis, a lawyer who oversaw the sales of the stolen land, the interaction is fascinating. Jaspin calls the documents used to sell the land “phony,” and Bettis replies, in uncomfortably halted speech, “Phony’s a harsh word for that” and continues to argue that, “I think it’s phony to say that I claimed title to that property if I’ve ignored my rights for almost a century,” meaning that the fault lies with the Black families for “failing” to reclaim their stolen land. Land, Williams says, is something tangible that “all Americans have some notion of.” It gives its owners and their progeny a certain financial solvency, and in turn, the landowner shapes the character of the land. Can anything else, other than the land itself, feel like just compensation?

Any discussion of reparations returns us to that unfulfilled promise of 40 acres and a mule. Williams wants the creation of a “reparations tax” levied on all citizens. When towns like Forsyth want to sell their land, he suggests that it should go to a descendant of the family that was expelled from that land. Those unable to afford the market value can then apply to the tax fund. “You could easily say to me, ‘That’s really idealistic, it never would happen,’ and perhaps it never would,” Williams says, adding, however, that a redistribution of the land in this manner would acknowledge “that the whites who live on that property now may not have been the perpetrators…and it acknowledges that this land at one time belonged to African Americans.”

More than a commentary on the past, however, the film brings to mind modern-day banishments: the plans to raze public housing in post-Katrina New Orleans will have a similar effect that the threats and lynchings did in Forsyth, Georgia in 1912. It is the method, not the principle, that has changed over time. Why run people out with shotgun fire when now a stroke of a pen will do?
Sadly, the scattering of New Orleans residents, like those from the three towns in this film, cannot be easily undone, and like the banishments from almost a century ago, the dilemma remains: how do we get them home?

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59. Heather-Rose Ryan - 24 May 2008: I have to say, I dislike Hillary but this “faux pas” scandal is just insane bullshit.

I glanced through some of the commentary at DailyWhacKos and was overwhelmed by the misogyny, thinly veiled and not so thinly veiled.

Interesting how so many of the slams focus on her supposed “crazed lust for power”. That wouldn’t be a big issue if she were a man. If you’re a man, like, say, Donald Trump, being a combative domineering alpha is perfectly A-OK. So are the verbal miscues. They go with the testosterone territory,

In more cheerful news, apparently Jesse Ventura is considering running. A friend told me he said something about it on Charlie Rose the other night. I’ve tried to find the clip on video but haven’t found it yet. But I did find this. See it – Jesse is great.

Jesse was my governor and I admired a lot he said and did. He has his flaws, but he’s smart and he speaks his mind. If he ran it would be a Good Thing. It would scare the shit out of all the right kinds of people.

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60. marisacat - 24 May 2008: LOL GO JESSE!

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61. Heather-Rose Ryan - 24 May 2008: Early in his tenure as governor, Jesse set much of the MN political establishment a-twitter because he asked for a salary for his wife, as Minnesota’s First Lady. (his wife was an extremely reluctant First Lady – she, like Jesse, never expected that he would ever get elected, and she had her own business running a riding stable.) He said something like,”Well, what if someday you elect a WOMAN governor, would you demand that her husband, who would probably have a professional career, quit his job for four years and host parties for free?”

When I heard that, I literally leaped and danced around the room, singing for joy.

Thank the Goddess that SOMEBODY has the courage to say this stuff.

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62. marisacat - 24 May 2008: For what it is worth, which is little to nothing…. First Read tracked the first reference to political assassination, specifically to RFK as it happens, voiced during this run…

In fact, the specter of assassination was first raised in this campaign on January 8, when a Clinton introducer, a retired teacher from New Hampshire, brought it up before Clinton spoke. “If you look back, some people have been comparing one of the other candidates to JFK, and he was a wonderful leader. He gave us a lot of hope,” the retired teacher said. “But he was assassinated, and Lyndon Baines Johnson actually did all of his work and got both the Republicans and Democrats to pass those measures.”

And you know, the 40th anniversary to the day is coming. But of course that means it could NEVER be subliminally on the minds of people who were alive then, and political.

Oh no.

I am personally sick of all memorial days. ALL OF THEM. Geesh fraught with bathos. Bathing in old blood. It has lost all significance.

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63. marisacat - 24 May 2008: 59

have you looked at the Charlie Rose site? Think it is http://CharlieRose.com

They usually put up the vid or portions of the appearance – pretty quickly…

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64. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 May 2008: U.S. Fourth Fleet in Venezuelan Waters

With U.S. saber rattling towards Venezuela now at its height, the Pentagon has decided to reactivate the Navy’s fourth fleet in the Caribbean, Central and South America.

It’s a bold move, and has already stirred controversy within the wider region.

The fleet, which will start patrolling in July, will be based at the Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville, Florida and will answer to the U.S. Southern Command in Miami. Rear Admiral Joseph Keran, current commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command, will oversee operations. About 11 vessels are currently under the Southern Command, a number that could increase in future. The Navy plans to assign a nuclear-powered air craft carrier, USS George Washington, to the force.

It’s difficult to see how the revival of the Fourth Fleet is warranted at the present time. The move has only served to further antagonize Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, already rattled by a U.S. navy plane’s violation of Venezuelan airspace over the weekend. In the long-term, the Pentagon’s saber rattling may encourage South American militaries to assert great independence from Washington, a trend which is already well under way as I discuss in my new book, Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan).

Reacting angrily to the Navy’s announcement, Chávez said: “They don’t scare us in the least.” Chávez remarked that “along with Brazil we’re studying the creation of a South American Defense Council” which would defend South America from foreign intervention. “If a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) exists,” the Venezuelan leader postulated, “why can’t a SATO exist, a South Atlantic Treaty Organization?”

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65. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 May 2008: New US gunboat “diplomacy” in moderation/spam.

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66. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 May 2008: California GOP: The Queer Enablers of Gay Marriage

ON APRIL 11, A MONTH BEFORE Chief Justice George and three of his colleagues legalized same-sex marriage in California, Schwarzenegger may have been setting the political stage again. The governor took a trip to San Diego for the national convention of the Log Cabin Republicans, the party’s gay wing. Sitting onstage in a gray suit and salmon-colored tie, Schwarzenegger took questions from national Log Cabin president Patrick Sammon, who sat next to him. Bright lights shone on them, and the standing-room-only audience was buzzing.

“Can we count on your opposition to this effort to ban gay people from having marriage equality?” Sammon asked, referring to November’s anti-gay-marriage measure.

As was shown on YouTube, Schwarzenegger nodded and lifted his microphone. “Well, first of all, I think that it would never happen in California, because I think that California people are much further along with that issue. And, number two, I will always be there to fight against that.”

The crowd of Log Cabin Republicans gave Schwarzenegger a lengthy standing ovation.

According to a well-connected source, the governor has “excellent relationships” with the California Log Cabin Republicans, with almost a dozen members named to state commissions or governor’s appointments. Log Cabin staff members had contacted Schwarzenegger’s staff and talked with his wife, Maria Shriver, a longtime friend of the gay community, about the governor making a public statement against the November ballot measure. Schwarzenegger showed up in San Diego soon after.

“This is an issue that’s important to a relatively small slice of voters,” says Democratic political strategist Sragow. “Schwarzenegger knows that, and he’s not too concerned what the activist base of his party thinks. He hasn’t cared too much in the past, and this will be the same.”

Once again, Sragow says, Schwarzenegger seemed to be playing out a bigger political strategy, with him looking like a champion of civil rights. Republican strategist Steinberg concurs, “Whatever he does will be less about the issue than his future political ambitions, whatever they are.”

Steinberg believes Schwarzenegger will be “low-key” on the ballot measure, and the governor even told The Sacramento Bee on the day of the gay-marriage ruling: “I don’t know how much time I have campaigning because, you know, I get requests all the time for campaigning.”

David Mixner, a respected political operative in the gay community and the Democratic Party, believes Schwarzenegger may still end up hitting the campaign trail to oppose the measure. “My guess is that once he sees we’re going to win, he’ll be there.”

Either way, one of the biggest political stars in California — and certainly the most influential Republican in the state — has very publicly, and adeptly, thrown his support behind the gay community’s right to marry. Now it’s a matter of whether the California Supreme Court ruling — which cannot be appealed in the U.S. Supreme Court — will stand beyond Election Day.

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67. marisacat - 24 May 2008: Well Seib of the WSJ says we must salute Arnold and Bloomberg, they have found the Independent way.

yeah right. Luv all the excavating for New Politics

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68. marisacat - 24 May 2008: 65

sorry for the delay… I fell prey to pangs of hunger.

8)

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69. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 May 2008: it’s the story of the times … and the donks play into it.

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70. ms_xeno - 24 May 2008: Madman, I need a 5,000,000,000,000,000 word essay from you called “Why People Shouldn’t Vote For Obama.” Have it typed, double-spaced, on vellum with a leather cover, and laden with snappy graphics and neatly high-lighted future soundbites no later than 8 AM PST Monday.

Don’t look at me like that. And that goes for all the rest of this blog, since I know that every last one of you not only voted for Nader every year starting in 1976, but that you also all plan to vote for him again and after he dies you’ll still be writing him in. Admit it. Furthermore I know that you each have a huge poster of him over your kitchen table and a big mosaic of him in your herb garden. Oh, and also you all smell.

If you really care about America, you’ll drop everything and pour all your time and energy into explaining to me why I shouldn’t vote for Obama.

So get to it.

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71. Heather-Rose Ryan - 24 May 2008: Thanks MCat, I checked the Charlie Rose site and found nothing, then it occurred to me to search YouTube for Larry King, and there it was. Unfortunately, seeing the clips. I found that Jesse was talking about running for Senate in MN, not President. But that’s a good thing too – better him than Al Franken.

The lady who told me about it is in her 70s and doesn’t pay a lot of attention to TV, so I forgive her for giving me garbled info.

Here are the clips:

Part 1

Part 2

Gotta love what Jesse says:

“if there’s anyone who can blow the election, it will be the Democrats”

and: there’s no party for those who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Both the Republicans and the Democrats have left us behind. The current “Libertarian”, Bob Barr, is not pro-choice and libertarians are supposed to be pro-choice, as Jesse is.

The Dems, Rangel and some shmoe, present blathering drivel in response. No mention of pro-choice. Ha ha, what a surprise.

I can’t find Part 3, which hopefully shows Ventura taking on some Republicans.

Strange days when a theatrical pro wrestler is a spokesman for choice while the Dems ignore it.

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72. marisacat - 24 May 2008: well Arnold has shown how easy it is to play everyone. From the t-shirted mobs that cheered his thugs and him on when he and the Right Wingers staged the Recall… to playing his own party, the other party, the media, the punditshitcrap that pretends to be human… and so on.

Absolute shame. I’d never vote for a party – or their burnt offerings – that facilitated Arnold.

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73. Heather-Rose Ryan - 24 May 2008: Here’s the promised Part 3. It’s a threesome between Michael Reagan and Katrina van den Heuvel, playing the poiitical hacks, and Jesse. Some good moments from Jesse. Ka van den H is a total idiot. Great to know that she is what passes as a leading light of liberalism.

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74. marisacat - 24 May 2008: well Jesse should run for senator.. Franken has never managed to really hit any sort of mark and since the revelations about taxes and whatever, Coleman, who truly deserves to be brought down, is gaining. last I heard the DemFarmLabor had not yet actually sorted it out and nominated anyone… There was a lesser light cannot think of his name, who Franken’s notoriety overshadowed earlier on.

I hope Jesse gets in…

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75. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 May 2008: Oh, watching him slap around Reagan and van den Heuvel was good fun.

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76. ms_xeno - 24 May 2008: bayprairie, #55:

thanks to everyone for all the fascinating youtube/musical links! im having fun with that today as well as last night. i’m really enjoying it…

I was gonna’ tell you the same thing this morning. That was an amazing world buffet of squeeze box music. Already knew about Rosie Ledet, but it may have been you who told me about her last year, or someone else here. My memory is awful.

On some of the dutar links, I swear I can hear the seeds of everything from bluegrass to cantorial singing to Scottish reels. I have a voracious, if totally unschooled, appetite for music.

Here’s some pipa and frame drum, just to add to the chaos.

😉

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77. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 May 2008: 70 – since I’m an irrational nader lover, I don’t need to explain anything, since plainly I’m stupid, deluded and don’t know Black Jeebus when He’s slathering Hope and Change all over me like fine oil.

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78. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 May 2008: The Hounding

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79. Heather-Rose Ryan - 24 May 2008: OK, Jesse convinced me, I’m voting “None Of The Above”. Move over on that third-party sofa, you Naderites 🙂

The hell with these machine politicians. I’m tired of the charade.

Seeing Jesse with Rangel and the other jerk put me over the edge.

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80. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 May 2008: welcome to the outer darkness, HRH.

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81. Heather-Rose Ryan - 24 May 2008: 76 – ms x, have you heard Accordion Tribe? My fave quintet of eccentric accordion virtuosi. No YouTube clip as yet, but this album is a must.

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82. liberalcatnip - 24 May 2008: The Navy plans to assign a nuclear-powered air craft carrier, USS George Washington, to the force.

They’ll have to clean up after the fire first.

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83. marisacat - 24 May 2008: I tripped into an article a few years ago on the Selma Montgomery march, Pettus Bridge and so on. Maybe it was 2005, 40 years. Anyway…. the quotes from Rangel must have happened at a weak unprotected moment, no handlers around to girdle the slab up.

He said as a young Dem politician he had been sent down to march in it. All he knew was his feet hurt and he had no idea the why of any of it.

Well. I stood back and took a walk around the house. FU. And FU again.

This was no coddled middle class 20 year old, first time out of Harlem. He had served in Korea (which he likes to remind us) — years before…

Oh I was appalled.

And I was reminded of a friend of mine in the 70s… The children more often than not ended up with maternal grandmother who had an old frame farm house and some land in Riverside Co, down in So California. My friend was light skinned, two brothers were as pale as I am … she told me once her grandmother would get on the porch with a broom or whatever long handled anything she coudl grab and BEAT BACK the local NAACP officials who of course wanted her grand children for the annual float. And she’d tell them off too, don’t come gunning for the palest kids in the county. They’d retreat… Oh now now. Mizz Ector… we just stopped by to say hello.

So much so rigged.

Screw everybody.

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84. liberalcatnip - 24 May 2008: 70. a big mosaic of him in your herb garden.

Busted. Damn you Google Earth!

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85. wu ming - 24 May 2008: for an interesting blog about xinjiang in general, but which has occasional links to some good uighur music, check out the opposite end of china. i think the guy may have recently moved to beijing, or will be moving there shortly, but he’s a good source on all things xinjiang (and had some of the better images of the tibetan riots when they first started up).

as far as i’m concerned, if arnold dropped off the face of the earth it wouldn’t be a moment too soon, but i’ll give him his due credit if he does anything to push back on the constitutional amendment. this really is about the last chance in CA (sadly, a long way in the nation still) for the wingnuts to pass that sort of thing in a general election. they lost the past 3 (IIRC) parental notification on abortion initiatives, even in places like placer county, and gay marriage is really moving into the realm of the mundane as the kids shift into the electorate.

if that bastard can do his share (IF), then he’ll have done one good thing in office. should be interesting to see who lifts a finger, him or the state dems.

as for hillary, i’ll be the contrarian tonight and say that i thought that RFK comment was a wretched dog whistle, and she deserves all the vitriol she’s getting on it. gaffes are a sort of bullshit DC game to play (it’s the straight up statements that are usually the more offensive anyways), but she’s been saying this on and off for a while, and it’s ghoulish. granted, there’s a lot of inexcusable misogyny in the way that people voice their rage at her, but the comment itself is pretty wretched.

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86. marisacat - 24 May 2008: well then as a commenter somewhere in the sludge called political blahgs suggested, she should be “taken into a room and grilled by the Secret Service as to what she intended”. And I will add, censure her in the senate.

Get it over with. Take it where it leads.

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87. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 May 2008: photos from bankrupt offices

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88. marisacat - 24 May 2008: This gave me a laugh. I hope it is text that lost its way on the route to The Onion.

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89. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 May 2008: well, my take on the RFK thing … I’m sick of her willingness to say almost anything in service of her ambition, and equally sick of his UNwillingness to say anything real in service of his.

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90. NYCO - 24 May 2008: I’m sick of her willingness to say almost anything in service of her ambition, and equally sick of his UNwillingness to say anything real in service of his.

Wow! Great summary, suitable for framing.

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91. marisacat - 24 May 2008: STILL in search of laughs…

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92. NYCO - 24 May 2008: My take on Clinton’s RFK comment: She’s either inexcusably vicious or inexcusably dumb. (Dumb not to know that even an innocent comment like that, in this climate that she allowed her party and all the rabble therein to whip to a boiling point, is just a call for havoc. Does she really not know what time it is? Possibly.)

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93. wu ming - 24 May 2008: 89 – hear, hear.

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94. moiv - 24 May 2008: 54

The sheer hatred went way beyond Hillary… and I thnk she was prepared for it, frankly. It comes iwth the territory.

Clearly racism has to remain coded, stealthily crafted and carefully apologised for, etc. it is its own game and I would never say the Clintons did not race bait. They did.

But not sexism and hatred of women – no need to apologise. Just claim it is not there, then do more. Lay it out and keep moving. Lay out more.

I did notice.”

It is hard to miss, absent a deliberate decision not to notice — one which most have taken.

Of all the ugliness laid out before us so far, this has been the most toxic, seeping into the groundwater of our national unconscious to poison the political viability of every woman who comes after.

It’s enough to make me hope that Clinton does take it all the way to Denver, and brings down the roof of the temple.

“He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, so he reached out and took it and killed a thousand men with it.”

As I’ve read somewhere or other, may they all congeal.

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95. bayprairie - 24 May 2008: my my my. so obama gave his speech in front of the miami ethnic cuban supporters of Luis Posada Carriles?

nice catch.

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96. moiv - 24 May 2008: Yeah, I’d read that Baraquito really wowed ’em in Miami. Reckon Ileana R-L invited him back to the house afterward for mojitos?

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97. bayprairie - 24 May 2008: from

The Role of Ethnic Interest Groups in U.S. Foreign Policy: The Case of the Cuban American National Foundation

(abstract)

The Birth and Growth of the Cuban American National Foundation

…A number of different versions of the founding of the Cuban American National Foundation in 1980-81 have appeared in the literature. Jorge Mas Canosa has claimed that the impetus for CANF was the idea of a few Cuban-Americans, acting on their own, without help from any Reagan supporters:,”It was my idea that I discussed with a few friends and we decided to carry it out (Mas, 1996:1102). Mas suggests by name that Pepe Hernandez was one of the few friends; he adds that Raul Masvidal and Carlos Salmon were invited to join them as well (Mas, 1996:1101). Early media reporting of CANF generally described the founding members as “three Miami businessmen” (Mas, Masvidal, and Salmon), even if sometimes noting the coincidence that it was “formed the month Mr. Reagan took office” (Stuart, 1983:A-15).

Masvidal, who has since left CANF following a series of disputes with Mas, recalls a different version of the organization’s founding. He claims that the original push for the CANF’s formation came from Richard Allen, Reagan’s first National Security Adviser. Masvidal claims that Richard Allen told him that with Reagan’s election, “There will be a new opportunity for Cuban-Americans. I suggest you copy the Israeli lobby, and I will help you. You should lobby both branches of government” (in Newhouse, 1992:76). According to Masvidal, “the National Security Council wanted to start an organization that would help popularize the Reagan administration’s policies. And so was born the Cuban American National Foundation” (in Bardach, 1994:21).[8] In a number of media discussions of the CANF, a role for Reagan administration officials in the creation of the organization is presumed. For example, Fonzi’s research leads him to conclude definitively that the “CIA veteran, Richard Allen … came up with the idea that the Cuban exiles could be organized as an effective tool to promote the President’s aggressive Latin American policy” (1993:121). Robbins writes that Allen “suggested setting up a lobby group along the lines of the powerful [AIPAC]” (1992:172). Newspaper accounts have been similar. The New York Times and Washington Post use some variation of “at the behest of the Reagan administration” (Rohter, 1995:A-1) or “with encouragement from Richard Allen” (Hockstader and Booth, 1992:A-1) to refer to the circumstances of the birth of CANF. The Miami Herald referred to CANF as “the brainchild of Richard Allen” (Marquis, 1997:A-1).

Richard Allen’s recent recollection is close to that of Masvidal. Alien remembers having discussions with Mas around the time of the 1980 election, during which he noted that the Cuban-Americans could be more effective than they had been to that point. To that end, he suggested that Mas study how Israel and Taiwan had been successful, with the idea that Cuban-Americans could model themselves on those cases. Allen notes that it was “not an official suggestion,” but that he and other members were clearly receptive to such an organizational effort by Mas, Masvidal, and Salmon. Facing a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives that would need to be persuaded to support Reagan administration policies, any assistance from the Cuban community would be welcomed by the new administration (Allen, 1997).[9]

For CANF leadership, the Reagan administration’s approach to Latin America coincided almost perfectly with their own worldview. Here there is support for the Trice (1976) and Fernandez (1987) conclusions that ideological compatibility with the executive is an important factor in ethnic group success. Similarly to Reagan’s position, Mas and the CANF were committed to opposing Castro on the island and anywhere Cuban troops or allies were found. According to the CANF’s own literature, their initial objective was to establish an organization that “would challenge the myths propagated by the Cuban government, through the objective analysis and reporting of conditions in Cuba, of Castro’s repressive dictatorship and destructive international policies, while promoting the ideals of respect for human rights and self-determination for the Cuban people” (CANF). Reagan administration interests in Central America or even Africa would naturally be served as a consequence of CANF activity in gathering and disseminating information about Castro’s “destructive international policies.”

Ronald Reagan has written in his memoirs that “one of the greatest frustrations during those eight years was my inability to communicate to the American people and to Congress the seriousness of the threat we faced in Central America” (1990:471). The Cuban-Americans in CANF were clearly not among the Americans that Reagan needed to convince. An argument that surfaced in a February 23, 1981, State Department White Paper that noted “definitive evidence of the clandestine military support given by the Soviet Union, Cuba, and their communist allies to Marxist-Leninist guerrillas’ trying to overthrow the Salvadoran government” certainly was compatible with the anti-Castro commitment of Mas and friends (in Pastor, 1995:6). For his entire presidency, Reagan would hold to the argument that the region’s instability was a function of Castro and his Sandinista allies’ support for revolutionaries in El Salvador and Guatemala. The CANF was an “educational” organization more than willing to spread the word about Castro’s threat in this hemisphere. An “independent” lobbying group of Cuban-Americans was potentially very valuable to an administration intent on generating much needed “public consensus” (Simpson, 1995:363). For the Cuban-Americans, the support from the Reagan administration for their cause was equally important.

CANF took the advice to model its organization on AIPAC to heart. The organization included legally separate entities, which allowed them to divide their resources among both tax-exempt educational and lobbying activities. Local chapters throughout the country, which could develop active ties to individual members of Congress, were another part of the AIPAC model adapted by CANF, noted Brenner and Landau (1990:18). AIPAC reportedly “trained CANF staff in tactics for transforming a foreign policy issue into a domestic one that would be susceptible to interest group pressure” (Brenner and Landau, 1990:18). Even a lawyer with AIPAC experience, Bernard Barnett, helped Mas set up CANF with the same principles he had used with the Israeli lobby (Jordan, 1992). Perhaps most important, CANF is structured like AIPAC–into separate research, lobbying, and funding organizations. Money is contributed through the Free Cuba political action committee, lobbying is done by the Cuban American Foundation, and the CANF itself served a research and education function. While the leadership of these three entities indicates the interlocking nature of the branches, the distinctions allowed the CANF, like AIPAC, to receive government funds and maintain a tax-exempt status. The subsequent relationships formed by CANF with the government and the success of their lobbying efforts suggest that the Cuban group has surpassed the organization on which they modeled themselves (cf. Newhouse, 1992:76).

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98. marisacat - 24 May 2008: 95

boston.com called it “Latino Outreach”.

LOL well Boston is a long way from So Florida… and the frictions from new arrivals, new mixes and alliances within the broader Latino community.

”left i…” is a great spot.

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99. bayprairie - 24 May 2008: i

Reckon Ileana R-L invited him back to the house afterward for mojitos?

well if she did, and he accepted, i wouldn’t hesitate to say that obama spreads his legs for the wrong people.

there really isn’t much light between him and the others, at all. just a different public face. unfortunately only dogs hear the dog whistle.

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100. moiv - 24 May 2008: Boston is a long way from So Florida

Everywhere is a long way from everywhere. I get some of my biggest and bitterest laughs from “progressive” pontifications about that totally imaginary construct, the broader Latino community.

NY boricuas, DC salvadoreños, Florida cubanos and border state mexicanos often have little in common beyond surnames of Hispanic origin.

Geography is such a bitch. 😉

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101. marisacat - 25 May 2008: well from what I observed, the newer arrivals, often from So America and elsewhere, look askance at the way only old Cubans or the Mariscela generation in Little Havana, of Evian-rescued-from-the-Thanksgiving-waters, claim a place in the Florida sun.

Does not quite cut it anymore.

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102. marisacat - 25 May 2008: LOL Just marking it for the notch in the old blog belt that it must be. Over 14 thousand comments. And counting.

Went up, originally, at 3:41 PM yesterday.

yes who cares about protecting, ever, either run. Or creating some perfect Democratic womb (HA!) in Denver.

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103. marisacat - 25 May 2008: Actually the FP of the Home page of Huff tabloid is worth a look. In case there is an issue of raising the rabble. Or pushing assassination. Any more than either have already been played. .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

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104. moiv - 25 May 2008: From a David Rees post on the HuffPost’s FP.

She has a point: June is a great month for political assassinations.

Why drop out of the race before all the assassins have had their say?

After all, we know Barack Obama has received multiple death threats — because he is black, of course, and because some of our fellow citizens think he’s a secret Muslim terrorist who is going to take the oath of office on the Koran and make us all pray to Mecca five times a day with that screechy music coming over the loudspeakers(?) and then he’ll crash Air Force One into the White House(?) and force our wives to wear those Muslim beekeeper helmets(?).

And the truth is, Obama has consistently failed to win over those voters who want to see him murdered.

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105. NYCO - 25 May 2008: 94. Do women ever really talk about this to themselves, though? I suppose feminism is a mother-daughter thing, but my mother and I have conversations about sexism only very rarely and in a roundabout way. But by the time you reach midlife, you realize so many men who are friendly to you are nevertheless sexist (including dad). You learn to bury that realization deep down and not say anything about it, because they just won’t understand and won’t it just poison the atmosphere and won’t they just reject you? (Then again, there is the small hope that they will learn new things in life.) When is it making a big deal to mention it and when isn’t it?

With racism, there’s never that question. Racism is always a big deal. even the slightest whiff of it. Sexism is rarely acknowledged, and I don’t know if politics is the right avenue to address it any more. Even organized religion would be more preferable (and that’s saying something!)

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106. NYCO - 25 May 2008: And on that note… just watch this and try not to think:

http://blog.syracuse.com/video/2008/05/post_1.html

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107. Heather-Rose Ryan - 25 May 2008: 94, moiv: It’s enough to make me hope that Clinton
does take it all the way to Denver, and brings down
the roof of the temple.

I hope she does too. Just to shake things up.

The one thing I like about Hillary is that she brings out the hidden misogyny in people. She inspires them to let out their inner fratboy and let him play and frolic with wild abandon.

105, NYCO: well, I never buried the realization deep down and didn’t say anything about it. I’ve always talked about it and made a big issue out of it. I figured, if I don’t, who will? Can I expect someone else to fight on behalf of me and my views of fairness and justice? If anyone gets irritated and wants to reject me, it’s because they’re hearing unpleasant truths. And they need to hear them.

One of the things I’ve noticed is that when I speak out, I invariably get support behind-the-scenes from women who say they felt the same way but didn’t have the courage to say anything. Either they felt afraid to say it – they didn’t want to deal with the fallout – or they thought that their opinion didn’t mean anything and wouldn’t change anything. Or, in some cases, even in this post-Feminine Mystique era, I heard from women who thought they were the only ones who felt that way, and weren’t sure how to express their thoughts. This is the way women have been trained in our society. It’s a kind of learned helplessness.

I don’t know if politics is the right avenue to address it any more.

There isn’t any “right avenue”, unfortunately. And there’s no point in waiting for just the right moment, either, as we’ve been told repeatedly by those who want us to be quiet and swallow bitter pills – e.g., voting for the anti-abortion Dems – while we wait for our issues to be addressed at some undetermined time in the future.

Sorry – I’m not lecturing you, NYCO – just venting.

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108. marisacat - 25 May 2008: 105

well of course anything can be dismissed.

I’ve never considered myself a “feminist”, so I don’t look at this issue that way, as an issue of feminism.. I don’t even view it, really, as a possible conversation. One reason I rarely raised it. And of course, why be boring.

I don’t think anyone should worry, per se. I doubt a woman would run again, certainly not in my lifetime. I mean, why bother.

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109. Heather-Rose Ryan - 25 May 2008: it took me a long time to notice how ingrained sexism is, how it’s a pillar of our “civilization” and not merely the beliefs/behavior of some isolated jerks. Because fundamentally it’s such a stupid idea that it just doesn’t make any sense.

Back in the ’70s, I was shocked by the idea of keeping girls out of Little League. And barring women reporters from the locker rooms. Incredibly stupid. Such things were dismissed by my parents as being the actions of a few smallminded people. But in fact they were expressions of an attitude that was, and still is, pervasive in our society.

It’s cool that girls are playing baseball in kids’ leagues now and are not relegated to softball. But if one of them eventually decides to run for President, all hell will break loose.

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110. Madman in the Marketplace - 25 May 2008: An aftershock measuring 6.4 hit China today

CHENGDU, China (AFP) — At least one person died and more than 260 others were injured Sunday in southwest China by the strongest aftershock since a massive quake two weeks ago, authorities and state media said.

The aftershock, which measured 6.4 on the Richter scale, also destroyed more than 70,000 homes and left 200,000 others in danger of collapse, Xinhua news agency reported, quoting a local disaster relief official.

An official at the Sichuan Earthquake Bureau told AFP that it had been the strongest of more than 8,000 aftershocks detected since the 8.0-magnitude quake on May 12 that destroyed large swathes of southwestern Sichuan province.

The US Geological Survey put the magnitude of Sunday’s aftershock at 5.8.

State television quoted an earthquake relief official in the city of Guangyuan, north of the provincial capital Chengdu, as saying the aftershock caused at least one death and 262 injuries in that city.

The same official, Wang Fei, was later quoted by Xinhua as saying about 71,300 homes had collapsed in Guangyuan on Sunday and more than 200,000 others were in danger of collapsing.

Xinhua reported that 26 of the people injured were in serious condition.

The quake — which struck mid-afternoon and was centred about 250 kilometres (155 miles) northeast of Chengdu — sent people fleeing from buildings in the provincial capital, AFP correspondents witnessed.

“Houses started to shake and everybody went out into the street,” Chengdu resident Lou Taiyi told AFP. “We were thinking (May 12) was behind us but it is continuing,” he said.

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111. ms_xeno - 25 May 2008: I’m still in favor of women’s rights, for whatever that’s worth. But after all these years in Blogland, I can honestly say that I’ve had it up to here with women that just use it as a cheap carnival barker’s megaphone to further themselves– and further a bunch of shit that has nothing to do with a better life for me or for most other women.

Whether it’s Laura Bush twittering about helping Afghani women out of their burquas by dropping bombs, or Amanda Marcotte lecturing about how women will diiiiiieeeee in back alleys if we frivolous brats dare vote Green, and on and on. I’m fucking sick of that shit. I didn’t sign on for “liberation” only to be told that the gated community of the Democratic Party is the only approved place that liberation can happen.

Too much short-sightedness, too much opportunism, too much distortion of what humane PEOPLE should feel towards one another. I care about choice, but the DP doesn’t do anything for choice but take NARAL’s money and then use fear to beat us over the head. It’s repulsive. Once, years ago, I was on Ms. old boards and set off a furor by saying, “Well, you know in less than twenty years my childbearing years will be over. What about all the other terrible shit going on that I’ll still have to deal with. Those fuckers haven’t done a thing about those problems and they never will.”

I’m also tired of feminism as a vehicle of (usually) violent interventionism around the world. I’m over the idea that it’s a great idea to kill women to save them from burquas and FGM. We don’t bomb Dartmouth or UCLA to deal with campus rapes and we didn’t, luckily, bomb the polygamists it Texas. What right then do we have to bomb Afghani or African women to “save” them ? It’s bullshit. But say this in a roomful of U.S. feminists and all you get is a look like you’ve just taken a crap in the middle of the sandwich tray.

The 2000 election really stirred up a lot of interest I had in political activity, including feminism, that had been lying dormant for quite awhile. Ironic then that most of the time feminism in the U.S. still means “Democrat” and thus I’m not welcome in it unless I keep my mouth shut. No thanks. I get enough from the sexists telling me to go along and get along and this isn’t an improvement.

The feminists ignored LaDuke when she ran in 2000, just as they’re now ignoring McKinney. But, oh, poor Hillary, the worst carnival barker of them all, is hearing mean shit from men. Everyone to the baricades !!

No thanks.

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112. marisacat - 25 May 2008: I have been very clear that it went beyond HIllary, and in a real sense had little to do with her, other than she has been a catalyst at times.

OVer and over one is not allowed to view society, unless of course the stake one holds in that society is clearly defined.

Nor do I think she lost something or was denied something that I personally never cared that she should get.

It roiled far beyond her and was simply the snake venom that is there, every day.

Again, not a feminist and to be perfectly frank I never joined “the women” Ever. Not before, not now.

Her run ”for women” was about as valuable as I view Obama’s ”for blacks”.

Fucking zilch.

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113. Madman in the Marketplace - 25 May 2008: 111 – well said.

I would add that I think you’re seeing so much of what you’re seeing because it IS Hillary Clinton and she’s a donk, so you’re getting the misogyny from partisans of both sides. There is a long history of lecturing and betrayal in her career that bring out the ugly, and make it okay to share. I find women to be important parts of my life, smart and wise and wonderful. I’m blessed that female friends & lovers took the time to school me to stop being a typical American male. However, there is something about the Senator that makes me have to bite my tongue when “bitch” tries to come spilling out. She is willing to sell out not only other women in service of her pursuit of power, but ANYONE. She is so like her husband in that personality trait.

It also matters that she is a donk. If it was Sec. Rice, you can bet that the only slurs you’d be hearing out of the media or the right would be to call the democratic party hoi polloi SEXIST, while places like Kos and Air America would be ringing with exactly the same sexist language you now hear about Clinton. A winger female wouldn’t be getting harranged from all sides.

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114. ms_xeno - 25 May 2008: My problem is with all these feminist bloggers, rallying to Hillary, still silent about McKinney and still silent about far too much that Hillary has done, will do, to WOMEN. To US. My problem is too often they have as bad a “savior” complex as any well-intentioned man. Which explains why it’s always about personalities, not about structure. Seems to me that proportional representation in government, especially local government, would do more for women’s rights than hordes of us feeling outraged because misogynists don’t want Hillary for President.

But proportional representation isn’t a real hot topic in feminist Blogland, at least the last time I looked.

“Crys T,” from Wales, an old buddy of mine from Ms. who still posts elsewhere, said this at Alas not long ago:

…OK, I can see why getting a woman or African-American president would be a big deal, even if that particular candidate is pretty far right. However, when you do point out examples like Margaret Thatcher, I have to respond that, yeah, the UK had a female PM. That one time. (And anyway, the whole PM thing is different because here you vote for the party (though ok, the party leader is pretty decisive for a lot of voters), and the party leader can change mid-term, as you’ve seen with Gordon Brown taking over from Blair.)

My point is this: if the only women or African-Americans who will ever be elect-able are the conservative, right-wing ones, what is the point? To get a mild moral victory? I don’t see that Maggie made the UK a particularly woman-friendly place to be, in any way. And her success certainly didn’t open the door to other women being party leaders of the main parties.

I don’t like the “snake venom,” either. But to feel sympathy for Hillary when she’s nothing but a snake herself is completely beyond me.

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115. ms_xeno - 25 May 2008: Sorry, Mcat. It’s not you. I’m just venting. Will stop now.

😦

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116. marisacat - 25 May 2008: Pundits lvoe to bring up the Hillary nutcrackers. Which I think misses the point, but that is the pat on the head. “We do understand”.

Well the nutcrackers are just part of politics. I never thought twice about them, or about several of her very awkward personas. But of course it can be “all about HIllary”… and the point is missed. Very effectively.

On the other hand I am unsure why “feminists” should embrace La Duke OR McKinney. Or anyone, really..

That sort of thinking eludes me.

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117. marisacat - 25 May 2008: I don’t feel sympathy for Hillary.

In fact at media girl I said she had stripped off her female genitalia, inner and outer labia.

She is effectively waht I call a “corporatised” female. The only sort to garner even marginal respect in this country.

I did leave media girl following that. The silly poodles had not gone over well (matsu, a former R really took issue), something I did to amuse myself and kick myself along the road. Nor did truth go over well.

Suffice to say I did nto support Hillary, ever, and in fact as I have posted, I heard her intro Bill at a rally in Chicago in 92 and knew “we have a problem”.

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118. Heather-Rose Ryan - 25 May 2008: 111:

What right then do we have to bomb Afghani or African women to “save” them ? It’s bullshit. But say this in a roomful of U.S. feminists and all you get is a look like you’ve just taken a crap in the middle of the sandwich tray.

Really? None of the feminists I personally know bought that line of rightwing propaganda. I didn’t think anyone did besides the stupidest of the Limbaugh dittoheads.

What I see a lot whenever the discussion turns to feminism/feminists is the tendency to set up “straw feminists” with characteristics and opinions that suit a particular argument. Unfortunately this is true of many people, even those who call themselves feminists. For example, I’m a feminist but have never once visited the Ms chat boards, and I think I’ve looked at the magazine once in my entire life. So whatever is trotted forth by contributors there may or may not jibe with my own views.

For the record, Amanda Marcotte is an idiot, but she’s right to be pro-choice and focus on that issue.

But to feel sympathy for Hillary when she’s nothing but a snake herself is completely beyond me.

Who here feels sympathy for Hillary? I certainly don’t. But I object to sexist language and attitudes when she elicits them from people, especially when those people are supposedly “liberal” and “progressive”. I loathed Thatcher but I was irked when David Steel called her a “fishwife”.

I’m not going to sit here and say “Yes it’s fine to call Hillary misogynistic names because she really deserves it.”

Remember the reaction at DKos when sexist slurs were used against MCat. Someone said something like “I hate that word but she deserves it.”

Sexism doesn’t get a pass when it’s used against individuals whom you despise.

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119. Heather-Rose Ryan - 25 May 2008: To me, it’s analogous to the Pie Wars. I couldn’t give two shits about the Pie Ad itself – it was the horrible antifeminist and misogynist venom that came boiling out in the discussion of the Pie Ad that set me off.

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120. Heather-Rose Ryan - 25 May 2008: 85 wu ming: as for hillary, i’ll be the contrarian tonight and say that i thought that RFK comment was a wretched dog whistle, and she deserves all the vitriol she’s getting on it.

Sorry but I think that’s bullshit.

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121. marisacat - 25 May 2008: thread

LINK

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122. marisacat - 25 May 2008: I never would have seen the ad but for the months that Kos had spent slamming women on the FP.

I ignore ads mostly.

The minute I saw it tho I knew what was up. And I sent an email to kos before anything blew:

“Message received. Regards to ‘the wife’ and ‘the kid’.”

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123. ms_xeno - 25 May 2008: Mcat:

…On the other hand I am unsure why “feminists” should embrace La Duke OR McKinney. Or anyone, really.

So don’t embrace. But at the very least, give them some damn ink. Otherwise they’re just perpetuating the mythos they claim to despise: The one that says feminism is just for White women in large institutions and the rest are invisible.

We all know that McCain is a wretched man, but it would be nice if a few of these blogs, since they champion women’s rights and advancement, could reroute a little of their ink about horrible Republicans to talk about women who oppose his policies but who are not Democrats.

hrh:

…None of the feminists I personally know bought that line of rightwing propaganda…

I believe you, all right ? But there’s too much use of the “humanitarian intervention” model in the DP that is simply a smokescreen for the same sort of egregious violence and legalized theft so beloved of Limbaugh and his own champions. Just as in a larger sense, too many marchers in anti-war demos were marching not against the Iraq War but against Bush’s Iraq war. A Democrat who champions interventionism uses different code words, or perhaps throws a few more “humanitarian” bones that a Republican, and suddenly nearly all Democrats are placated and feel no need to march or protest anything. I don’t think that mass rapes in Bosnia were the real reason we dropped bombs over there, but plenty of people do seem to think that “humanitarian” bombing is all right if a Democrat does it and if you can frame it as a mission to protect women.

This is a poisonous POV and too many feminists peddle it, just as do their male counterparts in the DP.

…Sexism doesn’t get a pass when it’s used against individuals whom you despise.

Is it “giving a pass” if I don’t join in sexist attacks but also don’t spill a bunch of ink discussing them ad nauseum, if I feel there are other under-covered issues and people worth discussing ? All right then. I wouldn’t be thrilled with anyone who used anti-Jewish slurs against Joe Lieberman, either, but that in no way alters the fact that Lieberman is a despicable human being. Yeah, I would look at askance at the motives of the person hurling the insults in either cases, but nearly to the degree that I have already looked askance at the target.

As for Marcotte being “focused on choice,” all I can say is that it’s a dubious focus when one spends so much time championing a party that would and has kicked pro-lifers upstairs repeatedly to consolidate its own power. But then again, Marcotte really is just running a mill and looking to line her own pockets. She and her imitators can bite me.

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124. marisacat - 25 May 2008: 118

Well Marcotte really supports the Democratic party. Period. Search around for her posts, think it was october 2 and 3 of 2006 on the 95/10 trojan horse.

I have linked to it in the past, and moiv has written on the mess that is the 95/10, straight out of Democrats for Life bullshit.

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125. Intermittent Bystander - 25 May 2008: Whaddyaknow, here’s a handy example of the way beyond Hillary problem, and it even fits nicely with the thread theme of “Gas.”

Danica Patrick Insists She’ll Keep Driving Around Track Even if She Loses Indy 500.

Today at the Indianapolis 500 Danica Patrick, IndyCar’s premiere Female Driver, insisted that she would keep driving around the track affectionately known as the Brickyard even if she lost today’s race.

“You can’t win it unless you are in it,” she said. When questioned on what was the point of driving around a track after you’ve lost the race Danica responded, “Well, see the race isn’t over until all the cars cross the track at 550 mile.” Then she insisted that the Indianapolis 500 was actually the Indy 550 according to crew chief, Terry McAuliffe’s own map of the racetrack.

“You know a lot of people want me to get out of the race,” Danica Patrick said, “I can’t really figure it out. I don’t know why…In 1995 Jacques Villeneuve didn’t win until the last lap of the race and in 1974 Swede Savage died before he could finish the race. So I couldn’t answer — Couldn’t tell you why people want me to get out.”

Diarist Larry Madill has gotten 28 “tips for satire” (tags naturally include “humor” and “snark”) and as usual, the high-fives way outnumber objections.

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126. marisacat - 25 May 2008: Are there feminists online that are not aligned with the Democratic party? Or that don’t end up there around elections?

I frankly don’t know. The system, political and otherwise, in this country is so rigid.

Over and over most people fall into that ditch (political party ditch), because, it seems to me, as someone who used to comment here but left and wrote me, I cannot stand not being involved.

It does not work for me and even when I voted for Democrats I did not vote straight ticket, nor did I involve myself with the local or state party. ugh no.

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127. marisacat - 25 May 2008: 125

I really liked Danica Patrick in the couple of interveiws I have caught of her…

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128. Intermittent Bystander - 25 May 2008: Sped straight to the wreck list, in fact.

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129. ms_xeno - 25 May 2008: Are there feminists online that are not aligned with the Democratic party ? Or that don’t end up there around elections ?

Not enough to suit me. Not by a long shot. It’s a small relief that this discussion could take place even for five minutes amongst a tiny group of women. But I’d be speechless if anything came of it in November. That is, if feminists en masse really did desert Obama for McKinney in the general.

I would eat an entire closet of hats :p

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130. Intermittent Bystander - 25 May 2008: Go tunesmith:

sexist (0+ / 0-)

Very sexist. Seriously. Why pick Danica? I suppose Hillary’s behavior is a delusional-female trait, huh?

People have to remember that part of Daily Kos’ lineage is the pie fights, when a LOT of strong and progressive women left. We don’t get a lot of pushback about feminist issues around here anymore, which means that we collectively get less pushback about going over the line, and more reinforcement that it’s all right. But that doesn’t mean the groupthink around here is correct. I wish there were more women around here to kick the crap out of the thinking that led to this being on the reclist. But instead I’m more expecting a couple of women to pipe up that they’re unoffended while everyone laughs and showers them with recommendations.

tunesmith’s latest song: My Favorite Clown

by tunesmith on Sun May 25, 2008 at 10:25:56 AM PDT

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131. marisacat - 25 May 2008: I don’t know why he picked Danica. She supported Hillary, who went to the track to see her.

I don’ tknow.

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132. Intermittent Bystander - 25 May 2008: She supported Hillary

Did she? I understand Sarah Fisher, another driver did, but this Sport Illustrated profile quotes Patrick as saying she really doesn’t follow politics at all.

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133. marisacat - 25 May 2008: well then I am confused.

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134. Intermittent Bystander - 25 May 2008: In response to some pushback – Night Train and indybend, among others, are trying to point out why the “satire” is unfair to Danica, not Hillary – other commenters and then the diarist helpfully explain:

What do they have in common? (0+ / 0-)

Danica Patrick, IndyCar’s premiere Female Driver

Not to defend alleged sexism (although the diary did make me laugh), but I would suspect the above description is what gives the analogy “mileage”.. so to speak.

by differance on Sun May 25, 2008 at 10:28:41 AM PDT

::

She’s female and a pioneer in her accomplishments (1+ / 0-)

in what has been a male-dominated field.

I think the comparison is entirely appropo, used as it was, in the service of satire.

The Republican Party: Reinventing government, the same way they reinvented New Orleans

by QuestionableSanity on Sun May 25, 2008 at 10:30:06 AM PDT

::
Yeah, exactly… (0+ / 0-)

Danica and Hillary have both dominated in male-dominated fields. That is the only comparison.

Obama ’08 or Else

by Larry Madill on Sun May 25, 2008 at 10:38:11 AM PDT

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