Hoping for radical action from current Dem leadership is a fantasy

Our two greatest presidents - Lincoln and FDR - were great precisely because they both recognized there’s something precious and worth fighting for in America’s institutions, but that saving and redeeming those institutions sometimes requires truly radical action.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 24, 2022

Republican = Traitor

Peace,

emaycee

 

Onward to 2022

I’m sorry but the recall was a complete and unmitigated disaster for Republicans and the forces pushing it. They got destroyed and in some ways it’s the first concrete piece of evidence that Trumpism has enduring political costs.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 15, 2021

People Who Refuse the COVID-19 Vaccine Are Why Our Lives Can't Return to Normal

Peace,

emaycee 

The blood of 616,422 dead Americans is on McConnell's hands

In lots of ways, including it tangibly helped Trump in 2016, leading to hundreds of thousands of dead Americans and a violent insurrection. Truly stuff to be proud of ! https://t.co/kiYSNeECdi

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 14, 2021

 You Have a Choice:  Help Pass a Voting Rights Bill, or Welcome Fascism to America

Peace,

emaycee

Principles

If you're like me, there are few things in this world more cringe worthy than watching celebrities discuss their political views.  They spend a whole lifetime honing a craft--music, acting--to perfection and it doesn't really leave a lot of time to become an expert on politics.

And it usually shows, oh, the minute they open their mouths.

Such was the case last night when liberal stalwart and Academy Award winning actress Susan Sarandon appeared on the Chris Hayes show on MSNBC stumping for Bernie Sanders and announced she wasn't sure she would vote for Hillary Clinton if she won the Democratic nomination.  She also defended those Sanders supporters who are claiming they won't vote for Secy. Clinton, either, as standing up for their principles.

As one who lives in Michigan, who has seen children poisoned in Flint, our prisoners sexually assaulted and fed maggot infested food by private companies hired by our government, our mothers, wives, and daughters forced to buy rape insurance, and our schools crumble while our "leadership" implemented their "run state government  like a business" ideals to disastrous effect, I'm pretty sure I can honestly say that there is nothing principled about standing on the sidelines while republicans win all three branches of government and make life markedly, horridly, and disastrously worse for ordinary Americans.

You might say it's a real world Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Peace,
emaycee

Why Chris Hayes is dead wrong

Last week, Chris Hayes interviewed republican assemblywoman Michele Fiore of Nevada concerning the actions surrounding the deadbeat Nevada rancher, Cliven Bundy.  Fiore ranted and raved, and as is often the case when Hayes interviews a nutjob in the interest of fairness, Hayes got his fucking clock cleaned (also happened when he interviewed Jennifer Stefano of Americans for Prosperity--it was just brutal). Not on the merits, mind you, but he ends up looking feckless like we all too often do when we think these battles can be won intellectually.  They can't--if they could be, we would have won a long time ago.   Republicans get this--that's why they go for the heart, not the head.

I didn't witness this carnage--after watching Hayes get his ass kicked several times now I just change the channel when he introduces a wingnut.  It's kind of like watching your favorite baseball team when they're getting the shit knocked out of them--life's hard enough without adding to the depression.  And these folks just go on the show to fire up their base--they're just yelling and yelling and Hayes thinks he's making them look batshit insane, but really he's just feeding the fire.

Crooks and Liars rightfully took Hayes to task for his foolhardiness with Fiore, causing Hayes to shoot back in a segment on Monday that he believed all viewpoints should be presented and he would continue to have those with conservative viewpoints on All In to argue their case.  In rebuttal, Crooks and Liars noted correctly that his conservative guests weren't debating a point, they were screaming over him and he was completely unprepared.  Hayes tried to rebut Fiore on an ensuing show, but as Crooks and Liars pointed out, by then it was way too late--kind of like a Presidential debate, you can spin it all you want after the fact, but if you lost the actual debate, you fucking lost the debate (google either of Hayes' interviews noted above, and you will find about ten conservative web site links crowing over their victories debating Hayes to every one Liberal cringing over said victories).

I think a couple more points are in order.  First of all, this notion that we the people are looking for arguments from both sides as an approach to the problems this nation faces is utter bullshit.  We're looking for fucking solutions, not more fucking arguments that frankly we've heard again and again.  Not to mention that republicans are more than happy to argue policy issues into eternity--if we're arguing, we're not solving our problems and that suits them just fine as they flat don't give a rat's ass about helping the American people.

Second, and more importantly, while Hayes is giving these people a voice to spew their lies and helping to keep republicans in office, real people are suffering.  One in six Americans live in poverty, one in five have been food insecure in the past year, millions of Americans have lost much needed unemployment benefits, families are being torn apart because we can't pass immigration reform,  poverty wages rule the day, income inequality is at record highs--you get the picture.  Frankly, Hayes sounds more like he's interested in hosting some lame ass network show like Meet the Press than helping to solve these problem.

There's a wing of our party/movement that still believes we can win these policy battles by reasoning with the right, presenting charts and graphs and figures, and in the end this will sway the Amerian people.  And it's this view that has led to us being on the defensive when it comes to policy, getting our ass kicked in these debates, or ending up with watered down legislation since Ronald Reagan was President.  I'm not advocating that we turn into a party of dunces like republicans, but there's a reason E.T. grossed hundreds of millions of dollars and Gandhi didn't.

Most Americans have neither the time nor the patience to delve into the finer points of our policy debates--which is why republicans scream the right words and phrases over their liberal counterparts.  If Hayes insists on having these clowns on his show, the least he can do is scream back instead of looking like a seal in the middle of a shark feeding frenzy.

Peace,
emaycee

MSNBC's lonely hearts club band

Seems the ratings at MSNBC have been falling and it's giving republicans the warm fuzzies because we Liberals are tuning out.  As Digby notes, it seems to be happening across the blogosphere as well.

There are a number of reasons this could be so--it's not an election year and I don't think the enthusiasm is quite the same in off years.  President Obama hasn't exactly been inspiring.  Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi make the Cowardly Lion look like fucking Audie Murphy.  There's also the fact that we Liberals have never tuned into radio and TV quite like conservatives do.  And being in power (at least the Presidency and the Senate) always makes for a bit more complacency.

But as someone who rarely watches MSNBC anymore (and I used to be a regular viewer, as in every night, sometimes watching the same show twice), I wonder if the people who have tuned out have noticed what I've noticed:  the station is suffering (at least the nightly shows, I'm not home during the day) from a terminal case of tin man's disease--absolutely no heart.

Don't think so?  Watch the way Rachel Maddow gets all glassy eyed when some foreign policy wonk is discussing drone strikes, though she doesn't have nearly the same reaction when discussing striking fast food workers.  Or Chris Hayes when he has a panel discussion on climate change.  Or Lawrence O"Donnell when he's taking about the workings of the Senate.  Christ, Ed Schultz was about as clumsy on air as I would be wearing a tutu and performing Swan Lake on a Detroit street corner, but his love for ordinary Americans was a joy to watch.  Most of the time watching MSNBC anymore I get the feeling their big three are a lot more interested in extolling their intellectual bona fides than they are in the problems of everyday America.

Don't get me wrong--I think Guantanamo and the use of drone strikes are antithetical to everything America stands for.  I know climate change is real...but these days, I'm a lot more concerned with my family making it from payday to payday than I am about how much Arctic ice will be left a hundred years after I'm dead.

And I'd be willing to be there are a lot of Liberals in the same boat as me.

Peace,
emaycee

We could be heroes...

There's been a lot of hullaballo (so to speak) over some words spoken by Chris Hayes on his show "Up with Chris Hayes" concerning the use of the word "hero" with regard to those serving in our military.  Near as I can tell, Hayes was trying to make the point that we use the word hero perhaps too frequently in terms of the military, and this feeds our too frequent marches to war.  He also admits he might be mistaken.

It seems to me much of the charade of anger on the right is because of the god-awful treatment of Vietnam vets upon their return home--there's a lot of retrograde guilt on all sides for what happened, and the right, being good at exploiting, is well, exploiting this to keep the military-industrial complex humming along.  This does not mean that Hayes is wrong.  Nor does it mean that our service men should be vilified.  But in truth, one could make the case that the guy (or gal) going to work each day and paying the taxes that helps support our defense is, in his own way, a hero as well.  It also begs the question why we as a nation refuse to give equal praise to those who seek peace.

But in the end, the biggest problem is that it makes it that much harder for another type of hero, a truth teller if you will, to convince the American people that spending more on defense than the rest of the world combined is a travesty, and the good that could be accomplished with the excess of money spent on defense.  And that maybe, just maybe, we all might be a lot better off if we concentrated on peace first and more weapons second.

Peace,
emaycee

Going Underground

On November the 8th, the Occupy Wall Street movement polled as being nearly twice as popular as the Antoinettes.  By November 17th, 43% had a higher opinion of the Antoinettes as opposed to 37% for OWS.  Three little words:  what the fuck?

One would have to assume the clearing of Zuccotti Park was probably going to happen eventually (as well as other locales), but the numbers cited above sure had to hasten the actions of the police state, as well as make the powers that be's coordinated actions against the various Occupy movements seem less nefarious.  Conservatives favorite Liberal media whipping boy, The New York Times, immediately went into typical traditional media chickenshit mode and sanitized the military raid on peaceful, Constitution following protestors.

That Chris Hayes reported that a lobbying firm for Wall Street is planning to spread their usual bullshit and make Democrats pay for Occupy Wall Street support--so republicans can do what they do best:  fellate the 1%--also doesn't come as a surprise.  Nor is it a surprise that Antoinette media is lying out its ass with its dirty hippie schtick--one would think some enterprising son of a bitch in the tradtional media would point out that the 60's are long over and that most of us (i.e., those with a brain) have realized that enjoying sex is a good thing, it's okay for women to work, and the Viernam War really was a fiasco.

Look, I agree with Matt Taibibi--one of the true joys of watching the OWS movement is that it is a bunch of ordinary Americans who are just sick and tired of politicans who don't care and everything being just another product to be sold to all of us.  I'm glad the OWS protestors in New York City didn't give up and came back fighting to shut Wall Street down.  But I think we are absolutely kidding ourselves that we're going to Ghandi our way to success with this movement.  For one, the movement lacks a Ghandi (or an MLK)--larger than life leaders are the backbone of any movement.  For another, as this last week illustrates, the 1% have the money, own the media, own the police, have just enough dimwit Antoinettes willing to eat the fatty scraps from their tables, and have no qualms about outright lying or cheating to gain and keep their economic domination.

For fuck's sake, at least Ghandi and MLK only had to overcome hate--we've also got to fight our way through an irrationality that's like Dante's Inferno on steroids.

Peace,
emaycee

How can a poor man stand such times and live?

It was the worst of times, it was the best of times...

So the Senate failed to pass another extension for unemployment, helping to guarantee a probable double-dip recession with the usual suspects (Repuglicans, Conservadems) feeling they are practicing some tough love--you know, because taking a $7.00 an hour job for 10 hours a week is a sacrifice the working class has to make. But keeping six figure salary doctors Medicaid payouts? Hell, yes, we're there.

And to no one's surprise, who's jumped on this crusade? None other than fresh from the psycho ward unit in Kentucky, Rand Paul. Of course the little people have to sacrifice--but not Mr. Paul, the optometrist who receives between 300k and 500k of his income from Medicaid payouts. He can't take a 21% hit, but the unemployed are supposed to take a cut from $300 a week to $100 a week? Five little words: Fuck you, next idiot please!

Chris Hayes from The Nation had an excellent piece this week on corporate accountability and individual accountability and the path we've been snookered down. We're always being asked to forgive corporate failures, but expected to take a hard line on individual failings. What the fuck? I suppose part of this (at least to my thinking) stems from the sheer power of corporations and our inability to defeat them which leads to apathy, but eventually you'd think we'd say enough is enough and fight back for Christ's sake. Of course, it doesn't help, either, that the average American is always being fed some bugaboo (gay marriage, the war on terror, socialism, illegal immigration) which is supposedly destroying our country but is really only a diversion to make us forget how much we're being screwed by the corporate interests and the wealthy.

Courage? For fuck's sake, that's what they're calling selling out your core constituency and sticking a knife in the back of working people? (Frankly, anyone who thinks teachers are overpaid or have overly generous benefits is a flat out fucking idiot). The truly heinous part of this is that the Free Press actually has people writing its editorials who believe for one minute that somehow this is going to cause Repuglicans to take a look at tax reform. Repuglicans have never acted in the best interests of the people, and never will act in the interest of the people. As stated so eloquently by Mr. Lewis of the Daily Kos, "Republicans are not on your side." The word that best describes these 16 Democrats (so-called): saps.

The best of times--we did have a few good ones this week....

Bob King was elected President of the UAW, and judging from his acceptance speech (though union leaders often do become members of the elite), appears to be taking the union leftward with calls for social justice, fighting for workers around the globe, and taking on anti-union forces. A quote: "We will never ever have success where our membership is concerned if we are not part of a large, broader social movement." Preach it, brother.

Even better was President of the AFL-CIO Richard Trumka's speech on illegal immigration, calling on union members to support them and reminding us (yet again) that we are a nation of immigrants. From both of these I see unions trending farther left, and while their influence has waned in recent years, if past history is any precedent (think the thirties), when the unions turn leftward, things get a whole hell of a lot better for the working class. Bravo!

Digby on why we still need to support the Democratic Party: she is exactly right, things could get much worse, and for right now, it's the only option liberals have. We have to keep fighting.

Or, in the words of Samuel Beckett: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." Amen.

Peace,
emaycee