WWH/ATCC (9/10/11)(w/vid): An "Ap-Paul-ing" Dream

Greetings Earthlings! and a glad "Klaatu barata nicto" all around, eh!


A correspondent in the UK asked me in all sincerity why, when there were 1) so many other, bigger targets around, and 2) so many other PROBLEMS than identifying the presumptive GOPhux Presidential candidate, did I focus my attention and bile on Ron Paul. I blame it on the American Dream: anyone can grow up to be President.

Of the whole, sorry lot of them--give the devil his due--Ron Paul probably is the only one with anything even approaching the necessary...ummm... "gravitus." He's the one who takes himself the most seriously, the one with the most pronounced faux-intellectual pretensions (and credentials), the most unctuously, righteously smarmy of them, with his blithely Ann-Randian --which is to say, predatory--'Libertarianism' camouflaging his abject obeisance to his CorpoRat masters.

And he's the one who seems to have the most appeal to disaffected "lefties," for some reason; mostly because of his "stands" on ending the USer wars both in Central Asia, and against marijuana.

However "ap-Pauling" he may appear from afar, if you're not an American, it is more difficult to realize that there is, in principle or practice, really NOTHING to prevent Ron Paul from being 'elected' President.

Ya gotta remember, in 2008, we 'elected' an unproven, untried, greenhorn, first-term, corn-state, mixed-race, rookie Senator with ambiguous political credentials, mainly on "appearances": he 1) was not a white Republican, and he 2) was expertly marketed in a campaign that led voters to believe that that, alone, would make a difference.

Before THAT, we TWICE elected a jovial, dim-witted, seemingly ILLITERATE, compliant sock-puppet and his psychopathic puppeteer to smilingly lead the country into wrack and ruin. They committed war crimes, robbed the treasury for their bankster buddies, flat-out STOLE two elections, engineered TWO "wars-of-choice," and when they were at last replaced, it was NOT to answer warrants and indictments, but to MILLION-DOLLAR book deals and speaking tours.

Then there was that luminously stupid, second-rate actor who started it all with his eight-year descent into gibbering idiocy during the 80s, whilst his thugs and gunsels set things up for the long term take-over.

It's the "American Dream" and it is truly terrifying, if you think about it:

Any-fucking-body CAN be "President."

So bully-ragging on Ron Paul is at least no less productive than heaping mockery, scorn and derision on any of the rest of the GOPhux Clown Car Candidates, and it may dissuade the unwary from undue admiration.

Which, finally, is all one really CAN do, unless it is--as HL Mencken once remarked, that any rational person must sometimes be tempted--"to spit on our hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats." Ap-Paul-ing, innit?

Anyway that's how the cookie crumbles, today, chillun...See ya at the beach, hippies.

WWH~~ As The Cookie Crumbles (9/9/11): Resentment

To all the ships at sea, and to Hippies in their happy hippievilles everywhere!!!
GOOD MORNIN'!


As the cookie crumbles today, with the apparent defection of Cornell West and Tavis Smiley, a breech seems to have developed in the Obamster's Black base, as on one hand, less informed and/or less engaged voters increasingly become disappointed that, Obama hasn't "done" anything especially or recognizably "for" the Black community; meanwhile the intelligentsia notice that "ThePrez" is pursuing policies which are NOT really even very much those of a "Democrat," much less of a "Black" Democrat in the WhiteHouse...

It is probably an unfortunate, uncomfortable fact that just about the ONLY way in which Obamster's 'election' actually ever "mattered" was "symbolically." As a practical matter, there was NEVER a moment when he would have been able to redress specific problems within "minority" communities as their advocates. No, really.

Even under the most benign circumstances (which these weren't), he'd nevertheless have been effectively forbidden by the quite real fear of a backlash from authoring or authorizing ANY measures which could be perceived to grant "privileges" to "his people." He had--understandably, or not--no taste for being called out by Rush and the Ditto-heads for "favoring HIS people" against "the rest of America..." Which is what the charge would have been.

That's actually why "Obama-care" got the reception it did, from the Tea-hadists.

Them folks operate on a very high level of resentment at the "loss" of their (previously socially endorsed) "superiority" over those they regard as their racial "inferiors," such that they are apparently willing to endure a minor loss to their own over-all well-being, as long as by doing so, they can deprive those whom they detest of ANY of part of it at all...

It is for this reason that the brigades of Hover-round harriers are willing to see Medicare crash, and Obama-care fail, even if both would be detrimental to their overall well-being:

I think it is because there is an "unacceptable" amount of egalitarianism embedded in universal health care, for instance, by virtue of which EVERYBODY gets treated the same way. The rabid tea-hadist sensibility resists being in even the same system with "those" people. I believe they think themselves diminished by having to accept the same care from the same providers in the same facilities as those whom the do NOT regard as their equals...

Yeah, it's pretty stupid.

And that the way the cookie crumbles, hippies...See ya at the beach!

WWH/As The Cookie Crumbles (9/6/11): Thanks

To all the Whos in Whoville, and all the Hippies in Hippievilles everywhere: Good Morning!


Sunday on The Book, another piece of Obama-fondling fodder made the rounds, this off Kos; like all others of that ilk, its author called out to the critical outliers of the 'professional left' who persist in ATTACKING their St. Barry from within, so to speak, to just STOP acting so durn SILLY, and bask in the panoply of wonders St. Barry Obama's DONE for you! In helpful categories. With hot-links and everything!

At the same time, folks were reacting pretty critically in my little corners of the universe to the news that, on Friday, the slowest news day of the year, ThePrez ordered the EPA to stop implementation of stricter air-quality regs for energy producers.

To me, that flagrant appeal for approval sounded like WE'RE supposed to be grateful HE'S doing just SOME of his job. It's not what bills he's signed that matters. That's only what the people who 'elected' him were entitled to expect.... A minimum...the LEAST he could do.

What matters, to me, anyway, is what he HASN'T done. It's the opposition he SHOULD have mounted, and didn't, or feigned and walked back from, as on the air quality regs, on Friday. (I've catalogued some items in the text below. Feel free to add your own.)

Now, purportedly, no small part of his "jobs" program will consist in things for which he does NOT require Congressional approval. (It goes to the People, on Sept 8-12, depending on the swell...)That was the brag last week, anyway. But that just leaves me breathless. What the FUCK! I mean, what the fuck, man...

I MEAN:
IF these soon-to-be-announced expedients don't require Congressional approval NOW, I'm betting dollars to quatloos that they didn't require such approval, oh, say, LAST YEAR at this time, when as I recall, there was already a serious recession going on?

In fact, there was NOTHING to have prevented him implementing them in his first week of his tenure, was there? Naaah, he just didn't. This is Obomberama Puro!

Or how about a directive to ALL federally owned or managed buildings to simply paint their roofs white? It's not crazy. Here's a link. And here's a link for the "Precautionary Principle," too, while you're at it.

Such complaints may sound trivial, but to me it's emblematic of the things he COULD and SHOULD do, but avoids and/or ignores. It's "significant." I'm a semiotics guy. Signs matter. Those are signs, and not even particularly complicated ones.

So give me a farking BREAK with all the grateful encomiums. YER getting dicked-over, and you're THANKING him, lavishly, begging for MORE?
Please.
I understand you may feel you HAVE to vote for him.
At least have the decency to do so with regret.

And that's the way this cookie crumbles...have a day, hippies!

Note: We're all adults here. Adults don't get, or expect, praise for doing the right thing--or for NOT doing the wrong one. It's how it is.
The catalogue"

It's the WARS that he DIDN'T end (plus the new ones he approved).
And the CIA drones slaughtering people wholesale in Asia.
And the Super (Cat-Food) Commission.
And don't EVEN talk to me about "regulating the Banksters." That was Chris Dodd's retirement package.
His education "policy" --indeed his whole Cabinet-ful of Dis-Appointments-- is a sell-out to the globalist CorpoRats.

Feel free to add your own.

HN&S, 9/5/11: Matter

....Thanks Winston, and Aloha, grommets, from the sunny beaches of Albuquerque, NM...

Lotta folks have noticed the two-party system has some drawbacks.

What the two-party system guarantees is that EVERY election will be an exercise in denial, of rejection; of a populace, agrieved, shouting "NO! AWAY WITH YOU! You sodding awful charlatans, NO MORE!" And they vote to throw the bastids out, not caring over much in the heat of their disapproval about what is going to take their places, or of what depravities THE REPLACEMENTS could be capable.

I agree with those who believe that with McCain in the WhiteHouse, we’d never've heard a PEEP about cutting Social Security, or otherwise screwing with the safety-net, such as it is.

The GREEDY, OLEAGINOUS PERVERTS (the GOP) with the Chimperor at their head, tried that in ’04-05, after a SUCCESSFUL election season, and were still roundly beaten back by Dim MINORITIES in both Houses -- and by a massive PUBLIC outcry and resistance.

I've thought and said all along the GOP THREW the ’08 election. It was dead obvious when Palin went on the ticket. They were goin' under the bus...Which was tough on John McCain. "Bombin' Johnny," the jet pilot, was always a fusty ol' fart, but he's really got stupid mean since 2008. He DESPERATELY WANTED to be President, and surpass his father's military accomplishments: President outranks Admiral.

As to the coming election, I think The GOPhux probably throw this one, too. There is no candidate in their Clown Car who is worth the effort and expense of stealing it for.

BUT: In Twenty-Sixteen, with the blame for all the troubles of the previous (by then) FORTY years, including the FIRST REALLY OBVIOUS EVIDENCE OF THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE, once and for all firmly affixed to the shoulders of America’s “first Black” president and his “party” of "the Losers," the GOP'll swoop back in with Bush/Cheney, redivivus!

JEB Bush and LIZ Cheney: Slogan "Bush/Cheney -- Together AGAIN!" Now THAT could revive irony.

It's all about what Gregory Bateson called "differences that make a difference." The thing to remember is Obama was ‘elected’ principally because he was NOT a "white, male Republican,” and because of a genius "branding" campaign that skillfully made it SEEM that THAT actually mattered.

(Freudian Aside: Do ALL these people have "father" issues? O's a fatherless child, W was either 1) avenging or 2) out-doing his father (or BOTH)...The Clenis was fatherless, too. McCain's father was a highly decorated Admiral ( an Arabic word, fyi ). GHWBush's daddy was a Nazi. The fruit falleth not far from the tree, and all that? It might be a useful thing to do to examine candidates for president in light of their relations with their parents. Just sayin.)

As The Cookie Crumbles (Vid): Trials

Good MORNING! Fellow Cookie Crumblers!


Of ALL the questions that dog "ThePrez," almost three years into his tenure, nne of the most persistent and vexing is this:

"WHY DIDN'T St. Barry prosecute bloody-handed, murderous, immoral miscreant/agents of the Bushevik regime for their freely admitted mal-and misfeasances in office?"

Many are perplexed by the seeming paradox of the Chimperor Bush and his organ-grinder pal, Dick Cheney, (among scores of OTHER malefactors from that regime) who are currently BOTH...NOT IN JAIL, And bragging in books and lectures of their criminal misdeeds, without any apparent fear of legal consequences.

Why DO these often admitted CRIMES go unrebuked and unpunished...

Good question! I am not a lawyer, but I can think of at least FOUR plausible--though far from compelling--reasons.

1) No precedent--Nobody'd ever done it before: Not what Bush had done, not what Obama was being ASKED to do. You have no idea how daunting that fact is.

...There were NO rules, no governing authorities, no laws, nothing.

Anmd then, of what would they be accused?

And what would be the implictions of such accusations, anyway?

That sort of thing makes lawyers, PARTICULARLY "Constitutional scholars," quite uneasy.

2) No "case"--Assuredly the defense would have argued as follows:

"Hey! There was a war going on! It was justified! The safety of the country was imperiled! There were terrorists in every airplane, train and bus. They were trying to DESTROY us. They hated us for our freedoms. It was an international jihad, with robed, fiercely mustachio'd, scimitar-wielding assassins at the very GATES of the city!

If the Busheviks pled "national emergency," they could've hidden the evidence and said they were acting in 'public interest'.

3) No "jury"--would convict 'em. Even getting past the defense arguments, remember more than 30% of people still approve what the GOPhux did. Thirty percent of a 12-person jury is 3.6 people. Between one-in-three and one-in-four of potential jurors would ALREADY bve predisposed to acquit. You only need ONE to nullify; and

4) No gutz: If he'd gone after them, the GOP'd have lynched Obummer after his term, whenEVER it ended. St. Barry's a pragmatist. He knows, as well as anybody else, that every President since Roosevelt has been the author of 'war-crimes.' Hell, the Ecru Crusader's ALREADY committed every crime Bush did, and then some, in AfPak, with his drones. The first HINT that St. Barry was aiming to bring the Busheviks to the bar of justice, the GOPhux long knives would have come out--as they may, in any case, regardless...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Head Hippie has decided to postpone the Hippie News and Stuff til TUESDAY, to take his own leisure from the labors of assembling and editing and posting the program. BE SURE to tune in TUESDAY, around 4pm EDT, for the next Edition of "Hippie News and Stuff..."

Til then, see ya at the BEACH, hippies...

A

As The Cookie Crumbles: Two Guns

(WWH, 9/2/11) Two gun-related stories from "fact-checking" sources on Thursday morning's F-book inspired me to engage in a bit of practical propaganda. I want to start a slanderous rumor!

First, there was the story from Arizona that the GOPhux in Pima County, AZ, home of the nearly assassinated Rep, Gabby Giffords, were auctioning off a Glock handgun to raise money for the coming campaigns.

This was followed, in short order, by a report from a local scion of Politifact that the GOPhux in Oregon were auctioning off an AR-15 combat-style assault rifle to help finance their forthcoming campaigns. (In this, in Oregon, the GOPhux are not alone: the state office of some NRA spin-off is raffling off FIVE of the things.)

The Politifact piece deemed the charges "Mostly True." What the fuck? Did the GOPhux just auction off the ammo and a couple of banana-clips, I wondered? How is something like that "Mostly True?" Did money change hands? Did the weapon?

Yes, and yes, to both questions.

Turns out the Politifact folks quibbled over the term "assault rifle." Technically," an "assault" rifle must be capable of full-on, rock'n'roll, auto--blazing--matic--and not merely one-shot-at-a-time, semi-automatic--firing. (Confession: Full-on, rock'n'roll, 3-5-second-burst auto IS a gas.)

But that was just the summary of my vexation. It began with the "Glock piece" in Arizona, and the utter contempt it mirrored. It seemed to me to be callousness of the most troglodytic, male-patriarchal, repressive, regressive, passive/aggressive ASSWHOLE kind.

To reflect that contempt, and to satirize it, I commented, in essence:

"I heard the GOPhux Party of Pima County, AZ, is auctioning off Jarred Loughner's Glock in Gifford's district in AZ.

Gettin' the boy a furlough from jail to pull the lucky number, too."

It was patently not true, of course. Were the GOPhux of Pima County actually humans, they might have accused me of slander. Then a reader corrected me, taking at face value my intentional mistake of naming the weapon to be Loughner's, which it almost certainly COULDN'T be, it now reposing, empty and harmless (or so one hopes) in the evidence locker of some AZ DA.

And in the reminder from that reader, I caught a glimpse of something useful: that's how propaganda works. It is utterly immaterial whether it contains a grain of, or the whole, truth. It plants the idea. And then, behind the surge of familiarity that follows the employment of the "Big Lie" strategy, the idea soon BECOMES truth by virtue of endless reiteration.

So I am repeating it.

"I heard the GOPhux Party of Pima County, AZ, is auctioning off Jarred Loughner's Glock in Gifford's district in AZ.
Gettin' the boy a furlough from jail to pull the lucky number, too."

Help me make it viral. I would fucking LOVE to watch that meme take off...

*Top Image: Field-stripped, AR-15 "Hello-kitty."
**Next Image: Really! You don't wanna know...

As The Cookie Crumbles: One Swing

As the season creeps into autumn, again, I was both surprised and delighted that "Labor Day," our ONLY national nod to "working people," was still on the calendar.

This long decade, now, I have harbored the wary suspicion that there would arise a movement to turn the end-of-summer holiday into some annual display of faux-patriotic, maudlin, bathetic banality, and supplant "Labor Day" with the exceptionalist equivalent of "9/11 Martyrs' Day." It could still happen, but I especially dreaded the up-welling of lugubrious patriotism and other mawkish remembrances of the the forth-coming Tenth Anniversary, and we seem to have dodged THAT bullet, at least.

Workers in MOST of the REST of the world enjoy to a far greater extent than ANY American "workers" things like universal, virtually free health care--and all that it entails, including long-term stipends when injury prevents work--plus alternative energy sources, good, safe, reliable transport services, and better working conditions than do MOST Murkins. But given what services they enjoy for the taxes they pay, far fewer of them complain nearly as much or as loudly or as venomously about it as do Murkins.

Speaking of frames: Why is taxation a "burden?" To me, taxes are "dues," friends. You pay your dues. Or think of it like the Association fees at the biggest condo in the world: Keeps the lawns mowed, and the wrought iron painted, and the streets swept clean. The management company might suck porta-potties through a flavo-straw, but that doesn't invalidate the duty to contribute.

That 'duty' is what Locke, Rousseau, and them other enlightenment fellers--including, as a matter of fact, most of our Founders--were talking about, with the "social contract." Ya can't "reify" it, but it exists, still, like the tacit agreements we all inhabit, about language and custom. It is negotiable, in what MLK optimistically called the "long arc of justice."

A useful example is labor rights. The Labor movement all over the world fought throughout the 19th and the first 50 years into the 20th Centuries to achieve the position that, in labor-management relations, there was a PRESUMPTION of the workers' right to collective bargaining.

Largely un/under-reported in the country's "popular" history is the fact that, over those 150 years, some uncounted dozens of thousands of ordinary workers, laborers, and 'hands, perished under the tender mercies of the gunsels and thugs employed by the Owners to prevent the workers' organizing. Countless thousands more were injured in confrontations, all over the country, between workers and Rangers, state militias, Pinkertons, the National Guard and even the Army.

And not workers alone were murdered and injured. Their families, too, suffered death and grievous hurt, at the hands of the hired criminals in the Owners' employ. Vide, Ludlow, Colorado, 1914.

So, now that the Owners are actively discarding those hard-won and deadly-fought advances in workers' rights, reversing the arc of justice of 150 years and innumerable bodies, why would it be exceptional to exact BACK from the Owners some of the same price that workers paid to win their rights in the first place?

But I could compromise. I'm a reasonable fellow. All I REALLY want is one swing: with an open hand, or a closed fist, or a sock-full of quarters: just one swing, to wipe that fucking smirk off their sneering fucking gobs.