©2008 Stacy Taylor | Spikeorama Web

Another “3 dot” entry today, just to give you contributors something to munch on….

Oooooooo! All is not well in the Obama camp, perchance giddiness has given way to sober reality? Is it really possible that a remnant of America’s racist past still exists out there in some isolated holler? Let’s hear an opinion of an Obama presidency from chain smoking Johnny Telvor of Williamson, West Virginia:

‘We’ll end up slaves. We’ll be made slaves just like they was once slaves,’ he said. Telvor, a white Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton in West Virginia’s primary, said he planned to vote for Republican John McCain in November. ‘At least he’s an American,’ he added with a disarmingly friendly smile. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/08/barackobama.hillaryclinton)

Doubtless Telvor speaks for the teeming masses of slack-jawed yokels who are willing, once again, to sell out their own interest at the polls this November in exchange for unleashing the full twitch of their reptilian brains. As the Guardian article points out, “the chattering class” has largely ignored this possibility because (sniff, sniff) their transcendent Many Colors of Benneton world views don’t allow for such dirty little thoughts as racism or sexism or just plain hatred….

Speaking of red necks, San Diego’s political leaders continue to pretend that Robert Young and Jane Wyman still rule the roost, and that the world is still peopled with perfectly coiffed housewives serving savory casseroles to dads in smoking jackets and well-mannered kids with adorable cowlicks. S.D. County Supervisors are pushing forward with their lawsuit challenging California’s medical marijuana laws and are also now pursuing the dubious goal of politely and artfully opting out of the freshly minted same sex marriage law. Seems public officials will not have to subscribe to the new law if it offends their personal beliefs. Fair enough, but let’s take it a step further: any civil servant who is not willing to uphold state law should simply choose to work in the private sector, or better yet, move to West Virginia where they can consort with the Johnny Telvors of the world, sit around the ol’ cracker barrel and discuss the size of Jews’ noses or black ladies’ derrierres…

Johnny McCain has unvieled a new campaign ad where he manages to keep a straight face while telling America that he “hates war” ( http://weblogs.fox61.com/news/politics/blog/2008/06/john_mccain_i_hate_war.html), but fails to mention he only means those that last less than 100 years…

 All three remaining candidates last week made their obligatory visit before AIPAC, the Israeli lobby and did the usual pandering, each claiming unified hatred of Islamic terrorists and ensuring that no matter who is elected,  Israel will remain above criticism for the next 4 years. Oh yeah, and that Iran will be nuked back to the stone age if they so much as make eye contact with the Judeo-Christian world. Iran, for it’s part, reiterated its belief that Jews eat babies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel). Johnny Telvor believes that too but he’s voting for McCain anyway.

I lead with this today, because it seems to be part of a consistent theme:

Just now getting over my rage over Bush’s insulting pandering last week before the Israeli Knesset, implying Obama would have shared a latte with Hitler if given the chance. The Chimp in Chief is no stranger to mind numbing gratuitous cheap shots but he out did himself last week with his appeassment remarks, delivered before an audience of Israelis no more than a generation removed from Hitler’s gas chambers. Why not go to Decatur, Mississippi and tell an audience of blacks that “some” among us (wink, wink, nod, nod) would have negotiated with Byron de la Beckwith? McCain couldn’t resist twisting the knife, of course, with his cowardly follow-up remarks that Obama had some explaining to do. Jesus I’m sick of this wretched crowd of fear mongering con artists, but even more nauseating is the knowledge that there exists out there a swarm of testosterone challenged simpletons  who willingly lap up that swill. Let’s hope the nation  eventually recovers from this awful chapter and the great Bovinus Americanus eventually pokes its nose out of the toxic swamp of fear, superstition, greed, and hatred. Otherwise draining the swamp is the only, shall we say “ultimate”, solution.

Ok. Frequent contibutor and Veteran’s Affairs Editor “Mutt” suggests I intrude here with some insane ramblings to the purpose of stirring the pot which I believe loosely translate to “Puleeeeze, let’s give Hillary/Obama a break!” This causes me great discomfort because I must confront the idea of writing about something not that bores the crap out of me (easy to write about! So many possibilities!), but that actually interests me (hard! So few possibilities.) Even the Jazz-Lakers game with which my attention is momentarily shared reminds me slightly of Hillary/Obama: let’s cut through this geek stuff and get to the finals (Pistons-Lakers/ McCain-Obama). It’s only the unimaginative sports fan or partisan fanatic who still actually cares about these quarter-final matchups in the NBA or about the media-driven denoument of the primary process. So in that spirit, how ’bout a fast paced “3 dot” column, the favorite cop-out of print columnists everywhere who can’t think of any single subject worth writing an entire piece about?

For example, did you know there existed a new acronym classification defining a generational demographic? It’s called “nuppie” and I believe that stand for Nomadic Urban Professional, educated entrepeneurs who can’t afford rent or mortgages, or who choose not to pay them, and are astute enough to take advantage of mobile technology. There’s an array of miniaturized cyber products at our disposal…WiFi, laptops, Mp3 players, BlackBerries, etc…to allow the intrepid information trader to ride fast and hard. And since “info-tainment” is the U.S.’s #1 product, apparently a whole new set of dockers-wearing Kerouac’s and Cassidy’s are prowling today’s high tech hobo jungles making a buck or two off their wits and their cyber skills. Beats timing your freight train hopping to the Spokane apple harvest I suppose, although not nearly as romantic. There’s even a new furniture pod that appeals to this new class of nomads (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/02/casulo_an_entir.php). A few years back, I did a morning drive radio show in Portland, Oregon for 6 months without ever leaving Alpine nor having ever set foot in Portland. And I thought that was pretty cool. But now the sky’s the limit. Hit the road with your Airstream, your Casulo, and your BlackBerry and make a hundred grand selling nutritional supplements or day trading on-line. Roatan ( http://www.roatanonline.com/) here I come…

Meanwhile back on earth, check out the tough love comments here (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080507-1508-extradition.html) concerning the Carmel Valley mother heading back to Michigan complete her sentence on drug trafficking charges of 34 years ago. LeFevre is the poster child for the ridiculousness of drug criminalization and the concept of rehabilitation. It’s clear that life in the ‘burbs on the lamb offers far greater chances for redemption than 10-20 inside our squalid Prison Industrial Complex…

Meanwhile, Reason magazine offers a detailed indictment (  http://www.reason.com/news/show/125438.html ) of the dishonesty of the War on Terror and it’s funding. Look, who really belongs in prison, LeFevre of Bush?…

Finally, if the Nuppie lifestyle really appeals to you (as it does me), maybe you can help pad these statistics (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fi-walkaway11-2008may11,0,7636846.story ). Is there a sadder testimonial to this gas guzzling, McMansion, consumer driven aylum we live in than this???

See you in Spokane in September….

Frankly, I’m finally getting burned out on this nominating process, so this weeks primary results from North Carolina and Indiana seem a bit anticlimactic. Actually this whole thing could have turned out to be interesting and revealing but as the attentive observer knows instead quickly descended into a chaotic melange of insignificant trivialities like Preachergate, guns, “gas tax holidays”, and lapel pins. All of course media-driven, facilitated by Clinton’s desperate grasping and Obama’s apologetic ramblings. Still hearing virtually nothing about McCain’s rapid reincarnation as Curtis LeMay, the demented Vietnam era Strangelove. Also increasingly annoying is this notion that Obama can’t get angry because he’ll turn off “working class” dems. If so, why is he the presumptive nominee? What happens if he wins the White House than shows anger? Impeachment? Uppityness with Intent? And what’s with Clintonite lapdog Paul Begala running around referring to Obama supporters as “egg heads”? Jesus. To this bunch some gal with an associates degree in sports medicine is an intellectual elitist and the guy that prepared your taxes lives in an “ivory tower”. More divide-and-conquer tactics that will end up in McCain’s playbook. Thank god the economy is going well and that little operation in Iraq has turned out so successful, otherwise we wouldn’t have time to dwell on this important stuff.

Nearly drowning out the sound of mortar shells being lobbed into the Green Zone, Hillary stumbled and slouched her way to the inevitable victory in Pennsylvania this week, saw her shadow, and promised America another 6 weeks of campaign tedium, to be interrupted only by the occasional wincing collective ”WTF?”.  Along the way, Senator Clinton lobbed a few stink bombs of her own, including a concocted hypothetical about “obliterating” Iran if 1) the Ayatollahs ever were to produce nuclear weapons, 2) ever were to develope a nuclear weapon delivery system, and 3) decided arbitrarily to launch said hypothetical nukes toward Israel. Hill delivered 3 versions of her doomsday scenario over a 4 day period, each time ratcheting up the rhetoric until she had achieved the poetry of uttering “nuclear weapons”, “Iran”, and “obliterate” in the same taut sentence. See, Senator Clinton is tough, just like a guy, in fact just like that guy McCain who’s already making rosy campaign promises of more and bigger wars forever. And we all know by now that Clinton is able to throw back a straight shot of distilled spirits in the middle of the day, shoot a doe at 50 yards, and swallow her wad of Red Man without without even flinching, all as mere idle pastimes while she’s waiting for that 3 AM phone call from Osama bin Laden.

This new act, of course, is in sharp contrast to her little emotional meltdown in New Hampshire, but more importantly is designed to be in sharper contrast to the latte’ swilling Obama and his legion of effete You Tube babies, tree hugging limousine liberals, vegan Unitarians, and pointy-headed college professors who wouldn’t even know that a doe is a female deer were it not for The Sound of Music.

And were it merely an “act”, it would be tolerable, I suppose, in this day and age of craven say-anything politics. But I fear that it’s not an act. Hillary’s chem trail of toxic rhetoric concerning the Middle East stretches back to the days immediately following 9-11. And she had that little AIPAC gremlin crawling up her butt even as she was campaigning for Senate 8 years ago, obeisance to Israel being the holy grail of New York politics. No, I think Hillary, like McCain, would loooove to kick a little A-Rab ass if one of the towel heads so much as looked cross eyed at her. If this lady ever makes it to the White House, our only hope is to get her going on those whiskey shooters early in the day, have her passed out by dinner, and let someone else take that phone call.

Jesus. cue “Dueling Banjos”: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Secrecy_and_propriety_in_Kentucky.html

It’s almost like I’m lying in wait for the latest bullshit “scandal” awaiting the Democratic candidate to follow the chimp into the offal…I mean, Oval office. After all, we’ve come off a week when the vein-popping McCain has evened the race with the dem fav Obama, owing presumably to the corroborative testimony of Betray-ous and Crock-o’-shit before Congress, to the effect that more dead guys piling up in Iraq is a) a good thing, b)an acceptable thing, or 3) and expected thing, take your choice. And since McCain is the daddy of the surge, is it any wonder that the sheeple have collectively scratched their butts, poured a Bud, and said “See? It’s working…sort of!”?

Meanwhile, Osama…I mean OBAMA, apparently has stepped on his d**k again with some throwaway comment about Pennsylvania blue collars voting against their personal interest in favor of the guns & gays gruel served up heartily by the Repug christo/fascist propaganda fear machine. Perhaps he could have nuanced it a little better, but his point was clear: in times of economic crisis, regular folks turn to that whichever gives them comfort.

On cue, Hillary seized upon the moment, reminiscing about the time Daddy first showed her how to obliterate a squirrel with a 4-10 shotgun, and her abiding faith in the Almighty. Also on cue, Barack spun his apology tires trying to explain the obvious. But too little, too late. Blue Collar Reagan Democrats revolt! Can Obama connect with the working drones as they hose down their motor boats in anticipation of perch and trout season? Will Hillary pull a Kerry and contrive a photo-op with a pellet-riddled migratory bird? Will McCain’s increasingly expansive grin actually cause his face to explode? Will Obama repudiate, reject, AND denounce his latest gaff and gin up his gun/god cred by spraying  duck pins at the Allentown Park-and-Bowl with bird shot? An increasingly bored electorate awaits the answer.

Ok. A quick addendum to my post below. Here are a few more websites worth visiting for alt-takes on the news. And how could I have ommitted RollingStone when mentioning current events mags. Matt Taibbi’s pieces are worth the subscription price alone. His profane, no-bullshit P.O.V. is rivalled only by Mark Morford of www.sfgate.com

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/campaign2008

http://www.liveleak.com/

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/263.html

Also, while Marshall McLuhan (a confession: I never “got” him) was required reading in college, the book that introduced me to “new journalism” was Harlan Ellison’s obscure classic The Glass Teat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Teat) It hit my pot-addled brain like a Hendirx guitar solo.

Also, if you have no understanding of general semantics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics), stop everything and return to “GO”. It explains the language barrier between man and reality.

Also required reading in the era of televison is Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman), brought to you by the same guy who brought you LBJ’s infamous “daisy” campaign ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKs-bTL-pRg). Still can’t believe Johnson recited the line “We must all love each other or die” when the Beatles were still singing “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

It’s been suggested by contributor “johnnywalk” that I invite folks to engage in a discussion of the media and it’s failing, especially in regards to covering politics in a post 9-11 fascist world, so here goes.

But first a confession: I seldom plunge into the fetid, rancid retention pond of “mainstream media”. Virtually all the information/background I seek is from select magazines (germaine to current events, Harpers and New Yorker specifically) or the web. Can’t recall the last time I watched a network newscast, or for that matter even tippy-toed in CNN-land. Should I want to sample the stale bread offered there, I go to Crooks and Liars or Media Matters. (http://www.crooksandliars.com/, http://mediamatters.org/) I personally find Media Matters a little too fastidious for my taste, engaging in a lot of nuanced nit-picking, without ever really dropping the hammer on the lying jackals of the press. More of a curt slap across the cheek with a white glove. That said, Media Matter’s founder, David Brock, has written one on the most significant books pertinent to the media-in-the-era-of-Clinton: Blinded by the Right (http://www.democraticunderground.com/books/02/brock.html) If you’re not familar with it, Brock lays out his conversion saga of being a former journo-hitman for the Gingrich S.S. in the 90’s, and his ultimate enlightenment. Media Matters is obviously his self-imposed penance.

Also indespensible, book-wise, is Mark Crispin Miller’s Cruel and Unusual (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Crispin_Miller), a heavily annotated and referenced book about the media’s complicity during the Bush/Cheney reign of terror.

This is less of an opinion blog and more of a conversation starter and I’m leaving much out here, on purpose, because I’m interested in your sources and alternet faves. Trashing corporate media is great sport, so have at it!