posted by perkiset on Sep 11

People drown when swimming in the ocean just yards from the shore. Often, the reason is that they do not understand the rhythm of the ocean or how to work with it. The ocean pulses in waves. Therefore, it’s most important to swim hard when the pulse is going your way, rather than against it. And therein lies the problem; people most often swim when they feel that they are being taken away, then relax when the pressure is off and they wind up way offshore and in real trouble.

It is with this metaphor in mind that I suggest that anyone worried about Sara Palin take a breath and slow down a bit. And that means me as well.

We’re still less than a week out from the Republican convention. Ms. Palin has been thrust into the limelight from nowhere and the press (and the country at large) are hungry for more information about her. So it makes no sense at all that we’d see Barack hitting back hard at the moment. The ocean is currently pulling against him.

Today on some of the political threads that I follow I saw two important things: First off is the thought that Obama must get back to campaigning against McCain, not Palin. And the way to do that is to force a question about McCain’s positions and how they coincide with Bush’s - and have him agree – preferably in real time – that they’re on the same page. This will not be too terribly difficult given that McCain’s positions ARE either identical or very parallel to Bush’s. The second was the biggie for me: [an Obama aide quotes] “we’ll be saving our biggest counterpunches for after 9/11. “

Where John McCain has run a slipshod and temperamental campaign that’s been supernaturally blessed by fortune since the beginning, Obama has run perhaps the most tight and disciplined campaigns we’ve seen in recent memory. And if we pause to reflect, we’ll remember that Obama has been hit with plenty of his own “show stoppers” that he’s not only overcome, but in some cases, used quite skillfully to his advantage.

Obama knows how to swim in the ocean. He is waiting for the slight lull that signals the time to move, and attack. Attacking during the convention would be a silly waste of money. Attacking now, during Palin’s coming out party, is a waste as well because the press is completely enthralled with her. Then there’s the 7th anniversary of 9/11 – perhaps the worst possible time for a “Grand Uniter” type candidate to use a horrible memory for political gain.

He is biding his time.

There’s not a huge amount to bide, but there’s enough left yet for him to play smart rather than hard. I am actually rather exhilarated imagining what advertisements and tactics will be deployed because I think we underestimate Obama’s capability to get muddy if the situation calls for it. And since the mean spirited, lying reprobates that call themselves “Republicans” have thrown down the gauntlet (admission that they will start employing Swift Boat like tactics) then it’s time for us to hit back with both barrels. The only way they win is if America is not exposed to what their words really mean and what they really stand for. Well, those things that aren’t lies anyway.

And here’s another thing; if little old Sara the Barracuda is enough to throw Obama off his game so severely then perhaps he doesn’t deserve to be president (not saying this IN ANY WAY qualifies McCain or Palin) – much like McCain’s cowardice about answering Campbell Brown and the McCain team sequestering Palin until they can inject her with the right sound bites, if Obama recedes in the face of a little tussel with the likes of the Miss Congeniality then he needs to rethink negotiations with the rest of the world’s bad guys.

I don’t think we have to worry about it. I think Obama knows exactly that this is what the presidential job is all about, and in fact, I appreciate (in a peculiar sort of way) John McCain and Sara Palin helping to make Barack Obama a better president via this trial by fire.

I’m not saying that I think this is a slam dunk or that we have nothing to worry about – far from it. But I think we must also remember what kind of campaigner Obama has been so far - and what kind of rookie to the national stage Palin is - and what kind of temperamental, compulsive and irrational old-schooler John McCain is.

And in all of those words lie my sudden rush of faith for the day. Remembering how I was in the ocean as a boy learning the rhythm of the surf, I understand the lull in Obama’s strategy. I hope this helps you out as well. Despair not. If Obama is everything that we’d imagine him to be, this is but another hurdle in a long line that he will need to tackle on his way to the biggest load of shit (the current U.S. situation) that any human on this planet will ever have to face.

If you’re like me, then you’re for Obama because you believe he is equal to the task.

posted by perkiset on Feb 25

Ralph Nader is responsible for the war in Iraq.

And just when we thought the race was really getting interesting, Ralph Nader steps in to make a mockery of it all.

Let’s face it: The name “Ralph Nader” used to be synonymous with consumer protection, safety issues, consumer advocacy… he was practically a household name in this arena. But in the last 3 presidential elections his name has been mud at best – criminally negligent at worst. Well, at least morally negligent.Simple math: if Nader’s name was not on the Florida ballot in 2000 Al Gore is president. Iraq never happens. Thanks a lot Ralph – lots of great safety and advocacy props there pal.

Ralph you have lost your way. You know it is flat out impossible for you to become president – and if you don’t then you shouldn’t be anyway because you’re completely delusional – so why not spend your time in advocacy of a important topics rather than this boneheaded, ill conceived notion YET AGAIN. It concerns me to think that you do not take personal responsibility for the state of our nation today – indeed even the world. You may personally be the largest single Gum In The Works that has ever existed. Stop it. Right now. Please while there is still some good legacy left of you.

Hillary, Hillary, Hillary.
Strike One: Slams Obama repeatedly about plagiarizing a component of one of his speeches. Doubles down with a crappy Xerox that obviously one of her writers thought of. Gets booed, but stays with it. Then essentially re-quotes Edwards concession speech closer with her “We’ll be fine” closing to the Texas debates. Shrill and hypocritical rhetoric unfortunately classic for the Clinton team.

Strike Two: “Shame on you Barack.” A new low. Sorry Mrs. Clinton – you cannot take credit for all of the good things that occurred during your husband’s administration and yet be absolved of responsibility for the not-so-great things – particularly when you have been so vocally pro-NAFTA in the past, for example. The Obama campaign’s flyer that went out does not cite anything untrue or explosive – it states the facts of how you have supported things in the past yet take no responsibility for them now. Your sudden explosion about it smacks of desperation and tactics, not real political anger.

Strike Three: Making fun of Obama and his supporters? Now that is really politically dumb and frankly, insulting. You and Bill – the eternal optimists… trading on hope and a vision for the future that was better than today – making fun of Obama and his supporters as kool-aid drinking rose-colored glass wand wavers? (OK, that’s not what was said – but that was the timbre) That is playground politics at the worst. To have shifted from someone purporting her vision of the future to someone talking about how hard it’s going to be and “[with Obama as president] The skies will open everything will be alright” is the mark of someone that has clearly hit a desperate point.

Thank you, for having proven exactly what kind of character you have while under pressure – you’ve made my choice ever so much easier. Since it’s either you or Obama, he gets the support. You lose and rightfully so.

posted by perkiset on Feb 4

Consider this, my right-wing warmongering friends:

If we honestly believe that one of the reasons Dubya went to Iraq was to avenge the contract put out on daddy, then is it too far a stretch to imagine that a President McCain would keep us in Iraq as long as necessary to vicariously repair the damage done to him during his 5 year imprisonment in Viet Nam?

Clearly, with his rhetoric about 100 years or more, “We are making progress,” “We will win regardless of what it takes.” “With honor” and such he is reliving his Viet Nam through the middle east and feels the pain of the soldiers there. Would it not be better for him to care for his military brethren  by bringing them home and retask the money he would put into bullets towards hospitals and care for those that have given so much?

Why must we be subjected to McCain’s mental torment over losing Viet Nam at the expense of our economy, our future and most importantly, the lives and health of our youngest and strongest?

To our future president: Please, for the love of god, country and countrymen, get us out of that quagmire. Let us start to endure the inevitable embarrassment and national shame we deserve for our imperialist excursions and FINALLY start to learn how to behave as an international citizen nation, rather than the school bully. Let us begin to scab over the wounds we have gut in our national body and our relationships with the rest of the world. Let us begin the process of growing up.

posted by perkiset on Dec 19

OK, so that’s the fashionable thing to say. “Any Dem over a ::shudder:: Republican. I am not so sure. In fact, I’m downright creeped out.

First, let me piss Pinkhat off, who is pro-Hillary. I am not, and getting more so everyday. Pinkhat would love to see a woman President and frankly, so would I. I am of the opinion that there would be much more caring and less war in our country, except every 28 days when we’d go bomb some little country for not picking up their shoes beside the bed. But I digress. Women are just more level headed, yes? More rational. More considerate and less hawkish.

Um, that is unless you’re the Iron Lady of the Realm, Madge “Mad Dog” Thatcher herself. Perhaps Evita Peron was another example of a female that just wasn’t quite of the same cut as Mother Theresa. Given Hillary’s tough talk about torture, her support of the war thus far and her unwillingness to even talk about when the troops will come home makes me question her progressive qualifications and her Democratic orientation. Perhaps shes sort of an Auntie Tom.

Another fine example is Bill “Can’t we all just be friends” Richardson. I really liked the policies he put forth in New Mexico. He was a solid executive. He’s got the resume, let me tell you. And asked direct questions about virtually anything of substance in a debate he’s like a deer in the headlights or and old man fumbling for the keys in his pocket. Disoriented and disjointed, that is NOT that man I want at the helm when it’s time to decide if we need to push the big red button.

I could go on about what pisses me off about some of the Democrats and why I wouldn’t vote for them, but let’s take just a moment and reflect on the thinking of some of our Dumbercrats. Consider, for example, the Progressive and Democratic credentials of our own political Uncle Tom, Joe Lieberman. Who is a proponent of the war in Iraq. Who thinks we can “win over there.” Who is now endorsing John McCain for President. Endorsing John McCain for President. Who slipped him a glass of Koolaide? Is he freaking kidding? I mean, he pissed me off with his whiney just-on-the-edge-of-crying kind of voice during the Gore campaign, but I never thought he’d be so blatantly obtuse. If this is what Democrats look like today I’m REALLY frightened.

So what’s a thinking progressive to do? Well, some of my friends think that Ron Paul is the answer. It is true that he holds some interesting ideas about protecting American people before other countries. I like that. It’s also true that he wants to eliminate almost all federal programs and world organizations that we participate in and allow a corporatacracy to consume our country. A Ron Paul Revolution in many ways is like a duck making a lateral move to ala Range (Thanks, Donald Sutherland).

It is unfortunate that Frodo whoops, I mean Kucinich, will not get many votes because he, in many ways, is to the Dems what Ron Paul is to the Repubs. And I don’t know that I’d be unhappy with a President Dodd or Biden – although my father would be pissed off at that.

Then again, if the Repubs put up “Yuck Yuck Yuckabee” or perhaps John “The Terminator” McCain, or the Stepfordesque Romney or … oh can I even say it… that greaseball wad of horsepoop Ewlianni, Then I’d probably vote for just about anyone else.

Even Hillary.

posted by perkiset on Nov 11

Last night I took my family to go see Across The Universe. After having looked at the trailer I was mildly interested – we really went for my daughter who thought it’d be a cool love story. What I found was a 60’s tail wrapped in 21st century production values, a reverent updating of a wide variety of Beatles music and imagery that was simply breathtaking.

But what I really walked away with was a pit in my stomach, because the film made even more clear and obvious the nature of the young and focused people of that time, compared to the apathetic and selfish young people that populate my America today.

Now to be sure, if you are a Guiliani supporter and believe that we could have “won in Vietnam” if we’d just stayed longer, this film is not for you – but frankly neither is my blog so simply get away from me now – your mere presence is polluting my webspace. But I digress.

So to my question: Where have all the hippies gone? The people of the 60s were willing to put themselves on the line to cure a monstrous ill… which was our involvement in Viet Nam. I was brought back to Kent State, End The War marches, the civil rights movement, the fantastic diversity in music, the acceptance of all things different… and the repressive governmental and old-societal forces that pushed back. The 60s represented a time of enlightenment – the dawning of the age of Aquarius. A time when we threw off the confining borders of the cold-war ethos, a time when we yearned to be more that we were told we could be – a time when the best parts of the utopian notion seemed with grasp.

Of course that very mental and spiritual enlightenment also brought about the drug culture as well as sexual freedom that was so repulsive to a great many in the U. S. – so much so, that we gave rise to the contemporary conservative movement and the birth of the Goldwater conservatives. That movement has been bastardized and mutated into the neocon movement that created the war in Iraq, the notion of Values Voters and a push to constitutionally ban same sex marriage. Which in turn has begat the modern progressive movement.

By why is the moderm progressive movement so seemingly less effective than the hippies of old?

In my opinion, because it’s the same people. And they are tired, older, are less willing to claim that “Possessions are a bummer” and in fact ARE over 30 and therefore untrustable . The younger generation that might be moved by what we as a nation are doing are interested in changing the world only in as much as it affects their ability to play video games and interact in their own way. Has Internet Fund Raising been effective? Yes of course! Has it actually gotten people to talk about issues more? Yes of course! But computers will not line up at the foot of the Washington monument mall and scream for peace and justice. And the problem, is that the very thing that has made us more capable of communicating is in fact makin us more lazy and unwilling to do the REAL work of getting out there and letting our faces be seen. Regardless of how big the number is in an online-poll to change a piece of legislation, this is NO SUBSTITUTE for actually getting out there and being seen.

Don’t get me wrong – by simply reading my piece and forming an opinion of me for-or-against, you are doing something – you are thinking. But that’s still not the same as the commitment and conviction that my parents had when they were pissed off enough to try to move the earth… and stop a horrible international excursion and the deaths of countless Vietnamese people (as well as our own boys and girls) with marches, sit ins, rallys and all manner of peaceful civil disobedience.

Perhaps if we simply could get Dick Vader or his Imperial Lord And Master Dubya Bush to drop a little window pane our world would start to shift again. But again, I digress.

The answer is not just to be pissed off, but to actually do something about it. Be willing to speak out to your neighbor that takes smack about liberals. Be willing to attack, head on, the forces that make hate seem more acceptable than love. Be willing to fight for the notion of live and let live.

You say you want a revolution?
Well you know, we all want to change the world.

Well,

All you need is love.

Go see Across The Universe. Watch, listen and apply the imagery that confronts you to the world around you. If you’re not moved and a bit pissed off, then you need to read someone else’s blog.