Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Well, Mr Smith, I suppose you can 'disappear' our antiwar movement as much as you want. But any assessment of politics, establishment or grassroots, that does so, along with $2, will get you on the subway in those cities here that have them. We're hardly invisible to each other, and the powers-that be, but we won't mind being invisible to you, and vice versa.

Well, Mr Smith, I suppose you can 'disappear' our antiwar movement as much as you want. But any assessment of politics, establishment or grassroots, that does so, along with $2, will get you on the subway in those cities here that have them. We're hardly invisible to each other, and the powers-that be, but we won't mind being invisible to you, and vice versa.

Oh Carl, the level of self-delusion evident in your post is delicious. It is, to me, a sumptous seven course dinner: There is nothing that thrills me more than people convinced that the status quo cares about them when their interests clearly do not allign with those of the military-industrial complex. Carl, your candidate is clearly and demonstrably a tool of the American Empire and has no desire whatsoever to curb that empire. The people he surrounds himself with (Lake, Rice, Albright, etc.) are evidence enough in that regard that one not even bring up his numerous instances and utterances in favor of the continuation of the Empire. You sir, are no progressive. You have no concept of what the word means if you support a man who is running for Administrator of the Empire. The only way he differs with McCain is that he purports to want to manage the Empire competently. He is no more in favor of "change" than George Bush, as a matter of fact, he is less so: Dubya believes himself to be in service to a master higher than the Empire itself, the big bearded dude in the sky. At least Dubya can be forgiven: He is a true, delusional believer, like yourself, but Obama is nothing more than a con-man selling earnest people dying for something to believe in a bill of goods.

Your candidate has pledged to continue our bellicosity towards Iran. He wants more troops in Afghanistan, where less and none is the only sane, humane option, given that we are apparently only able to blow up wedding parties there. He'll probably join in the saber-rattling at Pakistan, if he hasn't already. His foreign policy is repulsive, repugnant, odious and maniacal. And he does not give a flying fuck about you or your issues, unless your issues are "elect Democrats unconditionally".

Please don't bother defending the future war criminal you've chosen to represent you, I've heard it all before and it's ceased being funny. There is no defense you can conjure that is not composed entirely of smoke and mirrors. But if you insist on it, I promise to read it and try to be amused. In the waning days of our empire, watching little dogs like you yip impotently at the rest of us for not licking your master's feet is the the only entertainment available to me in this arena.

Actually, fuck all that noise, you want the truth? Read this:

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=697&Itemid=1

Adolph says it far better than I ever could.

Some rich commentary from Carl Davidson (the genuine article, or someone posing as him?). Here's a man whose words and actions have helped derail the antiwar movement and deliver it into the suffocating embrace of the Democratic party establishment--the graveyard of social movements. Mr. Smith hasn't disappeared the antiwar movement--but people like Davidson (and UFPJ) have done an excelent job of that all by themselves.

How low the mighty have fallen. Once a leader in the Vietnam antiwar movement (which need I remind Mr. Davidson was ended under a REPUBLICAN administration) he's now a lackey for status-quo politicians who are complicit in the occupations, the war on terror and the war on our civil liberties. Methinks Mr. Davidson should see his physician and get a prescription to take care of his delusions.

Oh, Nick, that's no imposter. It's the real Carl, for sure. This (the prowling of and howling on unzombied blogs) is the "organizing" in his "movement."

Not to worry, though, Carl has promised to "deliver" his "movement" to protest Obama's policies right there on the White House lawn, once the "movement" gets the neo-Gipper elected.

Don't be too hard on them though, after all, they're just following orders.

no sense responding to carl....he's just lifting a hind leg

" .... We're hardly invisible to each other, and the powers-that be..."

not sure i know how to follow that "WE.." all the way back to its head waters

Y'know, it's funny. After I wrote that crack about "no anti-war movement worthy of the name", I immediately had second thoughts. Oh self, I sez to myself, surely that's a little too sweeping?

Delicious irony that the only rebuttal to this peevish sweeping observation comes from somebody who embodies what's true about it:

http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com/

How did UFPJ kill the antiwar movement?

No, Smiff; don't back down. You're absolutely right... and the really piss-poor part of it is, it's not for want of a surprisingly large number of people who are against the war.

If I'd read that post two or three years ago, I may have written a reply remarkably like Mr. D's.

However, the past two or three years of the same old shit that never works – the same old useless beseeching of politicians, the same old tired symbolic civil disobedience, the same old giant symbolic "pink slips" hung from buildings, the same old prayer vigils, the same old lack of any new ideas or any willingness to confront and obstruct in any concrete fashion the ability of this State to wage war – convinces me that yes, we have no antiwar movement; we have no antiwar movement today. Any real movement would be something spontaneous, a convergence of people who know what needs to be done and are ready to organize among themselves and get it done, without waiting around for politicians and without allowing its energy and resources to be sucked into the black hole of the Amerikan political-party system and electoral process.

UFPJ helped kill the antiwar movement by, iirc, helping to mix the Kool-Aid for that big ol' Anybody But Bush Prayer Meeting.

And btw, Mr. D, that post of yours damn' near busted my Smarm-O-Meter™. Your use of "disappear" in that context, alone, generated a reading of 97.9+. All you needed was a defiant bleat of "Vive la Resistance" at the end.

StO -- UFPJ is joined at the hip to the Democratic Party. Counterpunch has covered their history of nonfeasance quite thoroughly, e.g.

http://www.counterpunch.org/donnelly05012006.html

Progress is a lethal concept.

kentucky col hayden speculates

"it is possible that Obama thinks being tough towards Afghanistan and Pakistan is a defensive cover for withdrawing from Iraq, and he later will follow up with unspecified diplomacy after he takes office."

then issues a grave warning

"... history shows that creeping escalations create a momentum and constituency of their own.... North and South Waziristan could be his Bay of Pigs"

arghhh

all vays with dis JFK ting ...

Progressives aren't the only ones looking for a Messiah. Why they would look in the halls of Congress aside, the need for messianic reassurance is a sign of political illiteracy and emotional infantility. Not surprising in a culture of imbeciles, but alarming nonetheless.

anonymouse:
He'll probably join in the saber-rattling at Pakistan, if he hasn't already.

Oh, he has. There was the Obama/Hill "Let's bomb Pakistan! No, let's NUKE Pakistan!" road show that caused an international incident before either of them appeared to be the unambiguous front runners. I have to say that they have an impressive capacity for causing diplomatic incidents without being elected first.

Michael Dawson:
Not to worry, though, Carl has promised to "deliver" his "movement" to protest Obama's policies right there on the White House lawn, once the "movement" gets the neo-Gipper elected.

I have to laugh in order not to weep....