Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Poor guy. That's nothing but warmed-over, Lakoffian wishful thinking, with the same profligate Lakoffian use of capital letters.

Lakoff has a lot to answer for, IMHO.

Ahistorical immaterialism in inaction.

Sad when fuckers don't know enough to shut their yaps...

"Ahistorical immaterialism"

That's inspired, mordantly enjoyable coinage.

steal the secrets of the bomb for russia ???
might as well try to steal em
....if you're an american commie

when the first red gagdet goes off
east of the urals
you'll be blamed anyway

and yet creating
a progressive nexus that intends to co exist with the "as is " dembots
and
the two party one dance electoral system
was an endless
on again off again CPUSA strategy
even as the bomb secret steal was in high gear
but once the bomb blew --so to speak---
the CPUSA became the underground party
of pro stevenson cut outs and by that declension began its dolorous trail
to pieces of heavily wrinkled drift wood

Well, it entirely depends on what Michael means by dialogue. Suppose he envisions this dialogue reaching and even infiltrating the national media, so that anchors and editors are suddenly rushing to Google to find out what socialism actually means, historically, etc.

I've been thinking a long time about writing a smashing piece called "Socialism is not a Dirty Word!", and I've been trying it out at by local tavern. OK, I've been thrown out of the Dolphin a few times, but maybe I just haven't come up with the right formulation yet.

Anyway, I have the same views about a different Michael, currently at your local cinema. Right or wrong, people are now thinking "worker ownership. . .? Hmmn, could be something there. . ."

Why does it always have to be change from the top, with a fully developed programme? And why assume that the DP will can always coopt our best ideas?

As for Lakoff, I know the bloke and he has a certain charm, but I agree with Al, he has a lot to answer for.

There are, unfortunately, a lot of organizations who've gotten a million dollars from rich people to influence public dialogue. They regularly hijack genuine public concerns to steer conversations away from essential analysis. Some of them even make it on NPR.

http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/other_publication_types/PERI_SCEPA_statementJan27.pdf

that links
to the type of "work product"this chap has in mind
note its by eager beavers indeed
"deep chewing" reformers
capable of nawing any batch of policy areas
into progressive shapes

"We are aware that the government does not have an infinite capacity to borrow"
my my
no wonder they proposed a deficit run about the same size as chrisy romer's
ie 600 k over two years

they do mention goosing the automatic stablizers but not to set up a algorithmic cybermacronic nexus that would take in data and adjust the various in and out flows of uncles fiscal system
an idea as old as meade and lerner
circa 1940-42

their ideas for reforming the imf are equally timid
stiglitzian at best

in other words
reports value...blah blah x 20 pages

the list of undersigned noteables from various rag weed higher ed huts is a nice mountain top view
of pink icing econ-econics :

Lauri Andress, Texas Southern University
Enid Arvidson, University of Texas, Arlington
Michael Ash, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Radhika Balakrishnan, Marymount Manhattan College
Nina Banks, Bucknell University
Cyrus Bina, University of Minnesota
Al Campbell , University of Utah
James Crotty, University of Massachusetts, Amherst James Cypher, California State University Charles Davis, Indiana University
Edwin Dickens, St. Peter’s College
Gerald Epstein, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Thomas Ferguson, University of Massachusetts, Boston
Rudy Fichtenbaum, Wright State University
Bill Ganley, Buffalo State College
Teresa Ghilarducci, New School Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis
Ruth Wilson Gilmore, University of Southern California
Eban Goodstein,Lewis & Clark College
Ilene Grabel, University of Denver Jo Marie Greisgraber, New Rules for Global Finance Coalition
Stephany Griffith-Jones, Columbia University
Robert Guttmann, Hofstra University
Jonathan Harris, Tufts University Michael Hillard, University of Southern Maine
Julio Huato, St. Francis College Dorene Isenberg, University of Redlands
Arjun Jayadev, University of Massachusetts, Boston
Jerome Joffe, St. John’s University
Anush Kapadia, Columbia University
Timothy Koechlin, Vassar College
Douglas Koritz, Buffalo State College
David Kotz, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Michael Meeropol, Western New England College
Peter B. Meyer, University of Louisville

William Milberg, New School for Social Research
Fred Moseley, Mount Holyoke College
Tracy Mott, University of Denver
Laurie Nisonoff, Hampshire College
Jose Antonio Ocampo, Columbia University
Karen Pfeifer, Smith College
Bruce Pietrykowski, University of Michigan, Dearborn
Robert Pollin, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Sergio Romero, Boise State University
Frank Roosevelt, Sarah Lawrence College Malcolm Sawyer, Leeds University Business School
Stephanie Seguino, University of Vermont
Frank Thompson, University of Michigan
Chris Tilly, University of California
Eric Tymoigne, California State University
Thomas E. Weisskopf, University of Michigan
Martin Wolfson, University of Notre Dame
Yavuz Yasar, University of Denver

correction

"ie 600 k per year
over two years"
very identical so to speak
to romer's 1200k over two years
ie twice the larry ziffle rate

"where are all of us who believe we understand what is going on and (a little of) what is needed a helluva lot better than the Geithner-Summers-Furman-Goolsby axis that is advising Obama about economic policy "
from the letter

that amazes me

"understand"
just what is it these polly pwogs "understand"

that the summers et al axis don't ..?

understand ?? as if its a question of know what- know how
not a very fundemental
" conflict of interests 'e

both sides "get it" or enough of "it"
to see the class policy paths divide
and each one takes
the path
they and their "reference class" prefer

assuming merit class types are neutral on the great class struggle
that guys and gals like obama
are just unclear
on the best courses of action and maybe poriorities from a "whole of the people" persepective is plain silly
if not just a polite cover

for inspiration
when tackling such bird seed avalanches

one tries to imagine
el jefi the chief
doc moor
going over the gotha program

Dunno, hce. I just saw Michael Moore's new one. Seems to me he left the back door of the barn wide open. 95 percent of people who see that film are going to take it as proof that waiting for Zerobama is the same thing as occupying your workplace. Shit, the thing doesn't even review the continued roster of G-Sachsists surrounding the pitchfork-catcher-in-chief.

md

the cow left moo moo zzz
when ob's talks bright talk
as father s sez
he's one of em
only misfit merits get ornery in his presence
misfits and
of course the glorious remnants
the stray wondering senescent
but still ever so case hardened
Ronin M-L cadre

File under "Sad Decline Of American Communism.

Declined from what? The good old days of American Stalinism when good commies didn't support Democrats?

Except of course:

1.) When they told Bayard Rustin to put the struggle against Jim Crow on hold to support Roosevelt in the war.

2.) When they ordered all Japanese American cadres to report to concentration camps. Yes sir. In the good old days of American Stalinism the American Communist Party supported Roosevelt's concentration camps.

I could go on, but you get the message. The American Communist Party supported Roosevelt and the Democratic Party when the Democratic Party supported Jim Crow.

Any "decline" (even as defined by "makes alliances with Democrats") is, I'm afraid, only in your Obama addled mind.

pwog
of course you're on target
about various browder era "front work"
vis a vis the donkery

and ah besides absurd hyper rhetorical radicalism
i get only a trot stink
whic surfaces as it may

the agenda of most folks has moved on

If it's any consolation, I'm sure Kim Philby wouldn't have supported Obama.

PWOG, what points do you think you're scoring? You seem immensely illiterate in your literal take on MJS's "sad decline" line. The man is poking fun at the whole CP lineage, beyond obviously.

Meanwhile, who the fuck are you? Policing the left boundary of the center-right is hardly something you're going to be vindicated by. Fuckbag.

P.S. to PWOG fuckbag.

MJS is saying that sharing the bomb formula at least addressed the needs of the human species with something like actual analysis, and very arguably proved (if it had any effect) to prevent more US use of a or n bombs after the mega-crimes in Japan.

Now, the direct offspring of that is reduced to typing all caps about talking to Zerobama.

Again, who the fuck are you?

Touchy Touchy

Maybe you've all gotten to the point where nobody outside of your tiny little circle can understand a word of what any of you writes.

That's the final, terminal phase of ultraradicalism.

And you're terribly naive about the nuclear standoff between the USA and USSR as having "prevented any more mega-crimes".

What it did in fact do is divide the world into two mutually hostile, nuclear armed camps that decided to wage low intensity warfare against each other in the third world instead of having an all out fight.

Count up the casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Latin America, Korea and tell me that the nuclear standoff prevented any more holocausts.

And you're not even very accurate when you claim that Russia's having the bomb prevented the USA from using it. The USA used the bomb during the Cuban Missile crisis. It used the bomb in 1973. It's used it a number of times, in fact.

Just because the robber doesn't shoot the convenience store clerk when he pulls his gun doesn't mean he hasn't used his gun when he pulls it.

Welcome back, Pwog. You're quite right that Philby wouldn't have "supported" Obama.

I always admired Philby. He and Ethel were head and shoulders above the official line of their respective parties at the time. The old CPUSA was a sad-sack affair even when Ethel was in in, but at least it had people like Ethel in it.

Now, who do we have anywhere with Ethel's balls?

Now, who do we have anywhere with Ethel's balls?

That would have to be someone with access to American secrets willing to give them away for ideological and not financial reasons.

So it would rule out Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen.

But Jonathan Pollard would fit the bill quite nicely. Pollard did an immense amount of damage to American interests when he gave the Israelis military intelligence the Israelis promptly turned over to the Russians.

And a short note about the Teabaggers.

Like any upper-middle-class leftist, you mistake a lack of style with effectiveness. The Teabaggers are buffoons, your mind goes, so they must be harmless. Just because something isn't, how would someone of your class phrase it, ah yes "well played", doesn't mean it's harmless.

I would suggest you see Costa Gavras's film "Z". The right wing mobs in this sadly neglected movie make the Teabaggers seem almost stylish by comparison.

It's not the Teabaggers. It's the big money behind the Teabaggers. Now it may just be my own "pwoggie" sensibilities, but out here in America west of the Hudson, there does seem to be an ugliness brewing that would possibly surprise someone of your social standing and isolation from us the dirty masses.

In fact, this very day, I was out riding my bike when I decided to stop at my favorite pizza place. Out in front there was a "street fair" sponsored by some Catholic organization or another. When they started to play the Star Spangled Banner, I did what I always do when they play the Star Spangled banner. I ignored it.

Show some respect, a big, biker looking guy barked at me, to which I responded. "I'm sorry sir. But like our President, I am a Muslim, and my religion forbids me to engage in idolatry". I realize that my being white, rather large, and somewhat intimidating in appearance, along with the surprise my response must have generated protected me from an ass kicking. But I guarantee you it's not something YOU would ever experience on the upper West Side of Manhattan.

Pwog's analogy between Ethel Rosenberg and Jonathan Pollard is right on target, and underscores the point I was trying to make. As for his fantasy about my Nick-and-Nora life in New York -- I can only wish it were accurate.

Pollard is indeed, objectively revolutionary by your definition, as is Zionism in general.

Were it not for the Israeli lobby and AIPAC, America would not be so hated in the Middle East as it is now. And the American Empire's position would be stronger.

By this argument I am reminded of Alexander Cockburn, who regularly declares Gerry Ford to have been the greatest of American presidents and opines that any weakening of the American empire at all however achieved is an objective good for the rest of the world.

But I sadly think that Mr. Cockburn is as mistaken as he was when in the pages of the Nation on the eve of the first American attack on Iraq in 1991, he boldly declared that Saddam's army would give the Americans a stiff fight.

But who am I to judge. The replacement of Anglo American liberal capitalism with the authoritarian Chinese model is probably inevitable anyway. So it's probably a good thing if Obama fails in any reformist attempts he might make. Why put off the inevitable?

What reformist attempts? The free liquidity flows to the banksters, untrammeled by audits, and the troubled assets remain safely consoled in off-balance sheet federal care centers. The zombie banks frolic in zombie markets. The authoritarian Chinese model is a marvel of probity by comparison. There, at least, the high rollers run the risk of a date with the death van. Here, the worst fate they face is being forced to eat in the same restaurant as John Meriwether.

I'll tell what Ames does for this context. He highlights the poverty of treason. With a little ambition, he could have joined the Podesta Group or Patton Boggs.

This moron prick blames "Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Latin America, Korea" plus all the other similar US war crimes half on the USSR. I was guessing that maybe PWOG was Matt Iglesias.

Then I thought about that idea again. I think it is Piglesias. That would explain the militant stupidity.

...You mean I'm not going to get a pony?!?

Aw, dang, was hoping to turn it into horsemeat, not have to shop for groceries for a week, perhaps even sell the remains to a glue factory, quick cash. It's not that I was expecting it to be pink or even magic, just realz. If Wishes Were Horses, and all...

"I could go on"
please do
but try to keep the assumptions about your audience out of it

"1.) When they told Bayard Rustin to put the struggle against Jim Crow on hold to support Roosevelt in the war. "

b rustin was not a party follower so what's your point here
the cp was clearly
"the vanguard party"
on black liberation
and as practical matter pound for pound
the most consistent on the ground in the institutions fighter as well

"2.) When they ordered all Japanese American cadres to report to concentration camps."

an absurdly contrived point
i'd rather focus on policy the party could control
it's own

my browderism of illest repute
was quite opposite really
the ridiculous about face after
the molotov-ribbentrop pact triggered phoney war
and yet even in that era the party did yepmen union orging

then again once the great patriotic war needed
global prole support
the party essentially ceased organizing job site struggles

however on all these points
and others not gone on to
idiot jelly heads
from 2009
flying over these events
as ignorant and confident as jay birds
carrying
absolute human rights evaluation tablets
inside their time suits
make for silly shallow epicene sights

umpires indeed
of empire and its enemies

calling balls and strikes
on a game long since over

stick to the present and your own life shell if all you have to play with
are a few third hand
wall board size
sophomoric cartoons

don't project your goal
using your own strident set of value driven debate points
to "out" value violaters
like an unleashed
get off the lawn donut cop

big and imposing ???

not in the head quarters

your politics are pencil necked
bike rider
why ??

green ???

what an egregious holy joe secular unit
you must be
even smug enough
to snipe at a drab down market
ritual like flag worship

in your case
emotional arrest set in
at about 13 or there about

one calculates the suspension of development will continue

the bike is a good investment in subliminal
regression and
exhibitionistic rebellion
nicely over determined

if they still exist in your heart land neighborhood
why not get a paper route
or
favoring the other side
deliver hippy built green pizzas

S'okay, Owen. If he's telling the truth about goading the flag worshippers, they'll be looking for him. He's got a distinctive and menacing appearance, as he made clear, so they'll be after him in numbers. Mob violence is regrettable, of course, and I personally have no tolerance for wingnut lynch mobs, even when they target pwogs, but if he really is a hefty, muscular fellow he should be able to kick a little ass, or at least fend them off.

Rinse and repeat a few times, and who knows? He might become king of the wingnuts, drag them kicking and screaming into Enlightenment values.

"you're terribly naive about the nuclear standoff between the USA and USSR as having 'prevented any more mega-crimes' ".

"What it did in fact do is divide the world into two mutually hostile, nuclear armed camps "

hardly "the world"
hardly "two camps"
two nuclear armed super powers faced off yes

intrinsically hostile ??
no
faced off in a struggle ??
yes

" decided to wage low intensity warfare against each other in the third world instead of having an all out fight "
"decided" ?
no
neither ever seriously considered
anything but containment and reverse able
controled marginal probing

cuban missiles was a miscalculation
the camelot round table jumped on it of course
and we've lived beneath the legend ever since

the various hot fights
china korea vietnam
all involved at its heart
not uncle's containment of the soviets
but contention with the rising CCP

stalin quite shrewdly helped guarantee 20 years of needless sino american emnity by giving kim the green light
of course trumans liberation drive beyond the 38th parallel sealed the deal
even that plan required uncle to over step

of course premier K
NO stalin when it came time to fence with uncle
was barely a b- student
cuba 62 being a flat flunk of course
the cold war always had at least 5 moving parts
not 2
name em pwog

I'm not sure helping Stalin get the bomb was an action, however bold, that did much good (if the legend is at all true). Everyone wants a Magic Bullet, be it a state secret, a dynamic leader etc, to put the world to rights. Without the humiliating process of organizing, getting defeated, alienating friends, organizing, getting defeated again... Whereas, the US committed the worst atrocities known to man in spite of the USSR having nukes.*

Finally--as the French say--we need bold and intelligent action--i.e., action that not just feels good in our hearts but actually makes constructive things happen.

*Perhaps the reality is, the CP never really had a Golden Age--they've been foolish all along.

"the humiliating process of organizing, getting defeated, alienating friends, organizing, getting defeated again.."

not quite sure its always
or even necessarily ever
that glum an enterprise

"bold and intelligent action"

organize to win
not for noble gestures

if the mission isn't worth
compromising
the integrity of your soul

move on till you find one that is

Put your tiny little dick back in your pants, iPwog. Nobody believes your fantasy stories about bikers and shit, ya rough-tough-creampuff.

Ethel would have kicked your Obot ass.

Has Mr. Meeropol being having coffee with Ralph Nader lately?

They're both looking for a sugardaddy/momma to fund the left.

Maybe they should start a phone tree.

Has Mr. Meeropol been having coffee with Ralph Nader?

They're both looking for sugardaddies/mommas for the left.

Maybe they should start a phone tree.

I too am of a large and menacing aspect, and I'd gladly tell a biker to shove it if given half a chance. Sadly, every time the national anthem strikes up, I find myself seated among Aunty B-ish seventy somethings, leaving me the choice of churlishly disturbing those I'd rather not or cravenly coming to my feet like the veriest Dem. Sigh. No doubt Pwog-Man would be able to leap this dilemma with a single bound.

Pete Ward, why do you doubt that the Soviets having the bomb was a good thing? Do you imagine Korea and Vietnam wouldn't have been nuked, but for the chance of retaliation?

I'm not fan of the USSR, but its sins are no excuse for being stupid about our system and its entirely out-of-control master class.

If only the USSR really had possessed a true advantage. Maybe there'd be a few million less shattered lives.

I'm pretty sure that "PWOG" is another creation of the literary genius that brought us "Those Kids Today":
http://www.drexel.edu/coas/engphil/directory/stein.asp

really bob ??
i was hoping it was

http://thecurvature.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/jerry-lewis.jpg

or http://lolnascar.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/mr_ed1.gif

or
http://www.nndb.com/people/659/000033560/red-skelton-3.jpg

really bob ??
i was hoping it was

http://thecurvature.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/jerry-lewis.jpg

or http://lolnascar.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/mr_ed1.gif

Bob -- Why do you think this chap is our current court jester?

well, someone else already outed TKT, and there are distinct similarities between the two. The particular style of bad writing is one dead give-away - stereotype as archetype, caricature as character. Beyond that, they employ the same clumsy posturing and attempts at pigeonholing others in that "I've got your number" sort of way. Different sock-puppets, same troll

bob, I'd like to believe you, but bad style, clumsy posturing, and attempts at pigeonholing are all too common...

Put your tiny little dick back in your pants, iPwog. Nobody believes your fantasy stories about bikers and shit, ya rough-tough-creampuff.

OF COURSE nobody HERE believes it. That was precisely my point. It's outside of your experience.

You all live in privilaged little bubbles where you never run into menacing right wing bikers, or anti-immigrant wingnuts. The worst any of YOU have to worry about in your Ivy League worlds is the occasional verbal altercation over whether or not Faulker is a better writer than Proust.

Believe it or not, most people in America get into confrontations like the one I described all the time. Maybe you should make like Jack Kerouac and do a little hitchhiking.

OH, you know what's also outside of the experience of all, if not most of you?

Not having health insurance.

That's why you all have the luxury of hoping McCain beats Obama or Bush beats Gore, the better to bring on the revolution. Obama's health care reform might just help a few people in some small way. But they're people none of you know. They're, you know, the actual working class.

the cold war always had at least 5 moving parts
not 2
name em pwog

Well. Well. I mock all of you for being bubble boy academics and you respond by giving me a quiz.

The first three are obvious.

1. The USA

2. The USSR

3. China

But let's see if I can guess what you have in mind for the last two.

4. Let's say, "populist nationalism", a category that would include everybody from Nasser to Allende

5.) Let's say "conservative nationalism", bourgeoisies that aren't consistently in any one camp. This would include both Israel and India.

Did I pass?

Funny. I don't think anybody who participates regularly on this blog is an academic (though I believe we have at least one public-school teacher). But I note with pleasure that Pwog couldn't resist a quiz.

OK. You're not an academic. In fact, you often rail against formal education.

Maybe you're just some rich guy who couldn't get tenure?

Wrong on both counts, Pwog. But keep trying. One has to wonder why you think this sort of thing matters, but hey, it's Liberty Hall here.

One has to wonder why you think this sort of thing matters,

Because for a lot of people it does.

It's very easy when you've got money and leisure to hope the extreme right gets into power and that somehow the ensuing "polarization" will create the conditions necessary for your little experiment in Leninism. But it's not so easy when you can't make rent or you lose your house because you have no health insurance.

But as long as it's "liberty hall" let me take the liberty of making a suggestion.

Why don't you live up to the same standard you're holding Meeropol too?

Come on tough guy. If you admire Ethel Rosenberg so much for turning over some pathetic scraps of information to the Russians and going to the chair, if she proves how inauthentic all the rest of us who just vote and write out congressmen are, why not do somehting similar yourself?

Come on tough guy. Pull a John Walker Lindh and go fight against your country. That'll prove you're more than just a fraud with an internet connection.

Nah. You won't. The only difference between you and me is that I have no illusions about making some grand gesture of treason. The best I can do is flip off an occasional biker. But you seem to have JUST that illusion.

MJS

I came to this site cuz of the book you haven't finished. I like this occasional puffing, but want to see you in print. Cyberspace is great'n'all, but it's also me.

-N

Thanks, nercules. Dr Johnson observed that anybody who ever wrote but for money was a blockhead, and that book will see no further progress until I think somebody might buy it.

4 and 5 are gibberish
so you get a d-

extra credit for
coupling issy with indy
shows a sense of higher freak show organization

the two are a match made
for
the top of a wedding cake

a pugnacious dwarf
and his towering 6 armed bride

the fact that a biker threatened PWOG doesn't necessarily prove that the "teabaggers" are a powerful force in America.

I'm still waiting for PWOG to offer his airtight logical progression on how a threatened beatdown from a biker translates to a need to be terrified of, and a need to organize against, the teabaggers.

Ironic that PWOG is arguing against upper-middle-class progressives. Doe anyone here --aside from PWOG, that is-- fit that description? Has PWOG been done in by unintentional irony?

Ultimately, as to PWOG's mortal enemies the teabaggers, I conclude that they see the world differently than I do, but I share their hatred of government spending in wasteful ways. I guess that doesn't trouble PWOG so much as the fact that they vote Republican. What that suggests to me is that PWOG still hangs all value on the Repub vs Dem false binary. But maybe PWOG can correct me if I've erred there.

lol.. you guys can't help but rise to the bait can you?

Pwoggo, since your entire approach is ad hominem let me note that I do not have health insurance; I rent an apartment in a zip code that is, shall we say, far from the groves of Academe; and if I should be so unfortunate as to get sick or break my leg, then I'll be fucked. And I'll be every bit as fucked under the reign of the rather insipid, would be smoothy from Chi, as I would have been if Mr. Melanoma had somehow managed to blunder his way to the "top".

But then I wouldn't expect much in the way of glad tidings from a guy who orders drone strikes before heading out for another 30,000 a plate dinner. What a fraud.

Obama's health care reform might just help a few people in some small way. But they're people none of you know. They're, you know, the actual working class.

Oh, thank you for giving me a fit of laughter. I need it when contemplating the subject of the Dems' so-called health care reform.

Last I heard, the bill with the greatest chance of success was a watered down piece of shit which did not cap health insurance premiums, did not even have the deliberately ineffective "public option", and would cost the average family an estimated $1000 per month.

I don't know too many members of the immiserated working class who can afford $12000 per annum. Apparently I will find them somewhere if I just go hitchhiking, which I find slightly less likely than finding Prester John's kingdom.

Has PWOG been done in by unintentional irony?

As a rule, pwogwessives are all about unintentional irony. It's the end result of several factors that make up yer average pwog - moral cowardice (ie: shilling for dems), an active fantasy life (look out, bikers!), anger transference from their political masters to some ill-defined other (ivy league graduates, in this case) and the general feelings resentment that they share with their freeper cousins.

Plus, pwogs smell bad and their mothers dress them funny.

My long-term plan is simple: Next year I'll persuade my lord and master to remove me from his health insurance policy. Think of all the neat-wow stuff we can have from the savings until the Neo-Romneys in Obama's stable finally catch up with us four years down the road or whenever this bullshit officially fires up.

And should I actually become ill? (Well, ignorance is bliss right now, as it's hard to find cash for a co-pay when so much loot must be paid the insurer for coverage that I can't afford the co-pay on-- If you don't know you might be sick, it's the same as NOT BEING SICK! --but I digress...) The long-long-term plan is even simpler. The lord and master divorces me, I sell everything I own and move into some by-the-week-rental rattrap with hot and cold running roaches. Then I can apply for whatever's left of Medicaid by that time. Or just start an at-home bartering system using cockroaches as "edible currency." Whichever.

God Bless You, President Change. For making all this possible. (snif!) It's at moments like this that I recall the classic line from The Electric Company vaudevillians: If you were drowning, I'd throw you a rock.