Stop Me Before I Vote Again

I'm too busy being sanctimonious to respond to this.

I have learned two new verbs:

to daschle

to gitlin

Geoff,

I assume you've come across "diebold" as in "they diebolded the vote" and "choicepoint(ing)" as a euphemism for purging the voter rolls. USian politics provides endless opportunities for neologisms. It won't be long before "assanged" enters the lexicon.

I hold on to the hope that someday "smbiva" will become a verb too.

Better get "to assange" in the lexicon fast before nefarious smear-artists co-opt it to mean "continuing to screw after the condom has broken."

Geoff,

We should have a thread devoted to lexical hooliganism. My next contribution is "lakoffing". It has a disturbing onomatopoeic quality, suggestive of a cupped hand and a doctor's instructions. It's the process through which semantic value is completely obliterated.

To anyone hard at work preparing "to assange" for the lexicon: don't be too hasty, get it right. It does not mean "to whistleblow." It means "to release for public consumption documents excavated by whistleblowers. These documents may or may not contain accurate data about the state of the world. The form in which they are made available to a mass audience may or may not involve collaboration with a simultaneously opportunistic and jealous mainstream media -- who, in any event, will spin most of the information and disinformation contained in the leaked documents in a manner palatable to the institutional or geostrategic aims of the parties whose confidential communications are being exposed."

"To lakoff" -- "to make a potato pancake." No, wait...

"To lakoff" -- "to provide more compelling brand value and effective messaging services for the fundamentally compassionate, decent, and humane vehicle for social progress that is the Democratic Party at its very core (with the exception of the fucking nitwit marketing consultants the DNC hires! those incompetent idiots should take a hike and make room for me and the staff of the former Rockridge Institute.)"

'to assange' quite clearly will come to mean what our masters decide to do to Assange. To hold someone isolated in an endless series of dungeons with occasional airings in open court, or in a word 'to padilla', is my guess about how it will settle itself eventually.

I'm feeling a little jealous and opportunistic myself. Those are good definitions, gluelicker. Mine feel lacking now. If they weren't already here, I'd need to snag them.

OR "to lakoff" -- "to suffer under a mysterious delusion: you conceive of yourself as a kinder, gentler version of Walter Lippmann, when in fact you are a more nebbish and less wealthy version of Clotaire Rapaille."

gluelicker, I'm never going to be able to thank you enough for the introduction to Clotaire Rapaille. I googled for info, and found it, but the image results tell me everything I need to know.

i guess i want to know how team obama's basic or circumstantial purposes change the acceptability of the system's outcomes. do we dress the wounds differently depending on the intent of the blow.

hapa, the intent does matter. The category error people keep insisting that we line up for one more wound. I would like to believe that people who understand that the wounds are not the result of negligence will stop lining up.

Al, now that I have introduced you to Clotaire Rapaille, I trust that you immediately grasp the subtle associations, implications, and meanings of dropping his name in the context of a snarky critique of George Lakoff. I confess: sharing this virtual experience of esoteric nod-winking, and knowing that my wealth of cultural capital made it possible, makes me feel rather special about myself. Special, yet plagued by an existential lack. Namely, how can I express this inchoate yet prideful feeling through buying something -- or voting for someone! -- with significations that reflect, confirm, and indulge this feeling? It's exhausting, I tell you.

i guess i never cared what he was. a new president is just another agency problem waiting to happen, especially with the bonus extra-legal system and all.

Gluelicker: Consider buying a Coach bag or getting this gal to take one for you.

http://cache3.asset-cache.net/xc/50520128.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=E41C9FE5C4AA0A14F4C1881F99FC726193EB92EEDFBB7E99A6D4064D9FF57486B01E70F2B3269972

It's the shoplifter from "Detective Story".

Thank you Online Outlet! This solves my problem for now -- until the item trickles down to the salad bar at Wendy's.

to lakoff
to jack away
without noticeable production

hapa, you're right on the money in both comments. The intent of the officeholder and the officeholder himself are trivial. Krugman is not trivial, and that's not just because I like him. His readers are not either. Hence the extent of my concern and I assume Vastleft's too.

The more people actively disbelieving the bullshit factories' output, the better.

This is a good insight:

Obama and his flunkies hurl snide, nasty comments because they're snide, nasty people. They evince an arrogant sense of entitlement because that's what they have.

I keep thinking of that little exchange between Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald: The rich are very different from you and me.
Hemingway: They have more money.

I think Fitzgerald was right. I DON'T have a lot of money. I DON'T circulate in the same circles that Bill, Hillary and Obama do. Perhaps I just don't understand these people in my gut. They are different.

It's easy, perhaps, just to project the qualities of the local rank and file Democrat or liberal (who you do know) onto their elite leadership.

But he persists (willfully? unwittingly?) the notion that Obama is weak and a poor strategist, rather than fundamentally opposed to left/liberal/progressive policy.

He seems like both to me. He's a right wing, DLC Democrat, but, unlike Clinton, he's not a good enough politician to keep the right wing agenda under the control of the Democratic Party.

He may not even want to be President anymore. Why continue to take the abuse from the media and the Republicans when you've already made history as the first black president. Why not just retire after one term, go onto a cushy gig as a University President or Bank CEO and give the reigns over to the Republicans?

That's the impression I got during that press conference. Clearly Clinton enjoys the game more than Obama does.

He may not even want to be President anymore. Why continue to take the abuse from the media and the Republicans when you've already made history as the first black president. Why not just retire after one term, go onto a cushy gig as a University President or Bank CEO and give the reins over to the Republicans?

That's some interesting speculation, ToT. The sheer amount of noise in high office tends to drive people crazy. Most of the abuse is ritual and formalized, but it's still going to be unpleasant. There's also the grim, deadly serious hatred he gets from the batshit right. Someone who is already nuts, like Dick Cheney, will enjoy the bunker lifestyle. Someone whose entire life revolves around glad-handing and soaking up adulation, like Bill Clinton, will enjoy it too. But even they showed signs of wear and tear.

I'm almost moved to sympathy and would be, if it weren't for their murdering and looting ways.

I'm almost moved to sympathy and would be, if it weren't for their murdering and looting ways.

The guy Obama reminds me of is Bush.

I remember that interview where Bush said something like "what I miss about being President is how they pampered you."

I did a double take on that. Here you have a mass murderer and a war criminal, a guy who strutted across the deck of an aircraft carrier after having lied the country into a war, and he's talking like a a blue haired old lady.

Obama has that same brittle lack of masculinity. That's why those Obama Joker posters are so effective. They get at something creepy about the man. Those same posters would fall flat against Clinton.

From the time they published that New Yorker article in April of 2004 through his speech at the Democratic convention through the primaries (with a slight glitch when Hillary went after him) to his coronation in DC to his ludicrous Nobel Prize, Obama's been "pampered" like no man in history.

Then bang, he's actually president and unlike Clinton he just doesn't have that love of combat.

"project the qualities of the local rank and file Democrat or liberal (who you do know) onto their elite leadership"
i agree
however the leadership of a club
has its own division of labor
so as a compact entity
the "leadership clique may both
share traits
common to leaderships thru out that culture
and yet also reflect in some complex functional way the "membership" they lead
in particular
i see larry summers as free of reflected identification obligations
but clintons and ohbummers
must look like the base writ large

is it hypocracy ???... a role

well one way or other i suspect the reflector is best who is least aware
of his or her contradictions with the base
often that translates into attacks on
side bar fellow leaders
ie the so called pwog elite

add in the need by vote based politicians
if they mean to sustain themselves
as politicians
to never forget
they are opportunists by profession

this allows much double dealing
to look to the double dealer herself
like necessary evils
of white hat survival in a nasty
basic black arena like electoral politics

ToT:

i agree barry has been pampered
he is a product of identity politics
a messiah of identity politics in fact

but he made his move in 07 in the face of st hill's juggernaut
--recall gibber here at that time ---
that suggests
a daring in him
that say cuomo the elder lacked
a willingness to risk the main chance
with a "premature" grab for the brass ring

such moves were never part of entitled baby bush's repertoire

"unlike Clinton he just doesn't have that love of combat."

clinton has no love of combat
he's the biggest cell bitch of his generation

he has a shameless immunity to disgrace
and in our culture that conveys
super hero attributes

now shameless the Hill is not
god love her
but billy is a monster not a human
a monster
st hill maybe be a monsterous human
her billy however is something far more dangerous
a humanoid monster
"world historical ???"
are you fucking kidding ???

those monsters have more then
a shameless glibness in their bag

stalin would devour billy
like a pickled cauliflower

in comparison to his two boomer "peers"
billy and baby b
why in my estimation
soul to soul
ohbummer soars above tthose two beasties

okay
in the end ...so what
all emperors are ..emperors
and white or black hat
they are both necessary parts
of the empire's yin yang zig zag
progession thru time

in fact barry proves just how true this is
never has a fairer soul been anymore
imperial in his outcomes

but keep the record straight

comparisons between the personal porttaits
of various emperors
( and between their dowagers and heir apparents)
really fail to predict anything substantive about each emperor's actual reign

what happens as we vall know
has much too much
to do with circumstance

in comparison to his two boomer "peers"
billy and baby b
why in my estimation
soul to soul
ohbummer soars above tthose two beasties

There's one problem.

I agree that it took some nerve to challenge Hillary in 2007. That was Obama's one big insight. He realized not only that Bush had so discredited the Redneck Christian Fascist class (at least temporarily) but also that people were as sick of Clintons as they were of Bushes.

So he jumped. It was the window of opportunity for a black Ivy Leaguer.

Then (to the chagrin of militant "liberals" like Krugman) he started talking about reaching out to the Republicans.

Has there ever been a man less suited to dealing with the Republican right than Obama? Clinton grew up with poor white Southern trash. He knows the redneck class inside and out. But Obama has been marinated in the white urban liberal elite all his life. For Obama, white people look like Katrina Vanden Heuvel not Sarah Palin.

Obama also has a strange lack of ability to think on his feet. I remember that ambush interview Amy Goodman subjected Clinton to in 2000. Amy Goodman's no bully but she's a bit like itching powder in your shorts. She kept on droning her movement left questions without losing her cool or letting Clinton go.

And my reaction was "damn this guy is a good bullshit artist."

I can't imagine Obama getting through that same kind of hostile interview from the right or the left. He makes a big deal about opening himself up to right wing journalists like David Brooks but has he ever gone on the stump in redneckville and tried to address the locals?

And I guess in some ways Obama is perfect for the ruling class.

He'll do the bidding of the white ruling class elite. But the white redneck class loathes him.

That prevents any kind unexpectedly populist turn.

Dare I say it? He's a house nigger.

Ever read Absalom Absalom?

He's that haughty black doorman who makes Thomas Sutpen enter the big house through the back door.

ToT

"Clinton grew up with poor white Southern trash. He knows the redneck class inside and out"
i agree in this he's much like lincoln
but he's still the band member apple polishing
sissy boy --folks erroneously
took gore to be ---
billy never really had any red neck appeal
he got middle class votes in the sun belt
......ladies in particular

i submit baby bush had more red neck appeal by far

baby bush by self styling
in the shadow of his particular set of mom and dad
and given
the wonders of parallel class developments
shared
lot's of shoulder chipped
red neck swagger craving

a life time flopper
by circumstance finding himself
caught in a brief effortless updraft
and in spite of himself
vaulted to the top
---
at any rate

barry is dealing with the two faces of corporate amerika
not red necks or pwogs

and i think a key insight is his
desire to out white full whites
no jesse let alone rap brown
and he could as a consequence never play the cards FDR played

now he must
confined artificially as he is
by his own self definition
to work with
" the white corporate establishment "
and as much as possible
ignore this nasty establishment's dark side
the side now actively cultivating
the red neck-yahoo bleecher seat crowd
of course he knows the ballot box menace
this produces
but in factoring in this movement of idiots
he has personally
as u suggest
only an abstract grasp of the sources and exprressions of their rage
where as billy had it in his groin

and i think a key insight is his
desire to out white full whites
no jesse let alone rap brown
and he could as a consequence never play the cards FDR played

Unless Feingold or Sanders run a third party campaign.

I doubt he'd play nice with the left the way he does with the Teabaggers who'd like to string him up and cut his balls off.

If Thomas Sutpen (let alone a field hand) ever tried to walk through the front door, that doorman in the nice suit would turn into Shaka Zulu, Rap Brown, Willy Horton, and Shaft all in one package.

one has only to look at barry's economic advisors to know he is blinded by theikr mediations
to his wider macro options
that said
one must add the bleak outcome hardly enrages him
the way it might if his family was thrown out of jobs teetering near foreclosure
etc
and once in full tumble down
jounced about in the ever policy rruffled
safety net of thorns
like ..what
30 million of our least fortunate
citrizen souls these days

Hey Al, I tried to read your post, but I kept getting distracted by MJS's heroic, defiant little Paypal manifesto.

For those scoring at home....

In the SMBIVA world, voting (the right for which people once died) bad; boycotting Paypal, good-and-radical.

You people mock the very idea of voting, and then get deadly serious about...HEY HO, HEY HO, EVIL PAYPAL'S GOT TO GO!

As my dad, a true, fighting, union man --- a real member of the working class; a guy who would spit up his black coffee laughing at the very term "lefty listserv" --- used to say, "Milt, my boy, ya can't make it up!"

Al, Eminem is giving off that oh-so-familiar vibe again, in the post just above mine, don't you think?

Those are good definitions, gluelicker. Mine feel lacking now...

Cheer up, Comrade. We'll always have "thanksralphing."

:D

Civil conspiracy, the old southern judge's term for boycotting sent a lot of people to jail until fairly recently. Think of Rosa Parks in this connection... that sort of worked out... somewhat, anyhow.

As for relative impact, my least informed and motivated relatives always overwhelm my vote by voting the other way. And they have multiplied fruitfully, while I have not. But I never eat at a bad BBQ stand twice... my boycott. Why would I use Paypal if I didn't have to? They are proven jackasses that don't play pal with my values.

On the matter of Obama: I thought it was a mistake to support him because, as a candidate perceived as 'black' (though really only by marriage to Michelle... he is not heir to the American black experience of history, by any stretch) Obama would be eager to placate white anxiety about his 'blackness'. And he showed his cards immediately by dumping his preacher man for having interrogated the white, standard, normal view of American history and American exceptionalism (on tape) and then by butt kissing AIPAC as soon as HRC was out of the running.
In short the USA was not ready for a black president, because of white uneasiness with 'the other'... and not just winger/racist uneasiness.... and this essentially guaranteed that any electable black presidential candidate would be the kind of placating non-leader that Obama is.

This view may be too generous to Obama.

"In short the USA was not ready for a black president,"

Ready enough. 53% of the electorate (those "chumps," as SMBIVA would call them) voted for Obama. There's never a "good" time for progress. No one's ever "ready" for anything. Stuff happens, and that's that.

At SMBIVA, there's always a good time for peanut-gallery snark. This is what these merit babies do best.

As for Obama not being "black." Casey, who died and left you the arbiter of blackness? Such arrogance.

jeremiah wright is black. this is not an exhaustive list.

barack obama is a brand. he won an award for it from the Dynamite Committee or somebody.

Milton, is your dad still around? I'd love to have his comments, if so. Yours, on the other hand....

My father is still around, pretty healthy for an elderly man, and still pissed off. The first is a matter of good luck; the second, good genes; the third, good judgment.

mm u missed out on all three eh ??

...Eminem is giving off that oh-so-familiar vibe again...

Miltie's old man sucked management dick for thirty five years and regularly whored poor little Miltie out to the local demofuck ward heeler for shortdogs and change. That's why the pathetic little shit radiates butthurt and fail strong enough to penetrate reactor shielding.

Actually, Smithee, I used to smack around privileged punks like you after school. That was REAL class warfare, you pampered little jerk, not faux let-me-type-to-my-fellow-elitist-douchebags-on-my-Leftie-Listserv.

You talk tough from the safety of bloggy anonymity. Talking about someone's old man like that...no shame, no decency. And by doing that, you just demonstrated for all to see how completely out of touch with the working class you are. Talking about someone's old man like that would earn you an instant beatdown. Your boys wouldn't even have you back. Only thing worse is talking about someone's mother.

That's what life in the REAL working class is like. You might want to learn that before you lead the revolution.

"That was REAL class warfare, you pampered little jerk, not faux let-me-type-to-my-fellow-elitist-douchebags-on-my-Leftie-Listserv"

And what are you doing here again?

You're not typing?

Oh I see... we're all elitist douchebags and you're not.

OK, Mr. Working Class Hero. Whatever you say.

We're not worthy of you so why do you waste your time on us? Slumming?

Please enjoy the stay.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/ice-lifts-ban-deportations-haiti-cholera-outbreak/

More good work from America's first "black" Presidential administration.

Why do people like mm worry so much about masculinity? Pathetic insecurity? I would guess mm's daddy is mighty disappointed with his girly-boy.

As if we could give a fuck if we are manly enough for this hit and run poster's true blue working class man's man.

Oh emenem's a rought tough creampuff, Brian. He goes to pieces so fast, people get hit by the shrapnel.