Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Tim D passed along an item from the UK Guardian:

With its liberal politics and radical attitudes, Hollywood should be one place in America where Hillary Clinton can count on fervent and loyal support.

But as the former First Lady gears up for a run at the White House her nascent campaign has hit an unexpected roadblock. A lengthening list of top Hollywood celebrities have publicly criticised her ambitions. From George Clooney to Sharon Stone to Susan Sarandon, the Beverly Hills set has turned on Clinton.

Radical attitudes? What country are these Brits from, anyway? But still, this sounds like awfully good news, doesn't it? Everybody has heard the old expression -- "ignorant as an actor" -- and if these celluloid megaliths are starting to turn on Hillary, then surely, you'd think, everybody must have seen through her?

Our man continues:

Many experts now believe Clinton is likely to face a challenge from an anti-war candidate in the Democratic primaries. That is most likely to be the liberal Wisconsin senator Russ Feingold, who has a cult following among internet-based activists of the kind who propelled the brief but spectacular surge by Howard Dean in 2004.

Ahh yes, those terrifying primaries. Hillary must be quaking in her Prada boots. But even a Brit can see the bottom line, all the way across the Atlantic:

...experts believe the liberals - including the sniping Hollywood stars - will eventually get behind her. 'Who else will these people vote for?' asked [Professor Shaun Bowler, a political scientist at the University of California]. 'In the end their anger at Bush and their anger at Republicans is going to be far greater than any dissatisfaction with Hillary Clinton.'

Trust a guy with a little distance to put it in a nutshell. There you have the whole ratchet effect in one short paragraph: the fact that Hillary can count on the liberals' votes at crunch time, in the general election, no matter how much she sickens them, is the very thing that enables her to do her dirty work. Hollywood will piss and moan and make grand defiant gestures at primary time for some beautiful loser like Feingold -- and then help put her in the White House, or try to, come November. We've said it before here, but I guess we need to keep saying it -- these lesser-evil votes and efforts are not only wasted, they are the gasoline in the triangulationists' tank. And Hillary will get her Hummer's tank topped off by Hollywood, and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, and probably by The Nation, for that matter, when it counts.

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I'm reading the latest issue of Revolution, and lo and behold I get this creepy feeling: Could our Father Smith...

... have a secret bloc with chairman Bob?

I note the immortal Avakian's "pyramid theory". Here's the telling cut-outs:

In 2000 the conventional wisdom coming from the TV commentators and pundits and so on was uniformly, or at least overwhelmingly, that given the fact that this election was so contested.... Bush would have to "rule by consensus" and move "toward the center" in how he governed.

Noooo. Exactly the opposite was the case. Bush took a very hard line, mobilized a hard core force of his followers in the ruling class and appealed, when he felt that he needed to, to a hard core right-wing... social base to back him up...

Now let's contrast that with the present situation.... Obama has a clear majority with him from his party in the Senate and in the House of Representatives... And yet, over and over again, it's insisted that Obama will have to seek consensus, "reach across the aisle," not become isolated from those who didn't support him, not alienate the Republican Party, and so on and so forth — and Obama acts in accordance with that...

In fact, whenever Obama carries out the actions that his role as chief executive of U.S. imperialism and commander-in-chief of the imperialist armed forces of the U.S. requires him to carry out, the rationalization that's frequently if not always given, particularly to those who voted for him but are disappointed by these actions, is that Obama, after all, has to compromise, he has to "reach across the aisle," he has to rule by consensus, et cetera, et cetera.

I won't bother to lay out the pyramid behind the theory -- Bob does that well enough. But reading the above, don't it seem like whatever the pyramid theory might be, it operates frighteningly like... Father Smiff's ratchet theory

We gotta ask ourselves why. Here's the original Oakland A again:

"Why is it that, if you look at these two very sharply contrasting examples, logic would seem to indicate that Obama should be able to rule with a clear hand and come out fighting and not have to compromise with the opposition forces within the ruling structures but, in fact, he does constantly compromise with them, and it is repeatedly insisted that he must; whereas Bush, according to "conventional wisdom," should have been compromising and "seeking consensus" yet refused to do so..

." So the Repubs whip up their side of the social pyramid -- the right side -- all the way down to their lumpen base, to fascist-like frenzy, but the Dembot side remains paralyized all the way down: Like the brain half controlling the left side of the American polity had a massive stroke back in '46 and another in '80.

I kinda like the left-side stroke theory. But for father S, it's not a real stroke, it's a simulation, a stroke-like semi-sub-intentional paralysis. You might call it motor hysterics. There was never any stroke: the left hemisphere simply was doing Orthrian duty. If you want the body politic to stagger to the right for a while, then the left side needs to go weak and feckless.

But hey, maybe, despite early evidence to the contrary, the integrated summit of the burger brain behind both hemi's wants a stagger to the left here -- for a while, anyway. What if... what if?

Introducing the final total Republican-simulated right-side prefrontal lobotomy, sexy Sarah from the Klondike: