The Allegory of the Wise Counselor

The following post was written by frequent commenter "Jay-Ottawa."


Lothario was a charmer and, as for Columbia, she was dazzled by the words he spun into dreams. Her dreams were his dreams. True, he made none of the dreams happen and he continued to see other women. Tall, dark, handsome and, oh, that smile and, oh, so cool, so different from all her other suitors. Lote promised everything, so Colie said ‘yes.’

Like other wives of men with vague business and pockets full of money, Colie did not ask questions. He met people behind closed doors. He hired people he once called crooks. He himself began doing things he had said should stop. Even on their honeymoon, he continued to see other women.

Within months of the honeymoon Colie’s allowance for the household began to shrink. When she spoke up, he beat her. Was she some kind of purist? He was doing the best he could under the circumstances. One day he gave away their first born, Socia Surity, to pay off an associate, and later sent her favorite, Medicah, into an apprenticeship for a friend who really wasn’t a friend. Colie complained some more, and Lote beat her some more, then cut off her allowance entirely.

To hope forever is hell. So Colie, now in rags, ran off to the last shelter in town. Its motto was: “Do Not Complain” -- or DNC for short. Winnie Poop, the head counselor, heard Colie’s story and told her to run back to Lote’s arms.

“Really?” Colie was incredulous.

“Be realistic,” said the counselor. “Can’t you see your future will be even more bleak apart from Lote? You will end up on welfare, lose the kids, and spend your last days under a bridge. Do you realize you need major party affiliation to secure the best spots under bridges? Lote was committed to you. Count the emails begging you to come back. That’s more than you can expect from most guys these days. Believe me, in these times, you should not depend on the kindness of strangers.

“With Lote, at least you’ll have three squares and a roof over your head. If you do fall ill, at least you’ll have your own bed to die on. Kiss the fist that strikes the blow; he might be shamed into pulling some future punch. Didn’t you say Lote was nice once in a while? When he kicks you, jump nimbly. You’ll come to appreciate the days he doesn’t batter. You could never achieve such intimacy with other guys.

“Just remember there are worse monsters out there. Their motto is ‘Indifference Yesterday, Indifference Today, Indifference Tomorrow, Indifference Forever.’ Lote’s your man. Don’t let him down. He gives you a good day once in a while. Go home. Look at it this way: Lote is the lesser of two evils.”

New Record: Obama Utters Four Reaganisms in One Paragraph

"I ran for President because I believed in an America where ordinary folks could get ahead; where if you worked hard, you could have a better life.  That’s been my focus since I came into office, and that has to be our focus now.  It’s one of the reasons why we’re working to reduce our nation’s deficit.  Government has to start living within its means, just like families do.  We have to cut the spending we can’t afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs.  
The good news is, Democrats and Republicans agree on the need to solve the problem".

-- Barack Obama, Weekly Radio Address, 7/2/11.

I despair.  The man is openly embracing all the mendacious conservative talking points of Reaganomics: 1) If you haven't achieved the American Dream, you just haven't worked hard enough; 2) The false equivalence between family budgets and government budgets; 3) The economy will grow if we starve it; and 4)The Confidence Fairy created through such starvation will transform profit-hoarding corporations into wondrous Tinker Belles who will tinkle their golden drops of beneficence on all the rest of us.  Yeah, that last part so totally worked out in the Bush Regime and its corporate welfare program, didn't it?
 
Of course, the radio address comes just one day after Obama apparently met his June fund-raising goals. According to the latest email from Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) chairman Jim Messina, a grand total of 475,000 rubes sent in their meager dollars and entered for a chance to win dinner with the president (and Biden).  So pay no attention to that pedagogic press con the other day, in which Obama pretended to chide his fellow Republicans.  The compulsive repetitive talking points of cutting out tax deductions for corporate jets and allowing a few subsidies to expire as planned are just crumbs to placate the pesky base.

The good news, according to the One, is not the fact that he is fighting back, but that Democrats and Republicans are agreeing on the same fake problem.  They are embracing the same fantasy, so all is right in Austeriana.  Watch the video of his address if you have a strong stomach.  He actually emphasizes the "TR" in the trillions he wants to cut.  Too bad he hasn't channelled the other TR -- the original progressive bull moose, who invented the Bully Pulpit, now gathering much dust.

The president appeared to have mounted it briefly this week, but he has jumped down in a hurry and is once again wallowing in the same bipartisan bullshit.

Slashing the Safety Net in Order to Save It

Schumer Shakedown: Pay Me to Talk Nasty to GOP

I took myself off my Wall Street lackey Senator Chuck Schumer's email list in disgust about a year ago, but that hasn't stopped him from bothering me via snail mail.  Yesterday, I got a letter from Chuck explaining that he can't call Republicans prevaricators and seditionists without my money.  If I send him 35 bucks I will receive my special DSCC (Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee) 2012 Firewall Tote Bag and a promise the wimpy Dems will finally get on message and call their friends across the aisle big fat liars. Apparently, collegiality goes out the window when seats are at stake. 

"Karen! It is not too early to protect our majority!" Schumer personally wrote me. "We are embarking on our most aggressive plan ever to expose the GOP's extreme agenda."


(In other words, the protection of their cushy seats trumps protection of the country itself.  That is probably a little too late. Way to unintentionally tell the truth, Chuck!  Chuck's net worth, by the way, is over $1 million. At least two thirds of the U.S. Senate are millionaires).

Like any good marketer, Schumer enclosed a freebie.  I got one of those small, oblong-shaped lined grocery list pads to induce me to pay him.  The slim tablet is comprised of 10 whole sheets of 18 lines each.  At least he is tacitly acknowledging that at least a few of his constitutents must subsist on decreased Social Security payments and/or food stamps and will not be needing to buy a lot of groceries!


My snarky son was over visiting yesterday, and after reading Stand With President Obama for Lasting Change. Silence GOP Lies emblazoned on the top of the gruel-thin pad, he wrote the following:


Block of wood.
Spike.
Long sock.
Magic 8 Ball.
Broken Glass.
Chains.
Long Whip.
Short Whip.
Ropes.
Old Cheese.

We'll be sending this scrap back to Chuck, or whichever unpaid DNC summer intern opens it, in the pre-paid envelope today.

Gimme

In Case You Missed It....

The only Democratic senator still left standing took to the floor again today as the lone voice of sanity in DC.  His entire speech can be read here.

Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont

Tepid Immigration Policy Comes to a Boil

Stung by three states pulling out of its Secure Communities dragnet of a program to catch illegal immigrants and deport them, along with increasing political pressure from immigration reform activists and the Hispanic Congressional Caucus, the Obama Administration is now urging "prosecutorial discretion" in kicking undocumented people out of the country.


As is the case with so many of this administration's policies, this latest "compromise" in immigration enforcement is pleasing nobody.  Immigration agents are up in arms about a new directive sent out last week by IME chief John Morton, instructing them how to pick and choose who to arrest and deport, and who to let slide.  Their union claims they are being put in the untenable position of  breaking the law by arresting and charging some people but letting others go.  A unanimous no-confidence vote against Morton has been taken over the new guidelines.

And then Republican Senate Judiciary Chairman Lamar Alexander reacted  by announcing legislation to prevent the president from ever granting amnesty by executive order to DREAM Act candidates.  This is the same guy who was all for a humane path to citizenship last century when John McCain was for it too. 


Obama could sign that executive order today to give immediate protection to thousands of undocumented people who can demonstrate they have lived, worked or studied in the United States since childhood.  He has thus far refused to do so, again preferring that the problem be solved legislatively. (and now, through an under-the-radar internal IME memo). Not a chance of that happening congressionally, and he knows it. Now, if Alexander has his way and his preventive amnesty-freezing bill goes through, that decision will be conveniently wrested from the president's hands.  Another case of "I really wanted to, but the Republicans wouldn't let me."

Instead the IME guy is being thrown under the bus by both his boss and his employees, and the DREAM act candidates continue living their nightmare in legal limbo, counting on IME agents to become selectively humane if they feel like it on any given day.  More stasis we can all believe in.

The immigration debate took on new poignant meaning last week with the publication in The New York Times of two stories.  One was a first-person account by a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who has just "come out of the closet" about his illegal status, explaining he just can't stand the deception any more. His own newspaper, The Washington Post, had refused to publish it, probably out of consideration of its own legal position.  Another NYT article chronicled the arrest and imprisonment of an "illegal alien" who also happens to be a decorated Iraq War veteran.  His crime?  Failing to tell the military that a long time ago he applied for a passport but never completed the process.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) is holding a  hearing on the DREAM Act tomorrow, with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Education Secretary Arne Duncan expected to testify.  Can't wait to watch the uncomfortable wriggling by the Democrats and  hear the self-righteous xenophobic ranting of the Republicans in the next episode of Cancel Each Other Out Theater.

Doing the Right Thing

New York is still relatively liberal enough so that even some of its Republican politicians maintain a sense of human decency despite our well-earned reputation for graft and corruption.  Some people were surprised that a few Republicans tipped the scales to help pass the state's new marriage equality act, given the GOP's national reputation as a party of nihilistic homophobic right-wing nutjobs. One of them, a lawyer who lives just across the Hudson River from me in the Town of Poughkeepsie, changed his mind after being initially opposed to same sex marriage..  His about-face isn't really that much of a stretch, considering he has sponsored anti-domestic violence legislation in the past, as well as a recent bill requiring school employees to undergo background checks to weed out the pedophiles. He posted this statement to constituents explaining his position:

In 2009 when the marriage equality bill came before the Senate for a vote, I struggled with the decision.  This is an issue which a great many have a deep and passionate interest, both those for marriage quality and those who support the traditional view of marriage.  In part, the difficulty in arriving at my decision is that I respect and understand the views coming from both sides of the issue.

In fact, my decision today is rooted in my upbringing.  My parents taught us to be respectful, tolerant and accepting of others and to do the right thing. I’ve received thousands of calls, e-mails, post cards and letters.

Many of them, whether they were from proponents or opponents, concluded by calling upon me to do the right thing.  I want to do the right thing, but needless to say, that decision cannot be the “right thing” for both sides of the equation and, whatever my decision, there will be many who will be disappointed.

As a traditionalist, I have long viewed marriage as a union between a man and woman.  As one who believes in equal rights, I understood that the State was denying marriage to those in same sex relationships.  In 2009, I believed that civil unions for same sex couples would be a satisfactory conclusion. 

Since that time, I have met with numerous groups and individuals on both sides of the issue, especially during the last few months. As I did, I anguished over the importance and significance of my vote.



Stephen Saland

Poughkeepsie is a pretty conservative place, and judging from the comments in the local rag, his vote may have cost him re-election. And some of the comments are downright threatening, with one reader promising "public humiliation in a restaurant."

But I like to think of my own little town of New Paltz as being one of the radical linchpins of the gay marriage movement.  It's a university town, so that explains why we actually elect Green Party candidates from time to time. It's also a stone's throw from Woodstock (actually Bethel) and a lot of aging hippies just never left.  A young man named Jason West, a recent graduate of SUNY here, was mayor in 2004 when he illegally performed the state's very first same-sex marriages in an act of civil disobedience. He was charged with nearly two dozen misdemeanors by the county district attorney, and served with a court injunction to cease and desist the ceremonial political street theater. The case was later thrown out of court, but Jason ultimately lost his re-election bid to a Democrat since he'd tried to force through a pay raise for himself to supplement the proceeds from his defense fund to pay his legal bills.  After a spell of homelessness and a stint as a grad student on the West Coast, a little older and wiser (but still poor), he was just re-elected mayor last month. (before the liberal students left for the summer!)  The mayoral gig still doesn't pay that much, so Jason is also a housepainter by trade.  To his credit, he has turned down an offer from DreamWorks for perpetual rights to his life story.


New Paltz Mayor Jason West


The  marriage equality law here in New York, as well as the repeal of DADT, were not things that politicians decided to hand out from the goodness of their venal little hearts.  They agreed to go along to get along.  It also didn't hurt that a few Wall Street millionaires who support Cuomo and the rest of the political machine have gay relatives.  It was the gay community and its supporters who got this law through the legislature.  Civil rights movements and small acts of civil disobedience are staging a comeback.  Next up:  the Poor People's Coalition, 99ers United, the Gray Panthers and ever-growing groups becoming too numerous to count. The politicians "evolve" only if the people resolve.

The House Democrat Revolt That Wasn't

The 70 Democrats who voted today against authorizing Obama's splendid little Libyan war that is not war at first gave me a faint smidgen of hope that the progressive wing of the party is branching off on its own.  They defied Nancy Pelosi for a change.  They didn't listen when Hillary Clinton fed them her guilt-trip spiel that if they weren't for bombing Libya, then it logically follows that they must love K-Daffy.  The "if you're not for us, you're against us" tripe used to sell the Iraq invasion didn't work this time.


 And one New York congressman actually stood up on the House floor and called his president a monarch in the making as far as his bombing adventure is concerned.  Gerry Nadler, whose district includes the 9/11 site, has been anti-war since Vietnam, when he worked on Gene McCarthy's 1968 campaign. (another one of those dreaded "spoilers").  He is also disgusted with Obama's bait and switch Afghanistan withdrawal plan, and wants the troops brought home -- now. He pointed out, rightly, that each executive administration has given more and more power to successive presidents.  Obama seems to believe that he is Commander in Chief of the entire country, when the Constitution merely makes him commander in chief of the armed forces. He actually does still work for "the people" -- if only in theory.


And then, inexplicably, the House voted to pay for the war it just said was illegal. Never mind.


Of course, the ruling class Democrats in the Senate want to bomb Libya for a whole year more, if necessary, so the House voting on the fact that they hated Obama going behind their backs was purely symbolic anyway.  You have to love the message it's sending Obama, though, as he campaigned at this week's factory.  How ironic that his latest factory makes robotics.  How refreshing that at least 70 House Democrats are not pure robots, but bona fide androids with just a touch of humanity still left in their carcasses.


This has nothing and everything to do with Republicans.  Of course the Republicans voted against authorizing Obama to bomb Libya for all the wrong reasons.  If it had been one of their own in the Oval Office, they would have been urging him to invade a dozen more countries and given him a blank check.  Of course it was the Republicans who cheer-led the Iraq War and bankrupted the country.


But they are the known lunatics and the Democrats are supposedly the sane ones -- although by compromising with the GOP on the budget, they're just enabling and colluding with the insanity.  The two parties we have now are the John Birch Society and the Reagan Republicans.  Either Democrats have to start acting like Democrats again after a 50-year hiatus, or the whole party should just implode and allow a new liberal/labor/progressive party to emerge from the ruins.  Right now there is only one Democrat in the Senate, and his name is Bernie Sanders.  And he calls himself a socialist.


Michele Bachmann and her ilk could never have risen to national prominence were it not for the big Democratic sellout.  The vacuum created by the inaction of the so-called liberal class on jobs, the continued bankrupting wars, the deregulation of Wall Street, the infusion of corporate money into national elections, the corporatization of the mass media and the killing of the Fairness Doctrine have left a citizenry so devoid of hope that it creates the perfect atmosphere for the rise of a theocratic demagogue like Bachmann.


Obama, from his waffling on Afghanistan, his capitulation in the name of bipartisanhip to Republicans, his dithering on immigration reform and DREAM Act amnesty, his failure to appoint Elizabeth Warren and protect consumers, his release of oil reserves for pure political expediency, his groveling to Wall Street --is about one thing: his own re-election. We have to stop looking to him, or the plutocratic millionaire-bloated Senate,  for any leadership. We should instead concentrate on voting for representation on the local and state and Congressional levels -- and continuing to organize as progressive groups and to speak out as individuals.


Holding Republican nutjobs up to the ridicule and blame they so richly deserve is fine, but it isn't enough. Not by a long shot.


**Update 6/25:  Some writers are pointing out that the vote against defunding the war was actually a vote against a sneaky provision in it, thus absolving the Congresspeople who voted against authorizing the war and then seemingly doing an about-face.  Glenn Greenwald writes in his Salon column today:  

That was the reason so many anti-war members of Congress -- including dozens of progressives -- rejected the "de-funding" bill despite opposition to the war in Libya: because it was a disguised authorization for a war they oppose, not because they cowardly failed to check executive power abuses.  As Rogin reports, "there were more than enough lawmakers to pass" a true de-funding bill, but GOP leaders -- who have been protecting Obama on Libya from the start -- did not bring that to the floor.

That's the whole trouble with so much of the legislation being voted on these days: the bills are riddles wrapped in secrecy surrounded by enigmas.  Half the Congresspeople probably didn't even realize what they were voting for. Some voted against both measures, some voted for, and some split the difference. Where was House Speaker Boehner in all this?  Probably canoodling with Obama. He was not present to vote on the Libya bills yesterday.