American Extremists: "Told so stories"

American Extremists webcomic archive:
http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

American Extremists: "Evil weighs"

American Extremists webcomic archive:
http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

Shallow-ender of the day: Ministry of Truth

Kos poster Ministry of Truth owns the Obamacrat shallow end today, with an ostensibly feisty post in response to the fake Karl Rove memo post.

While fighting for his right to criticize the Democratic Party, MoT bookends his argument with this...

UPDATE: I want Obama to win. I need Obama to win, but if centrist Democrats keep telling the left to STFU and just vote without addressing their main issues it makes it harder to make them feel "voter entusiasm." That is my main beef. I hate what sold out Republicans have done to America. I want it to stop. My biggest problem is a Democratic party that tells Progressive critics to piss off while the[y] agree with 98% of what Republicans want. I will vote for Obama, make no mistake. Last year I helped raise $30,000 for Democratic candidates. I worked my ass off, and I'm tired of being told to STFU. It's as simple as that. Obama is not my boyfriend, and when I can't criticize an American President because it makes his supporters scared my question is why are Obama's supporters fucking with me and Progressive critics like me instead not Republicans?

And this:

I want Obama to win, but not at the cost of everything I ever believed in.

Since he's committing to vote for a president (and, presumably, Senate/Congressional candidates) who "agree with 98% of what Republicans want," one wonders what is it that Ministry of Truth believes in? The right to complain about people who don't care what he thinks—and do not and will not support his values?

Given the way the post is couched, is this right contingent on pledging that one wants, needs, and will vote for Obama and company? On that I'm not sure. But it seems clear that MoT's vote is contingent on nothing other than a "D" next to the chad.

Fake Rove letter deprecates principled criticism of Obama

A highly popular post at Daily Kos, purportedly leaked by Anonymous, characterizes lefties who have policy-based objections to the Obama administration as Rovian plants.

As of this writing, it has been recommended 249 times, and it's been posted at least three times at DU as if it were an actual memo from our generous benefactor Karl Rove.

The clear goal of Kos poster My Left Behind's snark is to steel Democrats against voting in accord with their conscience and principles. Literally—it portrays statements like these as evil Republican disinformation:

"It feels good to vote your conscience."
"It feels good to stick to your principles."

This passage is the most baroque:

Q: What if some of this criticism does reach Obama's radar and he starts going even more leftist or tries to kick Republican butt? Won't that backfire on us?
A: Nothing would be better! Bring it, O man! We've already managed to inform a big chunk of the electorate that Obama is in truth an angry, racist, America-hating communist. If we can goad him to the point where he stops playing rope-a-dope with us and starts acting like the thuggish, belligerent, socialist dictator we know him to be in reality, we win. We want nothing more than for him to lose his temper and get all pushy and uppity (I love that word!) and uncompromising. Heck, if he gets uppity enough, we might have some traction on an impeachment move. Admittedly, it's frustrating that he has kept his cool no matter what we throw at him. His phony act of being so consistently goddamned adult and steady and reasonable and sober and bipartisan is what has made all our people in comparison look like stubborn, childish, maudlin, jingoistic, perverted, hypocritical, narcissistic, grandstanding, demented, ignorant, freak-show corporatist whores who don't give a shit about America. And they're not. Not at all. Nope. Not all of them. No way, Hozay!

That is, if Obama were goaded (by all us rightwing operatives, natch, because no actual left/liberal/progressive person could possibly expect anything better than what the Adult-in-Chief is already doing) to do even more good, he would be crossing a line into being an "uppity" "socialist dictator," instead of the rope-a-dope genius who has pushed Oval Office greatness to its perilous max.

(via cg.eye)

American Extremists webcomic archive:
http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

Time for Digby to stealth-ban Thereisnospoon?

David Atkins goes off-message and calls attention to the deep-sixing of single-payer during the HCR debate.

Doesn't he know that serious people weren't supporting single-payer, and thus we needed to grovel for a theoretical taste of the strong/robust/completely-meaningless/didn't-get-it-anyway "public option" shit sausage?

Well, he does redeem himself with the A-list world by claiming...

Progressive bloggers were ahead of the Democratic base in being discontent with the ACA because it was too corporatist and did not go far enough to assure progressive outcomes.

Access bloggers actively substituted the vaporous "public option" meta-concept for real reform in the public debate, successfully confusing the Democratic base. I suppose that's one way to get bragging rights for being ahead of the game.

Rick Perry and I don't agree on much

But when I get bulk e-mail from "progressive" roach motel MoveOn.org titled "Rick Perry wants you to delete this email," ol' Rick's gonna get his wish.

American Extremists: "Conflationary spiral" (blue and red editions)

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

Help a blogger out

If you're reading this, and I think you might be, odds are pretty good you also read Arthur Silber's Power of Narrative / Once Upon a Time blog.

If Everclear or Bacardi 151 ever added 49 proof, it could just maybe start to challenge the bracing, undiluted stuff you'll get at Arthur's place. But instead of fogging your eyes, his writing opens them wide.

If well-earned "I told you sos" were currency, Arthur'd be a billionaire. Unfortunately, though, he and his dear cat Wendy are in a bad way, and your donations can help in this time of need.

Please give what you can.

Howard Dean loves the way Obama sells his wars to a pliant public

Sez beloved alt-Dem Dean:

"It's very smart. You don't put boots on the ground. You don't commit trillions of dollars to a war in Iraq," he said. "You do it with the other tools that we have that frankly work much better over the long term because you don't get a lot of public resistance -- drones, special operations forces, use of intelligence agencies. That's exactly what he did."

Dean also now embraces the GOP's formerly mocked "kill them there so they don't follow us here" thing:

"The main mission here is to stop them before they get to the United States."

Who knew Bush was such a hipster? He was blowing up Middle Easterners before it was cool.

(Video via Glenn Greenwald)

Oh, the places liberals'll go

Oliver Willis thinks this is something to brag about:

The only military action of the last 20 years I have seriously opposed was the invasion and occupation of Iraq, because it never made any sense. There were no WMDs and thousands of Americans died due to poor leadership from Bush and his crew.

American Extremists: "The difference"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

Thereisnoconsistency

Hullabaloo headline:

Will the state Attorneys General stand up to Wall St. and the White House?
by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")

Stand up to the White House as in...?

thereisnospoon
yes, of course i will vote for Obama. Because the alternative is worse. anyway, it's not as if my vote for president in California means anything. Cali will go for Obama by 15 points or more anyway.
08/03/2011, 22:16:16

Interview with Matthew Chapman, writer-director of "The Ledge"

I recently watched and enjoyed the new atheism-themed thriller, The Ledge. And its writer-director Matthew Chapman kindly agreed to an interview at this here heretical blog.

Chapman is a veteran screenwriter and author of two books about creationism vs. evolution—an extremely fitting topic for a great-great grandson of Charles Darwin.

The Ledge presents a battle of values and wills between an atheist (Charlie Hunnam) and a Christianist (Patrick Wilson) who vie for the affections of Liv Tyler, respectively their employee and wife. Terrence Howard plays a policeman who attempts to stave off an impending death.

While the characters are somewhat iconic, in the manner of a Rod Serling piece, the intimate direction and performances yield a charisma and vulnerability that breathe vitality into the film.

Beyond the entertainment value and craft, The Ledge is something of a breakthrough film in presenting atheism in an unabashedly positive light (which isn't to say Hunnam's character, Gavin, is without considerable flaws), both as the core theme and as the main marketing thrust.

* * *

Vastleft: Hello, Matthew. Thanks for taking the time to talk with us about your new movie, The Ledge!

Matthew Chapman: My pleasure.

Vastleft: Since The Ledge is a thriller, I want to be careful about spoilers, so may I ask you to describe it to the uninitiated?

Matthew Chapman: The Ledge tells the story of a man standing on a ledge about to commit suicide. When a cop comes to try and talk him down, we soon realize that this is no ordinary suicide, that in fact the jumper does not want to jump, and that he is involved in a battle with a Christian fundamentalist.

Vastleft: I've seen, in discussion about the film, the idea that it could be the Brokeback Mountain of atheism. It certainly is a novelty seeing a film marketed on the strength of its skeptical outlook.

Matthew Chapman: It has been described in that way. However, my favorite review of the movie by Greta Christina made the point that it's the opposite of Brokeback Mountain. Ang Lee's film was the culmination of years of cultural advocacy for gay rights. My film could be described as being at the start, the first overtly pro-atheist movie, certainly the first American pro-atheist thriller. I hope it begins a cultural movement to explore atheists and atheism.

Vastleft: Has it been said (or might it), that The Ledge is The Boys in the Band of atheism, rather than the Brokeback Mountain?

Matthew Chapman: I think that would be closer and indeed there is a play version of the movie that I'd like to put on.

Vastleft: Given the small cast and relatively few locations, one could see The Ledge adapted into a play. That said, I was quite impressed with the visuals.

Was it particularly difficult to get such a project "green-lighted."

Matthew Chapman: Very. Hollywood is very superstitious. I make little distinction between "superstitious" and "religious." Horror movies are usually religious in that they often posit an afterlife, demons, etc. It all contributes to a way of looking at life that is fundamentally absurd and distracts people from looking at reality and dealing with it rationally. That's my view, but then I'm at an age (and have developed skills) where I don't need young women to be so scared they jump into my lap! But Hollywood is also a town of gamblers and New Agers and somewhat religious Jews. So I was lucky to find a secular Jew named Mark Damon who loved the script and went out on a limb to get it made.

It is really amazing though, isn't it, that atheism should be disliked so much—even though it is really just saying, "Let's get real here"—that a movie like The Ledge was difficult to make and got harshly criticized by some people.

I saw it the other day at the Atheist Film Festival in San Francisco and began to be able to look at it objectively.

Vastleft: How did it look to you in that screening?

Matthew Chapman: I could see its flaws that resulted really from lack of time but some of them worked. It looked more desolate and empty than a full-on Hollywood movie, but artistically that worked for the theme, and I was pleased how engaged people were in the thriller aspect.

Vastleft: I thought the unity of locations worked well with the story. It's a small world occupied by a handful of people.

One critic—and I admit I half-thought this myself—felt that the gay-friend subplot seemed a little, well, convenient as a shorthand way to show the cruelties of fundamentalism. But in other interviews you've done, I learned that religious-based homophobia was something you learned about at an early age because of a family member, so it's more than just a screenwriter's device to you. You dedicated the film to that relative and his mate, yes?

Matthew Chapman: Yes, my uncle and his boyfriend—now husband after a 55 year engagement—faced up to 30 years in prison at the time when I first became aware of them. I saw this cruelty was religious in origin, and hated it. I can't think of many more relatable ways in which religion in America still really hurts people than religious attitudes to homosexuality, nor one that so reveals the absurdity of putting stock in a book that was written so long ago by such primitive people. I like the gay roommate, I think he redeems my lead character, who, like me, can be a little obnoxious at times.

Vastleft: I'm curious whether you observe the pervasiveness and foibles (to put it nicely) of religion in a broader context of other crowd-madness, groupthink, etc.? I've increasingly come to see religion as just one manifestation of tribalism, a topic which BTW one can explore in a fascinating series of posts by the blogger Arthur Silber (this post, in particular, lays out commonalities between tribes). Simply put, there are certain conditions—which are often starkly present in religious culture and institutions—where truth and fair play are deeply compromised by the pull of tribal identity, pride, threats, etc. Do you consider religion as a sui generis problem, or something not quite unique?

Matthew Chapman: I guess I agree with you at least to the extent that I find patriotism to be as irrational and divisive as religion and not an emotion I feel. I am fond of England, where I was born, and like (this may sound incredible) some of the food! But do I think the life of an English person has more value than that of an Italian or an Ecuadorian? No, again, it's an absurd notion and one that leads to the denigration of groups of people and thus makes it easier to kill them without conscience. I just think it's incredible—particularly in America—how isolated people are from the rest of the world, how little commonality they feel when so much actually exists, and I think religion and patriotism are at the root of this and very bad. Honestly, if you've travelled and seen a woman feed her baby in India and seen the look on her face or on the face of the father, you see that the big things in life (and many small ones) are totally universal and that it's actually very hard to find significant differences without artificial concepts like religion and patriotism.

Vastleft: A good example of patriotic distortion was how the vast majority of Americans bought the emperor's new clothes bit hook, line, and sinker in the run-up to the Iraq War. It required disaffiliation with too many tribes to believe your own lying eyes when Colin Powell showed up at the UN with zero credible evidence, and virtually everyone pronounced it "compelling." You had to believe both parties were liars and killers, that the media was either co-opted or incompetent, and so forth. It was much easier to believe the fiction.

Matthew Chapman: Astonishing. And the reporting of the war where American deaths were reported but not the deaths of Iraqis, many more of them, many of them women and children, and arguably more innocent across the board as they all lived under a dictatorship and had little choice in selecting THEIR idiot leader.

Vastleft: Indeed. I know you have to go, so I'll leave that topic there.

In closing, I want to ask you about how people can see the film and about the opportunities you hope The Ledge can create for other atheism-friendly films.

Matthew Chapman: The Ledge is on Video On Demand in many regions of America. It's also available through iTunes. It will be available on DVD in early September.

ALSO, if you would like to see it in a theater, or as a group, you can ask your local theater to run it and they will contact IFC, the distributor. Recently the Secular Student Alliance made a deal through Justin DiPietro at IFC Films—jdipietro@ifcfilms.com or (646) 273-7211—where for a small fee, the company will send out a DVD or Blu-Ray disc that you can show wherever you can put together a group.

I would love it if The Ledge got seen by young people who are considering atheism, or as a tool for stimulating debate between religious and non-religious people. Interestingly enough, I've had several religious people say they liked the movie.

Vastleft: Matthew, this has been a really enjoyable chat, a nice follow-up to a really enjoyable film. Ideally, The Ledge will fulfill your vision of being the start of a wave of films that legitimize rational thought over myth.

Matthew Chapman: Thank you.

Oil's well that ends well

In the Age of Obama, we'd never trade blood for oil.

Sometimes it just works out in a happy coincidence.

American Extremists: "We ain't us"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

But you're not allowed to win

Blue Lyon on Russ Feingold's latest "Progressives United" bulk e-mail, which urges us to change absolutely nothing by sending a petition to people who disregard us in every way imaginable:

Ooooh! I get it! We have to get the committee to see the error of their reasoning. But just half of them.

But, wait, you already said that the committee has already made up its collective mind, and it’s not in our favor, and . . . but . . .

It's funny how the people behind these "progressive" PACs, whose plans are guaranteed to amount to nothing (other than keeping well-meaning people in the Democratic fold) are the "pragmatists," while those who recognize that neither major party gives a rat's ass about our values and interests are the whack-job fringe.

American Extremists: "Them changes"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

Puzzling puzzles

For some reason, Digby finds it hard to figure why liberal commentators in the Age of Obama claim that presidential rhetoric is of little use.

I have been confused by the insistence on the part of many liberal wonks and pundits that speeches and political rhetoric are politically useless and the only thing that ever matters is the application of power....

Wonks are from Mars, activists are from Venus? Who knows? But I have long been puzzled as to why there was such resistance among some of DC's smartest liberal commentators to what seems to me to be the obvious reality that Presidents have substantial power in their words as well as their actions.

The world surrounding the national man of mystery continues to confound!

The comment I posted in response:

Is this really so mysterious?

Obama's strong suit is speechification, and since he's rarely if ever used his rhetorical gifts (which I'll admit I'm personally immune to, but he's had them literally fainting in the aisles for years) to advance a progressive agenda, liberal commentators feel compelled to deprecate the power of the presidential pulpit, lest it appear that he's willfully squandering an opportunity to do some good.
Today, 17:40:18

It's quite inexplicable why the blogosphere's leading lights have such a hard time with obvious truths. Go figure why that could be!

Update:

Darn the luck. All three of my comments on Digby's thread mysteriously disappeared. Puzzling it is!

I've just posted this comment:

vastleft
It would be nice if there were an explanation of the policy for disappearing certain people's comments.

If I'm being banned after a (cowardly) fashion, what policy have I violated?

Today, 21:23:12

– Flag – Like – Reply – Delete

– Edit – Moderate

American Extremists: "Straw mentality"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

I started a joke

Jonathan Bernstein picks up where Scott Lemieux left off, making a weak argument for the weakness argument, also using my American Extremists "Power tool" strip as a jumping off point.

Quite a few excellent comments have been posted in response.

I don't have the time or masochism to go through Bernstein's archives, but call it a hunch that he never wrote anything like this about George W. Bush:

...if there's an outcome that you don't like, assuming that the president intended it is a mistake. Instead, you have to look carefully at the particular policy domain, and the particular political context, of the president's specific actions. And you should, in my view, have respect for the complexity of the office and the choices involved. And you should understand that presidents choose all the time to cloak their decisions in whatever rhetoric seems popular -- but that there may not be any relationship between the rhetoric the president uses and the basis for decisions.

Also, one shudders at Bernstein's use of the notorious racist term "fairy tale," which he invokes while scrounging up scarecrow-stuffing for his fabrication: that my, or anyone's, beef with Obama is that he's failed to single-handedly fix everything in government:

...fairy tales about the presidency, such as the idea that all policy outcomes should be attributed to the preferences of the man in the Oval Office.

My beef with Obama is that he is a conservative asshole who has demonstrated close to zero interest in using his tiny, insignificant, meaningless job for whatever paltry progress is possible from that infinitesimal bullied pulpit.

It's a sign of the times

"Commandos train in Agassiz School" in Jamaica Plain (Boston), MA

American Extremists: "The real deal"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

Without comment

Booman:

For mental health reasons, I have completely stopped reading Greenwald....

Duty now for the future

BTD:

I found the impotence "defense" of President Obama strange before, it seems incomprehensible to me now that we need to make an argument for why he should be reelected.

Why, exactly, do "we need to make an argument for why he should be reelected"?

I'm just sitting here watching the river flow

Scott Lemieux doesn't like my "Power tool" cartoon.

Glenn Greenwald ably rebuts Lemieux's weak "straw man" accusation:

...its central point is accurate: there is a serious, obvious tension between, on the one hand, saying things like this to explain away Obama's failures, and then turning around and announcing that his re-election must be the overarching, supreme priority that outweighs and subordinates all other political concerns, both short- and long-term.

Lies and the lying liars

Where to begin sorting out the mendacity?

David "Thereisnospoon" Atkins posts about Obama For America's dissing of Paul Krugman, along the way saying:

He had Obama pegged far earlier than most others did, as essentially no different in his neoliberal ideology from Bill and Hillary Clinton. Many of us wanted to believe he would be different from Clinton, but Krugman saw it early.

See what he did there? Atkins revises history to make Krugman's 2008 position that, from a liberal perspective, Obama would be just as bad as Clinton. Krugman's position was that Obama would be worse than Clinton. This reframing turns Atkins's ostensible mea culpa from "I supported a worse candidate over a better one" to "I took a flier, and it didn't pan out any better than the certain-to-be-just-as-bad alternative." Whether HRC in fact would have, in an alternative universe, proven to be better is immaterial. Ain'tnospoon is saving face by rewriting Krugman.

Besides, rewriting Krugman is Krugman's job. Today, for example, the Nobel-winner has again forgotten that Obama is a conservative.

Alternate realities are real—and today's has magically transmuted the Obama in Professor Paul's world from "a moderate conservative" who (like Ray Davies's well-respected man, does things so conservatively) back into the innocent victim of GOP blackmail.

Meanwhile, Atkins isn't done bullshitting you:

I am encouraging all my friends to boycott OFA until this person is fired, and a public apology is made to Paul Krugman. Dismissing the most active 28% of the progressive base as well as our best and most influential pundit so blithely deserves the strongest possible rebuke.

I and others like me can focus our time and attention on state and local politics. If this is the official view of the Obama campaign, then they can count me out.

Obama policies like assassinating American citizens without the barest whiff of due process haven't dissuaded Atkins from supporting him. But an internal e-mail from an OFA operative in New Mexico is The Line That Must Not Be Crossed? WTF?

Atkins has made his position fully clear:

thereisnospoonyes, of course i will vote for Obama. Because the alternative is worse. anyway, it's not as if my vote for president in California means anything. Cali will go for Obama by 15 points or more anyway.08/03/2011, 22:16:16

Now, will that staffer be made to pay for this teapot tempest? Quite likely, so Atkins might well not have to walk back his Lysistrata act. But standing up for Shallow-End Paul is just a bit of blog theater, something to mark time until the gang at Hullabaloo takes to full-throated urging to vote for four more years of conservative governance under the donkey brand rather than four more years of conservative governance under the elephant brand. The future of America's conservative governance hangs in the balance!

Update:

See also my comment...

Hi, Marta!

David Atkins says you've "reached [your] breaking point" with the Obama administration and/or OFA.

Does that mean that you won't vote for Obama's re-election, and that you'll instead push for a primary challenge and--in the event that a suitable progressive alternative isn't nominated--you'll vote for a third-party candidate? Or is it just that you have had your fill of the OFA organization itself?

If you have in fact reached the point of breaking ties with Obama, I'd be happy to send you one of these with my compliments: http://www.2L4O.com

I write this in earnest, because there's a lot of what I term "shallow end" dissent with Obama on the left, sternly worded disappointment that typically stops short of an action plan to see him replaced with an actual left/liberal/progressive.

Please do advise as to where you stand on this.

...apropos of this TINS post.

Update #2:

Marta at Venice for Change having weighed in on my question, I just posted this comment in response to Thereisnospoon:

Marta and I had a pleasant conversation at her blog (thanks, in part, to the miracle of not deleting challenging questions).

She made it quite clear that she intends to vote for Obama and wants to dissuade people from pushing for a primary or third-party challenge. That's all, of course, her right to do and say.

But how can you characterize such a position as "reaching her breaking point"?
Today, 7:23:30 PM EDT – Reply – Delete

American Extremists: "Inquiring minds"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

Mainstream "Extremists"

Given the self/tribally imposed limits of virtually all mainstream bloggers re: criticizing the Obama administration from the left, I appreciate that Glenn Greenwald has again featured one of our "American Extremists" cartoons.

Previous AE appearances in Greenwald's column here and here.

Atheist's Lullaby — over 16,000 served!

Our goodnight-without-God song continues to draw interest on YouTube:



And do check out Dark of the Stars' lovely reimagining and expansion of the song:

American Extremists: "Bogged"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

The curious case of the delete button

myiq2xu received a response on the frequent disappearance—without any warning or statement of policy—of critical comments at Hullabaloo:

David Atkins (thereisnospoon), on August 12, 2011 at 11:21 pm said:

Spoon here. I don’t have the power to delete comments at Hullabaloo. Sorry to spoil your conspiracy theories. Seems you must have pissed off someone…higher on the chain.

Well, that clarifies it:

1. You're nuts to think there's someone at Digby's blog blithely deleting your comments
2. A high-ranking authority figure at Digby's blog (who could this be?) is apparently pissed off and is blithely deleting your comments

What are you looking at?

Arthur presents a sobering vision of where the international bipartisan corporatist consensus is taking us.

If you're like most "progressives," though, this will keep your mind off all that. Whee!

American Extremists: "Schmideology"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

Love sickening

Michael Moore is still in love with Bush III:

American Extremists: "Schmevidence"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

The glitch that stole criticism

Digby's authoritarian followers routinely excuse the increasing disappearance of critical comments as being a technical glitch in the Echo commenting software.

That pesky software glitch just disappeared this comment within minutes of my posting it:

vastleft

"At what point does this relentless pursuit of non-Democratic voters at the expense of the base become electorally self-defeating?"

At what point does continuing to support Democrats--who almost fully reject the left's values and interests--become ethically unacceptable for A-list progressive bloggers ?
Today, 16:38:02

There's only one proper way to criticize Obama

You have to continue to support him!

Enemies: Don’t let Obama’s disappointments conceal the perils of not supporting the President.

A tribute to comments that challenge thereisnospoon...

a resident shallow-end Democratic Party supporter at Digby's blog:



Those comments give their lives to show us how shallow the shallow-enders can be.

American Extremists: "Retail politics"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

Ipecac, now in handy blog form!

John Caruso has assembled mix of Obama-love links sure to open up the sluices at both ends.

Hullabull

My comment in response to thereisnospoon's latest:

I know a magician never reveals his secrets and all, but maybe just this once?

Is this deliberate sleight-of-hand, or are you actually incapable of remembering that the Democrats--and in particular Obama--are full co-conspirators in our crappy governance?

Or do you have some other explanation for why you persist the fiction that the donkey party has any inclination to drive the ball in the opposite direction from where the elephants are taking it?

Today, 11:58:40

Update: As myiq2xu notes in comments here, my comment has been disappeared from Hullabaloo.

My follow-up comment, soon to disappear into the aether as well, one might reasonably guess:

Nicely played, thereisnospoon.

Since there's no legitimate justification for your persisting the fiction of a meaningful difference between the two big parties, deleting my comment was the savvy way out.

Meet the new Village, same as the old Village.
Today, 16:37:28

Paraphrase of the day

dixiegrrrrl at DU:

Obama: We can save housing market if the rich buy foreclosed houses and rent them out.

Of course, it will be an even better policy if the rich barely have to pay for those foreclosed houses. I have the greatest confidence that the Obama administration is working on that as I type.

With Democrats like these, who needs Democrats?

John Kerry makes the safety net Public Enemy #1:

The real problem for our country is not the short-term debt. We can deal with that. It's the long-term debt. It's the structural debt of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid measured against the demographics of our nation.

No, seriously, who needs Democrats? Other than the military-financial complex, that is.

American Extremists: "Power tool"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

American Extremists: "The sanity defense"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

New progressive strategy: shut up and support Obama!

Leave President Obama alone!

If only I'd thought of blind obeisance to a President who constantly acts against my values and interests!

American Extremists: "Leader knows best"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

Hmm, Obama talks like a conservative and governs like a conservative... danged if we can figure out what his political leanings are!

The talk of the leftysphere yesterday was an NYT opinion piece by Drew Westen, a psychologist who consults to Democrats on manipulating public opinion.

Westen's brainpower and insider connections somehow can't help him figure out why the conservative Barack Obama talks and acts like a conservative:

Like most Americans, at this point, I have no idea what Barack Obama — and by extension the party he leads — believes on virtually any issue.

Arthur poses questions an inquiring mind could ask itself to sort out why it's so easily and conveniently blocked from accepting the simple truth about Obama: he's not a mystery, he's "the perfect embodiment of the system as it now exists."

Quick click help, please

Please recommend my comment at Krugman's blog to give more visibility to 2L4O.

American Extremists: "Fear itself"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

Barack Obama: international man of misery

One of the great arguments for electing Obama was that he would, unlike Bush, connect us to the world community.

Man, was that ever correct! By the end of the year, he's expected to have Special Ops active in twice as many countries as the uniquely evil George Bush had.

Imagine 120 different nations blessed by the prince-o-peace's presence!

American Extremists: "On the record"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

Vastleft also blogs at:

correntewire.com.

Digby: Obama's decision to put Medicare in play is "inexplicable"

[cross-posted at Correntewire.com]

Apparently, we're supposed to worry that Obama's "inexplicable decision to offer up Medicare in the proposed Grand Bargain" will be used "against him" by the party that "retired the concept of hypocrisy*."

It certainly is a puzzle why he did that!

In closing, Digby cites the ol' "definition of insanity" meme.

How rational is it, one might wonder, to repeat one's vote for the fellow who put Medicare (and Social Security) on the chopping block?

___

* On the bright side, the Democrats are keeping hypocrisy hale, hearty, and on the active roster.

Note: Arthur's Silber's been noting this convenient mystification on the part of the leftysphere's leading lights for quite some time.

"2L4O: Too Left for Obama / Too Liberal for Obama" message becomes timelier by the day

The following is a message I sent yesterday to the 200+ wearers of 2L4O shirts.

* * *

I was a lifelong Democrat who worried, during the 2008 campaign, about Barack Obama's constant validation of rightwing narratives. But on Election Day, I "held my nose" about those reservations and voted for him for President.

How has that worked out? As a Facebook friend said the other day: "Obama has dragged the goalposts so far to the right that Richard Nixon isn't even on the field any more."

Worse, still: Obama's ongoing admirers and defenders now support--actively or by their silence--policies they used to protest. Policies of militarism, corporatism, and "sacrifice" only by the most vulnerable.

The typical response by progressives, if they acknowledge this at all, is to edge toward the shallow-end of Obama support... but never getting out of the pool.

For example, one of today's highest-rated posts on Democratic Underground describes the writer's dressing down of an Obama for America telemarketer about the president's disappointing conservatism. A few minutes after posting it, its author edited it to add: "I will 100% vote for Obama and would never vote GOP or 3rd party. I would also not primary Obama."

This week, Glenn Greenwald featured one of my cartoons about Democrats' increasingly absurd denial tactics, saying it "captured, in cartoon form, exactly what the rhetorical strategy will be for dealing with liberal anger over [the budget] deal."

2L4O: Too Left for Obama / Too Liberal for Obama

The 2012 election season is beginning to take shape. Now is the time to encourage others who care about left/liberal policy to declare themselves 2L4O.

In practical terms, being 2L4O is committing not to support Obama's re-election, instead to advocate for a primary and/or third-party challenge from the left.

Read why peace activist Cindy Sheehan, black-issues activist/editor Bruce A. Dixon, single payer health care advocate Dr. Margaret Flowers, and historian Paul Street have declared themselves "2L4O."

Please do what you can to get the 2L4O message out

Share the http://www.2L4O.com link with left/liberal friends, help publicize it on blogs and forums... and blab about it to any journalists or minor celebrities you might know.

If you do, please consider also helping publicize your favorites among the 2L4O-supporting blogs listed on the home page. They get a % of the proceeds of 2L4O shirt sales, which helps them keep blogging inconvenient truths. Remaining profits, if any, help support my blogging, something I've done for over five years without requesting (or receiving) a penny.

Best regards,
VL

http://www.2L4O.com
http://www.vastleft.com
http://www.correntewire.com
http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com

American Extremists: "Radical"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

Vastleft also blogs at:

correntewire.com.

American Extremists: "National man of mystery"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

Vastleft also blogs at:

correntewire.com.

American Extremists: "Approval"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

Vastleft also blogs at:

correntewire.com.

American Extremists: "Hearing deficit"

American Extremists webcomic archive:

http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/

[Welcome Glenn Greenwald readers!

Note: these days I post most frequently at correntewire.com, "the blog everyone hates and nobody reads," where Obama's deep conservatism has been a topic of discussion for quite some time. Please visit us over there!]