Democratic Convention update

At left: Ten undocumented immigrants arrested at demonstrations outside the Democratic National Convention. This protest was the end-point of the UNDOCUBUS journey across the USA. Photo from the Village Voice.





The Democratic Convention continues, with few arrests--although there have been some. As I said previously, I was worried. There have been demonstrations, but nothing too disruptive.

Former President Bill Clinton wowed the audience last night, making folks nostalgic for Clintonian America; Democratic delegates openly confessed that they wish they could vote for him instead of Obama. (Transcript of Clinton's speech)

Mr Daisy dislikes the conventions and opted to watch DVDs of "The Office" instead. I think he prefers the old-style conventions, wherein the major networks actually broadcasted endless rules-discussions and other such wonky, procedural, political in-group activities. It somehow made you feel like you really were being represented and that your state's delegates, of both parties, were there to choose what was best for you. Now, it's mostly just razzle-dazzle and teleprompter-speeches, already market-tested for the masses. No surprises, and consequently, no fun.

Michelle Obama's speech was judged by the mass media as a big hit. The notable exception would be (big shocker) Fox News viewers. Daily Kos reported on the nasty racism in the comments on the Fox News website. No exaggeration either, I went over there and looked, and there are many more, and far worse. What particularly surprised me (but not really) is the fact that Fox webmasters did not close the thread down, and didn't seem at all worried by how bad this makes their viewers look. As I wrote in comments here, racism IS profitable, despite what some conservatives claim, i.e. a return to Jim Crow is somehow not possible in our (cough) racially-enlightened times. Of course it is. (And therefore, when anyone talks seriously about repealing the 1964 Civil Rights Act? They are either stone-cold racists, incurably naïve or simply NOT PAYING ATTENTION.)

As Ezra Klein noticed, the huge change in Democratic Party strategy has been: the Democrats are reclaiming Obamacare. YES, universal medical care IS a winning policy, and it is about time somebody said so. Several convention speakers have openly used the term "Obamacare"--which ironically started out as a Republican put-down. The new theme is, OBAMA CARES about you, as Mitt Romney only cares about the rich, like himself.

I guess we'll find out how well this works?

As for me, as my readers know, I love me some class warfare. When conservatives accusingly howl, "CLASS WARFARE!" as if its an insult, I never get it. When *I* am accused of it, I always say "Thank you!"--since of course, it's totally necessary and we certainly can't have enough of it. What is the intended insult, exactly? FAIRNESS IS GOOD. ROBIN HOOD WAS RIGHT. If you don't like that, move to Switzerland with the rest of the tax exiles, and take Mitt with you.

I hear he already has a bank account set up over there, so he and the misses will be just fine.

They can sublet their expensive houses. Most of us could support our whole families on the rents from the sublets, alone.

~*~

Yesterday, I enjoyed my 82nd viewing (give or take) of Suddenly, Last Summer. Just so amazing... and my previous post about the movie is here.

Speaking of which, its way past time to link myself! I often forget to do it.

[] I neglected to mention my own blogular accounts of protesting at the Democratic and Republican Conventions in 1980, one of which was linked on Wikipedia (((preen))), so here they are: Republican Convention in Detroit, Democratic Convention in New York.

[] And here is my official BACK TO SCHOOL POST, for all of you exhausted parents out there.

I continue to get positive and affirming feedback about this story, years after I first wrote it. I have received emails as well, lamenting similar GIANT SCHOOL PROJECTS on similar-sized ping-pong tables, sometimes offering detailed descriptions: One mom described a Confederate battlefield, complete with miniature Rebel-battle-flags and toy cannons; another teacher on a forum I visit, relating the same about a detailed Napoleonic display.

All of the (historically-accurate) uniforms carefully sewed onto the teeny-tiny soldiers, some with itsy-bitsy brass buttons.

The mind boggles.

Odds and Sods: Old St Charles sing edition

Image at left is courtesy of YELLOWDOG GRANNY, thanks Jackie Sue... you always sum up my thoughts! :D



This installment of ODDS AND SODS starts with a major TRIGGER WARNING, as they say. Warning, this thread descends into some very disturbing transphobic nastiness, but that's my whole reason for recommending it. It's pretty educational; I think the "radical feminists" who have colonized that thread illustrate one of the biggest problems with Second Wave radical feminism: Mean Girls.

And yeah, I knew a few in my time.

There was something about Second Wave feminist theory that easily lent itself to weird 'female superiority' arguments (in many instances, not just concerning transgender politics). Note their roaring silence on the subject of F to M transgender people: trans men don't fit their little just-so story, so they don't seem to piss them off as much. It's a very strange victim-chic thing. There is only so much victimization to go around, and the trans women are trying to horn in on OURS, which is COPYRIGHTED. At least, that's how several of the most pedestrian comments sound (yes, looking at you Delphyne!)... it's funny in the way that white supremacist websites are funny: not funny haha, funny sad.

The argument that trans people "uphold the gender binary" is bizarre, since I don't know anyone who doesn't. (The fact that we are forced to CHOOSE A SIDE, in fact, is the whole point, isn't it?) Why do these anti-trans feminists think they do not ALSO "uphold the gender binary"? Because they do. I do, you do, everyone does: If someone looks at you and calls you he or she on sight, well, you've passed the gender-test and you ALSO uphold the gender binary. IS there anyone on earth who does not uphold the gender binary? Where IS this magical omnigendered person? (Glen or Glenda?)

The question is then: Why are you holding trans people to a standard you are not holding everyone to? Why are they expected to "opt out" of a system you have not (and can not) opt out of?

PS: If you've had enough of reading that sort of thing, I can certainly relate. Warning, warning, warning, once again, highly offensive, reactionary victim-chic at the link.

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I have not written about the political upheaval in Egypt, since I am ignorant of specifics and haven't had the time to delve properly into the subject. Thus, I share what smarter people have written:

Mubarak departs – what next? (A Scottish Liberal)

Mubarak Finally Listens – “Let My People Go!” (FireDogLake)

Katrina Vanden Heuvel: Neocons Have a Hard Time With Democracies That Emerge From Within a Country (Crooks and Liars)

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:: A picture is worth a thousand words! You gotta see this: A Children’s Treasury of CPAC Stupidity: the Final Chapter Subtitled: TRINKETS OF THE DEATH OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION... I promise you will love it!

:: On a more wonky note, Ezra Klein explains things carefully, in this post titled Do Republicans really oppose making health-care insurance cheaper? Yes, I've wondered that, too. Excerpt:

[The] short version is this: If you make health-care insurance cheaper and make it harder for insurance companies to deny people coverage, then a certain number of people who would like to leave the labor force but can't afford or access health-care insurance without their job will stop working.

To understand why, imagine a 62-year-old woman who works for IBM and beat breast cancer 10 years ago. She wants to retire. She has the money to retire. But no one will sell her health care under the status quo. Under the health-reform law, she can buy health care in an exchange because insurers can't turn her away due to her history of breast cancer. So she'll retire. Or imagine a 50-year-old single mother who wants to home-school her developmentally disabled child but can't quit her job because they'll lose health care. The subsidies and the protections in the Affordable Care Act will give her the option to stop working for awhile, while under the old system she'd need to stick with her job to keep her family's health-care coverage. That's how health-care reform can reduce the labor supply. If either case counts as a destroyed job, then so does my winning the lottery and moving to Scotland in search of the perfect glass of whiskey.

:: By way of Onyx Lynx, I found Avedon Carol's post quite thoughtful:

But I think there's also a deeper game here, and it explains why the entire media - not just the Murdoch and Moonie media - stays so focused on the right-wing crazies. It's the circus that deflects attention from what's really going on while everyone is playing games like "Beck is crazy" and "Look - Sarah Palin!" Well, yes, they've pretty much consistently done that sort of thing for the last 20 years, but I mean going even deeper than that, to why it is so consistent - enough that even some of our best liberal, independent bloggers just can't seem to pull their eyes away sometimes. Somebody out there wants us to keep watching the clown show for an even bigger reason.

:: OPEN LEFT is shutting down. Which is not a good sign. :(

Bye yall! I'll miss you!

~*~

This week's especially merciless ear worms:

This first one contains the original language, "I don't give two fucks about you"--which was sanitized for US airplay and became the more neutral, "I don't give a damn about you"... punks were considered pretty scary and thus, properly de-fanged for stateside radio. I'd never give you a de-fanged version on DEAD AIR!

I am proud to say, I own both versions in various mixes and anthologies, or I wouldn't even know about the censorship.

The Modern World - The Jam (1977)



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Trigger warning, probable suicide references (debatable ever since song recorded in 1967); Joan Didion famously started her Doors essay with this song.

Moonlight Drive - The Doors (1967)



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TOO GREAT FOR WORDS, this first-class mystical acidhead music can't be beat. Question: Are they chanting "Stonehenge! Stonehenge!" at the end? I've always thought so. Not sure what St Charles had to do with Stonehenge but hey, why not?

I really love this. NOTE: Acid flashback warning for at least half of my regular readers. :P

St Charles - Jefferson Starship (1976)

Odds and Sods - Funhouse edition

I've added a whole parcel of wonderful wimmin to my blogroll, for no other reason than I wanted their links handy so I could find them very quickly.

Some of my newcomers: Unapologetically Female, Snowstorm, The Pursuit of Harpyness, Transgriot, snow piled up in a silver bowl, Female Impersonator, What Tami Said, Katha Politt, three rivers fog, Future Feminist Librarian-Activist, Aunt Jemima's Revenge, Fourth Wave Feminism, Look left of the pleiades, Everyday Stranger, Elderwomanblog, Uncooler Than Thou, Kikipotamus the Hobo, Marge Twain, Pink Scare, Shapely Prose, and the most fabulously-named blog ever, Kittywampus!

Welcome to Dead Air, yall!

~*~

Guess who's back? Kyle Payne, self-styled "male feminist" who was convicted of being a sexual predator and nonetheless continues to present himself as a dedicated freedom fighter for us ladeez.

(Do you BELIEVE this guy?!?)

Renegade Evolution and Natalia Antonova share their incredulity with us, that Kyle won't just go away.

Sometimes, all you can say is: GOOD LORD!

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Mista Jaycee writes about Los Angeles Sparks forward Candace Parker's pregnancy.. The WHOLE CONCEPT of a visibly-pregnant professional basketball player is probably the most wonderfully feminist news I've heard in awhile! GO CANDACE!

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Callin from the funhouse...

I had not heard that Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton passed away from a heart attack at age 60 until reading a two-month-old Rolling Stone obituary. (Yeesh, I am so OUT OF IT!)

This is particularly sad to hear...Ron was most assuredly one of the great unsung heroes of the genre. Lots and lots of modern rock guitarists were deeply influenced by Ron and don't even realize the immense musical debt they owe him.

Goodbye dear friend. (And thanks for enabling Iggy all those years--somebody had to do it!)

~*~

Private email lists are currently under fire, since Politico's Michael Calderone just outed Ezra Klein's little (large, actually) private club, named JournoList (JList for short). All the cool kids like Paul Krugman and Eric Alterman are on it. With so many bigshot liberal/radical bloggers on the email list, doesn't this make it something of a left-wing echo chamber?

Well, duh! Ya think???? (Ezra responded in a flip, rather fuck-you fashion.)

Many people are weighing in, and I personally vented on a thread at Lean Left:

[KTK posted] And there is a kind of exclusivist quality to them that can be troubling, especially if they become a kind of quasi-official, but walled-off, function of a larger group. Many list members recognize that, and there are ways to deal with it.

[I replied] If they want to. Do they?

The “gang pile” syndrome is one unfortunate facet of these lists; and yes, I’ve been on them too. People who lack nerve require posses, that herd of independent minds, all covering/saying the same thing. Rather than develop individually, lots of these people are carbon-copies of each other and all report/pile on the same things, the same week. And now we know why–it’s coordinated and it’s an echo chamber. The same thing happens in Blogdonia, where certain controversial posts/threads are red-flagged, email lists pass the word, and there is a sudden unbelievable swarm of comments and fevered linkage. (Sometimes, if you are hip to who is on a list, you can tell who first thought up the talking points.) This can and does turn into simple bullying.

In addition, the I-brought-my-posse effect breeds stupidity and cowardice. Learn to defend yourself without being in a horde. Learn to find your own issues, not just follow the frat house gang/mob to the next Big Thing.

Also, there is the matter of blacklisting. If XYZ, your buddy and email droog, says “Daisy’s a real bitch” on your beloved email list, are you going to tell me that you won’t be prejudiced by that, even before you know me, or my comments/behavior on your blog? Because you know, that is thoroughly unfair and just generally poisons the waters. Example: I might be purposely antagonistic on a blog in which I think the blogger has, say, made fun of vegetarians. If you haven’t, that has nothing to do with you. But because this person doesn’t like my political message, they call me a bitch and without MY knowing why, you–third party to this feud–will be hostile to me immediately. Or at least, you will be unlikely to give me a fair hearing. (And yes, I do think that is how human beings are. We are easily prejudiced by those we respect and admire, our peers.) I’ve seen this phenomenon happen from both sides–as the victim AND as the person on the list, watching it happen.

It is tantamount to blacklisting; it freezes people out who have particularly radical or unpopular opinions.

THOSE are a FEW of the problem with these lists.

And with this revelation, we see that much of Leftist/Feminist/Progressive Blogdonia continues its march towards replicating middle-class high school cliques and attendant juvenile idiocy.

As one of my favorite modern philosophers once said: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss.

~*~

EDITED TO ADD:

Speaking of being out of it, I forgot to add a tribute to Ron!

Gimme Danger - Iggy Pop & The Stooges