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Comments Posted By choicelady

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My Open Letter to Dr. Rachel Maddow

Hey Boomer – YES!!!! Now I supposedly represent an organization I keep hearing people rant about: “Where are the Christian progressives and moderates?” whine the pundits. “Why don’t they speak out on (fill in the blank)??”

Well, because I, too write to Dr. Maddow and Mr. Olbermann and NEVER EVER get a reply. I’ve even gone so far as to give my phone number at work. We represent 1.5 MILLION people in CA – progressive and moderate people of faith within the Protestant community – and no one gives a rat’s ass. NO one. I’d love to be interviewed, too, because we have a very different point of view from the RW. We love people, no exceptions. Isn’t that NEWS?

I adore who YOU are. You are the salt of the earth, you are the woman who is the center of the national good. You do all the things right, and you have warmth, and love, and energies, and responsibility all down pat. You keep the world turning on its axis. You keep the home fires burning, and the economy humming – the REAL economy of basics, not frills. You remember? The one we USED to have? You think good thoughts, you reflect and ponder, you make sensible decisions, and you open your heart and mind to what and who are “out there” in the world. No – we won’t put your home on HGTV. We won’t see you on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” nor on any reality show eating worms to win a prize. That’s why we love you! You have good SENSE!

Your heart is as big as all outdoors. You take care of what is yours and do so well. You raised up healthy kids to adulthood and now give the gift of Grandma to the next generation. You’re smart, sensible, and kind. We cannot run this world without you. You sparkle like the stars at night – not flashy but lovely, and THERE. You are the person who made America great.

You DESERVE to be heard because of precisely who you are. You DESERVE to be heeded for the same reason.

But, as with me and us and the rest of the sensible, kind, perservering Americans, we won’t ever be courted because we aren’t controversial. I bet you have enough sense NEVER to hang tea bags from the brim of your hat, so we can’t mock you, and you aren’t filled with hate and spittle so we can’t revile you, and you aren’t filled with superstitious nonsense so we can’t dismiss you, and you aren’t flashy, don’t wear stilettos and designer clothes so we can’t trot you out as an example of pretentious class.

Nope – but there is one thing you are. You are respected by the rest of us like you. We know your warmth, dignity, heart, intelligence, dedication, and devotion to purpose.

So no – Dr. M. will probably never call and never let the world see inside your heart and mind. But we here at the Planet and all who know you personally know we are better for having you in our lives. You enrich us and the world. Never doubt for a moment how important you really are. It’s Dr. M’s loss, but we are the richer for having you with us. Thank you!

» Posted By choicelady On February 5, 2010 @ 7:52 pm

The Convenience of Separation of Church and State

Javaz – you have more solid theology in this post than all the RW extremists do in a year of television Bible thumping rants.

How could they SO miss the point? How beautifully you capture it! They could do with a lot more love and a lot less fearmongering to get half so close to the essence of what Christ taught as you have so eloquently done.

Way cool, Javaz. Way cool.

» Posted By choicelady On February 5, 2010 @ 7:35 pm

KQ -Since I am with one of those groups working on federal health care reform, yes, indeed – we are now pariahs becaue we believe in the Common Good. Anyone wants to see our umbrella organization’s (Faithful Reform in Health Care) Vision Statement, go to:

http://www.faithfulreform.org. The Vision Statement is down toward the bottom. Sign on if you like! Good analysis of the House and Senate bills there in PDF as well. Worth a look.

I help to write the Vision Statement, and I’m damned proud OF it. The right can mewl and cry about our advocacy, but they have nothing to offer. Nothing.

Our belief in the separation of church and state does not mean we cannot be engaged FROM a moral perspective on any issue. It does, absolutely, preclude us from IMPOSING our views as the single and only focus. Of course we ARE the people that support women’s right to choose, support marriage equality, support immigrant rights, all civil rights, want to call for justice on torture, want to end corporate domination of our economy, return communities to their residents, and want workers to own and manage more of the economy. We make Obama look like a softie, and the religious right hates us like poison.

But we are very careful about what we say concerning our values – we actually do understand respect for other views.

However, I have gotten waaaaay past the point where the slavering self-righteousness, the superstitious balderdash, and the rabid hate of self-anointed Christians goes unchallenged. It has got to be repudiated. For example, last week the mayor of Lancaster, CA said his was “Christian Community” and that people should not shy away from saying that. Problem is – there are Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and non-believers who live there and pay his salary. Since when is a secular governmental entity of any religion at ALL?

I have HAD it with the self-righteous who use religion as a cover for hate and discrimination. They know nothing and promulgate a despicable form of religiosity that is so tribal and backward as to be nothing more than primitive superstition. Enough already. No time for this anymore.

The Arizona Interfaith group includes one of our state partners, The AZ Council of Churches, headed by a wonderful man with a wonderful zest for life and great humor. When I think of him standing up for immigrants as human beings and then think of these drooling rabid haters who never met a person they could not demean, I really DO think our side will prevail. Hate is just plain exhausting. It’s a darn sight nicer to be human by being humane. You sleep better, too.

Thanks for the article, Javaz. Nice to know the Good Guys are still showing their gumption about what really is right, really is moral. Let the small and frightened have their say. They really ARE their own worst enemies.

» Posted By choicelady On February 5, 2010 @ 7:31 pm

Sade and The Body

Wow – what amazing thoughts and reflections! I admit I pay NO attention to these sorts of films or readings at all because they creep me out from what little I do know about them.

Violence is very much a part of my history. It has not tended to be of this nature, precisely, but is there really a difference? I’ve had five friends and acquaintances murdered, all of it political in origin – at least ostensibly. Who knows what went through the heads of the murderers at the moment? I do understand killing in self defense, but the idea of wantonly taking the lives of people for any reason other than that sickens me, and I simply do not understand it. I’m a great fan of mysteries (books more than film) but stay away from stalker, serial killer, sadistic sorts of plot lines. I am nauseated by the very idea that someone is driven by, yes KQ sex AND violence, to harm, cause terror and suffering, mutilate – all the things of which humans are so capable.

I do think horror films tend to proliferate when life itself is uncertain since movies provide some measure of phony “control” over the relentless drive of some seemingly all-powerful force to do harm. Generally films have some survival outcome (I’ve never seen the “Saw” films so don’t know about that) wherein a central character triumphs and lives. In their own weird way, isn’t that a message of hope in an otherwise dark and dangerous world?

But fascination with death and suffering baffles me. I hope it’s like slowing down past a horrible car crash – I think it’s “there but for the grace of God go I.” We try to find both intimations of our own mortality AND the hope we’re never in those poor people’s situation by looking and thinking and wondering and gawking.

When I hear kids laugh at some splatter scene or violent confrontation or explosions and mayhem in films, I wonder if I’m not wrong and that people are hideously desensitized to the pain of others. I hope not. I hope slasher films are some kind of catharsis and not a “how to” guide. But my own experience tells me that the right “how to” in the wrong hands can have devastating consequences.

I don’t think everything has to be Pollyanna, but for me, I can’t any longer see films that have no hope or are violent for violence alone. One of the best films ever was “Gallipoli” which is horrible in its death and destruction, but it was powerful in its critique of the wastes of human life in war. I’m glad I saw it. The rest – the wallowing in the pain and terror of others, especially women, for nothing more than sheer gore – not for me, thanks. Death is permanent, and pain and suffering are all too present in reality for those to be even remotely interesting. I admit – I do not understand.

» Posted By choicelady On February 4, 2010 @ 9:23 pm

Hate in America, Part 1: A History of Hate

Hi Sue – Better NOT see this at the UCC church! They’re the good guys (you included of course!) I don’t socialize with them, but in the chaos of facing them down, I heard so much sneering racism I was horrified. They’d stand with Black soulmates opposed to fill in the blanks, then when said Black person walked away, they’d snicker. Disgusting.

» Posted By choicelady On February 3, 2010 @ 9:54 am

SueinCA – my personal experience with Christian extremists is that the white ones are deeply but very covertly racist. They embrace Black members – and mock them behind their backs. They utter foul and racist comments – but never to their alleged peers. You WILL find their churches integrated, but you will NEVER find a person of color in a significant position. They embrace as the MOST important person in history – Stonewall Jackson, a slave owner. They justify their belief partly from the notion that Jackson brought his slaves to Jesus. But freeing the slaves? Don’t be ridiculous. Their racism is disgusting in its pretense at equality that hides their true feelings. And the Black and handful of Latino followers simply never see the real side of this nastiness. It is deeply revolting.

» Posted By choicelady On February 2, 2010 @ 8:33 pm

Amazing compliation, Cher. VERY insightful.

I do want to say that this is terribly complicated stuff with a lot of mixed expressions historically of good as well as bad. I cannot find where MA colony legalized slavery though I do know there were some slaves, but the laws ironically provided equal coverage to all persons, generally free, which meant that MA and other New England colonies where slavery was little known were a boon to escaped and legally free Black people. In Rhode Island, there were numerous prosperous free persons of color (the legal terminology) as well as in MA from settlement throughout its history. What marks America so strongly is the weird co-existence of such things – slavery and equality side-by-side.

What is terribly clear is precisely what Leonard Pitts wrote that you noted in your first post – the capacity American white people have for being bamboozled into thinking people of color – their neighbors and equals – are the enemy rather than the rich plantation or mill owners who exploited both equally. As he said, when two men are in a sinking boat, it takes enormous stupidity to see each other as the enemy rather than the guy who built the leaky boat. Other nations are scarecely immune to racism, but between feudalism and industrial capitalism – over half a millenium – you could find clear evidence of co-existence among races, religions, and nationalities at all economic levels. Look at the art of the Renaissance, and you will find high-born people of color depicted without irony or comment.

Why we have created this absurd classification system for our hates is not just economic but political, but the fact it has not needed to exist for long stretches of history is what we ought to be studying. Maria Rosa Menocal’s book, “The Ornament of the World” discusses the co-existence of Muslims, Jews, and Christians in Medieval Spain. Constantinople, Muslim dominated, was the repository for ALL the world’s knowledge during the Dark Ages of Europe and where scholars of all backgrounds congregated for centuries to learn together, to share information and understanding.

And then – the Inquisition. Constantinople fell to Christian invasion in 1453, and scholars fled, taking books and manuscripts throughout Europe, bringing the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian as well as Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Byzantine scholarship with them.

So, in 1492 – Columbus sailed West and the Church began the Inquisition. Tolerance ended just as learning began again. Why? What a threat to the Holy Roman Empire to have science and philosophy intrude on entrenched privilege! And anti-Semitism soared along with anti-Muslim and anti-knowledge ideals. But learning prevailed over superstition, though thousands, perhaps millions, died before it burst through. And every step of the way, the repression was fueld by rumors, by innuendo, by racial superiority arguments, by intolerance.

So who wields these weapons? At the core it’s always people of privilege who get the “little guy” to do the dirty work. Behind every KKK member is a banker or used car lot owner seeking to take greater and greater shares of the pie by taking it FROM someone else. The Greenwood massacre in Tulsa in 1921 was the direct result of the post-WWI downturn being converted into real economic animosity against the most prosperous of all Black communities north of the white part of the city. The pillage was all about envy and fear of privation masquerading as racial superiority. You have. I want. You’re inferior. I’m superior.

But there is so much in history to show this does NOT need to be, does NOT occur in economically more egalitarian societies, and is not an essential or foundational part of human nature. Racism and hatred of “the Other” are created. So they may be UNcreated as well.

Someone here (I’m sorry – I’ve forgotten who) that the unfamiliar face breeds fear. Well, not always, not in all times. The unfamiliar face can be just that – not categorized by race or ethnicity, religion or gender. How we respond has everything in the world to do with how we live. And that may not be everyone’s choice, but it IS a choice.

Those who foment racism – the Becks and Limbaughs, Coulters and Bachmanns – really want a war of all against all because they believe they will triumph, will have it all once again, won’t have to limit themselves in any way in thought, word, deed, or possession. It is to their personal material advantage for dissent to occur.

But it is not essential, not even in hard times, for us to be at war with one another. Cooperation for the benefit of all not only is possible but may be imperative for our individual and societal survival. Hate is the most costly of emotions since it eats resources and energies and feelings. We can no longer afford the luxury of hate. It will be the one thing that a revived economy cannot fix if we permit it.

» Posted By choicelady On February 2, 2010 @ 8:28 pm

Motive

Ah – but remember that between the 14th C. and 1886, the corporation was totally liable for its own acts, as were the investors IN the corporation. Most of them were for exploration and development of new lands such as the East India Corporation. The invstors had some limited immunity, because they were taking huge risks for the well-being of the nation (so they claimed), but they were NOT given free rein as they are now. That is why the Santa Clara railroad case that tortured the 14th Amendment into supporting corporations as fictitious persons is so critical. It gives personhood to the corporation and immunity to the investors. Huge difference.

We are taught 19th-century interpretations of just about everything, and thus we miss the fact that things can and have existed in very different forms before the rise of rapacious capitalism which is largely a post-Revolution and especialy post-Civil War phenomenon. The corporation can exist as a much more beneficent entity than it now is, but it will take a genuine will of our elected officials to hamstring them. The fact the Republican Party has suddenly become the slavish devotees of this SCOTUS ruling and its consequences is actually moving the tea party folks to anger. We need to tap the populism and move it toward away from knee-jerk anti-government rants to understanding how important it is that we ALL unify over returning government to serve the will of people, NOT big business.

If the tea bag folks could get past their fear of a Black president, we might just get us a new progressive movement. We shall see how intrinsically smart or reactionary they choose to be.

» Posted By choicelady On February 4, 2010 @ 9:37 pm

Rashomon 6: Ten views of Obama’s budget freeze

Narcissism is hard to distinguish politically.

» Posted By choicelady On January 25, 2010 @ 10:26 pm

Thanks e’cat! This is great! I listened to Biden’s economics person (missed his name) and realized that Obama is about to give us that great cost-cutting and revenue-shifting scene from “Dave”. (Every real progressive’s dream scene.) He will cut programs that are not working and that soothe the savage heart of only corporate lobbyists. He will then focus on spending around programs that build the economy and shore up the working and middle class people. He’s already anchored programs for the poor that have protected over 3 million people just here in CA.

I am so sick of phony progressives! Left or Right, all this nation knows how to do is whine. HuffPo is the worst of the lot. She doesn’t have a clue what the President will say tomorrow night, but let’s slam him just for the hell of it. I’m done with her.

She is the reason we have Arnold. In the debate before he got elected the first time, he was asked what he would do about the sudden massive shortfall in the CA budget – and before he was forced to answer, to prove he had not a clue – she butted in making derisive comments to and about him, and he never EVER answered the question. She handed the election to him right there. Many of us watching knew it right then, and we’ve never forgiven her for her arrogant stupidity.

» Posted By choicelady On January 25, 2010 @ 10:25 pm

Help Us Reach Our Fundraising Goal Or Mr. FluffyWuvers Gets It

AdLib – touch one hair on that adorable kitty’s head, and I take my money BACK. How’s THAT for a threat, huh???

I showed the pix to my two cats, and they growled. Be afraid. Be VERY afraid! One is a Maine Coon Cat that weighs in at about 25 pounds and is not yet full grown. The other is just grumpy.

FluffyWuvers? Bet he’s pissed at the name, too. Cute as all get out though.

» Posted By choicelady On January 25, 2010 @ 10:39 pm

Corporations Are People Too! by Dr. Suits

AdLib – this is amazing! I am forwarding it to myself at work and will make sure a LOT of our members get to read it! Sinmply amazing, and a really great lesson in what IS a “person”.

Thank you!

» Posted By choicelady On January 22, 2010 @ 1:50 pm

Time For Action!

I’m for all of this save No.2 as KQ has noted. Obama has NOT opted for bipartisanship over progress – he gave it a chance, and that’s good, but it was DEMS who killed this and will do so again. The House can pass the Senate bill which is highly imperfect but NOT AWFUL, but they will not. We need to press for that as the first step. Many of the aspects we want – lower percentage of payment, amount of financial subsidy, even the public option as a cost saving plan, can be directed then through reconciliation.

If Obama were Clinton or Dean or anyone at all, I still think he’d have had to reach out to the entrenched RW forces. Remember the attempts to “kill” Bill and Hillary? These people are playing for keeps, and it was essential that some effort be made to bring the nation together. It’s proven impossible. But the effort had to be made.

Brown’s victory as not PRO RW Republican, it was that 43% of the Dems did not vote. It’s the angry, impatient liberals/lefties who sat it out Tuesday that infuriate me as they did in 1980 – there WAS a huge difference between Carter and Reagan, IF you were poor, struggling, working class, union. Only those of us with privilege can afford to be so smug. We on the “left” must stop shooting ourselves in the foot. And then going back and reloading!

We have options on health care – we need to make the progressives as well as moderates TAKE those options. The Senate as well as House bill is set up as the CA single payer plan is – what you pay is linked to a percentage of your income on a sliding scale. That’s not efficient for the nation, but it’s extremely good for individuals. It’s an overwhelmingly good start. From the beginning we advocated for that and got it – we cannot throw this away.

Let’s move the Senate bill, and build from there. I think that can be accomplished. I do NOT want to see this watered down to court conservative Dems. We have a good start. Don’t let the ideology kill it off.

» Posted By choicelady On January 22, 2010 @ 2:03 pm

Round One of the New President Obama: The Populist

Torches and pitchforks were actually part of several French revolutions in the absence of other weapons. Sabotage came from the act of throwing wooden sabots (shoes) into the machinery to stop it since machines were taking craft jobs. The image of “pitchforks, torches, to the gates” was then imported into the story of Frankenstein as townsfolk moved against him and the monster he created with what they had at hand. It’s a time honored tradition of making revolution with what you have.

» Posted By choicelady On January 21, 2010 @ 8:01 pm

Cher – the only hope I can see comes from the millions for whom the ‘bread and circuses’ means only the circuses. Increasingly there is no bread.

No health care, no basic supports, no deployment of ARRA funds into real jobs (billions are left unspent – why?) How long will people accept their repression?

Perhaps it will be only when basic cable becomes too expensive, and the WWF smack downs and “reality” shows can no longer be seen?

I am scared for my nation.

» Posted By choicelady On January 21, 2010 @ 7:56 pm

You have the pitchforks? cool – I have the torches. To the gates!

We are laboring under the legacy of Reagan that the “enemy” is government. People will hate corporations, especially banks, but will keep the status quo rather than take a risk that democracy really means US.

Given the Supremes’ ruling today, this will get worse. Now only Barney Frank who does not give a damn, will probably have the chuzpah to stand up to them. On the other hand, if we show up with said pitchforks and torches, maybe we CAN make a difference? And, frankly, this may well be some place where we do have to reach out to the tea bag people – a lot of them are dupes, not evil, and might well move the better way if they were approached well.

Or not…

» Posted By choicelady On January 21, 2010 @ 7:53 pm

Marion and Alpha – I had to smile because I once got Dennis Miller and Bill Maher mixed up. I always thought Maher was a pretentious nobody with values that seemed to me anything BUT progressive. I am so happy that you confirm my impressions!

I have the worst cold and sinus infection I’ve EVER had, and this is the only thing (other than finally getting antibiotics) that made me feel better today. Thanks!

» Posted By choicelady On January 21, 2010 @ 7:47 pm

The Supreme Court puts our democracy in the hands of corporations

On Olberman, the constitutional scholar whose name I never can remember – Jonathan Turley? – said that there are other ways to get at this issue such as opening up third party roles, etc. I think that is NOT the issue at all. We need to find ways to affirm the power of human beings, NOT “fictitious persons” who appear to have the same rights as we even though there is a fundamental flaw – they don’t have to be citizens, and they cannot vote.

Our entire history, especially starting a century ago, has been focused on limiting corporate power over our political life. The Progressive movement arose in direct response to the abuses of the railroads, etc., so where is the same outrage today? This is the second part of radical activism by the Supremes in response to corporate power, the first being the railroad case in 1886 (I believe that’s the year) using the 14th Amendment to confer fictitious personhood on corporations in the first place.

I think the greatest impact we might have is indeed to revisit this issue of corporate personhood and then make very clear that only citizens who can actually vote may contribute to campaigns. Period. Multinational corporations, especially those with HQs in other nations, should be barred outright for a lack of citizenship, and those with HQs here should be curtailed unless they can show up at the polls with a registration card.

The one thing I think might help immediately, however, is to take the fictitious personhood status at its face value and hold corporations to the $2500 limit each of us real persons faces with respect to direct limits on campaign donations.

Then shining light on our donations to PACs, 527s, etc. might open up at least some public awareness, and assuring that direct donations be controlled for the ficitious folks just as they are for the real folks.

Yes, this will affect unions and potentially even my organization (except we’re too broke to be of much use save for our moral persuasion on non-partisan issues. The idea of being a power broker makes most non-profits roll on the floor laughing.) So be it.

If we believe in democracy, it has to come back to people – real people, not paid shills like the bozos who collect signatures for money outside supermarkets.

This is a very sad day, and I disagree with Turley – this is not about free speech. This is about losing democracy outright.

» Posted By choicelady On January 21, 2010 @ 5:49 pm

She Said What?!?

Oh for crying out loud! Would seem to me if you do NOT like the president in office, you’d REALLY want to pray for him! This is beyond the pale. I know hundreds of progressive clergy who routinely prayed for the president during the last 8 years. Seems ridiculous they won’t pray for Obama. That is just partisanship, not faith.

» Posted By choicelady On January 20, 2010 @ 7:42 pm

I like AdLib’s suggestion best. Have the Code of Conduct passed around again.

I’m sorry you have to rely on her. I’d suggest, if there is an opening outside the office, that you ask her what harm she has personally suffered because of this administration = a real question. Not what MIGHT happen, not what they (she and Rush) project, but what harm has actually befallen her. I’d like to know.

I know people who are still waiting for the black helicopters from Y2K, but 10 years later, they have not come. What does she base her fears upon? If it’s projection of black helicopters, she’s beyond the pale. If she has some actual reasons, it would help us to know.

» Posted By choicelady On January 20, 2010 @ 11:40 am

Back to the Future

I think bipartisanship has to be over. And the DINOs have to back off because the loss of support for health care was swift and immediate when the public option was LEFT OUT, not when it was in.

There are strategies that might work that I’ve mentioned below – pass the Senate bill and work out the budget issues including the public option as a cost saver, the reduction in the tax on Cadillac plans (who gets those – not labor!) and pegging even private payments to income percentages, not the market so that we can see the budget costs. All that can be done via reconcilliation.

We have to have real leadership from both the Congress and WH. Pandering to the center right is absurd – that is NOT where the loss is coming from.

Obama has done amazing things cited here – but he has not taken credit for them. They have passed unnoticed in the MSM and now even on the liberal side.

His political capital is high – 90% like him as a person. That is amazing. So he has room to BE Obama, not capitulate. When he has done that, he has lost support.

Molly Ivins – wish she were here – always said, “Dance with the ones that brung you.” He has to support his base – the people – not the naysayers and skeptics. And he cannot be too modest!

» Posted By choicelady On January 20, 2010 @ 10:26 pm

My morning call with a Senate health staff person raised three possibilities. Yes – pass the Senate version, warts and all, in the House then send the financial pieces such as the tax on health benefits (“Cadillac” plans) and other finance issues through reconcilliation. In the meantime, rid the Senate of the 60-vote rule and restore democracy.

CA knows full well the tyranny of the weak that comes from supermajorities. We have them for passing both budget AND tax increases (not cuts, mind you – only the ability to rescind those cuts.) Federalist Paper No.58 and others warned about this, and we’ve seen that it gives the unimaginative total control to block the creative. The minority trumps the majority. So enough.

We need to find ways to do this, and the progressive forces must not block the framework. I’m heartened by the fact that the Senate as well as the House bill links what one pays to a percentage of income rather than – as the MA plan and proposed CA plan did – forcing people to pay market rates. YES – government would subsidize the purchaser thereby handing the insurance corporation the full rate, but preserving the national oversight to make insurance companies justify rate hikes is a start. And that is how Switzerland and Germany began, too.

We fool ourselves if we think at any point in US history we’ve made sweeping changes. We never have and likely never will. Even in the Great Depression, FDR did what he did fairly carefully, especially after the NRA was declared unconstitutional. (“Gone away, is the Blue Bird, here to stay, is the new bird”…)

I do want to see him ramp this up. I also understand why he insists that nothing gets rammed through before Brown is seated, but there are end runs that MUST be done to get a decent bill that will immediately cover the 18 million waiting, hoping, praying, and dying that it passes. They are not negligable.

So the evidence that 43% stayed home and did not vote because they wanted the House bill – which they would have likely gotten had they not slit their own throats and ours – is another piece of information about how arrogant our own side has become. They HAVE health care – and I bet none is in the Mass Connector program – so what’s it to them? Bet I have relatives who sat it out.

Damn.

» Posted By choicelady On January 20, 2010 @ 2:48 pm

I am not sure at all that this MA election was about Obama since last night on MSNBC one analyst said that 51 percent of those who’d supported Obama would do so again but many were voting for Brown against Coakley. Coakley is the issue in MA, not Obama. I was horrified to learn she’d taken a 3-week vacation with no campaigning when she had a 20-point lead and said she saw no reason at any point in the campaign to “shake hands outside Fenway in the cold.” That is sheer arrogance and a contempt for voters that – were stakes not so high – probably means she deserved to lose. I put this on her, on people’s accurate perceptions of her disintrest in them, and of a serious demand by voters that they be valued.

» Posted By choicelady On January 20, 2010 @ 9:19 am

Democratic Navel-Gazing, or The Circular Firing Squad – Part III

Marion – thank you! This is solid. I detest Mahr for the very hype that you call out. He’s part of that sneering dismissive pseudo-progressive elite that are NOT the 18-24-year-olds but people in their mid years who, again, have nothing at stake but who do cherish their role as armchair complainers. “God! Ain’t it awful?!” You have really made clear how superficial is their knowledge about anything, but how big are their egos about finding fault.

I am sick to death of these people!!!

I do want to make one correction – the neo-cons largely were not liberals but Stalinists when they were younger. It really matters because the Stalinists were inclined to a world view of absolute control by a core elite that morphed nicely into an absolute control by a core RW elite. Once you begin with the presumption that you are the dominant force in the universe, it sort of doesn’t matter what you believe = just so you’re in charge. Fits so nicely with your narcissism.

Otherwise, Parts 1,2,3 – brilliant!

» Posted By choicelady On January 19, 2010 @ 7:27 pm

So they vote in a guy that makes it impossible to confront Wall Street????

» Posted By choicelady On January 19, 2010 @ 7:19 pm

Democratic Navel-Gazing, or The Circular Firing Squad – Part II

And so, tonight, MA voters have proven they also haven’t a clue how things work. They apparently are pissed Obama has not come down harder on the banks – so now, creating a Senate lacking the 60 votes, they’ve made it nearly impossible.

I have to make a presentation Sunday to a group of people who, I think, will take almost any version of the health bill because they are older, wiser, and want to see people insured. However, I was invited by a curmudgeon who is single payer or nothing – another with no skin in the game.

I want people to learn how the system works. And then, when they make decisions of dismissal, I want them to be FORCED to tell someone whose life they just threw away how important it REALLY is for everything to be ideologically pure. I want the “let’s scrap this bill” people to tell the 18 million about to get covered immediately why they have to put THEIR breast cancer treatment on hold again for another 2-10 years.

I am sick with worry that this win in MA signals the return of intense voter stupidity. I realize a lot of it is due to Coakley’s own failings – she went on VACATION for several week during which her 20 point lead took a nose dive – so maybe it’s about lousy, stupid, bonehead candidates, but we cannot revert to the Bush/Gingrich years. We just CANNOT. They would destroy this economy and this nation. They damned well nearly have.

» Posted By choicelady On January 19, 2010 @ 7:06 pm

What Martin Luther King Jr. Day means to me

I do understand about feeling more comfortable in a blues bar than redneck one. Only people who ever trashed me were well educated white liberals. Never had much grief from communities of color or, for that matter, blue collar people. Don’t know a lot of rednecks, but I am pretty comfortable anywhere. Oh, I[‘ve had disagreements and all with Black people, but REAL harm – undermining you, stabbing you in the back, lying, cheating, and all that good stuff? White people, period. Educated, affluent white people.

One thing about those bars – have you ever noticed that if there is dancing, both groups do the Electric Slide? Go figure.

But then how can one explain two photographs where you can’t tell which is a gay leather bar and which is a white supremacist party?

I’m not a cultural anthropologist, but it sure seems like a fun field!

» Posted By choicelady On January 18, 2010 @ 6:59 pm

Hi nellie – remember this was c.1965 when it was dangerous, even in “the city of brotherly love”, to be Black. The people I knew then DID most decidedly feel “outside” of all parts of that city – politically, economically, socially. It was hugely segregated then. No one I knew wanted to be white, but they really did want an equal opportunity that included them. I happened to live next to the Zion Baptist Church, home of Rev. Leon Sullivan who built the OIC that created new job opportunities that city had never experienced for minorities. He went on to be on the board of GM, and from him came the “Sullivan Principles” about how the US corporations would do business – or not – with South Africa. Times have RADICALLY changed – even as some things have not changed much at all.

The man I was walking with was devastated emotionally by racism. He was so wounded by this experience and a million others, he really lost his ability to function at all. It was heartbreaking to see. Of course not everyone was that traumatized, but it had a role in the peripheralization of too many people who were left afraid and bereft in a world that, at that time, had no room for them. A huge, huge loss.

» Posted By choicelady On January 18, 2010 @ 6:53 pm

Hi whatsthat – you know, you may well be right. I just think the white, employed liberal/progressives would not have gotten so mad so soon if it had been Edwards or Clinton. If it had been Kucinich, it might have gone the same way as Obama since he’s ethnic white, but I’m not sure. I hear so much sneering against Obama that implies he’s “not one of us” that it creeps me out.

On the other hand, I just may need a new and better class of acquaintances?

You may well be onto the more fundamental problem that we no longer can distinguish any sort of progress if it’s not 100% what we want NOW. We may simply have lost the ability to be patient. Corporatism is not going away anytime soon, and we were naive to think it would.

But I still hear too much “boy” in white progressive analysis of Obama. Not SC’s Wilson, to be sure, but a sense of white, male superiority that I find disgusting.

» Posted By choicelady On January 18, 2010 @ 6:45 pm

I have a question I’ve never been able to answer. Why is race relevant? I was raised in a mostly white environment, though for my first 9 years it was working-class Italian, and I’m so WASP I buzz. But I never EVER understood race or any other characteristic as a factor in liking or not liking people. For me it is the equivalent of height – you don’t dislike someone because they’re tall or short, do you? I just don’t get it. Never have.

People ask am I not uncomfortable in a Black crowd where I am what a friend calls “the polka dot”. Sure – but not a whit more uncomfortable than being the only woman with a roomful of men; the only (cough) middle-aged person with young ones; the only short person in a room of tall ones, an academic in room of steelworkers, the only brunette in a roomful of Nordic blondes.

It’s always uncomfortable being the stranger. Once that’s done – who cares? Then people are just people I know and like or dislike or feel nothing about. Then in any setting, you walk in the next time seeing people whom you know, greet, talk with, and nothing is different from any of the other places where you do that.

So I do NOT understand at a gut level what point racism serves. Just do NOT get it, never have.

On the other hand, I am SO aware of racism – because I’m “privileged” to hear it from white people who assume I agree. Or, on the flip side, I experience it because I’m “not with my own kind” so get treated like those with whom I’m standing. As a young woman working with kids in a tough inner city neighborhood in Philadelphia, PA, I got assaulted because I was walking with a Black man in the ‘wrong’ neighborhood. It was terrifying and an amazing, eye-opening experience at age 19. It let me see what hate looked like when it wasn’t being falsely polite. Nothing I’d seen on TV of Selma etc. had prepared me for the actual experience. I was forced to leave my apartment that night because a mob was waiting for me and my friends – I had to evacuate or…? I will never forget it or forgive it, not for what it did to me, but for what it did to the young man who had been with me, in terms of his fear and sense of being forever outside. OK – I won’t forgive the goons for what it did to me – but I can walk away. I have that privilege. He couldn’t escape his identity in a bigoted world, and that plus the whole of his life cost him his mental stability.

Me? I have protective coloration. I will never be arrested for Driving While White. I go to a doctor reasonably confident he or she will hear me (OK there is that woman thing, but still…) I get pulled over for a tail light out? I don’t get attitude or pulled out of the car. Just does not happen to us respectable, middle aged, middle class WHITE people. It just doesn’t.

The flip side of violence is the white Messianic racism. I saw it in the 60s and even now. White people who overidentify, wear dashikis or some other ethnic garb, learn the street slang of whatever group, but never EVER yield their dominance over every damned thing affecting other people’s lives. That, to me, is almost worse because it is more subtle.

It is, IMHO, the thing that leads us back to previous conversations about the narcissistic white privileged people who are “so over” Obama. I think they never really trusted him in the first place because, Harvard education or no, he is, well, Black. So. Obviously he can’t be as smart, hip, savvy, with it as these white elites – who never have gone outside their own comfort and comfort zone. And criticizing Obama means: they can revert to their neo-racism by pretending to be “brave” enough to critize a Black man; they can continue to see themselves as victims because Obama (you know – that Black guy) did not fix everything immediately; and as victims, they do not have to pay attention at ALL to the persistence of inequality and bias that whirls around them. They can blame Obama, not themselves, for poverty and want. Very neat, don’t you think?

Our national obsession with pigeonholing and then hating or at least denigrating someone else in a different box is absurd and dangerous. I really do hope, given the polls, that the younger generations will continue to affirm that boxes don’t matter to them, that race is irrelevant to them, and that they live far more easily as a diverse society than my generation and even the one immediately younger than I. Time may be on our side. I hope so. I want to grow very old and NEVER hear or read stories such as Pepe’s again.

Life is too damned short to waste it on these damned fool attitudes that do so much harm.

» Posted By choicelady On January 18, 2010 @ 4:33 pm