Arianna Huffington thinks Hilary mis-speaks

She thinks judging by Hilary's appeance on "Inside Politics" Hilary fails her limus test for the 2008 Democratic nominee: someone who can utter, in plain English, an unambiguous, unequivocal sentence about Iraq. For the record, here's the Huffington blog post:

Judy Woodruff asked a very specific question: “Record numbers of Americans continue to die in Iraq. No end to the violence in sight that most people can see. When should the United States begin significant troop withdrawals?”

Hillary reacted like a vampire being shown a cross or an ABC executive seeing the ratings for their Trump TV movie… then offered up the following head scratcher:

You know, I am not one who feels comfortable setting exit strategies. We don't know what we're exiting from. We don't know what the situation is moving toward…. How do we know where we're headed, when we don't know where we are?

Wow. Very existential. Very Zen koan. If a foreign policy disintegrates in the desert and no one hears it fail, what does this mean for our country and for our safety?

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of one Greek gagging. Senator Clinton, if you are not “comfortable setting exit strategies”, can you direct us to someone who is? Because our soldiers are dying every day waiting for someone who is comfortable setting an exit strategy.

I’ve just decided that I do have a litmus test for the 2008 Democratic nominee: someone who can utter, in plain English, an unambiguous, unequivocal sentence about Iraq.

I reckon even discounting the black-box balloting systems effect, there isn't a single one of these "I-refuse-to stand-for-anything-controversial-I-may-be-required-to-defend-Democrats are going to win the next Presidential race. Not one, not Hilary Clinton nor anybody else, Iraq strategy/clarity or not. Dems must recognize what Bush & Co have done, before they engage in electoral/political battle.

A GW Bush aide once said something to Ron Suskind that Democrats don't seem to get, and that is: they create their own reality. The context was empire-related, but I contend it applies domestically too. It sounds like sheer madness to us reality-based folk, but it couldn't be more true.

The 'reality' that GWB & Co have created is one of (perceived) principled/moral leadership: saying what you mean, meaning what you say, in plain/faulty English. Facts, truth, and science (all reality-based notions) be damned. His "would I lie to you? I am a C-student; I'm not a DC politician. real politicians are elitist haters" facade, is the biggest swindle of our political times. But there is a demand for honest, straight-talking politicians and GWB is cashing in, fraudulently albeit.

The fact that he is a fraud doesn't change anything, he has "created a reality" of the ultimate truth-teller. Worse, he has made other polished politicians look like lying, elitist, double-speaking-stand-for-nothing careerists who just wanna get elected.

Hilary Clinton/John Kerry/ANOther could have an clear Iraq strategy or not, it makes no difference she/he are still double-speaking-stand-for-nothing careerists who just wanna get elected. That's the challenge, rightly or wrongly, that's the "created reality." Show me one Democrat who can win this.

On a related note, the other day GWB said,
"in my line of work you gotta keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kinda catapult the propaganda." It doesn't matter if he's lying; if he says it enough times, Bob's your uncle, it's reality (created naturally). Witness, America is a liberal democracy, and yet "liberals" are public enemy No.1. Created realities.

How quickly can Dems supplant this reality? Or, who can mold him/herself seamlessly into it? Not Hilary Clinton, not John Kerry either. In fact, in the current climate/reality even Bill Clinton would lose, IMHO. Dems need to think/act very differently about defeating the current crop of Repubs; litmus tests on Iraq, while okay, are reality-based approaches; don't expect them to win us anything.
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Full quote from RON SUSKIND, Without a Doubt, NYT Magazine: "That's not the way the world really works anymore... We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Viagra: To fuck and go blind, or not to fuck at all. That is the question.

whether tis nobler in the mind to forego all fucking
Or to take up viagra and spank it.

apologies to Will Shakespeare.

There's something mildly hilarious about the possibility of viagra causing blindness, but only because of the wanking-blindness (mythical) connection.

I bet you, there are old people going, "I told you so"; or maybe not - they use the shit. Anyway, there should be old people everywhere, boldly asserting, "this viagra stuff will make you go blind: A boner for 36 hours is bound to starve certain vitals of blood-oxygen for way too long." In other words, make certain vitals ischemic.

Now, I'd like to know this, faced with the blindness-impotence conundrum, what would most men choose? Going blind or foregoing fucking..... If wanking has taught us anything, I'd put my money in favour of going blind.

Warren Beatty is not happy with the Gropinator

Warren Beatty gives a stirring speech, criticising the Gropinator, and the right-wing political agenda in general.

I have often wondered, what the fuck needs to happen for this country to change course? Beatty answers this too. It is apparent that the Democratic leadership are not the answer, really. They too are vested in a myopic reality of "getting elected." Fuckers will say and do whatever shit will get them elected.

The answer is, the American public has to rise up and say, "enough with this shit." Right now, as Beatty points out, it's a case of "a state in which the wealthy class rules. And most of the public sleeps."

The American public is asleep, or worse still, enthralled/hypnotized by "entertainment devices." For so long as that remains the case, you change is a very real impossibility. Now, the rich are doing everyting they can to keep the masses asleep, and hypnotized so they can continue to fuck them. If the masses were awake, they'd realize they're being raped.

So, how do you wake this sleeping giant? I don't know.

"And with the obscenely increasing disparity of wealth, what does the wealthy class buy?

Our attention. Access. Through buying satellites and cable and television and radio stations and newspapers and magazines and direct mailings and spokesmodels and financing political candidates, it buys Access. An obscene amount of access to our opinion."

Is it hopeless to compete with this access to the public's attention by asking: "Are you aware of the effect of the right-wing deregulation and consolidation of media on public opinion and public policy in this din of the technological tornado that has miniaturized our attention span while what passes for the truth is manipulated by fewer and fewer hands and a sleepy citizenry is aroused by very little other than entertainment devices and most individual entertainer-personalities in the news media become more and more reluctant to resist the conservative politics of their employers? And that there are steps that we as voters can take to rally our legislators into action that can curtail, eliminate or at least ameliorate this movement to plutocracy?"

Difficult.

But if you ask: "Can't you wake the hell up you sleepy sons of bitches and find out what you can do to keep these rich bullshitters from feeding you this crap and telling you what to think?"

Well, that might be a better sound bite, but it risks censorship in mainstream media as obscenity.

Justice Potter Stuart said of pornography: "I'll know it when I see it." So if we do see obscenity and we know it, what should our public policy be? Silence? At what point should one hear the sound of one's own voice?

There are few things quite as daunting for an individual as trying to protest against the voice of an energetic marketing [person] who holds the podium of public office who's funded by a plutocracy who's willing to say whatever expedient thing works for the moment.

But it's less daunting, however, for a group -- a group with conviction -- who are willing to organize publicly.

Beatty, doesn't go into how the fuck to wake the masses. I guess he is supposing, he is doing his bit, and asking the graduates to do their bit. Frankly, it's a nightmare task. The access to people's attention, and the fact that generally the masses are neither "concientized" nor educated sufficiently to see through this. Even the educated class are not educated enough to deal with this. Some of the smartest people I know in this country are the dumbest people politically. And quite frankly, nobody wants to spend time fighting this: people work to make a living, or ends meet. This shit seems kinda remote. And, the Democratic crop of leaders ain't gonna help, I repeat.


So what's the answer? How is change going to come? When it all goes to the dogs. Will it all go to the dogs? I don't know. It has to REALLY all go to the dogs for the masses to wake up. Material comforts make a nation unambitious, and this is, ironically, one of the most unambitious nations in the world today. The trend is towards anti-intellectualism, anti-science and anti-reason or rationality. Witness the immigration laws. Canada, the UK and others have a system that encourages the educated class to land on their shores. The US has a practically blind green card-lottery, that cares only about country of origin. The US needs an unquestioning class of good consumers.

Me things, the masses are going to be asleep for a long, long time. This is what makes - wait for the refrain - "America a great country" that is, for anybody wanting to take advantage, join in the pillaging and raping of a sleeping public. Why the fuck should a fucker care, if the fuckees don't care, right? Fuck on, I say - it might wake 'em up sooner.

Rafa Benitez is a footballing God

How the fuck do you score 3 goals against il muro, without a striker, really?

The man is a miracle-worker. As a result, Liverpool lord it over AC Milan

Jerzy Dudek actually understands that his job is to prevent goal-scoring, it's a fucking miracle.

I adore Paolo Maldini, but Milan are owned by Berlusconi maiale - so no tears for them.

Fiveron the Malcolm Glazer Debacle

The Fiver rocks today, yesterday rather. Haven't slept yet.

Fat Yankie,
and The Tall Guy

GO ROWDIES!

Pension-thief and failed swimmer Robert Maxwell couldn't do it, ball-juggling fantasist Michael Knighton couldn't do it, and even tax-avoiding tycoon Rupert Murdoch couldn't do it: but today, Malcolm Glazer slung his bloated belly over his shoulder and, amid triumphant cackles, declared to the world that he has taken control of Manchester United soccerball after buying up Irish racing barons JP McManus and John Magnier's 28.7% stake.

Tracked down to York racecourse and asked to explain his 300p-per-share sell-out, Magnier snooted: "I don't want to talk about it, I want to talk about horses!" The Coolmore Mafia's decision means that Glazer now owns a thumping 56.9% of United, although - as you'd expect from someone who took his six sisters to court over their mother's will - he's not happy with sharing and has now launched a full takeover bid reported to be worth £790.3m.

Strangely the plc's fans, who've banded together under the nonsensical banner 'the Not For Sale Coalition', have been scratching their heads in befuddlement. "This is by no means over," Oliver Houston, of Shareholders United, insisted. "Our message to Glazer and to people daft enough to lend him all this money is that you are going to see a very sharp fall in profits. Manchester United is going to become an extremely tainted brand." If what's gone on recently with Rio and Rooney hasn't tainted it already, of course.

Despite the fans' defiance, things don't look good. If Glazer increases his stake to 75% he'll be able to shift all his debts on to the club, and if he gobbles 90% he can make a compulsory purchase of the remaining 10%. Then, since his aim is to raise United's popularity in the US, there's nothing to stop him changing the club's name to the MU Rowdies, ordering Wayne Rooney to further fatten up (so American kids can identify with him), or even replacing Sir Alex with David Hasselhoff - although at least the Hoff would be able to spot that Roy Keane's best days are behind him, if nothing else.



The Fiver is written by Paul Doyle and Georgina Turner
Thursday May 12, 2005 "

The Rude Pundit on Fucking Republicans, Literally

This is one of The Rude Pundit's best entries. This one just takes the case.

Visit the Rude Pundit, he rocks.

Sorry I am just going to cut and paste to preserve for austerity. He doesn't have

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5/12/2005
Stupid Fucking Republicans:
The Rude Pundit has known some sexy animals in his time. Dogs that he thought winked at him, including this fine Irish setter bitch that would glare intensely at him while she licked herself. Cats that liked to nuzzle a bit too tightly in his lap. The Rude Pundit once lived on a corn farm in the middle of fucking nowhere, and the farmer would buy a new cow every year to fatten up for slaughter. Farmer Joe never named the cows (except "Sirloin" or "Porterhouse"), but early on, oh, sweet bossie, this one cow had some hot haunches, a quietly erotic sashay whenever it walked from one hay bundle to the next, inviting "lips" bemusedly chewing cud. Goddamn. Still, however much those animals appeared to be saying, "You know you want some sweet canine/feline/bovine 'tang," the Rude Pundit was never once tempted to open the barn doors to paradise. In fact, Farmer Joe's teenage sons never porked bossie, either. But maybe there was a problem. Maybe we all needed a mule.

'Cause, see, when the abortion doctor murderer enabler Neal Horsley told Alan Colmes that he had fucked farm animals, Horsley, honoring the first syllable of that name, specified that he had, indeed, fucked a mule: "When you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule." (He has a picture of his parents posted at his website of hate.) Now, Horsley didn't say whether or not he brought the mule flowers or if he cuddled after fucking her, but Horsley got his country dander up when Colmes suggested that this was bizarre behavior. Said Colmes, "Are you suggesting that everybody who grows up on a farm in Georgia has a mule as a girlfriend?"

Horsley, not a man to back down when someone's talkin' smack about his squeeze, answered, "It has historically been the case. You people are so far removed from the reality... Welcome to domestic life on the farm." Think about that. Think for just a second about what Horsley is saying: "liberals" must be disconnected if they don't realize that animals are being raped on a daily basis on the farms of America. And Horsley is waving the banner for proud mule rapists everywhere. In fact, for proud fucking Republicans everywhere, forcing their wives or the children of others to perform sex that Jesus might find, well, problematic.

And it's fuckin' everywhere, the fuckin'. It's gay fuckin', group fuckin', straight anal fuckin', just so much fuckin', where the repressed libidos of ranting right wingers runs rampant. Somewhere in heaven, Michel Foucault is laughing his sore ass off.

There's Jim West, wayward gay-bashing mayor of Spokane, who not only fucked men he met at Gay.com, offering jobs and gifts to young men he wanted to bugger, but he is being investigated for having fucked young boys back in the 1970s. West made his name by blocking and getting into a huff about gay rights legislation.

There's the appointee to the Bush administration's FDA advisor committee on reproductive health drugs, W. David Hager, who as an OB/GYN for Jesus refused to prescribe contraceptives for unmarried women and has written that women who suffer from PMS should pray for help. Apparently one reason Hager never worred about contraception is because he loves the ass fucking. He loves the ass fucking so goddamn much that he raped his (now ex-)wife's ass repeatedly for years. Said the former Mrs., Linda Davis, "I would be asleep and since [the ass fucking] was painful and threatening, I woke up. Sometimes I acquiesced once he had started, just to make it go faster, and sometimes I tried to push him off.... I would [confront] David later, and he would say, 'You asked me to do that,' and I would say, 'No, I never asked for it.'" Hager believes he was called by God to stop abortion and emergency contraception. But apparently God was too busy to slip into his calls to Hager, "Hey, Davey, by the way, stop raping your wife's asshole. It's fucked-up and, frankly, it's kinda gay."

The list could go on and on and on, with closeted gay Republicans, Bill O'Reilly's happy endings and desires for new beginnings, and more. Hell, this ain't even to mention the latest about John "Fuck You, You Democratic Cocksuckers" Bolton, who, it seems, allegedly forced his wife to swing back in the late 1970s, baby, and have group sex at the hot couples joints.

Somehow a blow job under the desk seems so quaint, you know? Next to the throbbing perverse desires of the right that explode in destructive behavior against those who love them and those they want to fuck, the simple placing of consensual lips around a consensual cock is so comforting. It recontextualizes everything, doesn't it, all this crazed fucking. No wonder the right wants to destroy the legacy of the old and new left. They're jealous that they never got to enjoy it. And it's going to send them over a cliff. Rome burned because the leaders were so busy giving in to their sex drives run amok that they never saw the barbarians coming.
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If I hear the meme, "make us safe" one more time

I will vomit and hurt somebody with sheer force of it.

Witness this

The film US TV networks dare not show

If it requires you to think, they don't want to know.

But Al Jazeera will show it. So who's free now.

Adam Curtis documentary The Power of Nightmares. If you've seen it, you are one lucky motherfucker.

Osama, you are having a laugh.

Computer Vision Syndrome, bad for you

You don't fuckin say? Why doo scientists tell that the obvious. First this and now this. Bastardi.

Hours in front to a computer screen, BAD. Bad for your eyes, back and neck. Actually they forgot to add: butt, hips, as well as hip joints.

Where's the discovery part?

Chappelle in psych hospital in SA

Anybody know, what the fuck happened to David Chappelle? A mental hospital? Seriously is $50 mil that fucking offensive to a man's senses?

I dig him though. He's fucking hilarious.

George Bush is just so fucking annoying.

There. I needed to get that out my system.

No particular reference to this:Georgian Crowd Embraces Bush article from WaPo.

Oppressed and Unaware

If a man is oppressed, but doesn't realize it. Is he really oppressed?
Shouldn't oppression be perceivable?

UK Election- The people and the political class are at one: neither wants to face the future' | Energy and Peak Oil News

Paul Gray from Energy Bulletin. Some sensible reflectio on the UK election.

The funny thing is, Paul Gray is/has been a conservative, but apparently "during the 1990s, Gray revised his views to question free trade, the laissez-faire market system and the Enlightenment project more generally. He is now better known for his criticism of the excesses of neoliberal ideology, and has published several books on the subject..."


These type of people, former conservatives, are my favourite writers these days. The critical social thought that comes out of them is fascinating bcos it actually harbours hope that believers might yet see the light.

Like I say,Republican have run amok

This Robertson guy shits through his mouth on a daily basis. That 700 Club of his is unbelievable horseshit. And the Repugs who appear on it horseshit peddlers.

Now this
Paraphrase, " Muslims, high office, NOT and.' Yeah.

I should write a book abaout this crazy world

I inhabit with crazy people. One of my colleagues - crazy as a hoot is in tears, has been all fucking day. It's a fucking sunday for god's sake. It's now Monday morning and her face is still , peach-red, eyes swollen from the evident recent crying.

Unfortunately, I have become most unsympathetic to crying people in general. God knows Ihave spent enough time listening to crying whining people to last me a lifetime. I refuse to do, now. Fuck it. It's fucking stressful listening to other people's problems. I got cazzi miei.

The down side is I don't actually get to find out what the fuck is bothering her. I'm going to have to ask a third party.

Why the fuck do women cry so much? Explain this to me. I am a woman and I don't get it.

I have a lame theory, it's because they aren't real sports fans. Huh, how's that? You can't be a sports fanatic and spend half your life crying. There isn't enough time for both. :+)

Monbiot is with Wolfowitz, as am I.

Prior to reading Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, I would have said, "what, are you crazy?" But he is right. The wolfowitz appointment is actually good thing: it shows up this institution for what it really is.

The Brettons Woods institutions serve the hegemonic interests of the United States, and have always done so. There is nothing benevolent about them. What is surprising is, seemingly how much more important "waiving their dicks" at everybody is to neocons, than safeguarding their interests:

"The former British minister Clare Short laments that “it’s as though they are trying to wreck our international systems.”(17) Well, what a tragedy that would be. I would sob all the way to the party...this surely illustrates is the unacknowledged paradox in neocon thinking. They want to drag down the old, multilateral order and replace it with a new, American one. What they consistently fail to understand is that the “multilateral” system is in fact a projection of US unilateralism, cleverly packaged to grant the other nations just enough slack to prevent them from fighting it. Like their opponents, the neocons have failed to understand how well Roosevelt and Truman stitched up the international order in America’s interests. They are seeking to replace a hegemonic system which is enduring and effective with one which is untested and (because the other nations must fight it) unstable. Anyone who believes in global justice should wish them luck." - Monbiot

On that note I wish them neocons well. It's going to take at least two generations to undue the effects of the Bush Legacy to the US. Ironically, this same legacy may be good for the rest of the world in the long run. For the first time in history, American hegemony is being questioned and challenged at the unlikeliest places.

At this point, I just want Boy Emperor to fuck-up majorly at every turn. Go-ahead invade Iran: overreach militarily, the economy can't afford it. It's the perfect diet for the end of empire.