The Bleat, # 10: Cloudy in the West? Is it lookin' like rain...

One of the icons of the "left/civil rights/peace" movement for the past 25 or 30 years, Cornel West has given up on Prez. Lowbar.
Yer cynical ol' perfesser just wonders what Cornel West actually, realistically could have expected.
PrezLowbar was NEVER, and was NEVER gonna be, the "angry Black man" who bearded the white racists in their den. He's not suited for the job, either by experience, personality, or inclination.
Did Cornel actually BELIEVE that the Owners/Oligarchs would entrust the management of THEIR investments to someone who was in the slightest bit inclined to upset their apple-cart?
Really?

I was acquainted with the fiery, passionate Dr. West back in the day, 25 years ago...
Imho: Cornel West made a crucial mistake in interpretation.
He thought the country had elected a "black" man to actually DO something, when the election was more a 'symbolic' gesture--as the immediate reactions of the Right amply demonstrated.
West thought Prez Lowbar would--and, vitally, should and COULD--engage forthrightly, in public, those issues that made his election so notable.
West's apparently been traumatized by this "failure of conscience and courage" by The Prez to use his position to abet the improvement in conditions in ALL Murka's 'disadvantaged' communities.
Unfortunately, in terms of that bothersome 'real politik,' there probably was nothing The Prez could have done to aid the needy without further undermining his already tenuous place and leadership among the "majority."
Had he actively pursued, say, programs to reduce income inequality, PrezLowbar would have been accused by the REAL race-pimps at FauxNooz, like O'Reilly and Hannity, of serving only "his people" (the "darkies"--though 60% of the nation's "poor" are white)...which criticism would have stuck, not because it's true, but because the rhetorical leverage of the Right would have planted it firmly and irreversibly in the public discourse.
For Obama and the Obots,  this presidency has been about the "Legacy" of the First Black President.
It NEVER included ANY place for the "angry, black man" for whom Cornel West hoped, and by whose absence he has been so bitterly disappointed.

The Bleat, #9: Beckish Fuckery

As you can plainly see, Glenn Beck is back proclaiming and predictingthe impending the Gay Jihad against Christians. Beck is one of the foremost wackloon/Cristoid/RWNJ flying monkeys around.

It seems to me, the wackloon/Cristoid/RWNJ flying monkeys feel about atheists, infidels, non-believers, skeptics and the like just about the same way many/most of those same, aforementioned wackloon/Cristoid/RWNJ flying monkeys feel about brown, black, red, non-white people.

That is, the wackloon/Cristoid/RWNJ flying monkeys fear, greatly, that members of BOTH groups would visit upon them the same treatment that historically, those wackloon/Cristoid/RWNJ flying monkeys delivered unto those whom they despised--atheists and brown people--when wackloon/Cristoid/RWNJ flying monkeys TOTALLY ran the world, given the chance..

Their grip is slipping, a little. Not much. It's still a stranglehold, increasingly desperate. 

But the chance IS coming

And when you look at how much bad shit the wackloon/Cristoid/RWNJ flying monkeys are responsible for, when they TOTALLY ran the world, you begin to understand the extent of their trepidation about the future, and their resolve to postpone or forestall it.

The Bleat, # 8: Pizza Fuckery!

If I know your "faith," and I haven't asked you about it, then cully, you've said too much.

There is only ONE reason why folks publicly announce their religious affiliations: To seek, and get "special" treatment, favors, exceptions, dispensations, because of their "faith."

In light of the Indiana, Arkansas, and Georgia anti-glbt laws which rely on alleged biblical prohibitions from an imaginary, "super" being for their justification and rationale, and given that there is only ONE reason to announce one's faith, in public--to be granted certain advantages, considerations, dispensations NOT available to OTHER citizens--my deal is still out there:

I and my non-believing/atheist/skeptical friends will promise never again to publicly speak criticism, or (well-deserved) mockery of folks who place their faith in imaginary beings, "miracles," and other religious "wooo," if--but ONLY if--the god-blighted bible babblers and their smarmy ilk will forevermore refrain from invoking such codswallop to justify special treatment, or consideration, in the public sphere because of it..

Waddaya say, Cristoids?

The Bleat, #7: Apologetic Fuckery

.
.
Frats and sororities have always been enclaves of privilege. It wasn't so obvious when going to college/university itself was not so democratic. It's become all the MORE so since WW II, when so many of the great unwashed have started attending their colleges and universities.

There is a kind of genteel, de facto racism that pervades 'higher' class whites inna South, a kind of off-handedness about it, a sense that it's a 'pro-forma' exercise; not like the bone-deep serious hate of the yokels and proles.

The cheese-wit in the accompanying video is a 'legacy' of that system. So don't think for an instant that this little shit-stain's not "sorry" for the song.

The skeevy, whining dick-wipe is sorry he got caught.

THAT it's prolly gonna cost him.

He's sorry for THAT. You fucking BETCHA he's sorry for THAT!

Not for singing the fucking ditty, which he'd sung with pride a thousand times before, with his 'house' mates and (all-white) frat 'brothers' who STILL sing it (when they think no one's listening)...

Let the skeevy little fukkker rot in his own poisonous, bilious racism...

The racial-slur-filled ditty that this cumstain was recorded chanting enthusiastically on the bus filled with his fraternity brothers, who whistled and applauded, is in it way the epitome and embodiment of racism. 

First, it repeats the most reprehensible racial epithet with asswholish glee and enthusiasm, while proclaiming the intention to prevent anyone to whom the epithet could apply from ever joining the singer, on the bus, or ANY SAE bus, going anywhere.
Fuckery in the service of raw, racial exclusion; racism in thumb-nail. Case closed.

The Bleat Goes On, #6: Religious Fuckery

Since the GOPhux 'restoration' in Congress, there has been a spate of nasty, mean-spirited attempts both in Congress and in the States to roll back recent gains by GLBT citizens and Gay Rights generally. A case in point is the troglodyte Senator from Okiestan, Jim Inhofe (whose family, he declared some time ago, was and had always been entirely free of either divorce or faggotry):

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) introduced ten amendments Tuesday to the Senate Budget Resolution for fiscal year 2016, including one that takes direct aim at marriage equality. According to Inhofe’s office, Amendment 381 seeks to prevent the federal government from “discriminating against individuals, businesses, or organizations based on their sincerely held religious beliefs regarding abortion or marriage.” In essence, Inhofe’s proposed amendment would endorse the idea that organizations, businesses and individuals have the right to discriminate against same-sex couples due to their personally held religious beliefs. (https://www.metroweekly.com/2015/03/inhofe-amendment-brings-religious-liberty-debate-to-the-senate/)

Yer ol' perfesser answered the query "Why do they keep on with this nonsense?" this way:

They're ginning up sentiment among festering Fundies and the fervent legions of god-blighted bible babblers for a Constitutional Convention. The Righturds hold majorities in 31 of the 34 States necessary to demand a ConCon. There is BIG money--private, dark, dirty money--being spent at the state level to garner the rest. Which is itself, terrifying.

What's even MORE terrifying izzat the notion of a ConCon will be sold to the proles and drones of the LEFT as the way to remedy Hobby Lobby, Citizens United, etc. The naive queefs will swallow it whole, only to be "betrayed" on the end.

 That's cuz: Once there's a ConCon convened, EVERYTHING is in the table. Nothing is sacred.

 This has to be a terrifying prospect in an era when the electronic plebiscite is a real possibility. It has been shown in research that around 50% of the citizens in the USofA would NOT approve all 10 of the amendments in the Bill of Rights, and/or the 13 and 14th Amendments, now.

 There seems to me to be no way to hold a ConCon that would not be overtaken, overwhelmed, overmatched by the interests and resources of the CorpoRat State, and that would not, hence, become a ritual installation of the CorpoRat State--probably with some kind of 'National religion,' AND CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRICTIONS ON ABORTION AND MARRIAGE to keep the wackturd, RWNJ/Cristoids happy...

 Convening a ConCon would be a fucking BONANZA for the CorpoRatz, Oligarchs and Plutocratz, as well as the Dominionists...

There is no way to prevent it.

The Bleat, #5: Politics IS "Dirty Tricks"

Apparently some Wascawy Wepubwican Wabbit "covertly" inserted anti-abortion language into a Senate bill supposed only and innocently to address human trafficking*. 

And Yer Ol' Perfesser, along with a considerable percent of the leftish commentariat, is SHOCKED, as you might imagine. SHOCKED. Claude Rains has nothing on ME!

Is NOTHING sacred? (Clutches pearls, struggles to untwist undergarments; fails)

Please? Someone? Anyone?

Would SOMEONE explain to me why the Obots and or the DIMS had expected the GOPhux would suddenly start to "play fair" on anything? 

Ancient Maxim: Expect the worst, and seldom be disappointed...

Ror at LEAST the last 40 years, their covert and defining goal was NEVER to govern.

Their goal HAS BEEN to make the merest idea of government as detestable as they can make it.

They WANT to alienate you from your popular sovereignty, from even these faint, archaic vestiges of your representative democracy.

That's the WHOLE FUCKING POINT.

It's been in the open since the Raygoons in the 80s.

Remember the "Nine Words": "I'm from the Govt and I'm here to help."

That was the start, 30 years ago.

Their goal isn't to govern. It's NEVER been to govern.

It's to show that 'democratic government' cannot succeed.

It's to alienate the people from the only agency that can protect them from power of concentrated Capital.

It's to disable and delegitimize  the institutions, instruments and precedents that have kept the Ravishers in check at all over the last 150 years.

The good news is, they're almost finished.

Just one more step:

They want the people to become so sick of it all that they can sell 'em all, right and left, on a Constitutional Convention, which, of course, the Oligarchs, Plutocrats, and Aristos will own, lock, stock and barrel, and will control and direct and programme, just like any OTHER political convention wherein the outcome is already known. (Agan, pro wrasslin comes to mind...)


Then: Enter "The Corporate State," with no persky civil rights, no inefficient environmental protections, no expensive workers' rights, and --to placate the armed wing of the cult--no abortion, no gay marriage, and an official state religion. 

Are you ready?

Better be; cuz they are...

* http://bluenationreview.com/even-human-trafficking-bill-isnt-safe-gops-dirty-tricks/

The Bleat, #4: Uses of Power

Woody's been hearing lotso folks (civics-deprived, I'd judge) wonder what gives the Senatorial GOPhux the 'right' to intrude in the Iranian negotiations, to shove their oar in there to try to fuck up the pending arrangements.

It's an ancient principle in law, going back to Hamurabi, probably. to wit:

When one has power, one CAN do anything that no one can STOP one from doing: That which is not specifically prohibited is permitted.

It's always been this way. It has always been possible to usurp the power of the people.

It's just that until now, nobody had the political cover to do it.

There were gentleman's agreements--handshakes among equals-- that prevented such overreaching.

Now, with the "First Black president" in office, that cover --the embedded and inextricable racism of the USer people-- has thoughtfully been provided.

The GOPhux clearly believe that there is no sufficient, countervailing political force to oppose them.
And there is none.

There are no laws forbidding what they are doing, which is mainly fully and selfishly availing themselves of everything their heir power supplies them. GOPhux've been demonstrating that, successfully, at every opportunity, since 1981.

So here's the dilemma: Prez Lowbar--a black, as you recall-- is NOT gonna send in the US marshals to arrest the hierarchy of the White People's party. Nagahapun. He won't/can't for so many reasons it would exhaust the rest of the day explaining them, so take my word for it...The Dims in Congress don't have the majorities they need to be able to show even a simulacrum of a spine and resist the GOPhux. The Dims just don't have the status for it.

Also, of course, the Judiciary is split 5-4 for the CorpoRatz, Dominionists, and Big Money Despite their shameless fawning, the Oligarchs STILL regard the Dims with contempt, and support the GOPhux efforts to use racism to camouflage their true agenda: the final elimination of popular sovereignty and democratic self-government...

Their NEXT step, after capturing the legislatures of just THREE more states, is a constitutional convention to inscribe that agenda into law: mebbe as early as sometime in 2017.

The GOPhux couldn't pull this off unless Prez Lowbar was the weakest president in recent history. But he is, so they can...And will continue to do so...until somebody stops 'em; but nobody's gonna do that...

The Bleat Goes In, # 3: Some Semiotics

Criminally Cold?

The early, influential French semiotics guy, Roland Barthes, made something of a career of apprehending fleeting cultural phenomena and interrogating them to attempt to reveal the deeper systems of signification they both convey and constitute. 

That the police in the metropolis of Harlan, Kentucky, had issued an arrest warrant for Elsa, the cartoon character from the Disney hit Frozen, in connection with the unprecedented, freezing, snowy winter weather in the region is such a phenomenon, I think. Barthes might have been intrigued. In his vocabulary, the arrest warrant is a symbol of the present wish to dispel winter, but of a deeper awareness and denial of complicity in the complaint..

First, probably,  he'd have noted the ubiquity of Disney imagery in the landscape of our general popular imagination, it's given-ness, and perhaps speculated upon the corpoRat colonization of the mind's collective eye. Eco, too, has commented on the implications of such immersion; he called it "Disneyfication" in Travels in Hyper--Reality.

And then he might have turned to the 'joke': the deliberately comic conceit that 'the weather' might be capable of being arrested. it being a subtle allusion to the charge that is is ONLY weather that is changing, and the extension of the false equivalence, frequently indulged in by the deniers, that climate and weather are the same.

Which, our deceased semiotician might have postulated, could be seen as a trivialization of the severity of the changes that impending, and apparently faster approaching catastrophic climate change than had previously been indicated, would certainly include. 

He might then have digressed: We never tire of naming the elements; to name them, we think, is to exert some control. We call the wind Mariah; now the cold is called Elsa. 

And then he might have concluded by suggesting that--if not the--at least some of the real culprits for the recent climactic plagues to befall the region--Harlan County, KY--could be traced directly to the coal that provided the livelihoods (and identities) to so many of those whom the cold now so sore afflicted.

I know some folks'd say that reminds 'em a little of Karma...We can chat about it when i see ya at the beach. Paz, hippies.

The Bleat Goes On, #2: The Dis-Education President

On the whole, yer ol perfesser detests the current incumbent SLIGHTLY less than his predecessor, on a number of grounds. There is ample reason for fierce criticism of ThePrez.
But, if there is one thing for which I shall bear Prez. Shamwow F. Lowbar an eternal and undying enmity, it will be his treatment of the nation's schools and students. 
It is also that area, schooling, in which he most clearly betrays his servile,corpoRat bona fides.
Obama may have had generous intentions, but he if so, they were still-born when he installed and has KEPT that flaming, cortpRat douchebag, Arne Duncan, as SecEd...
Duncan has been the leader of the swarming hordes of corpoRats, privatizers, real estate tycoon, testing grifters high techers, and other smarmy opportunists looking to extract as much of the public treasure as they can from the country's public schools, to get it while the getting is good.
Under the Lowbarry/Duncan regime, it's gotten better and better.,..
Duncan, a corpoRat lawyer with only distant relations to the nitty gritty of schooling, has been a leader of the pack of jackals snapping at teachers' heels, accusing and abusing them for the systematic---and systematically engineered--failures within the institution. Teachers can no more be blamed for their students' successes or failures, measured by occasional tests, no matter the stakes, than can dentists be blamed for their patients' personal hygene between visits..
For 30 years, schools and teachers (unions) have been targets of legislative and corpoRat efforts to provide the impetus for the wholesale privatization of schooling, and Lowbar and his ass-hole hoops-playing buddy have opened the door and unlocked the safe.
Teachers are NOT responsible for the conditions that produce bad educational outcomes, when the single variable most correlated with school success is the child's residential Zip code. But, by his silence towards Duncan's calumnies, the cowardly President encourages the kinds of arrant nonsense spouted by the 'reformers.' 

The Last Stand of the Po' White Trash: "FUCK NO!" To A Con Con

Sarah Palin and her slattern/round-heeled, drunk daughter, Bristol, are in the forefront of a movement to call a Constitutional Convention to reverse 'liberal' successes in race relations, etc, and roll back Government regulation.
And it's what yer ol' perfesser's scared the shit outta by, if you get my meaning. It is really scary, because it is VERY possible they might succeed.
No, really!
Forget that the she-bear and her twunt daughter are involved. That's just window dressing, to bring in the yokels, proles, and drones. There is a very REAL danger that the Righturds can garner enough support in State legislatures to force a ConCon.
Which would be the worst KIND of a disaster from the perspective of a democratic citizenry.
http://www.alan.com/…/sarah-and-bristol-palin-want-to-rewr…/

Don't dismiss this just because Caribou Barbie and her teen twunt are at the point. They're very attractive to a certain segment of the populace. What you have to remember is that the essential feature of this appeal is the embedded, racial message.

This is the :Last Stand" of White People--people who's first source of identity is their whiteness.
They are going to try to use their (declining, but still substantial) status as the racial majority to preserve their fading privileges by rewriting the Constitution to if not expressly favor their interests, at least to prevent their 'enemies' from using it to project MORE threats to 'em.

See: It's not a "crazy" strategy.  The States can demand a constitutional convention if 3/4 agree.  They need 38 States to convene a ConCon. They have 30, with at least three more teetering toward the Darkness. 
This is exactly why the Kochs and the rest are spending so much money in the states on 'local' elections. Wackloon/cristoid/fundie/teahadists (i.e., the GOPhux) now are in the majority in a MAJORITY (at least 30) States' legislatures. They could take NM; they almost did, last time. Time and Citizens United are on their side. It's even MORE insidious on the state level than in Federal elections, and it's easier to corrupt the locals.

You might think a convention to rewrite the Constitution would be a good idea. And I would wonder at your sanity.  Who does anyone imagine would direct the institution, organization, management, and outcome of such an undertaking if NOT the very oligarchs who have worked and spent mightily for the past 60 years to accomplish what they now enjoy?

I cannot think of a single way to have a ConCon and prevent it from becoming the ratification of the Corporate State.

They need only capture EIGHT more states.

http://www.statescape.com/.../partysplits/partysplits.aspx