Joe Klein of Time mag has produced a column in which, as usual, he interviews American salt-of-the-earth in the south for ways to restore “common cause.” It’s worthless. There will never be common cause in this country. There never was.
The people in the interview imagine a place from their past, which didn’t exist. What existed was that they were on top or where they wanted to be and all those they despised then and still despise, the designated no-goods, were out of sight.
I doubt if there was ever any time when I thought there were a big bunch of American comrades who could could gather around a campfire and sing songs like at Boy Scout Camp. In fact, I hated Boy Scout Camp and the whole idea of the shared rote ritual and duty, always designed by someone else allegedly more knowing than you.
Strip away Klein’s musings, leaving only the quotes from the interviews, and it reads as nasty business, older whites who, as usual, want to have it stuck to someone else, usually of different color, religion, sexuality, or place on the totem pole — preferably smaller and powerless.
The picture of the veteran with the bald head, shaking his finger, tells you what’s in store.
Richard’s coffee shop and military museum in Mooresville, N.C., is a down-home place where veterans from all our modern wars gather most days to talk and feel comfortable in ways they only can among their fellow warriors …
Most of those who spoke with me were Vietnam veterans, and they were not thrilled with the way the country was going. When I asked them how they’d rate Barack Obama as Commander in Chief, they started to laugh, which I thought was unfair and disrespectful …
It turned out that these vets, like many I’ve met, simply didn’t trust anyone who hadn’t been through boot camp–and so their pool of acceptable leaders was diminishing dramatically …
“There isn’t an 18-year-old boy who doesn’t need to get his butt kicked,” added Nosker [the finger-pointing old white guy], “by someone in a position of complete authority.”
This theme kept coming up in meeting after meeting during my first five days on the road, though usually in less vivid fashion …
For the conservatives, the country had changed beyond their imagining; not just civil rights but gay rights (a contentious referendum recently banned gay marriage in North Carolina), and new ethnic groups that seemed foreign–the South Asians who all of a sudden seemed to run half the convenience stores, the Latinos who didn’t seem to want to speak English. Why, even the President of the United States was something strange, neither black nor white. For liberals, it was all about intolerance.
[Because it is about intolerance. The first two sentences of the paragraph are just that. Everyone — the ‘everyone’ being the gays, the ‘new ethnic groups,’ the people who don’t speak English — needs a ‘kick in the butt’ to get with the program.]
But we were all Americans, I’d remind both sides. How were we going to get to know each other better, find some common ground?
[A lot don’t want common ground with the people interviewed for the piece. Why should they? As a decent human being it would be reasonable to want to have nothing to do with the intolerant. Just because we’re all “Americans’ by birth isn’t much of a reason for coming together.]
“I went to a private school where the students did all the cleanup work ourselves, except for the heavy-duty plumbing and electrical work, and it created a real camaraderie. I just went to my 50th high school reunion, and that spirit was still there. And I’ll tell you what else, we didn’t have very much destructive behavior or graffiti in our school …”
I asked if anyone around the table was opposed to Obamacare. “I am,” said Terry Kinum, 69, a recovering alcoholic, retired from the Navy, who now works with addicted veterans. “I’m sick and tired of all these welfare and socialist-type Marxist programs we’re being inundated with.”
Yes, the Mitt Romney private school was so civilized fifty years ago. All the nice white boys and girls from the good families kept the place neat, clean and orderly. No riff raff allowed. For sure, it proved they were made of all the right stuff.
Another day, another first person piece — like grains of sand — on the people of good will at the coffee shop.
We had a saying for this man, even back in ’74: “Blow it out your ass.”
Estimated median household (2 – 3 people) income in Sangamon County, IL: $53,000.
Price of Ted Nugent to speak at GOP Party dinner in Sangamon Country recently: $25,000, 10 thousand of which was for a special air flight from Waco to deliver the speaker.
Meanwhile, another significant bit of information has surfaced about the Springfield appearance of rocker and conservative activist TED NUGENT at the Sangamon County GOP’s Lincoln Day dinner Feb 10.
A large-donation report filed by the party with the State Board of Elections on May 24 listed a $10,000 in-kind contribution from Brandt Consolidated, a Springfield-based farm supply business.
The description of the donation is “Airflight,??? and it turns out that the passenger on that flight was Nugent.
Nugent’s appearance — which became controversial because of comments Nugent made about President BARACK OBAMA, such as calling the President an “America-hating punk??? — took place before
e Long became the party chair. She said Kent Gray made the connection with Brandt Consolidated.
Large donations are supposed to be reported in a matter of days after they are made, not three months later.
“We had a horrible time trying to reach someone to get the cost,??? Long said when asked about the delay.
RICK BRANDT, a Tampa, Fla., resident and president and CEO of the company, said he personally owns the jet, and there could have been a delay in billing from the company that manages the aircraft for him. He said he provided a one-way trip for Nugent from Texas.
“Being a child of the ’80s, I didn’t want to miss that,??? he said of the flight with Nugent. “It was neat to meet him.???
The party also paid a $15,000 appearance fee for Nugent.
Cheapest one-way flight from Waco to Springfield: $300, coach, from ExPedia.
“We have a guy in the White House who is an absolute, America-hating punk,??? Nugent said. “And it isn’t really the punk’s fault. It’s we the people for bending over and letting the punk in the door.???
“How about a welfare program … (where) for every kid who gets a sandwich from the welfare program, there’s about 10,000 pigs buying bling-bling, dope and meth with my welfare money,???
“If we don’t fix the United States government this November, we will get exactly what we asked for,??? Nugent said, “and it won’t be the rabid coyote’s fault for getting into our living room – it will be our fault for not shooting him.???
President Obama angrily denied today that his White House team is the source of national security leaks on alleged terrorist “kill lists” and cyber attacks against Iran’s nuclear program.
“The notion that my White House would purposely release classified national security information is offensive,” Obama said at a brief White House news conference. “It’s wrong.”
Obama added the leaks were potentially criminal acts.
Putting viruses on the computers of others is a criminal act whether or not those who own the infected computers are popular or unpopular.
Always been this way, always will be. Eugene Kaspersky and the anti-virus industry know this well. Globally, they should triple and quadruple their efforts to expose cyberwar operations. It could be very good for the image and will make for interesting stories. Meting out embarrassment and odium where it is deserved is appropriate.
It might also eventually serve to deter lousy decision-making at the top in the United States. Or at least make it more risk averse. At any rate, it couldn’t hurt.
Obama continued:
“When this information or reports — whether true or false — surface on the front page of newspapers, that makes the job of folks on the front line tougher,” Obama said. “And it makes my job tougher. Which is why, since I’ve been in office, my attitude has been zero tolerance for these kinds of leaks and speculation.”
Only bad people care if those on the “front lines” of virus-writing have it tougher. The world, and this country, will not derive net benefit from more feverish and secretive military and intelligence malware manufacturing and distribution.
“We’re dealing with issues that can touch on the safety and security of the American people, our families or our military personnel or our allies, and so we don’t play with that.”
You’ll have to explain how the families or acquaintances of our state-run virus-writing operation are made less safe by its vague exposure in a newspaper, Mr. President.
Anyway, leaks and subsequent press on virus war won’t stop our virus-writing operation any more than bad press and damaged national reps stop the bombing of paupers with drones. At least not yet.
In the last ten years you’ll have noticed nothing impedes US weapons shops, so why should anything slow down state mischief in the virtual realm? Our ruling class does not care to exert true oversight and is quickly sold on just about any escalating military and secret solution to world problems.
This is because no one whose job does not depend on the expansion of armories and attack plans is ever listened to.
From 1971 to 74 Bob Welch played lead guitar for Fleetwood Mac. After being dismissed in the turnover that brought in Buckingham/Nicks, the band quickly attained multi-platinum success. That must have smarted.
Welch subsequently put together Paris, a power trio that recorded two obscure and unsuccessful albums. The debut was Welch’s bit take on Led Zeppelin heavy mysticism and it is an enjoyable listen, particularly if you’re a fan of unsuccessful Seventies hard rock barrel-scrapers. Like me.
After Paris disbanded Welch returned to pop as a solo act and met with chart success.
I liked these records, too. Welch combined a supple hard rock style that worked superbly on his solo albums. Although his famous single solo work came as the Seventies closed, Welch was quintessentially Eighties, confirmed by the live bits where he is joined onstage by Stevie Nicks.
A political columnist at Esquire puts together the best thing I’ve read on the Wisconsin recall.
He states the other side won out of anger at the very idea of it and that outside pundits, specifically Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, fed this. That coverage on the progressive network, as if the recall was in the bag, was used by Koch money to aggravate people and assure them they were right to be angry. (Incidentally, I stopped watching Maddow and Schultz for related reason. Their careers rise and fall on the niche entertainment value of how irritating and meddlesome they appear to non-progressives on national issues. Whether that’s an asset or a liability is for marginal and uninspiring Democratic politicians to mull over.)
The writer, Charles Pierce, points out the belief in Wisconsin that governors should not be recalled except for criminal misconduct, ignoring recent history in which California’s Gray Davis was recalled over outrage at electricity market gouging and rolling blackouts — which the electorate, largely, did not find out had been rigged by Enron until well after Arnold Schwarzenegger was in office.
But those were the forces that combined with an overwhelming flood of out-of-state money to make liars out of practically everybody. This was a winning electorate that found itself besieged by the images it saw on its television, and it felt its concerns being drowned out by drum circles and chants. When Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch got up and began her speech with the line “this is what democracy looks like,” she was doing more than simply engaging in some stunningly high-level gloating; she was telling her audience exactly what they wanted to hear. Their democracy was hijacked by other people. The out-of-state special interests that most bothered them were not the Koch Brothers; it was Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz. Upwards to $50 million poured into Wisconsin from various plutocrats and their front groups to tell the people in this hall that people from outside Wisconsin were taking them all for a ride. The money was a balm. The money was an amplifier. The money gave them absolution because the money told them what they already believed …
As the room grew steadily more rowdy, I fell into conversation with Ed Hannan, a lawyer from Greendale …
“It means the restoration of integrity in government,” he continued. “It means an understanding of the role of government, the limitations of the role of government, and the return of power to the taxpayers, as opposed to union organizers. That is how important this is. Going forward, what we will then see is more legislation that is going to limit the role of government and, more than that, a repeal of laws. For instance, the Minimum Mark-Up Law, a limitation on the environmental laws. We need to have sunset laws on environmental restrictions and the employment-related laws. This election was never about collective bargaining. It was about legislation that removed the state as the collection agency for union dues.”
There was no point in arguing with the man. There didn’t seem even to be any sport in pointing out that the “restoration of integrity in government” that he saw in the results was on behalf of a guy who took to the podium last night three steps ahead of a sitting grand jury. The distance between what I saw and what Ed Hannan saw was too great. I might as well have been talking to him in Finnish.
The Obama campaign’s Jim Messina dunned me for $5 with the virtual ink not even dry on the Wisconsin analyses:
What just happened in Wisconsin wasn’t an accident.
Republican Governor Scott Walker and his allies outspent the Democratic challenger nearly EIGHT to ONE — and one of the most unpopular governors in the country managed to hold on.
This result is direct confirmation that all the outside money that’s poured into elections this cycle can and will change their outcome. And it’s exactly what could happen on the national stage unless we can close the gap between special interests and ordinary people.
Go choke yourself.
You need to talk to your guy about making a message that beats the misinformation spread by billionaire money for the purpose of guaranteeing the white independent vote. You’ve no other choice. Shaking everyone else down regularly for serial micro-payments won’t get it done.
When voting yesterday I noted with bemusement “candidate” Orly Taitz, the clinically insane person best known for her national quest to prove the President is a foreign Manchurian candidate. But you can never be too nuts in this country. Taitz got over 100 thousand votes, most of them all in the category of “Registered Psychopath — White.” One also cannot rule out the possibility that some ‘voters’ ticked her out of sheer boredom and perversity.
It’s refreshing to see the delusions of “Queen of the Birfers” Orly Taitz extend beyond her crackers quest to prove Barack Obama was born in Africa. The South County dentist/lawyer/real-estate saleslady’s OrlyTaitzEsq site this morning boasts that Tuesday night’s election results show she is “currently” the fourth runner-up to incumbent Democrat U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and that “ballots will continue to be counted through July 13.” Oh, Orly . . .
Still, Taitz can take comfort in the fact that she finished ahead of 19 other candidates, and that at least 113,563 Californians share her crazy, including 17,549 in Orange County, where she was the choice of 6.1 percent of the voters.
Love the OC Weekly’s portrayal of the Taitz voter — below.
Eugene Kaspersky, whose lab discovered the Flame virus that has attacked computers in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East, said on Wednesday only a global effort could stop a new era of “cyber terrorism”.
“It’s not cyber war, it’s cyber terrorism and I’m afraid it’s just the beginning of the game … I’m afraid it will be the end of the world as we know it,” Kaspersky told reporters at a Tel Aviv University cyber security conference.
“I’m scared, believe me,” he said.
Now where would we be without hyperbole I ask you?
Today Ted Nugent did a radio interview with an Illinois station, WJBC, in advance of his show in Peoria. Ted informed the hosts that apparently the only reason there is unemployment is because people are lazy sods who want a handout. There are help wanted signs everywhere, according to Ted. And his many business friends tell him Americans don’t want to work, they just want to know how many sick days that get.
Hosted by R. C. McBride and Jim Fitzpatrick, the chat was mostly politics. It gave the rocker a chance to expound on all the people who hate him, the President, and his peculiar but very Tea Party views.
If you listen to the entire thing here — I admit it’s a hard slog — even the hosts become audibly uneasy with the direction Nugent’s philosophies take
But I did the heavy lifting so you don’t have to. The most paranoid and weird bits:
We are living in dangerous times. we have a corrupt government … We have a president who will quote the founder of communism … Then he’ll visit the Vietnam Memorial Wall and lie claiming that he wants to thank 58,000 dead American soldiers and Airmen and Marines and Seamen while he quotes the man they fought against.
No one has ever been as corrupt and dared to quote Mao Tse Tung as the President of the United States does right now … No one has raped the economy and destroyed the economy as quickly and efficiently as Barack Obama and his czars have done in such a short period of time because that was his goal. He wanted to fundamentally transform the greatest quality of life in the history of mankind into some kind of Detroit canker sore of dependency.
Because I’m a hunter, people hate me. People who hate me because
I hunt defines the left …
People who hate me believe you don’t have to get up early and work hard because you can get money from people who do get up early and work hard.
I’m a producer, I’m an asset to you, I benefit the American economy … If you look at the Occupiers, they hate me for that. I couldn’t be more proud that those who think Barack Obama and the Mao Tse Tung chant of redistributing earnings is good. I don’t want them to like me because that’s evil.
For every person that gets some form of welfare there are thousands
who don’t deserve it.
[One of the hosts gets audibly nervous at this saying “I don’t know if I’m qualified to [say] that …” He adds his family received some government benefit in the past when he was growing up. Nugent replies that he is because he’s done the “research.”]
Then Nugent comments on those on welfare — he means African Americans:
They get their hair done. They have cell phones. They have all the newest clothes they possibly want …
Ted, on the economy and unemployment:
An able bodied person in United States of America has no excuse to
not have a job. I drive up and down the streets of this country every day and there are help wanted signs everywhere. And I have hundreds of entrepreneurial friends who are trying to hire people and 99 out of 100 people who come in claiming to want to find a job, the first thing they ask is “How many sick days do I get?” Are you kidding me? Maybe you need to communicate more with people who are actually in touch with direct human touch with the people that are causing the problems in America … There is an actual category that is acceptable, there is an actual authorized category of people in the United States of America … people who have quit looking for work. That’s a category of Americans? That’s unbelievable!
The asset to the US economy, playing the Star Spangled Banner and cursing out women and the elites for morning television.
