Black Republican

I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"
-George Bernard Shaw



What if Barack Obama wasn’t the first black president? What if he was the second?

What if I told you the Republican Party had a universally-respected, erudite black man courting them for their nomination who enjoyed a razor thin edge over Clinton and was ahead of all his opponents? They’d be crazy not to pick him, right?

(Remember, we’re still in hypothetical.)

This black man was just young enough to project vigorousness, but with wisdom that far exceeded his years. He served with distinction in Vietnam. He had national security experience in the deified Reagan White House. He usually had something generous to say and when he didn’t, he kept his mouth shut.

Sounds bulletproof, right? It is, so long as you’re not being shot in the back.

He wasn’t far enough to the right on abortion, gun control and civil rights for the newly minted Faustian contract with America, so he had to be taken down. But how? You can’t assault him to his face and you can’t question his patriotism. This is a man who was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest rank one can achieve in the Armed Services.

Instead, the fix was in like this: Purple Heart, Bronze Star and multiple Distinguished Service medals (2 for the Army, 4 from the Defense Department) notwithstanding, Colin Powell was deemed a “milicrat”, that is to say, a paper-pusher, just with a different color suit. I wonder how it felt to be Colin Powell, to hear from people that had multiple draft deferments with no military experience that he was a glorified middle-manager.

To be fair, that charge has the élan (sorry, wrong elan) of the chicken-hawks. It’s factually, intellectually and truthfully wrong, but what takes it over the top is not what the slur is, but how it’s expressed. It’s dismissive in a way that utilizes a populist and class-ist rhetoric that hides just how sanctimonious and silly the statement is.

Colin Powell wasn’t a man who served in Vietnam, winning multiple citations for bravery and dedicated his youth to the service, he’s actually like your narcissist corporate shark boss, so went the line from the religious right.

The real despicable thing was the allegation of mental illness. But wait, you say. I’ve never heard of Colin Powell ever having a mental illness. That would have come up again, like when he was Secretary of State, right?

Well, yes. But it wasn’t Powell that was being accused. It was his wife.

His wife, who was not out on the campaign trail, not hustling for attention. His wife, who was raising two kids at the time. His wife, who takes medication for depression. To keep Colin Powell out of the race, the rightest of right wing, back in 1996, sent the message that if you keep going, we will make it personal and we will make it bloody. Powell would drop out of the race soon afterwards, claiming “he didn’t have the stomach” for politics and he was right.

It still begs the question, though. What if?

How would the political landscape in 2009 be different if the self-proclaimed Party of Lincoln was the first one to nominate a black man for POTUS? How would the political landscape be different 20 years from now when little kids grow up and the party animal they affiliate with is the elephant and not the donkey?

It’s not that the Republicans or the Democrats (or any party, for that matter) is the party of the future, but that in 1995 and 1996, the Republicans revealed their commitment to be the party of the past, which in a bit of black humor, would carry them surprisingly far into the future.

Cue 2008. Powell, after having his legacy and professional reputation destroyed by Bush’s War on Terror, had stayed quiet during the presidential campaign, not stumping for anyone and keeping a low profile. And then it’s announced that he’s going on Meet the Press, most commentators speculating he’s finally going to make an endorsement in the race.

He endorses Obama and as soon as he does so is branded a traitor to the Republican Party by the blogs, but the blogs were just in the numbers game anyway, they’re tangential at the moment. They missed the part where Powell speaks generously about McCain, a friend, and says that it’s lack of respect for the people surrounding McCain that led him to endorse Barack Obama, whom he believes is the right person at the right time to become a transformational figure in American political history. I wonder, though, when Obama was elected did he think, hell, it’s about time, or hell, it’s 12 years too late?

Yes, This Is About Tehran. No, I Have No Idea What To Do. I Just Don't Want More Kids My Age To Die.

Despite the fact that much of what you see below this is about the war/crackdown in Tehran and Iran, I'd prefer not to run my mouth about what Iran needs. I'll explain.

Portions of Tehran are burning and people my age are dying for rebelling against a rigged election, standing up, throwing stones and setting fire to cars. I feel helpless to stop it. And it's something I can sweep to the back of my mind. But then I read analysis from David Corn on Mother Jones, a person I otherwise trust, who says that the ruling parties in Iran, a.k.a the rulers keeping kids my age down, are really only going to be unseated by a lot more bloodshed and it might have to come to a full grown war for the government to change. Do I really want to stop it?

Think about that sentence. I mean, hell yeah, I'd like to see less people my age dying. That's usually uniformly a positive. That said, I don't feel like I know enough about the situation there and what it means in the context of Iran as a nation or group of people to feel comfortable speaking. Normally, I'd run my mouth talking about how the government, a group of thugs, held together by an Ayatollah and strong religious faith, is cracking down savagely on people who feel the election was stolen, who put faith in the veneer of democracy and that kind of crackdown is something that's better suited to CIA-backed war criminals than Iran, but that was before I read a book called We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. That said, the government of Iran is showing another one its faces and it is, yes, hideously repressive and murderous.

One of the most disturbing portions of We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families was the response of the international community to the crisis. They showed up, not knowing anything and made it demonstrably worse. The UN run refugee camps were places where the pawns and hatchet men in the genocide went and ate the food and drank the same liquids that were running from them were. The international peace-keeping forces had orders that restricted them from getting their countries embroiled in the conflict, so soldiers watched through a fence as more Tutsis were killed in the UN run refugee camp. No one discharged their weapon. They were good soldiers.

I'm not Vulcan, so it's not like I feign exquisite control over my emotions, so when I see videos like these (#9, a video of a wounded girl dying is something I admit I haven't watched yet) they pull at my heartstrings. No. That phrase doesn't seem quite right. Those videos grab me by the shoulders and ask What are you doing about this? and the answer is so far, terribly little. I can talk about it on Twitter, Facebook and other places. But, I'm one tiny person. What can I change? Even if I could change something, what would the results be? Would the results be good for the people in the streets? The actions I take have consequences.

I'm mindful of the fact (or socially transmitted fiction) that support and solidarity for the kids in Tehran is terribly chic now among people my age who are insincere in other aspects of their lives and I'd like to avoid that pretense, if possible. I guess I'm trying to write all this without judgment or invocation of a moral high ground.

And I don't have direct control over shit. It's not like I can call up Obama or a three-star and have boots on the ground in hours. (Plus, we're still at war in Iraq.) The decision is not mine to make. Period. Tt's not like it was ever my decision to make, but I think that's the wrong way to look at it. It's what we make with the decisions we have and the tools we're given. I'm not doomed to watching updates on my Twitter feed.

As weak as the mechanisms of American democracy are, I can still use them. It might not be much of a message, but I have to imagine that a college age kid getting up before 8 a.m. to call a senator or representative's office has to have some effect on whatever intern or office worker is manning the phones. Here is a list of your senators and their phone numbers in D.C. Do what you will with it. Ditto for the House of Representatives.

More than that, I can ask the people in Iran what they want. Apparently, there's a well known (and respected?) blog called Iranian.com. There's directories of Iranian bloggers out there, here's just one directory, plus with Twitter and communication tools, a couple minutes of searching on Google will probably avail you something close to home, emotionally. That said, Twitter isn't always accurate, so beware.

I'm not sure what to tell my Representative or Senator, though. I'm thinking of just asking that they look, a lot harder, at the history of Iran and where and how U.S. assistance would help the kids my age protesting the best. The CIA and Iran have a long, long history together, and most of it is CIA-sponsored coups, because the leader in Iran wasn't pliant enough to U.S. interests, so I'd like to avoid that, if possible. Whatever will help those kids install someone they trust that will foster a robust system that is accoutable to the people of Iran, I'd like to help them with. I just don't know what that is quite yet.

Anyway. My thoughts are with my peers risking their lives, and even though I don't believe in God, if volume of prayers count for anything, here's one more for the kids on the streets.

Allahu Akbar.

Demos: The Hand That Feeds

I know using a Nine Inch Nails song is passe on the internet, but I'm listening to a stripped down remix of the song, in which there is a light, ambient noise and piano as Mr. Reznor's only accompaniment. (Plus, With_Teeth wasn't good anyway.) There's also a bit of overlap. This one is about John McCain and who was feeding him when and with what.

I respect the man's service in uniform. I just hope he stops keeping the Republican party line, the one that ruined and tarred him with divisive and insulting race-baiting politics not to mention tying Sarah Palin to his ticket and political fortune. Like most other soldiers that Bush commanded, he also was used and led to ruin. It's just more clearly visible here.

If this inspires you to do anything, I hope it inspires you to look up more information on PTSD treatment for Iraq War veterans, because when they get home, they're going to find a host of problems (mental and emotional) waiting for them on this shore.

And that's assuming they can get a job.



There's something that rubbed me very wrong about Senator John McCain's comment about the $800 billion taxpayer bailout, which he called generational theft.

It's a poor choice of words. Admittedly, it's politics as usual—using overly emotional language to discuss something that is as serious as a heart attack and requires careful attention, which a shot to the gut (of which that imagery strikes) doesn't help.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that the Republican plan of 60% tax cuts versus 40% spending is the wrong way to go. Over the last eight years, we've had quite a few tax cuts and they haven't gotten us very far. I'm in favor of spending a lot of money, but it has to be directed not to one and done jobs (à la construction, see Japan in the 90s) but to industries that have a clear, long term sustainable trajectory.

What McCain means, I believe, is that the money was borrowed from future generations, for us and others to pay back. Which, while accurate, is incredibly callous. It's callous because the resources of my generation have already been plundered, and will never be repaid. That was when all those brave senators stood up and voted to authorize war in Iraq. McCain didn't seem to mind "generational theft" when it was his hand in the cookie jar of my youth.

McCain voted to send people my age out to fight a war when he didn't even bother to read the full 90 page NIE report about Iraq. He voted to spend our resources to fight a war over weapons of mass destruction, a particular point where the U.S.A. hadn't had human intelligence sources for five years. He voted to spend our resources to fight a war when the evidence presented to the Armed Services Committee were blurry pictures of trailers in the desert.

In 2007, when McCain was in Iraq, he said that (based on a visit to the Shorja Market in Baghdad) Baghdad was very safe. And he was right.

Shorja Market was safe because there were 100 troops on the ground and on rooftops in that market. Shorja Market was safe because three Blackhawk and two Apache attack helicopters were circling overhead. He was safe because he didn't remove his bulletproof vest. Traffic was redirected and restricted for that hour-long visit. He went out to visit the production he voted in favor of and found an orchestrated calm.

McCain may want to think more carefully about what he is implying.

When Bush and his water carriers in the Senate and House authorized a war on the other side of the world under false pretenses, it was vital to American national security that it shouldn't be questioned. McCain saw no generation theft there. But when it's an $800 billion spending bill proposed by a Democrat, that's when he draws the line.

We know where McCain stands now that he's away from President Bush. Even though Bush is out of office, it's still too close for my comfort ideologically. I've always felt Senator McCain's political career in this decade has had a tragic quality, and it's no more apparent than here. Quite a few people, myself included, respected him before 2004 because of his ability to speak to more than a traditional base. (Dare I say maverick?) But with the phrase generational theft, McCain continues his slide into a familiar, anonymous role: Republican senator keeping the party line.

And these statements sound as though he's listening to the same people who had a cruel hand in his losing presidential run. The great tragedies end when the protagonists are ruined. After the fiasco that was the post-Palin campaign, McCain isn't looking too good, but I don't want to see his curtain close yet.

The Floor

Hope. The hope in everyone's heart recently has been palpable. Not the wish-kind of hope evoked by dreamers (I hope I win the lottery), or the sappy-kind of hope (hope will carry us through) but rather a third kind of hope: the sickly kind of hope that counts on hitting the floor. How far can we fall?

I am sure you all remember the graphs that started around six months ago, the ones that occupied the front pages of - hmmm - every newspaper nation wide. Those graphs sported captions that read something like: 'Don't count on a job, the future is scary, and nobody likes living anymore.' In case you were wondering, that was not the floor.

Roller coasters are used for many metaphors and similes to describe uncertain and tumultuous times. In many ways, this comparison is cliched, but it is also so fitting in this situation that it transcends a silly cultural construction and actually becomes a viable means of expression. So, bear with me as I explain what a roller coaster does. First, a roller coaster takes a car uphill at a nearly impossible angle for a long period of time. Everyone on board the roller coaster is well aware, what with the passing trees, then clouds, that they are clearly gaining a great deal of altitude, and, seeing how the cars are unable to fly, should be concerned about this course of action. Still, up is up, and flying never hurt anyone. So everyone on board surrenders their destiny to the tracks and enjoys this improbable accent. Then, at some point the tracks level off. On a really long roller coaster, being in the front is a very interesting experience, because you get to see the impending drop, but because the bulk of the coaster is still topping the hill, you might not get going fast until you are already part of the way down the hill. But even for those who do not get to see the drop before they feel it, they should know it was coming because of both the impossible angle of accent and the screaming of those in front of them. Roller coasters thrill, but should never surprise.

So we go through an election. I am excited. Like a kid in line for a roller coaster. Maybe change will happen. I like change. Do you know what else I like? Debt - not up to my ears, but 20 or 30 feet past my ears. Do you know who hates Republicans? Maybe me. I hate corporations and people that have too much money. I hate bail-outs. I hate waste. I hate war. I hate death. I hate incompetence. I hate lies. I REALLY hate bail-outs. So, when I find out that our very own change loving President is not only backing but PUSHING 'Bailout: the Second Coming,' I start to wonder if it really is Republicans I hate. Suddenly I realize how little effect what the people want has on the government, and I am reminded of what it feels like to be disenfranchised again.

Hope. The hope of a floor is keeping our hearts still as our bodies fall. Those graphs are not going away. They are thrilling, but they are not surprising. Screaming, the passengers reach the bottom of the hill. In the future, they see something brilliant and shining: a great angled incline: Progress: Change: Humanity: Hope. As their stomachs sink farther than the floor, pushed down inside them, they gasp, not out of despair, but for ecstasy. A hill is on the horizon. The track is laid. Salvation will come from above. All plans are good plans. All directions lead up. We will not lose, because we cannot lose.

We have not lost. Hope: the tracks are now good, because the conductor has changed. This conductor will drive our train safely. This conductor will bring our troops home: he will not stay the course. This conductor will keep the lobbyists and crooks out of Washington and the Whitehouse. This conductor drives a train. Trains don't go too fast, or down hills, or crash, or disappoint. Trains are safe for America. Roller coasters are a Republican thing. I am glad we are safe.

I am glad we have not lost. Hope is the floor when we have no floor. I do not trust myself - that is why governments and corporations should run the engine. How about we vote and feel proud once every four years. Why in that one shining moment of freedom do we not vote for who we really want? It is certainly not McCain, but truthfully, for all of the hope he inspires, it is not Obama either. The people want someone else. They don't want President Politician. They don't want President Oil. They want President Me. They want the thing they fear the most: to loose the tracks and finally be responsible for something. They want to destroy the destiny complex of America. They want to vote every Friday, and they want it to matter. They don't want to vote for flesh, they want to vote for ideas, like hope and change. They want to kick the shit out of legislation that pisses them off. They don't want pay raises for politicians when the people are unemployed. They don't want stimulus that will bankrupt their children. They want something else. The floor fell once.

Hope is the second floor. Hope might just be an unwillingness to fear. What will happen when the second floor falls? Will we still hope for an infinite incline to heaven, or will we decide to act here in the mud. I guess there is a chance everything will be better. Maybe a cure will arrive. Maybe we will all be saved from responsibility by destiny and government.

Or, maybe we will lose. Hope.

Demos: Painting By Numbers

This is a really early demo, the issues, I heard, was supposed to come out today but didn't because the editors wanted to have a week off when school started. Okay. So, here's something you'll see later on next week. The song is the first track off of Marathon's self-titled record. It would also, sadly, be their last. Listen to more Marathon here.


When ex-Governor Blagojevich was indicted, the response from my Illinois-native friends was swift, but this was telling: The one that seemed most prescient said "You know, I always thought the mayor would be indicted first." Knowledge is power, as we've learned in Saturday morning cartoons and any mafia movie ever, but that doesn't entirely describe Chicago. Yes, where's mine might be the mantra of City Hall, but the reason why the big politicians have stayed big in Chicago is not just because of the machine, but the most important detail is what they recuse themselves from.
It's incredibly bold for Burris to accept now-arrested governor's appointment, but to say that God spoke to the governor to appoint Burris goes beyond staggering self-importance and into messiah complex territory. Burris, as we all know, is a raging egomaniac, but he's also a pragmatic one, comparing Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats, whom he wishes to join, to famous Southern racists. Classy.
Not much remains to be said about the now-arrested governor (protesting too much, odd behavior patterns that make the viewer ask: cocaine?, bad haircut, etc), except that this, as everyone from Illinois knows, is the tip of the iceberg. A juicy little tidbit (I think I got this from the Daily Show) is that Representative Bobby Rush has backed Burris' appointment, saying that it was an imperative that a black man remain in the Senate. The statement was plenty distasteful and transparent, but made more so by the fact that Rush, when given the opportunity, backed the white incumbent that President-Elect Barack Obama unseated when he had the choice earlier this decade.
Speaking of which, the idea that Obama (or anyone from his campaign) is wrapped up with Blagojevich is laughable. Anyone politically cognizant in Illinois has known this guy was radioactive since 2006 and the idea that his phones were tapped should not surprise those same people.
The fact that he might actually be my state's next senator is concerning, but I have a lot of faith that the voters of Illinois, myself included, will kick his ass out the first chance we get. That is the genius and madness of the American political system. Problem is, Burris is more of the second and significantly less of the first.

In Memoriam: Tim Russert

One of the pre-eminent political analysts, commentators and journalists of our time is dead. Tim Russert, host and moderator of Meet the Press, died of a heart attack at 58 today, and if you liked political discourse at a reasonable level and wanted, say, insights in the campaigns running today, you could tune in and watch Meet the Press or, quite frankly, whatever show on NBC he was asked to speak for two or three minutes on, he should be very sorely missed by you.

If you don't know who he is, click here and then come back when you're done. It's MSNBC's report on his death, and the people speaking about him include President George W. Bush, Tom Brokaw and Harry Reid, current Senate Majority Leader.

His research on the people he interviewed was career-spanning and unspeakably deep, so he knew his politics and was polite, but unrelenting in his pursuit of the truth. But that polite part is incredibly important. Russert made his name by being persistent and civil, and kept Meet the Press afloat, to the point of four million steady viewers on Sunday morning. It wasn't exciting television, mind you, but important television. It didn't have the host or the guests fighting for who'se voice could rise above the others, which usually drives ratings elsewhere. 

Here's an example. Back when Mitt Romney was still a viable Republican candidate, Mr. Romney had been making a bit of backsliding about his views on abortion and women's rights, and he'd been catching some flak for what was a drastic shift in ideological belief, which seemed to coincide neatly with his getting chosen by the Evangelical (which, by the way, sounds a lot better than saying arch-conservative) leaders of the Christian community in America. Now. Russert went one step further and brought in a video clip of Mr. Romney saying in his gubernatorial bid in Massachusetts that he would "preserve and protect a woman's right to choose", was to do so inspired by his mother to be "devoted and dedicated" to his protection of a woman's right to choose. Watch it yourself.

Russert catches Mr. Romney in his run-around game, and does so in a polite, civil manner, without gloating or raising his voice. It's the combination of research and civility that made Tim Russert "the best political journalist in America, not just the best television journalist in America", according to Al Hunt, the former chief of the Washington desk for the Wall Street Journal .

His death leaves a vacancy in American politics the size of which I cannot even outline or fathom. If you want to understand politics, he could speak to you about it in a way that synthesized it and made it understandable for the laypeople and not just political junkies. Insightful barely covers it. He reported the happenings, put the questions to the people who made the happenings and did it all because he loved America and he loved politics. 

For our American readers: Go on YouTube and do a search for Tim Russert and learn about the political landscape around you.

For our international readers: Go on YouTube and do a search for Tim Russert and get insight about American politics from its foremost reporter and treasured son.

His influence is huge. His shadow will loom over American politics, but more heavily over the commentators who don't ask the tough, probing questions. He was pre-eminent because he asked the hard questions, because he stayed civil and polite and because he did the legwork and homework to back it all up with facts and not bluster.

When he said something, those words were given gravity that no one else in the field has. His hard work, insight and politeness were why.

Suffice to say he's missed.

Demos: Mexico 4 Life

Again, a little something stop the bleeding of no posts here. We've got a good theme week coming up, Zach, Catherine and I are just real busy at the moment.

I have recently been reading the accusation that Senator Barack Obama has been throwing down the proverbial gauntlet in his stump speeches since Senator Hillary Clinton has put into circulation her 3 a.m. phone call ad, suggesting that Clinton has the experience on the first day she takes office to answer the dreaded early morning impending doom call that Obama doesn't.

Obama, then, has responded on his stump speeches by questioning Clinton's experience. This, I understand, is proof positive of his "taking the attack to Hillary", as the New York Times said on the sixth of March. For some readers, this counts as dirty politics.

I disagree.

I have seen dirty politics, and this is not it. Obama is asking for the evidence to Clinton's conclusion that she has the experience necessary to lead the country, which, when pushed, appears to be her eight years in the White House as her husband's de facto chief of staff, and her seven years on the Senate Armed Services Committee. That's a reasonable, if pointed question. By comparison, Obama has been on the same committee for two years, and the Republican nominee Senator John McCain has been on the committee since roughly the fall of man.

If you want real dirty politics, then I have a story to tell you. This story starts in South Carolina during the Republican primary in 2000 and stars Senator McCain and then Gov. George W. Bush during their campaign for the Republican nomination. Senator McCain has a lead and has won Iowa and New Hampshire. Anonymous polls begin in neighborhoods where McCain was strong, with a loaded question to the effect of "Would your opinion of Senator McCain change if you knew that he had fathered an illegitimate black child?" (It's important to note at this point that the McCain family had adopted a girl from Bangledesh, which lent a bit of anecdotal evidence to the whisper campaign used to discredit him morally.) Not surprisingly, McCain's numbers dropped in the polls; Bush took South Carolina; leaving McCain shaking and unable to regain the advantage.

Reports from multiple sources including the National Review, the New York Times (years later, of course...) and other reputable outlets could only confirm innuendos, but prevailing wisdom awards the credit to Karl Rove, operating as Bush's chief political strategist.

That's dirty politics. Dirty politics is suggesting that your white opponent had a child with a black woman in a conservative state without putting your own name on the smear. Dirty politics is firing anyone in the Justice Department who isn't a "loyal Bushie". Dirty politics is outing a deep cover CIA agent to get back at her husband for criticizing your basis for starting a war.

Asking for evidence to a debatable conclusion doesn't even come close.

Demos: No, ALL!

This is in response to a column that gave me the impression that the author said that political engagement didn't matter. I disagreed. Some important changes were made, but not to the original thesis. Perhaps the new version is a smidge faster, and maybe hit the proverbial notes more accurately. I don't think anything is lost in the translation, though. In fact, I like the printed version a little better.

I am not too proud to admit that part of this was inspired by Beth, with whom I disagree on a couple issues relating to Obama. Since much of the internet is about pointless feuds, I'd like to note that this doesn't mean I hate her, but simply disagree with her on a fairly important social issue that (hopefully) affects both of us.

Oh, and if you understand why, specifically, the non sequitur title is there, (and not simply as a reference to a praticular band) you win three hundred internet points.

My peers ask why vote and why bother with civic engagement, and it's a good question. Why bother with civic engagement at all when for the last couple decades, youth turnout has been at all time low (recently that has been changing) and voter apathy (why bother with presidents when the differences between candidates are shallow and they're all sponsored by special interests that profit on the status quo…) is fairly high?

I wish I had something better, something that sounded more academic or something that sounded more debonair, but here it is. Why should you bother? Because you've seen what happens when people didn't care. W. If you're enrolled here and fairly liberal, then you know what it's like during your formative years to be shut out of the political process, attacked and called a traitor to your country, all for voicing your opinion. To stave off the inevitable: I make no statements for when Clinton was in office, since I wasn't old enough to render a complex enough judgment for this column.

As for the idea of "keeping your political ideas to yourself", I'd like to respond with "Well, that actually ties into why bother with civic engagement." Let me speak, as I often do, about videogames. As I have previously mentioned, the "debate" on videogames is couched in a framework of "They're the worst things to happen to kids since rap music, don't you agree? You don't? Well, you're wrong, and destroying the innocence of American youth." Why is this? Because this side is the only one speaking up and voting for "the issue". And yes, it also has something to do with the fact that they donate lavishly to the reelection campaigns of Congresspeople. For the most part, there has not been until incredibly recently a coordinated attempt to form another perspective on videogames in the media. Opponents of videogames speak up, so they have the floor, and set the tone of the discussion. To appropriate a Modern Life is War lyric, if no one is speaking to you, speak up.

So, if you want to change the discussion (whether it's videogames or something else entirely), you're going to have to get your metaphorical hands dirty. You're going to have to speak in public about how you feel and you're going to have to take the plunge of expressing yourself about something publicly, or you can keep silently writhing and hope that magically, things will change.

I'm trying to say this without a bunch of rah-rah-rah garbage but, if you want change, you're going to have to raise your voice. I don't want this to end like a Disney teen drama, so I'll leave it like this: We have a mounting national debt (both foreign and domestic), a housing crisis that is squeezing people out of their homes, a war that will cost us over $2 trillion all told, and an international image in tatters.

You're still asking why you should care?

In Which Theme Week is Totally Abandoned for Politics lol

"Well I've got to do something to help these people."
"Don't tell me you're actually developing a conscience."
"God I hope not, it's gonna be a fuckin' nuisance in Congress"
-Eddie Murphy in The Distinguished Gentleman

Ron Paul, y'all.

Sure, the man is arguably crazy, as a bevy of sickeningly low quality Ze Frank imitators also like to point out. But dammit, I like to vote for crazy people. And it's not like we're electing a god-emperor here, just a president - his powers are checked by two other branches of government. Maybe now Congress will have something to do that doesn't involve lobbyists and mistresses and cocaine (sorry, couldn't find a link, but YOU JUST KNOW IT AMIRIGHT?) and secret societies. Or maybe it will give them more than ever before! It's an exciting time to be alive, if only because gross negligence or sexy new diseases may change that fact at any given moment.

Dance with me! Dance the dance of life!

Hey hey, and Mitt Romney just left the race for president. Which is good. He looks like someone's wholesome dad, the kind who jokes with you and slaps you on the back and has good teeth. America wants a nutjob for president, not the dad from 7th Heaven.

It's a total fabrication, really, to assume that any of the candidates are of sound mental health. The election is a grueling process for a thankless job where you are essentially a fulcrum of power between promises you made to get elected (thankfully growing less and less relevant as the years progress) and the promises that you made to massive, faceless corporations, as all the while detractors curse your name, and sometimes shoot you (with varying degrees of success).

Worst of all are celebrity endorsements. And there are plenty of them. Celebrities are not well known for even keeping their own lives in check - why then should we listen to them over anyone else? I'm certain that will.i.am feels really strongly or something about Barack Obama. Could he manifest this enthusiasm in a less embarrass ing format? Obviously not.

Really, I just can't handle someone who I have hope in. Give me the Ron Pauls and Mike Gravels and whoever else, anyone who promises to slash and burn the government, to vivisect it's infected organs, a chirurgeon to either fix it or kill it, but just change it already. To have hope in the government is more and more a fool's errand, and worst of all, to overpraise the hucksters who would abuse our need for change for their own advancement (not to imply Obama is a huckster - just that he might be). I cannot handle any more dishonesty in office (well, I can, but I just really really don't want to), but I (hope I) can handle all of the anarchy that actual change might bring.

Lies we Tell to Children: America is a Model Democracy

Welcome to Super Tuesday, what was supposed the be the season-defining superbowl moment of American politics, the middle turning point in the ongoing slow-motion car crash that is Fuckup 2008.

Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards have dropped out, leaving Mike Gravel as the self-proclaimed only real progressive left in the race. Regardless of whether or not Obama plans on honoring any of his promises to make a change for the better, Hillary Clinton is a preprogrammed robotic timebomb serving a cabal of military industrialists oil czars and hedge fund managers, or Mike Gravel is actually still in the race in any real sense, tonight has decided nothing.

In fact, it is appearing more and more likely that the race is going to be won by the most terrifyingly antidemocratic feature of our democratic system: superdelegates.

Superdelegates, unlike lake sharks, are not part of the lies we tell to children. Also unlike like sharks, they are things that do exist and should not. However, they are exactly like lake sharks in their supernatural ability to glide silently over the morning dew. Don't go down to the lake until the sun has been up long enough to dry up all the grass, or an ex-president will leap from the brush to tear open your jugular and elect a delegate you never voted for. (Thanks, Jeremy Hoople's father. Second best lie told to a child ever. The first may end up as another post.)

As you have probably not been able to glean from that extended whimsical comparison, superdelegates are members of the Democratic National Convention who, by virtue of having held positions of power in the past, hold a position of power in the present: they can participate in the selection process of the Democratic Nominee, voting just as other delegates do, and, unlike other delegates, they are not required to vote according to the votes of any group of normal citizens. This is why, of the 2,025 delegates needed for the nomination, Hillary Clinton had over a hundred before the first state primary had been held.

As of the time I'm writing this, the New York Times is displaying the A.P. delegate count for Clinton and Obama at 626 to 531. Of those, 204 and 99 are superdelegates. And while I'm sure those numbers will have changed by the time I finish this post, the deciding factor in the race right now is the fact that more cronyistic holdovers from bygone eras are supporting Hillary than Obama. As the state-by-state, county-by-county battle for supremacy continues, it seems more and more likely that the swing factor in the race to 2,025 will be the more than five hundred superdelegates who have yet to decide which factory-assembled candidate best represents their personal agendas.

I apologize for the dryness of this post, and the overproliferation of numbers. I apologize if you heard this somewhere else first.

You should still be angry. Somewhere, someone is making all this effort, all this organizing and arguing and aggregate motion of the human element, meaningless. The party will pick who best represents the party's interests, not the people's.

This, as Mike Gravel would say, is politics as usual.

Je Voudre un Croissant

A thousand apologies, saheb. There was no update on my part yesterday, due to homelessness and Project Runway heartbreak. In response, maybe two updates today? Maybe not (already I no longer pine for the days when my prevarications alone dominated these pages). I am in the city of Pittsburgh today, a town built on the bones a hundred thousand steelworkers and coke forges, now known for having a lot of hospitals and robots. Also, terrifying mill-towns! Crystal meth says Hello I Will Rot Your Teeth Out But At Least You Don't Have To Sleep! It's certainly a strange place - old dead billionaires who called in Pinkertons to bloody the noses of nascent labor movements were also responsible for libraries, symphonies, and a seemingly infinite crop of tiny theaters (as well as Andy Warhol's haunted tomb).

Also, ketchup!

Tourism aside, it's a place that you kind of feel guilty for being in, because a million disapproving Polish ghosts are singing Sondheim-esque songs of working in steel mills and in the mines and you're like "I just want to play my gameboy in peace!" Also, everyone here is kind of sarcastic. That may just be because it's cold, or because they're all from somewhere else and had to come here because of their job - you'll recall my previous statements about the damned basically just getting on with their lives.

Right, wait, what? Bridges everywhere?

Rejoice, liberal schweinhunds, for Giuliani has dropped out of the race for president! So did John Edwards, who seemed to be genuinely kind of good hearted, but can't compete with Obama and Clinton's celebrity. Like any good reality TV show, the time has come in the race when the Bradley Baumkirschners of politics are tossed to the wind and allowed to come to rest outside of our purview. Which is always sad. I don't know why the producers always let the biggest jerks stay until the end, y'know?