Comrade- (up) in-arms

One of the main differences between conservatives and progressives is that conservatives want to be the sole beneficiaries of the wealth that society produces, while progressives tend to favor a saner, less selfish, more equitable approach to wealth distribution.

Each of the four short-but-excellent articles, linked to below, were written by Comrade E.B. Misfit and posted on her blog, Just an Earth-bound Misfit. I claim authorship only of the link-text titles that appear in this blog entry; I thought they were a better way to get your attention than “Click here.”

Greed Always Trumps Good Sense

Freeze, muthafuggah!

Banana Republic

Stay down, scumbag!

Jesus! The Comrade gets it! I’m just disgusted that so many don’t.

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Blogroll Amnesty Day

Okay, okay, so I nicked the image from Don Durito over at Notes From Underground. At the time it seemed pretty fair because he'd nicked it from Skippy, who probably nicked it from . . . oh, who cares? The points are that it's a fitting tribute to a blogging legend that departed the blogosphere way too soon and that it's Blogroll Amnesty Day Week Month, once again.

Like Jon Swift (the blog), a.k.a. Al Weisel (the blogger), Frieddogleg (the blog) and Phil Hanson (the blogger) maintain a liberal linking policy; we (blog and blogger) will link to any* blog that links to us. All you have to do is ask. You have one month (more time if you need it). The clock is ticking.

*Porn sites, strictly commercial blogs, and Sarah Palin not so much.

[Update: If you're serious about gettin' some k linky love, leave a comment.]

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Friendship? Not So Much!

Anyone on the left who claims to have friends on the right is a full-of-shit fucking moron. Why would anyone call someone that wants to see them unemployed, broke, homeless, hungry, in poor health—in short, marginalized in every possible way—and, finally, dead, a friend? Get a clue, lefties; right-wingers are not your friends. They never have been, and they never will be. Get over it. Move on!

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The Real Republican Agenda

Why is stupidity so firmly entrenched in the Republican mindset? Like their claim that tax cuts for the wealthy will create jobs, for instance. Or that looting the Social Security trust fund is a financially sound idea, or that defunding public education will somehow magically produce smarter students.

Either Republicans are as brain-dead as they appear to be, or the Republican agenda is very much different than what Republicans claim. Wall Street gazillionaires and their GOP underlings are thumbing their noses at working-class Americans (the people who built this country), and they seem to be saying, “We’ve got ours and most of yours, and we’re gonna get the rest of yours, so fuck you.”

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“First of State” Review, and an Invitation from Tim Hallinan

Whenever I write a book review as part of an author’s or publisher’s promotional campaign, I like to post the review online a few days in advance of the scheduled publication date—enough time to let interested readers and potential book buyers know that the book will soon be available, but not so far out that they’re likely to forget about it before the book reaches the booksellers. Usually, it’s a good strategy, but there are times ….

There are times when my cleverness bites me in the ass. Had I been thinking clearly (and clearly I had not), I would have realized sooner that the October 19^th publication date of Robert Greer’s new novel, First of State, came at a time when the political and media propaganda/noise machines would be revving toward their redlines in the run-up to the mid-term elections—a condition virtually guaranteeing that any reference to my First of State review in a blog post would be immediately lost amidst the frenzy. For lack of a better plan, I felt it best to let the din subside first, and then proceed as if that were the plan all along.

* * *

Timothy Hallinan, author of at least ten published novels and one of my favorite living writers, is more than a month into what he calls The Stupid 365 Project—his commitment to make a 300-word (minimum) random-subject blog post at The Blog Cabin every day for a year. Nearing Day 40 and with his resolve intact, Tim hopes to attract some new readers to his blog for the duration. Having been a reader of TS365P from its beginning, I highly recommend that you, too, follow along and, perhaps, leave a comment from time to time. Tim’s writing is often insightful, always thoughtful, sometimes humorous, usually spot-on, and never a waste of one’s time—as evidenced by the online community that seems to be building around this thing. C’mon, join the fun.

Regular blogging resumes tomorrow. Or the day after. Or whenever the paint dries.

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Quote This

Teabaggers don't want to take back America, they want to take it away from the rest of us.

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More Right-wing Wackiness (As if there wasn’t enough, already.)

Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, left a phone message asking Anita Hill to apologize for accusing Justice Thomas, during his confirmation hearings, of sexual misconduct. Huh? Since when do victims owe their victimizers an apology?

After reviewing the details of the case, though, I reached the conclusion that Ms. Hill does indeed owe Justice Thomas an apology. In the interests of justice (and Ginni’s satisfaction), I’ll go so far as to suggest the wording for Ms. Hill’s apology and post it here, on a public forum, on Ms. Hill’s behalf:

I’m sorry you’re such an unapologetic asshole, Clarence.

Signed,

Anita

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Voters' Guide 2010

If you want a corporate takeover of our democracy, vote for Republican candidates.

If you want an absolute breakdown of society and total chaos, vote for Tea Party candidates.

If you want to see the long, painful, glacier-slow recovery process continue, vote for Democratic candidates (but prepare to keep successful candidates on a short leash).

If you want to build sustainable communities and societies in which sanity and reason and new national commitments to unity and prosperity prevail, vote for Progressive/Green Party candidates and get to work.

The privilege of living in a corporatocracy democracy comes with the responsibility of being somewhat engaged in the political process throughout all its stages. Register to vote. Vote the candidates and issues of your choice. But please, I beg of you, make informed, intelligent choices. Fox News and the myriads of televised campaign ads are not reliable sources of accurate information on political candidates and issues, and the sad reality is that others in the media mainstream aren’t much better; certainly, none of these provide the information you need to cast your vote wisely.

Political savvy comes from doing your homework, and it’s not entirely without effort. Everything you need to know is online, accessible via Google Search and a series of mouse-clicks. Research the issues first, so that you understand all of the effects a particular outcome will have, then research each candidate’s position on each issue. If you research the candidates first, all you’ll get are a lot of pretty, high-sounding words; what you won’t get is relevant or accurate information to help you cast an intelligent vote.

Knowing who funds particular candidates and issues is important, too. Don’t get suckered into voting against your own best interests by special interest groups whose agents and representatives say one thing and do another. The interests they serve are theirs, not yours.

Unless you make upwards of a million dollars a year, voting the Republican ticket is probably not in your best interests. If you want to see job growth and an expanding economy, you’ve got to support labor, and that almost always means voting for candidates who are not Republican. It goes without saying that voting for Tea Party candidates (about which I’ll write more in a future post) serves no one’s interest.

Insist on better government, not smaller government (if you want smaller government, stop having babies). Vote for fair elections and election reform. Vote for education. Vote for infrastructure renewal projects that take into account society’s future needs. Vote for renewable energy projects that lessen demand for fossil fuels from any source. Vote for corporate reform, healthcare reform, economic reform and tax reform. Vote for anything that puts people ahead of corporations. Always vote for long-term benefits rather than short-term gains because short-term solutions always bear the higher costs.

As you prepare to mark your ballot for Election 2010, keep in mind that it was the Republican administrations of Reagan/Bush, with passive help from spineless Democrats who were too afraid to act, that caused a huge spike in the national debt, and it was they who failed to pay down the debt when they had the chance; instead, they cut taxes and continued their deregulation binge. Clinton paid down the debt; Bush the Younger ran it up, again. Now, Obama has to run the debt even higher in order to clean up Bush’s mess. Look at the state the country’s in today and connect the dots.

Don’t be fooled by Republican campaign slogans; precious few of them contain a shred of truth. Despite their claims that Democrats are destroying the country, it is the Republicans—along with their corporate sponsors—who were, are and want to continue to be the architects and engineers of social, economic and environmental mayhem in the US and around the world.

Smart voters will deny them that chance.

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Food Safety and Security

Factory farming methods are a huge threat to food safety and security in the United States, but so are many other things.

Jesus, the kid gets it!

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Chris Dudley, Candidate

Except for his two NBA records for consecutive missed free throws, Chris Dudley’s basketball career was remarkably unremarkable in that he utterly failed to distinguish himself as an exceptional player. He sure as hell didn’t lead the Portland Trailblazers to a comeback championship season. That begs the question, if he can’t lead a basketball team to a comeback, how does he expect to lead the State of Oregon to a comeback? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which is the more difficult task.

Nor am I inspired by Chris’ campaign rhetoric, which consists of nothing more than the same old nonsense Republicans (Democrats have their own brand of nonsense) recycle through every election. Cutting spending will not create jobs, and cutting taxes will not create jobs, so where are all those jobs he promises coming from? Does he not understand that cutting taxes and cutting spending will further deepen Oregon’s recession? Does he not understand that the national economy has a profound effect on Oregon’s economy, and that George W. Bush was driving that particular bus when Oregon’s economy tanked? Does he even suspect that a national economic crisis must be addressed at the national level, and that anything he proposes to do at the state level is only political posturing?

Nothing I saw in the campaign propaganda available on his Web site convinces me that he even has a clue about how to fix what ails Oregon. Sure, he gets a few of the most minor things right, but he gets almost all of the major things wrong. Newsflash, Chris! Doubling down on the very policies that got us into these economic and environmental crises is not going to get us out of them. Your new ideas need to be new, not recycled Republican bullshit that’s been around since at least the ’60s.

What I find most offensive, though, are Chris’ egregious distortions and outright lies regarding former Governor John Kitzhaber’s record. The verifiable truth of the matter is that Oregon’s economy was among the fastest growing in the entire country under Kitzhaber’s leadership, and it only turned south after Bush took office.

Without apologies to Chris or anyone else, I simply don’t find in Chris Dudley a candidate I can support; too little experience, too many uncertainties, and too much bullshit.

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