Not so Subtle

A new development has come out in the struggle over tomato pickers’ wages in Florida. If you haven’t heard, Burger King is the only major chain that is still resisting the change. Now comes a story that shows the true colors of the fast food chain: the vice president of the company has been caught posting derogatory messages about the workers’ group.

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080428/BUSINESS/804280351/1075

He signed on using his not-even-teenage daughter’s screen name to spread false information about the coalition and the propose raise in wages.

How LOW can you go?

I for one, will resist the lure of the flame-broiled behemoth until BK agrees to pay the Florida workers more. How bout you?

Alot has been made about a recent AP Poll that shows Hillary Clinton with a 9 point edge over John Mccain in a possible general election matchup, the same poll showing Obama and Mccain about even. I don’t make too much out of any one specific poll. Only when they become part of a larger trend do I pay attention. The best method of current trends is to look at polls holistically, from a number of sources. Real Clear Politics has a very nice system. Unfortunately they have a Reverend Wright hardon that they seem to have a hard time letting go of.

What is significant is that since Pennsylvania, Hillary’s GE numbers have gone way up. The average that comes out today has her beating Mccain by almost 4 points- the highest any Democrat has had over him in weeks. Why the change?

I don’t think you can blame all of this on Rev. Wright and his grandstanding. Personally I think he has said alot of things that are true. Also, it’s really unfair to paint Obama badly for things that his pastor has said. Despite all my issues with Obama’s candidacy, I don’t see Wright as an issue at all, and I don’t think he’s really responsible for Hillary’s surge of popularity.

I predicted a few months ago that the longer Obama is in the national spotlight, the more he will suffer, no matter what happens. Part of what has fueled his success is the fact that he’s a new face on the scene; he represents a new kind of politics (however full of shit that statement may be) and a possibility for change. The problem is that that new car smell is starting to wear off. People are starting to understand that Obama has a history and makes mistakes just like any of us, and it’s starting to cost him.

No recent election has faced as much scrutiny as this one. Voters are much more informed this time around; evidence being the debacle that Obama’s trade gaffe caused in Ohio. The people are paying much closer attention in this race, and that’s not good for any candidate, especially one with a supposedly clean slate. His waaay out of touch comments about small town folks reached far and wide, and while most of those people have already made their votes, the perception about him has changed. He is no longer a flawless, uncorrupted agent of progressive change. Now many people see Barack as conventionally liberal, arrogant, and offensive.

Perhaps this is why Howard Dean has decided to ignore the popular vote and pick a candidate who’s more electable vs. Mccain. Alot of people will attribute this to racism, and they may be right. But I think it has more to do with the fact that Obama has lost every single major state in the primary except his home state of Illinois. The Democrats are willing to do anything to get into the White House again, and they see his crossover appeal dwindling. For the DNC, Hillary is the devil that they know, and Obama is the devil that they don’t.

The Democrats had a golden opportunity to seize on Obama’s momentum early in the primaries. Had the superdelegates lined up and picked a side, they would now likely have their candidate.

After all of the bumps in this winding primary road, the only way I can see the Democrats winning the white house is through a super-ticket. Even as incompetent as the DNC is, I think they know this. An Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama pairing would be far more feasible than you might think. Their policies are virtually identical. If they can be made to put their egos aside, they just might yet win this thing.

Howard Dean told The Financial Times in an article on Friday: “I think the race is going to come down to the perception in the last six or eight races of who the best opponent for McCain will be. I do not think in the long run it will come down to the popular vote or anything else.”

Come again? Say what? Huh? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa? WT-Fucking F?

Be prepared, all ye who voted for Barack H. Obama. The “Democratic” Party is ready to ignore your choice for the nomination and effectively throw your votes out. It is irrelevant that I support Hillary Clinton over your guy; if at the end of the day he has more votes, that’s all that matters. We cannot overturn the popular vote. Period.

This is why I promised to never vote for a Democrat again after 2004. This party pretends to care about the majority opinion, that being the bedrock of Democracy, but it is a lie. They have (rightly so) claimed that the Republicans have shown disdain for the rule of law and the American people, while at the same time have indulged in the very same sins.

If the democratic nominee coming out of the Convention is NOT the candidate who won the popular vote, then I say we boycott the Democratic party forever. Yes, this will cede the White House to John Mccain in the fall and will mean at least 4 more years of disastrous, retarded policies, but a lesson must be sent to the powers that be. We are in charge. The American voter is supposed to run the show here, and we’re tired of being disrespected and disregarded at every turn. In 2000, the Supreme Court decided that democracy wasn’t all that important in deciding an election, and in 2008 the Democrats are following suit.

My most sincere hope, my single greatest political objective in my life is to see a day when Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House do not have a single Republican or Democrat sitting in power.

After the Republicans win this round by default, I hope that the true conservatives in that party will see that their interests have been betrayed, and they return the favor.

America, it is time to stop supporting this failed system and stand up for third, fourth, and fifth parties.

I work for a credit lawyer here in the city. Today I’m copying some of his colleagues’ contact info out of the Sullivan’s Illinois Lawyer Directory. While searching for a lawyer with the name “Ocampo” I came across one: Obama, Barack, H. Our senator had 5 listed addresses, by far the most of any lawyer in the book. I called my boss over to check it out.

“Hey, Obama has 5 listings in this thing.”

“Wow. He must get alot of mail.”

My boss huddles over the thick directory and stares at the name and the counties he has listed. Two of my co-workers quickly follow suit. The three of them stare in awe. I am rolling my eyes at my 30-something colleagues like they’re 15 year olds squealing at a Hanna Montana concert.

Sad.

One of the most glorious things about having a 2 party system is that we have such hegemony in our ideas on how to deal with potential threats to national security. Take for instance, the candidates stances on Iran:

Obama: Iran threatens all of us.

Clinton: I would obliterate them.

Mccain: Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.

Cheney: Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the rebel base, we have decided to test this station’s destructive power on your home planet of Alderaan.

Most people who like sleeping at night probably haven’t thought too much about the consequences of a bombing campaign on Iran. I have, because I don’t care much for sleep, apparently. If you’re a glutton for punishment, you can Wikkipedia the Iranian military, like I did last summer when I thought we were on the precipice of war. Based on that reading, it would be pretty easy to obliterate “them,” if by “them,” you mean their air force, heavy installations and centrifuge sites. Even with 50,000 troops in Korea to this day, thousands more in Europe, and 160,000 in Iraq, we could still pull of a fairly quick shock and awe campaign that would render Iran’s military completely useless.

However.

It’s not the bombing campaign that would be the problem. It’s the fallout that would occur immediately after. While taking out their offensive capabilities would be a cake-walk, it would be impossible to deploy troops on the ground in Iran in order to effect a regime change, given the stretch of our current forces. This would create an opening for a very pissed off populace to begin a terror campaign against targets in Iraq, Europe, and most of all Israel.

The price of oil would probably double over night, with more hikes to come.

These scenarios do not even include any possible backlash from China or Russia, who both have heavy interests in Iran.

Under no scenario would I endorse a war of aggression with Iran, no matter their meddling in Iraq. The only way that the American public would swallow the nuking of Natanz is if Iran struck first at Israel or the United States. Now, of course nobody in Iran is stupid enough to do that, so if the nutjobs in Washington want to sell the bombing campaign, they’re going to need a false flag operation.

Keep your eyes wide open.

Just in case you were wondering what I’ve been up to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7KeipF-WJU

New blog: (Now in new and improved zero Political calories format)

http://artisticlunacy.wordpress.com

It still sounds weird to me, after every single dominating performance that Lebron James puts up, a commentator will inevitably mention “and this guy is only 23 years old!” And then I remember that Lebron James is a few months younger than I am, and furthermore, he is living the dream. For the longest time, I was going to be the next NBA superstar. For a while, I was pretty damned good if i say so myself. But then I stopped growing when I turned 12 and I went from an agile starting center to very slow point guard in less than 2 years. Perhaps if I had kept growing to beyond 5′10″ and filled out to 6′8″ I would be living the dream today. But it wasn’t meant to be. I eventually remembered that my real dream was to be a writer, and I’m living that dream today.

Every once in a while though, when I see Lebron streaking down the court with those absurd strides of his, then hanging in the air for 9 seconds before throwing down a slam dunk over 3 defenders, I feel a surge of pride. Not for myself, but for my generation.

I have always been about as crazy a basketball fan as anyone, but the last few years have changed the dynamic: now the stars on the court are my age, some of them even younger. There’s a special glow that I feel when I see these barely 20-somethings out there controlling the game. I’ll admit it: I derive a great satisfaction from seeing 22 year old Chris Paul dominate 35 year old Jason Kidd in every conceivable way. I get giddy when I watch the infantile looking Dwight Howard tower over slower, older big men in the paint every night.

For now, the old men are still on top of the game. The defending champion and oldest-team-in-the-NBA San Antonio Spurs have won 3 of the last 5 O’brien trophies, and they’re not slowing down any time soon. Last year when Lebron reached the Finals, they quickly showed the young superstar the door. But Lebron was only the first. Now there are a plethora of Generation Y stars banging on the championship door, and some day, very soon, one of them is going to knock it down.

I was once friends with a very popular guy, arguably the most popular in school. He was charismatic. People listened to what he had to say, even if it was racist or homophobic. The girls at school all adored him, even if he ripped their notes to him up and threw them in the trash. No matter what he did a legion of people were dedicated to him, myself included. He was so popular in fact, that a few people got together and created a Yahoo fan club that was all about him.

Turns out that these “few people” were all coming from the same IP address. My so-called friend had created hundreds of yahoo ID’s and invented not only the fan club, but the crazy people posting hateful messages about him on its message boards. One of these “crazy people” was a kid in my home room class, and one day my friend circulated an e-mail he “wrote” and after school a few dozen people were waiting outside to beat the kid down.

Turns out that charismatic personalities can also be sociopathic. Turns out that people will listen to anything that comes from the mouth of a man who is handsome and knows how to turn a phrase. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

In 2000 a great number of people voted for George W. Bush because he was the candidate that they would rather “sit down and have a beer with.”

Now how many of those people do you think actually got to sit down and have a beer with W?

In 2008 a great many people are voting for Barack Obama because he’s more likable; he’s more “real.”

I agree with them. Barack Obama is a cool cat, one who I’d love to shoot hoops with, chill and watch some HBO, or just chat about politics. But you know what? I’m never going to get to do that. Do you know why? Because Barack Obama is going to be far too busy running the country to sit down and hang out with ordinary Americans.

Maybe my past experience with charismatic personalities makes me a little biased or cynical. But maybe I know a little more about these kind of people than the average person. I saw a man manipulate dozens of people into a rage against a manufactured threat, all because he was liked and trusted by the general school population.

I’m never going to vote for a President because I think that they have a better personality than the other guy, or gal. Much as I would love to throw down a shot and a beer with Hillary or Barack or hell even John Mccain, it’s not going to happen, unless one of them decides to come to my neighborhood watering hole and pander to the working class.

It’s time for America to grow up and stop caring more about popularity contests than creating true change in our nation and our world.

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Unlike previous controversies in Barack Obama’s campaign, this one comes from his own mouth. The previous speed-bumps that Obama has endured came from his surrogates or affiliations. Tony Rezko and Jeremiah Wright are different people with different agendas, but now for the first time, there is nobody to point the finger at except for Obama himself.

What’s most surprising is that this is Obama’s strong suit. It’s remarkable that with as many speeches as he’s done since the campaign began he hasn’t had a single major speaking meltdown like this. Perhaps the hectic schedule of the trail produced an aberrant “mis-speaking,” when he was tired or distracted, but there’s really no excuse for this.

Now, I’m not a swing voter in Pennsylvania and I’m the farthest thing from a hardcore Republican, but his statement offended me on a number of levels.

1. Barack mocked people of faith by claiming that they cling to religion in order to deal with their economic woes. Whether I’m broke like I am now or I was in the lucky group of people benefiting from Bush’s tax cuts, I would still believe in God. Even though our culture has come to worship consumerism, there are still a great number of devout Christians and Catholics in this country, and Obama just dissed them.

2. Obama takes a jab at every non CEO in the country when he talks about anti-trade sentiment in the same vein as racism. Let me tell you something, if Barack Obama lost his job as Senator to a 15 year old kid in India who will be getting paid not even a tenth as much as him, he would have some anti-trade sentiment as well. This is Obama’s greatest flaw: he has built a campaign on populism and the will of the people, yet he supports free trade at every opportunity. Free trade is a nice phrase, but the American people are learning what it really means. We are starting to understand that free trade isn’t about just competing in global markets; it’s about allowing companies free reign to do whatever they want. I can’t think of a more disastrous policy for the will of the people. The blue collar towns of Pennsylvania know what free trade is all about, and pardon me, but they have every right to be opposed to it, considering it’s one of the reasons they’re “bitter” in the first place.

3. The speech was made to a private crowd in San Francisco. In the 1850’s, Obama could have gotten away with pandering to this group, because people on the other side of the nation would have never heard about it. But he made a big mistake by playing to the prejudices of big city liberals. This provides the Republicans with elitist ammunition- now they can claim, nay, they can PROVE, that Barack Obama is out of touch with working class Americans and people of faith.

Obama seems to have forgotten that he has to try to please everybody all the time; statements like these put him into a corner. Even if he really feels this way about the people of small town Pennsylvania, he never should have said it like that. As slick of a politician as he is, he forgot what he’s supposed to do:

“You know, I’m a voter. Aren’t you supposed to lie to me and kiss my butt?” -Bill Murray, Ghostbusters

Take a look around
You’re out of touch
I’m out of time
But I’m out of my head when you’re not around
Reaching out for something to hold
Looking for a love where the climate is cold
Manic moves and drowsy dreams
Or living in the middle between the two extremes

Barack Obama: “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

You’re out of touch.

John Mccain: “Part of the problem in any recession is psychological.”

You’re out of touuuuuuuuuch.

Isn’t the 2 party system great???