White House memos sent to No. 10 Downing St.

World's Greatest Blog Post of, like, right now....

It dawned on me today how tough marketing and branding must be. Like, whether a client contracts the services of a marketing company, or a start-up is trying to do it in-house, everyone's just trying to come up with a name, a logo, feelings to associate the brand with, etc. Not to mention a whole marketing strategy to give their brand/product an authentic feeling in a marketplace of ideas where, let's be honest, there are few truly new ideas.

Nonetheless you have to sit there, look at the product, and come up with all the ways this product is better than competing products, and all the ways it will make a buyer feel fulfilled. It's hard work. Seriously, how do you convince anyone that your brand of toilet paper is better than a competitors toilet paper? Both brands have different types with different levels of softness. And the brand is the last thing most people thing about when buying TP (All I'm thinking about is what I'll want to use an hour after eating spicy Pad Ki Mao from my favorite Thai place).

So yeah, hard job...

...then the GOP calls their healthcare bill "The World's Greatest Healthcare Plan of 2017".

No one thought "Ok, here we have the world's greatest healthcare plan, and yet how do I CONVINCE people it's the world's greatest?" No, they just gave it the name the way my 5 year old nephew might describe the family cat.

No nuance, no irony. It's just pure, literal condescension. This is the Republican Party of today. 

On February 8th, ICE carried out a raid against people exiting a hypothermia shelter at a church in Alexandria, VA. They waited until a group of men who appeared to be mestizo broke off from the group and then pounced. They released one and took the others. The detained men were loaded into a van already full of hispanic men, according to witnesses, and were taken away.

Questions from a local news source yielded a different story than what was described by witnesses.

  The official could not confirm other aspects of the men’s story, and insisted ICE does not detain people in vans, as the men described.

 “ICE conducts targeted immigration enforcement in compliance with federal law and agency policy,” the statement continues, “ICE does not conduct sweeps or raids that target aliens indiscriminately.”

 The witness accounts were recorded in further news sources. What's clear from ICE's chilling response to this, as with practically any body now of a federal government controlled by Donald Trump, is that there will not be accurate information divulged to the public regarding their actions. Given the population being targeted, homeless immigrants, it will be very difficult for the detained men to receive any kind of assistance. ICE detention centers are growing, with the private prison industry earning huge profits because of it.

We've gone about this all wrong...

 It's now obvious to me that the best way for the Left to change society is to start producing our own media.

 "What?" you ask, "Are you daft, Wannabehero? The Left produces, and has produced, a great deal of media! Where have you been?"

 Oh, I've been around. But we've gotten it wrong, folks. We've been producing the wrong kind of shit. What we need to start creating is utterly meritless schlock that appeals to mass audiences and disseminates leftist propaganda. I'm thinking along the lines of a film, directed in the style of Michael Bay, about the Spanish Civil War. Or a reality TV show about organizing a union in the style of Rupaul's Drag Race. 

 How did I arrive at this realization? Well, like most occasions when I have an idea, I was in the shower this morning and....

 In 2005 I was working for SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, as a field organizer. It was my first real foray into professional activism. A few weeks into the job another organizer, who for the purposes of this story I will name Anne, and I were conducting site visits in Maryland as part of a campaign to organize Aramark and Sodexo workers. I cannot remember the exact location, but at one point a fire alarm went off at either a hospital or college campus we were visiting where Aramark had subcontracted cafeteria workers, and we found ourselves outside waiting in a crowd of people. Anne started chatting with some nearby folks to see if any of them were cafeteria staff. Finding none that were, she nonetheless made pleasant conversation.

 I'm not sure how the subject of Hillary Clinton came up, but it did. A woman Anne spoke to felt strongly that Hillary Clinton demonstrated her ambitious character by not leaving Bill following his admission that he'd had an affair with Monica Lewinsky. Anne, on the other hand, found it endearing that Hillary had decided to stay with Bill and fix their marriage. I remained silent. Having been in high school in the mid-to-late nineties, I was sick of the Clintons. This discussion was the product of utterly meaningless tabloid drivel, drivel that had completely dominated political discourse for a decade. The United States had just re-elected George W. Bush to the presidency, a man who had blundered the US into an illegal war in Iraq, a war Clinton had voted for and her husband had laid the groundwork for. I, at that time a committed anarchist, had become a labor organizer specifically to cut through the nonsensical image-based politics of the Democratic and Republican parties in order to wage class war. What Hillary Clinton did with her personal life was the farthest thing from my mind then. 

 Now, it is absolutely true that Bush and his clique were bad and Clinton did vote for the war (and rightfully suffered for it), and the subject of whether Clinton chose to stay with her husband was and is superficial. But whether we like it or not, and as Trump's election has clearly demonstrated, more people relate to politics through themes found in entertainment than through breaking down their real interests and seeing how they line up with the political process. I could have probably engaged with the Clinton hater on why her hatred  only served to distract her from questions like "Why has the purchasing power of the average worker consistently dropped for 40 years?" or "What is happening to our civil liberties?" Perhaps such a conversation could have yielded results, but unlike asking whether Bill Clinton is really all bad or whether his wife's decision to stick with him means something, the former questions are systemic questions and systemic questions aren't easily answered. 

 For the many, many Americans disengaged from politics due to a lack of knowledge, interest, or both, the decision of who to vote for can easily come down to simple assessments of carefully curated media images of who you'd rather have a beer with, or who seems more charismatic and optimistic, or who is better at business. If you are the type who absorbs 80 hours of television a week, then Bush's compassionate conservatism,  Obama's hope and change, and Trump's "YOU'RE FIRED", mean a great deal.

 Therefore, we need to start over and start thinking simple. Really simple. Like pea-brain simple. We have to approach the MASSES, people! I'll actually start this off with my second idea: A Rupaul Reality TV show centered around union organizing... I don't have the faintest idea how to write a Reality TV script, but can't we just imagine the shenanigans that would ensue with Rupaul training people on how to salt a workplace? Or teaching people how to effectively negotiate across the table from a union-busting lawyer? I actually think Rupaul would be perfect for the latter because....

 Yeah, exactly, you don't even know what to do with yourself after looking at that picture. All you want to do is reward this fierceness with higher wages and better health insurance.

 Ok, next is the Spanish Civil War movie idea, a la Michael Bay. I'll begin the process with this intro scene, and hopefully far more qualified people can take it from there:

FADE IN
EXT - SUPPLY DEPOT

Camera pans around and around, and around, like ten times, our heroine MEGAN FOX, who is covered in honey and is only wearing a thought. 

Camera pans back, MEGAN is revealed to be a platoon commander in the P.O.U.M, a revolutionary Marxist militia operating in Catalunya. 

Cue explosions, multiple cuts, like a million edits so we get 30 angles on the fireball 

NIC CAGE emerges from the fire as General FRANCO. 

FRANCO

MWA HAHA! We will have Fascism!

Camera spins... and spins, and spins again around MEGAN FOX, who is slowly standing up, determined, completely unintimidated. She's glistening. 

MEGAN

It's on now! 

FRANCO is screaming. The whole world explodes behind him. MEGAN runs at FRANCO, she's completely unhinged, explosions everywhere, she's got like crazy mad shiny honey titties. They both leap into the air, screaming, and as they collide...

FADE OUT
TITLE SEQUENCE BEGINS  

 Now I know what some of you are thinking: This is incredibly condescending. I'm literally talking about the people I want to influence like they are morons. And you'd be right. I am. They are morons. And as evidence I offer this fucking pig...

...who is now the President of the god damned United States. He attained this office by fooling 63 million mouth-breathers into thinking he knows how to run a country in spite of the fact that he's never run a successful anything, let alone a business or marriage, in his entire fucking life. He wasn't alone in this effort. He benefited from a media system that sold his sorry brand and manipulated people for profit for years. They did it with some of the stupidest, shallowest programming they could. All I'm saying is even though him and all other stupid, pop-culture trash shouldn't matter, it inevitably does, and we should start employing the same idiotic weapons to serve a higher purpose, namely indoctrinating those same masses with some class consciousness and leftist ideas. 

 Because if we don't then major media companies, Trump, the GOP and the Democrats, will. 

Broodings on Bay-ing

  

  The Rock (the film, not the former wrestler) may be the single most important cultural contribution ever by someone masturbating furiously with an American flag wrapped around their penis, i.e. Michael Bay. I learned this when I was unable to sleep last night due to my brain running at light-speed the moment I lay in bed, and I decided a Michael Bay film would be the ideal form of media to take advantage of the passive, mind-erasing relationship between film and viewer. I was, indeed, successful as I only got about half-way through the film before passing out.

  The film's principle contribution to AMERICA FUCK YEAH-ness definitely lies in its total commitment to just how bad the troops, in this case personified by Ed Harris, have been betrayed. They get no respect, so they come up with a way to get even and get the attention they deserve by invading Alcatraz Island, taking a bunch of tourists hostage, and threatening to fire missiles with VX nerve gas at San Francisco. Ultimately Ed Harris can't follow through with his threats to do this because he could never harm all those innocent people (minus the hostages, apparently). The real troops don't do that! But Ed Harris gets betrayed again, this time by the troops who stopped being real and started selling out for money. There are also great conversations between two dudes who I think were in the West Wing talking about all the secrets and dirty lies they've covered up, and how they have to keep Sean Connery locked up in federal prison. See, he knows the location of a roll of microfilm containing The Truth™ regarding the alien landing at Roswell and JFK's assassination. The Truth™ was really big in the 90's, by the way. Everybody was looking for it.

  Ed Harris is the true American, embodied in the selfless soldier, betrayed by feckless, power-obsessed bureaucrats and greedy capitalists. The Rock was truly a film with a statement in the somber days of the Clinton presidency. Oh, America! Would that you had not lost your soul then! Morality and honor no long occupied the White House, and no one cared about all those poor, forgotten, highly-equipped and excellently trained soldiers!  What was to be done? What indeed!?

  Aside from all that, I should point out that I was able to learn at least one life lesson from the film: If I'm ever in a firefight, and I'm trying kill this one loner determined to stop what's going on, and neither I nor any of my comrades can seem to land a shot... well, I'm just putting my gun down and walking away because, clearly, I'm the bad guy. It probably wouldn't even get that far, though, because I'd pick up on earlier clues. Like the fact that the dude I'm trying to kill keeps saying witty shit about being in way over his head before masterfully finding his way out of his present situation. I mean, if you can talk like that during a gun battle you are probably a will-to-power type, and have more control of your reality than you think

  The Rock, directed by Michael Bay, and starring Nicolas Cage (RAGE), Sean Connery, and Ed Harris, is like a microscope for those seeking to explore the wonders of Trumpanzee land. I highly recommend watching with friends, colleagues, and fellow will-to-powerists. I give this film 50 stars and 13 stripes.

How'd We Get Here...

  I suppose it goes without saying that everything I said in previous posts about Trump being incapable of winning the Presidency belongs in the dustbin of history. I've chosen not to erase any of it, though, perhaps as a reminder to never take anything for granted again.

 Since the day after election day, I and many other people have tried to figure out how all of this even happened. How did everyone left-of-center get it so wrong? The answer is provided in Adam Curtis' Hypernormalisation, released by the BBC in 2016. The documentary was released before election day, but Trump plays a prominent role nonetheless. I've attached a youtube link, because the BBC iPlayer only works in the UK. If you happen to live in the UK, I'd recommend watching it from their site as the quality of the youtube vid is simply not as good.

 Once you've watched it, you'll wonder why you thought the election would end any other way...

Nah, he's just that nuts.

Back when Bernie still had a chance, I remember thinking that the "electability" argument that supposedly favored Clinton was empty given that she was the anti-thesis of everything being fought over in the 2016 primaries. Drumpf, I thought, was going to make mince-meat out of her by pointing out how he had, in the past, extracted favors from Democrats for political donations. He could talk about how she might not be a Republican, but she's still part of the Belt-way "in-crowd" that led us into Iraq, or at least refused to use their political capital to stop it. He could have hammered her on flip-flopping on trade, or being married to the man who signed off on Glass-Steagal... he could basically have made himself out to be the embodiment of the populist sea-change many were predicting. Back then, there was a collective assumption that somehow Drumpf's verbosity, immaturity, and thin skin were all a brilliant ploy to defeat his Republican foes in a time when many Americans wanted someone to shout down the establishment. Behind all the bluster, as awful as it was, we thought, there was a shrewd tactician, a deal-maker, a man with a plan. I mean, a really racist plan, but a plan nonetheless.

This assessment wasn't irrational given what we knew then. In fact, the only flaw in this logic was that it was rational at all and completely over-estimated The Donald's capacity for strategic planning. After months of gaffs, Drumpfs doubling down on his accusation that President Barack Obama was the founder of the Islamic State firmly grounded his campaign in another plane of reality. If one needed anymore confirmation that Drumpf simply has no idea what he's doing, that was it.

This is all irrelevant if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, which is likely. But Drumpf's ascendance in spite of his lack of capability reveals something a bit frightening: Ascribing agency to a complete imbecile was likely an attempt to avoid confronting the reality that one of the most powerful political parties on the planet managed to nominate one of the most incompetent and dangerous nominees ever. Just as conspiracy theorists construct elaborate plots to give order to a universe they don't want to admit is actually quite chaotic, lefties like myself simply didn't want to face that the Republican Party is actually racist and insane. I admit now, freely, that I held out some kind of hope that wasn't the case.

I really wish I was wrong.

It's Not the Wolf, It's the Pack.

  Let's get this out of the way: Donald Trump is not going to be the President of the United States. The only reason he is doing as well as he is in the Republican primary race is the paucity of good options in their candidate field, the insurgent nature of their party base, and the rules of the election itself which allows any candidate to win by plurality.

  The concern about Trump should therefore not be about him actually having access to nuclear missiles. Nor should anyone bother anymore with the question of Trump's sincerity, i.e. whether this is all just a big publicity stunt. Such speculation is irrelevant because whether he truly buys into the parade he's marshaling, all that matters is the parade itself. Trump's negative impact on electoral politics in the United States will be felt in ways both immediate and long-term. In all manifestations, his impact will be negative.

  First, American Liberals, along with everyone else on earth, rightfully disparage Republicans for their denial of scientific facts, so being unconcerned with truth is nothing new for the GOP. In every GOP primary race since 2008, candidates from Rick Santorum, to Hermann Cain, to Michele Bachman have had their moments in the sun, and when enough light was shined on them and the kind of ignorance they represented they were required to go back to the shadows. Trump, however, pushes the envelope of fact-denial well beyond global warming, evolution, and vaccinations.Trump lies consistently (Check out Politico's summary covering just one week of false statements), and commits gaffs ("Rapists!", and "Megan Kelly's a woman!") that would end the campaigns of virtually any other candidate in recent memory.  Trump, however, has survived, and one cannot simply conclude that his charisma and media savvy are alone responsible: his supporters just don't give a damn about facts.

  A broad base of support that just does not concern itself with truth is dangerous for many reasons, but even more so when combined with the the oldest political tradition in the United States, one which predates the Republic and has been with us since the colonial period: Racism. Pat Buchanan's two primary campaigns in the 1990's seem tame compared to Trump's, if only because after winning New Hampshire in '92 Buchanan's unwanted endorsement from David Duke rightfully hurt his campaign. Trump has remarkably survived his David Duke moment, which he should never have gotten to in the first place given his proposed policy of blocking Muslims from immigrating to the United States, or of expelling all undocumented immigrants en masse from the country and forcing Mexico to build a wall along our southern border.

  While Republicans are obviously guilty of starting the so-called "Southern Strategy" by attracting the old Dixiecrat vote using code words like "law and order" and "welfare queens", there hasn't been, in nearly 50 years, a space deliberately created for White Nationalists on the national political scene. That has changed. Beyond simply playing with racism, Trump's campaign has actually provided a space for out-right ideological racists to operate in plain sight. They openly talk of attending his rallies, and mingling with his supporters, and of ditching the Confederate Flags and Swastikas and picking up Trump signs. While it is true most Trump fans don't see themselves as racists, polling done right before the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary demonstrates that a majority of his supporters do hold racist views, particularly towards Hispanics, Muslims, and people of middle eastern and south Asian descent.

  This direct link with fascists adds a certain color to what happened in Chicago this past Friday night. Trump claims he shut his rally down voluntarily after consulting with the Chicago PD, but was quickly refuted by CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. It's impossible to know for sure what was going through Trump's mind, but as Rachel Maddow pointed out on her show Saturday, it's hard not to see a more deliberate hand in all this. Trump may not have known for certain the Chicago rally would lead to larger protests than he'd expected, but it was an opportunity to avail himself of a quintessential strategy in the demagogue playbook: Invent or distort a narrative, inflame passions, provoke angry responses, and then present yourself as the only person who can fix it. How convenient that African-Americans had so far escaped his worst vitriol, right up until he had the opportunity to refute and attack David Duke. He waffled, and then planned rallies in cities that are experiencing heightened racial tension due to high-profile police shootings of unarmed black men. There was no question activists would seek to disrupt his events. Shutting down his Chicago rally was the equivalent of saying to his supporters, "See folks, this is what democracy gets you. This is what you have to put up with if I'm not in charge."

  All of this, the willful and prideful ignorance, the acceptance of racist elements, and the incitement of violence as a means of drawing attention, are a toxic brew. Nonetheless, if we think of Trump as the id of the American psyche, an ugly impulse, the worst manifestation of the noxious and myopic nationalism fomented since 9/11, perhaps the anger he promotes will simply fade when he does. Or, even if he can't achieve higher office, what will be the outcome of millions of Americans who felt energized by his campaign meeting up with some of the most dangerous fringe elements in the country? What will they plan? What will they organize?

  What of the impact on electoral politics? Major realignments in the American political party system have depended on whether a party's more racist elements are on board with changes being made at a national level. The revolt of southern Whigs in the antebellum period led directly to the formation of the northern, anti-slavery Republican Party. The endorsement of the civil rights movement by northern and western democrats led to the Dixiecrat revolt in 1948-68. If you're a Democrat, a fracturing of the Republican Party might sound like a good thing, but if either of those historical examples teach us anything, it's that if a faction leaves one party, it is often absorbed by another. Pro-Slavery Whigs became Democrats, and Dixiecrats became Republicans. Already the Neo-Con wing of the GOP, the extremely twisted and mis-guided ideological architects of the Iraq War, has openly stated it will side with Clinton if Trump wins the nomination. If the collapse of the Republican tent leads to an increase of the size of the Democratic one, how soon before a neo-conservative wing of the Democratic party fissures with what is emerging as the Social Democratic wing led by Bernie Sanders?

Pentagon knew Kunduz MFD facility was a hospital

  The Associate Press reported yesterday that the Pentagon knew a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Kunduz, Afghanistan was, indeed, a hospital, and that they had ordered the site be placed under surveillance prior to the hospital's destruction. Special Operations analysts apparently suspected that the site was being used by a Pakistani ISI agent to coordinate Taliban attacks against Afghan and US forces.

  Whether the commanders who ordered the strike had this information in hand when the order to attack the site is unclear. The Pentagon has shifted its position, as well as its narrative of events, several times. The report cites anonymous analysts claiming the strike was "justified" due to their assumption the Pakistani agent was killed. No evidence suggests any Pakistani nationals were present in the office, and MSF flatly denies this assertion.

  This means that a civilian facility was flagged, prior to being destroyed, as a potential hostile target. The Pentagon can also no longer claim they didn't know the MSF facility was a hospital, which means a case can now be made this act was, in fact, a war crime.

Bernie Sanders' Lost Opportunity

  At the Democratic Party Primary Debate held last night in Las Vegas, I think I anticipated more of a grudge match between Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley, fueled partly by Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee attempting to make strong use of what was sure to be limited air-time. All of the candidates had something to gain, and some a lot to lose, with good showings. CNN's intro may have hyped up my expectations as it was clearly modeled on a pro-football broadcast, or maybe American Idol. It was a ridiculous way to introduce such an event, yet I may have been subconsciously amped by it.

  Boy, was I disappointed.

  Just to get it out of the way, Webb and Chafee are completely finished. Whatever policy positions they may advance from here on out are irrelevant given the incredibly awkward nature of their delivery and their clear discomfort as public speakers (btw, Jim Webb killed a guy?). So they're done. Gone. Finis. Oh, and Martin O'Malley accepted money from the NRA in 2012. He was also Baltimore's worst mayor and the basis for Littlefinger running that city in The Wire. So his whole performance was just that, a performance.

  Chafee, nonetheless, in spite of sounding like an awkward science teacher, should be given some credit for at least being the only candidate to directly challenge Hillary Clinton's integrity. However, when asked by CNN moderator Anderson Cooper if she had any response, she simply retorted "No." The audience cheered and applauded, and that was that. No further discussion, no further concern.

  Perhaps the crowd reaction can explain Bernie Sanders' decision to emphatically state that he's tired of hearing about Clinton's emails, a decision akin to a poker player knowing he has four aces in his hand but deciding to fold anyway. Anyone on that stage could rail against the rich (and they did) and demand a bigger share of the national wealth for working people (and they did), but only Sanders has a consistent track record of truly working for both of those things. Integrity is the one thing that Bernie Sanders can lord over every other politician in Washington, not just Hillary Clinton, and to so readily dismiss its importance could only have been the product of shrewd political calculus. Yes, he probably thought, I could make this an issue, but it could backfire given the party faithful simply don't seem to care if a Clinton breaks the law.

  On the subject of whistleblowers Clinton was given even more leeway:

"[Snowden] could have been a whistleblower. He could have gotten all of the protections of being a whistleblower. He could have raised all the issues that he has raised. And I think there would have been a positive response to that."

  But as Dan Froomkin of The Intercept pointed out:

Snowden, as a contractor, was not covered by whistleblower protections. He did try going through established channels, but he said his concerns fell on deaf ears.  And the response to his leaks has made abundantly clear that no one in his chain of command was the least bit interested in going public with the information.

  That Clinton could say such a thing with a straight face is demonstrative of how comfortable she is with the double standard she and every Washington insider benefits from: when they break the law, it's at most a political liability, but when people like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden do it for the public benefit their lives are ruined. They, along with journalists like Barrett Brown, were made examples of by the Obama administration, which she was part of, for relaying information to the public that we would never have known about without their sacrifice. In the universe of privilege Clinton exists in, the use of leaks for political advantage are ok, but when they actually force those in power to answer for their actions, then and only then are they considered legitimate breaches of national security.

  It's no wonder, given the free pass she was given last night, that every major liberal periodical in the country, from the Wall-Street-controlled New York Times to the guns-in-America obsessed Guardian, are running headlines declaring the debate a resounding victory for Clinton. She was not challenged on her principal weakness, and she will never be. It is a stark indicator of how little change will be coming to the Democratic Party, and the American Left, anytime soon.

Arm the troops. But arm the people?

It would the an understatement to say that the Republican Party is a firm opponent of any attempts to restrict gun ownership in the United States. All of their presidential hopefuls have adopted the NRA's "good guy with a gun" talking point. This is a good indicator that this will become a platform position in the next general election. So really, if anything, the GOP wants to help expand the market of gun ownership in the United States.

This creates a contradiction between their position on the subject of war. With the exception of a small libertarian minority, the Republican party is still the party of unilateral, single-minded military action. For all their disdain for entitlement programs, their desire to further bloat an already massive military budget and to re-engage in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan renders their supposed advocacy of small government as mere rhetorical nonsense. Telling, then, that they have not, with only a few exceptions, challenged President Obama on issues of war and national security during his time in office. If they attempted to put up a real challenge to extra-judicial killing or indefinite detention they would be restricting the abilities of future Republican presidents to conduct those acts as well. So the contradiction we end up with is "Let's make our military bigger, stronger, and meaner and also protect our right to shoot at it."

Having said this, we see a different, albeit related, contradiction from President Obama and many Democrats. He has worked to block, or in the case of the Libyan War has outright ignored, attempts by Congress to hinder his ability to use violence internationally whenever he sees fit. This not only contradicts positions he took as a candidate, but also his advocacy of stricter gun laws. As far as the Obama administration is concerned, his constituents should be hindered in their capacity to conduct mass killings, and he should not. He should have the power to commit acts of terrible violence anywhere on Earth at all times, and will kill anyone he chooses without oversight regardless of how many innocent people die in the process, but Americans should not shoot each other and should not arm themselves.

Perhaps, reader, I am alone in seeing these contradictions. Unfortunately, while preparing this piece I attempted to find any kind of polling data that would link views on gun ownership to views on foreign policy and the war on terrorism, but was unable to. It is odd to me, given the horse-race nature of the election commentary by the media, that no one has researched whether there is a correlation between an individual US voter's view of gun ownership and how those views relate to other issues. A majority of gun owners are indeed Republicans, but apart from Nate Silver's breakdown there is virtually no research on how an individual's opinion on the 2nd Amendment correlates to their opinion of the 1st Amendment, or on the separation of powers, or the state secrets privilege.

  Bernie Sanders has one major hurdle to climb if he wants to win the Democratic nomination for President. From FiveThirtyEight:

  "What’s received less attention is that Sanders has so far made very little traction with non-white Democrats. The most recent CNN poll found his support at just 9 percent among non-white Democrats, while the latest Fox News poll had him at only 5 percent among African-American Democrats. (Fox News did not provide crosstabs for Hispanics or other minority groups.)"

 Hillary Clinton's popularity with African-Americans and Hispanics is going to put her way ahead of Sanders in the long-run of the campaign. There would need to be a seismic shift in his popularity amongst these key groups to provide any hope of him winning. When one considers the general distrust Americans have of self-declared socialist candidates, then a Bernie nomination, let alone a victory in November 2016, seems all but impossible.

  "Electability" has long been the main focus of both major parties in selecting candidates for any office, and being easily labeled can actually work against a candidate. The electorate can be so fickle at times that allowing your overall message to be as vague as possible can actually help one get elected by merely appealing to emotion. Recent examples of this being Bush II elected on "Compassion" and Obama on "Change". Being labeled something specific, like a Socialist, and having very direct responses to questions of policy, isn't likely to get you very far.

  Sad, because even worse than someone simply deciding to vote for, say, Hillary Clinton solely based on the fact that "they just like her" is Donald Trump managing to inspire even a portion of the Republican electorate with shameless xenophobia. Only a few weeks after a horrid event in South Carolina inspired government bodies across the south to finally eliminate the battle flag of the Confederacy from official use, Trump is appealing to what may be the remaining vestiges of racism and hatred desperately seeking a voice to express their belief that they are losing hold of history.

  Yet, with Trump now leading in the GOP polls (in spite of one particularly poignant gaff) one has to wonder how this could affect Americans' perception of Sanders' candidacy. Like Trump, most observers see him as an unelectable figurehead representing the frustrations of his party's base. Much like in 2012, when Mitt Romney's campaign was doomed by the insanity of many GOP candidates, it's very difficult to imagine many moderates, upon looking at the candidates who most appeal to each party's respective bases, not coming away with a sense that they'd much rather deal with a socialist than an outright racist demagogue. Add to that the fact that the Latino vote will certainly not be for Republicans, Sanders may have more room for appeal than conventional wisdom would assume.

So Obama has ordered that Camp X-ray be closed. This is the facility located in the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba that houses various "enemy combatants" captured during the Bush Administration's War on Terror. This is a positive step, but as I am weary of politicians I will wait and see whether or not the President does what is constitutionally appropriate. By that I mean:

1) Order the immediate release of all prisoners whose innocence is no longer in question. If they are unable to return to their countries of origin for fear of persecution, then they must be offered asylum in the United States.

2) Move all cases, and I mean ALL cases, to civilian courts. The category of "enemy combatant" is extra-legal and has never been recognized by International Law.

3) If the government is convinced that a detainee is a threat, but has no concrete evidence with which to prosecute them for crimes, then they must be released. If they cannot present evidence for fear of exposing intelligence assets they can order a judge to impose a strict gag order on all proceedings. Such an order would prohibit a defendant from communicating with anyone but defense counsel, but would not impede said counsel's duty to investigate the crimes in question to disprove evidence produced by the state. All proceedings could come under judicial oversight without having sensitive information made public.

It's all in how you tell it.

In today's Washington Post, there was an article by Glenn Kessler analyzing what the recent Russian-Georgian War really said about Russian power. One thing Mr. Kessler wrote caught my eye:

"After Georgian forces moved into the separatist enclave of South Ossetia early this month, Russian troops attacked Georgian military installations and moved close to Georgia's capital before partially pulling back. This week, Moscow recognized the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a move the United States and European nations condemned as undermining Georgian sovereignty."

It is in Mr. Kessler's choice of language that we see how major newspapers and television networks in this country are constructing the dialogue of a "New Cold War". Georgian soldiers, artillery, and aircraft did not suddenly attack South Ossetia and destroy the city of Tskhinvali. They instead simply "moved into" a "seperatist enclave".

Well in that case, Serbia "moved into" a "seperatist enclave" in Kosovo, and China "moved into" a "seperatist enclave" in Tibet.

I like Joe Biden's stance on Labor issues. But this op-ed from Common Dreams makes a good case for why he's a bad choice in the area of foreign policy.

Having experience in international affairs does not mean you have experience practicing good judgment. Both Biden and McCain have terrible judgment on Iraq. If Barack Obama continues to alienate his base by appealing to pro-war interests, he will lose this election.

Howzabout a round of Caucasians, on me....

Boy, war is dumb. I mean, I think someone needs to make a movie called "This dumb war." This film could be about any war, so perhaps it should be set in some kind of surrealist or fantasy setting. Either way, it should just get the point across that war is absolutely stupid, and no matter what country a person lives in, no matter how advanced their culture supposedly is, anyone and everyone is susceptible to the odious social forces that bring about, and are brought about by, war.

So... why exactly is there a war being fought in the Caucasus region of Central Asia? Because of longstanding tensions emanating from the desire of practically every little ethnic group to have their own country? Because "The West" can't seem to keep from supporting governments hostile to Russia? Because Russia is a big bully?

I think all these reasons probably fit into the equation. But the immediate cause was the President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili - by no means a friend of democracy as he claims, but instead a little neo-con inspired autocrat - throwing his country headlong into armed conflict with a superpower. Only a complete imbecile would take a country like Georgia (which is nearly half the size of the U.S. State with the same name) to war against one of the most powerful militaries on earth. And only someone so clearly inspired by non-realist thinking, again this brings to mind neo-conservatives, would honestly think the United States or the European Union would risk a massive World War-type confrontation over a speck of shit country in one of history's most fought over regions.

Yet... this is war, and as I said with war comes stupidity. Both John McCain and Barack Obama have issued statements condemning the war as being caused by Russian aggression. I mean, really.... Russia is the aggressor? Any more so than Georgia? What is with Americans and their need to take sides, to form good/evil dichotomies out of situations that are terribly complex? If the Russians are the bad guys, why are all the refugees in South Ossetia heading to Russia for protection? Why are they so terrified of Georgian troops? I mean, the Russians aren't saints, and they are definitely taking advantage of this situation to make sure Georgia is divided and weakened, but what would our Neo-con/Neo-Liberal foreign policy establishment prefer? For the Georgians to do to South Ossetians or Abkhazians what the Serbs did to Kosovo?

But some do in fact think this stupid war (yet another in a history of stupid, stupid wars) is our business. I do not understand this mentality. It is pervasive here in Washington, however, where bureaucrats and think tankers create their own abstract realities of how the world should be, and look to politicians in both major political parties to use the United States military as a way to do it. They really love telling Americans how essential it is to take one side or another in some war that has nothing to do with anything happening in the U.S.A. Of course, the moment someone suggests to these "freedom-loving" apparatchiks that they themselves abandon their cooshy lives in DC's many suburbs, or it's recently gentrified urban yuppie-nests, they cringe. Because giving up that kind of luxury when some poor sclub from Tennessee can go on your crusade's for you...

...that would be stupid.

Hiroshima - Never Forget

Crisis averted?

According to David Ignatius, the United States is not planning to bomb Iran anytime soon. In fact, the Bush Administration is going to announce the creation of a U.S. interests section in Tehran, the first official American diplomatic in Iran since the 1979 revolution.

It may be too early to breathe a sigh of relief, of course, because this type of "realistic", diplomacy-based foreign policy thinking does not fit into the history of the current American Presidential administration. Nonetheless, Ignatius is a well connected columnist in Washington. If what he writes is true, there may not be a war with Iran after all.

(PHEW!)

What's my identity?

I am currently reading "War is a force that gives us meaning" by Chris Hedges. In it he argues that war is a powerful social intoxicant, because it produces for humans a wide range of emotions that give us a sense of direction and meaning in life. Hedges, who has first hand experience with the horrors of battle, makes the point that it is precisely war's horrid brutality that makes us hate it and love it.

Hedges' argument about emotional intensity corresponding to a need for meaning in one's life interests me. When people enter into social arrangements which are bad, such as the social arrangements necessary for the prosecution of war, do they do so because in spite of any negative consequences, being involved in a bad situation still gives them a sense that they are involved in something? Perhaps this explains why people stay in bad relationships. It probably even explains addictions; not just to drugs and alcohol, but also to work or shopping.

Just a thought.

Army recruiters threaten teenagers to increase enlistment numbers