Summary: I've been waiting for this moment all week. When "WALL-E" came out, there were complaints on the Internet from the Political Right about how that movie was trying to sell us Leftwing propaganda. Surely, when "The Dark Knight" came out, and argued that not even superheroes should be trusted with dictatorial powers, someone was going to see this, equate Batman with George Bush, and interpret the movie as a critique of the "necessary" measures that Mr. Bush implemented in his fight against terrorism.
The fascists and sadists in our country have been given the green light. In her book "The House of the Spirits", after the assasination of the duly elected president in Chile, Salvador Allende, and at the time of the fictionalized takeover by Pinochet, the police and military which previously were there to protect the Chilean citizens, turn on their own people to aprehend them torture them, and make them dissapear, all in the name of a defense of "freedom". Similarly, our own government authorities are turning our nation into a country where people disappear, are tortured, arrested (if they look foreign) all in the name of "protecting the homeland". Isabel Allende rethorically asks in the novel, "Where have these people been hiding, where did they come from?" and the answer is: "They are our neighbors. The have been living amongst us...but now they are emboldened." Emboldened indeed! They were given the green light by Pinochet. Similarly, the sadists and torturers in our midst have been given the green light.
As Barack Obama's global travels - and good fortune - dominate the headlines in the U.S., the McCain campaign has launched two new ads in a petulant campaign against the media itself. The spots, which prominently feature MSNBC's Chris Matthews (among others), blast a fawning media's seeming love affair with Barack Obama. Whether or not contempt works as a campaign strategy for McCain, it could be a case of biting the hand that feeds him. After all, as Chris Matthews himself said, "The press loves McCain. We're his base."
Its Friday and I'm sure we could all use a little bit of Daily Show humor at the end of this hard work week.
Last night on the show Jon's opening headlines covered the little-known reversal of Bush administration policy on negotiation or as they would inaccurately refer to it - appeasement. Despite the fact that Bush has criticized his political enemies for attempting to negotiate with evil "terrorist" countries like N. Korea and Iran... that is exactly what his administration has been doing (with success, actually) with North Korea and now with Iran.
He also takes a look at McCain & Obama's speech at the NAACP and the art of pandering to minorities. He tries to evaluate how each candidate is doing at pandering to Hispanics by using a Lou Dobbs meter.
DENVER - Last week, I appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs tonight to discuss the economic meltdown and the political fallout that will come from it. You can watch the clip here:
Lou Dobbs was talking about how at least McCain and Bush are doing something about our crazy gas prices by calling for more off-shore drilling, unlike Obama and the Democrats in Congress who are fighting against the will of the people and not providing the relief from high prices that everyone wants and demands.
Oh Lou, you damn fool...it will NOT provide relief. At best, from what I recall, we might hope to have "relief" in the form of gas that's 1-10 cents cheaper per gallon 7-10 years from now, give or take.
Lou pretends to be the populist that cuts through the BS and doesn't stand behind any particular party. If you believe that, great. But someone needs to explain how the basically symbolic gesture of off-shore drilling is going to have any significant, tangible impact (aka, "relief").
Today Lou talked about Barack Obama's statement that children should learn how to speak spanish. Lou did not literally say it, but given his whining about immigration and his focus on Obama today displays that he fears bilingualism.
I love my friends, but what really bugs me is when they get sent something ridiculous. Something every fiber of their being is telling them is wrong, but they still somehow think there's a possibility of truth. So they forward it to me, when a simple google search would have put all their worries to rest.
So tonight I received such an email from a good friend. She sent me this...
REALLY?!... you gotta watch this. It sounds like V for Vendetta II. I know it's sensationalism at its finest, but have you heard of any of this?
:) Sleep well.
So clearly she reads it as sensationalism, but it's been forwarded to her from family and friends and she's curious. So, I wrote her back, a couple of paragraphs of what I knew from the subject matter after watching the ten minutes of trash that is included in the youtube link. sigh It was surely more than she was asking, but I had to at least let her know 1)What I knew about the subjects, because well its just polite since she asked and 2)It's always okay to ask, though forgive me if I seem frustrated...
This is my first diary, I think I'm following the rules, I don't think this topic has been covered, here goes....
I don't watch Lou Dobbs religiously by any means, but since the RBC decided how to resolve the Michigan and Florida votes I keep seeing email messages from his viewers stating that they are switching to Independent. Why? Because the Democratic party doesn't represent them; they're not going to belong to a party that doesn't recognize their vote.
Lou doesn't try to point out that it's their state legislature that they should be trying to spite. I guess he's just so thrilled because he's an Independent too. Seems to me that Hillary Clinton should be pointing out this fact since she so strongly promoted the idea that the Democratic party is responsible for the mess.
If you're like me, you've had it up to here with the refrain of "what part of illegal don't you understand" from right-wingers trying to use the immigration debate to distract hard-working Americans from the structural reasons behind their ongoing economic woes.
Rather than running scared from this simple-minded chorus of xenophobia, it's high time progressives stood up and called a spade a spade. Allowing immigration status to be used as an excuse to exploit workers is not only morally wrong, it's bad for other workers. Standing by while hundreds of working parents are rounded up like cattle, separated from their children, and detained for days to weeks without regard for due process is not only cowardly, it's un-American.
Instead of tolerating the completely impractical solution of deporting 14 million undocumented immigrants, we need to come up with practical plans for integrating them into our society and helping them continue contributing to a national economy that they are already propping up. In the meantime, we need to make sure that the hysterical calls for cracking down on "illegal" immigrants doesn't continue to victimize the very same class of "legal" workers that the crack-down is putatively intended to protect.
Lou Dobbs apparently cannot come to terms with the fact that the GE is going to be Obama vs. McCain. Maybe the anti-immigration loudmouths didn't end up controlling the debate like he thought. McCain's relatively friendly immigration stance certainly doesn't rub him the right way and we all know Obama's success has been driving him up the wall these past few months. Anyway, he's got a poll on his website right now (link - http://loudobbs.tv.cnn.com/ ) about whether Hillary should run as an independent and right now its 61-39 saying that she should. The fact that he even put a poll like that up is pretty ridiculous, but hey - it's Lou Dobbs.
Lou Dobbs just announced his poll asking if you think Obama should pick Hillary as V.P.
Go to www.loudobbs.com
He will be announcing the results later.
Personally, I voted no, for many of the reasons already written throughout the diary entries here, but mostly because of:
her Iraq War vote, speech and inability to apologize
her flag burning ban
her kitchen-sink
her race-baiting campaign
her meeting with Richard Mellon Scaife
her campaign debt
her sense of entitlement
her husband
her untrustworthiness
