Back In The Saddle Again

After taking a couple of days off to deal with the dreaded Real Life Stuff (RLS) I’ve learned a few interesting things.  One of the few things that make sense to me lately is this painting of Pretendident Black Whosayin Yomama being eaten by a Hell Burger, done by Dan Lacey, the guy who likes to paint portraits of famous people, mainly politicians, with pancakes on their heads.   The main lesson I’ve learned however, is that even with all the stuff consuming the news and the PUMAsphere, such as, the Twitter Revolution, the Obama/DOMA/DADT brouhaha, his firing of Inspector General Gerald Walpin, and the Letterman not funny “slutty Palin family” rape joke fiasco/apology, (Go PUMA!) it’s pretty easy to function fairly fully without being overly concerned with any of it.  Seeing as how I’ve been immersed in the political process pimping of the Obacrats for he past two years, the realization that the success of Obathugging is dependent upon the triumph of reality over stagecraft is an epiphany.

In other words, people who’ve been paying attention, regardless of party affiliation or anything else, are fully aware of the gamesmanship of the Pretendident’s Obacolytes, and, either fully embrace and support them as necessary and novel, or, reject them as…well, what they are.  Cheating.  Whether you accept or reject those tactics and/or the man on whose behalf they were employed, depends on your principles, and not so much on your politics.  Some Democrats are fully on board, hands out, ready to roll, others are reluctantly riding along, and still others are disgusted that a man who has never won a fairly contested political race in his life is now pretending to represent them, their interests, and their values on TV.  Read the ‘Prompter, yadda, yadda, turn head, blah, blah, blah.  Republicans are similarly affected, with larger numbers in some camps, lesser ones in others.

But, that only applies to the people involved in the day-to-day of politics and its news.  The Man/Woman On The Street is far too busy to debate the fine points, and sees no need to.  Kids gotta be fed, schooled, monitored, nurtured, etc., spouses (spice?) gotta be listened to, placated, appeased, fondled, etc., bills gotta be paid, bosses gotta be ignored, cars gotta be patched, fueled, coaxed, and so on, and so on, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.  When you’ve gotta drop your kids off at some kind of practice on the way home from work, then go grocery shopping, pick up the dry cleaning, (if you can still afford it) get some gas and pick up your other kid before you finally get them all rounded up and headed home so you can drop the car off for your partner to get to work in, and you can make the kids’ dinner while they try not to do homework, which America hating figurehead the Iranians want to represent them against us is not high on your list of things to give a shit about.

The fact that most Americans don’t have time to give a damn about whether the caucuses were gamed, or women were demeaned and shafted, or whether the candidate they found attractive actually has a record matching his rhetoric is probably the largest factor in putting a succession of frauds in office across the board.  Brand recognition, that’s the ticket.  Superficial information, sloganeering, stagecraft, pr, AstroTurf, Obanoxidal my cause shortness of breath, blindness, lack of appetite, vaginal dryness, impotence, and, occasionally, an erection lasting more than four hours, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, Edgar Bergen was too a great ventriloquist even if you could see his lips move, Shamwow, Barck Berry KoolAid, KoolAid tastes grrrrrreeeeeeaaaaaat!  I’m lovin’ it.

That’s what makes polling and all the associated puff and fluff tools employed by the spinmeisters so misleading.  “Do you think the new president is doing a good job?” is probably going to elicit a “yeah, yeah, sure,” response, just to get the pollster to hurry up and do his/her business, so they can shut up and leave the respondent alone.  Sort of like a driveby phone sex obscene call from a needy ex whose child support check is late.  You know you should cuss him out and hang up, but, all to often, you just don’t.  It’s not that people don’t care, it’s more that most people don’t have time, or the inclination, to explain to you just how much they do care about the things they’re passionate about.  Pollsters know all this, so they craft their questions accordingly.

All that being said, some of the news lately has me scratching my head a bit.  Like, what’s with the preoccupation with the Iranian election?  Does it really matter which Guardian Council-selected candidate fronts for them to us?  Why should our government stick its nose into any other county’s political process?  Do we really want to go there?  I don’t think anybody here would have applauded Mahmoud Ahmadinejad putting his two cents in on our presidential election, no matter how flawed or fraudulent we might think it was.  Why should we care whether the Guardian Council supports a recount the losing faction doesn’t even want?  Does anybody care this same kinda stuff went on in 2005?

This is the first election in Iran in which the Internet is a key part of candidate outreach and media coverage. Although it’s speculative to say that former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s use of the Internet in his 2004 Democratic primary campaign is the inspiration, at least five of the eight contenders have Web sites, and Moin is a regular blogger. Hossein Derakhshan, perhaps the most famous of Iran’s 75,000 bloggers, has said that the Internet has made this election “one of the most open and transparent elections Iran has ever seen.”

Some say the recent elections in the Middle East have some sort of relevance to the Spokesmodel-in-Chief’s Cairo speech, but I can’t really get there from here.   From what I’ve read, most folks around the world, except the bought-and-paid-for rah rah crowd, heard exactly what was said, and were largely unimpressed.  Even on the cheerleaders’ pages, the comment sections are often filled with “oh, please, will you give it a rest” type responses.  Some, like Nawal Al Saadawi, president of the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association, saw straight through him.  I’m not buying her politics, but, it’s pretty clear she’s not buying Obama’s:

US president Barack Obama might seem more human than his predecessor George W. Bush, cautions Nawal El Saadawi, but in a world ruled by a capitalist patriarchal religious system, politics is ‘a game based on how to use beautiful words to cover ugly actions’ and has ‘nothing to do with humanity’. The real goal of Obama’s Cairo speech, says El Saadawi, is ‘to mobilise Muslim countries against Islamic extremists’, ‘to open the markets of Islamic countries to American goods’ under the banner of development and partnership, and ‘to guarantee Saudi and Gulf oil and other American interests’ in the Middle East.

Obama/DOMA does matter to me, though it’s hard to understand why anybody would be surprised about the Wishy Washy Waffler’s stand on anything.  Once you wrap your head around the fact that his ambivalent speeches full of flowery, yet contradictory empty words are designed to camouflage his unpopular real agenda, it’s a short step to the truth that he’s against most things the people in his nominal party are actually for.  His actions prove that he is hardly the radical leftwing activist he is often accused of being.

Which brings me to the National Organization for Women’s upcoming election this weekend.  With Kim Gandy stepping down, an opportunity for a new direction under new leadership, and dare I hope to say it, change, has opened up.  While Gandy’s NOW has entusiastically supported Obama, and I don’t know much about either of the women vying to replace her, Terry O’Neill and Latifa Lyles, I’m gonna go out on a limb and put my money on the younger woman, Gandy’s pick, whose only political contribution last year was $210 to Hillary Clinton, Lyles.  Maybe a young African American woman heading a feminist organization can help bridge the Civil Rights vs. Women’s Rights vs. LGBT Rights equals Human Rights issues gap.