Just checked the TV schedule, and one of my all-time favorite films is playing, Cotton Comes to Harlem. From 1970. To quote Bill Cosby, "Right." With a kick-ass black director and a kick-ass cast. 38 years ago and it feels hipper, more tuned-in, more accepting, more fun, than much of what passes for racial dialog today. Why are we so boring? Another of my favorites, The Man Who Fell to Earth from 1976, has a scene that still floors me for 2 reasons. The black political operative who just chucked Buck Henry out the skyscraper window (along with his gay weightlifter lover and barbell) goes back home to his white wife and their kids, wrestles with them a bit and takes a swim in the pool. He was just doing his job, bringing home the bacon. To a completely unremarkable multiracial household. Filmed so naturally, like the later sporting naked scene with Bowie and Candy Clark and gun with blanks, when any movie filmed today would have to give you an obvious erotic sex scene. As if people at home naked never do anything but have sex. So thanks, Ossie, Nick, for letting me look outside the window for a moment, hop in the time machine and realize it's not just this campaign season that feels deadingly hollow, it's the whole sign of the times. Once we were young, with plenty of ideals and solutions and energy and new ideas. Now we're just a bad plethora of uninteresting cliches, trying to re-invent the 60's or figure out what we lost. I think I'll stay in bed.

You don't have to man a phone bank to make a difference. Chris Bowers has set out on his individual quest to change the election through personal click-throughs. But don't take his views as your gospel - advertise your own. Too much time on Palin? Focus on McCain. Not enough time for racial or feminist concerns? Focus your ad on those areas. For $1 a day you can change the world and run your own 527. Grassroots democracy free of campaign finance laws? Could be. What if they held an ad campaign and no one showed up? What if everyone was already doing their own thing? Quite intriguing. Citizen democracy, catch the wave. (Okay, this probably promotes Google too much, but presumably other alternatives will come along with enough interest and buy-in)

If this doesn't go through, go to OpenLeft and read about Chris Bower's adventures in self-advertising.

And for you folks who can't figure out you posted 5 mistakes in a row, never mind. Sign o'the times.

=========================================

So the following post disappeared with no comments, 5 recs, but deserves reincarnation, at least once if not eternal recurrence. Take control, best idea evuh! (this campaign season at least). Let me hear you say yeah! (I mean, "Click rec"!)

Chris Bowers takes a hint from a reader and learns how to advertise. You can do it too. Be your own PAC, your own 527, your own special interest group, hell, your own Lyndon Larouche. If you think Howard Dean unleashed a firestorm with internet fundraising, and Obama/Axelrod took it to the next step of FaceBook organizing, wait until every blogger on the internet becomes his/her own multi-marketing machine.

Candidates aren't taking you seriously? Take it personally, take out an ad. Bring the conversation back to the issues, back to me, me, me. If you don't represent yourself, who else will? That's the democratic way. No more useless electronic town hall meetings, nor hackable e-voting black boxes: scalable, personalized marketing campaigns. Pennies a day, thousands in influence. Your congressman won't know what hit him. But you will. Take the fight to Washington, be your own Mr. Smith. Measure your clout in clickthroughs, measure their effectiveness in your advertising budget. No more middle man, especially if you're a woman. Shaming, shunning, embarrassing, encouraging, insulting - the choice is yours. Send a message to Washington, and make Washington listen to you.

If you missed other recent posts, you can see them at:
my archives unless it's broken again, in which case:

Gibson Reloaded - Teh Awesome

Palin sanctions Russia?

Poppies

So the following post disappeared with no comments, 5 recs, but deserves reincarnation, at least once if not eternal recurrence. Take control, best idea evuh! (this campaign season at least). Let me hear you say yeah! (I mean, "Click rec"!) Chris Bowers takes a hint from a reader and learns how to advertise. You can do it too. Be your own PAC, your own 527, your own special interest group, hell, your own Lyndon Larouche. If you think Howard Dean unleashed a firestorm with internet fundraising, and Obama/Axelrod took it to the next step of FaceBook organizing, wait until every blogger on the internet becomes his/her own multi-marketing machine. Candidates aren't taking you seriously? Take it personally, take out an ad. Bring the conversation back to the issues, back to me, me, me. If you don't represent yourself, who else will? That's the democratic way. No more useless electronic town hall meetings, nor hackable e-voting black boxes: scalable, personalized marketing campaigns. Pennies a day, thousands in influence. Your congressman won't know what hit him. But you will. Take the fight to Washington, be your own Mr. Smith. Measure your clout in clickthroughs, measure their effectiveness in your advertising budget. No more middle man, especially if you're a woman. Shaming, shunning, embarrassing, encouraging, insulting - the choice is yours. Send a message to Washington, and make Washington listen to you. If you missed other recent posts, you can see them at: my archives unless it's broken again, in which case: Gibson Reloaded - Teh Awesome Palin sanctions Russia? Poppies

Moments after gleefully pointing out one of the pillars of her foreign policy experience, that "You can actually see Russia from land right here in Alaska", Sarah Palin was informed that Barack Obama had actually been to Russia on a trip with Sen. Lugar, to which Palin replied:

"You're kidding me! No waaay! Really? That's so cool!"

Frantic images of Palin & McCain advisers waving from the side of the stage were followed by a large shadow tripping over one of the cameras, forcing ABC to back up and re-shoot the segment.

Shortly thereafter, Palin informed Gibson that our concern with Iran was not that Ahmadinejad would use nuclear weapons, but that he might give them to terrorists. The normally staid Gibson broke into loud guffaws and collapsed in a heap on the floor, requiring network medical staff to attend to his needs. Inventive network staff covered for the interruption by replaying Gibson asking "So by the Bush Doctrine, would you feel entitled to invade Pakistan with or without Pakistan's approval?" 7 or 8 times while Palin repeated 7 or 8 times something about keeping all options on the table because terrorists are hell bent on destroying us.

After being administered a mild sedative, Gibson was able to keep his composure the rest of the interview. Network execs denied that Palin was using ether inhalants throughout the tail portion of the interview, surmising that perhaps it was a mild digital equipment malfunction that caused her voice to get ever more high pitched and hysterical.

The full heavily redacted version of the interview will air on Friday.

Uh, Sarah, perhaps were working off the 1954 World CIA Factbook:

And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.

It doesn't have to lead to war and it doesn't have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.

His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that's a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen.

21st Century to Sarah: That sanctions stuff didn't even work very well back in 1979 - you remember Jimmy Carter & Afghanistan, don't you? Oh, okay, we'll look it up.

Anyway, Russia, despite what your other Cold War-era advisors say, is now the fastest growing economy in the G8 (sorry, we're going to need a glossary for you at this rate - G8 means the top 8 industrialized democracies, Russia kind of qualifying). The EU (that's code for "European Union", all those socialist countries across the Atlantic like Paris and Sweden that have tax rates like 90%) uses Russia for 1/3 of its oil imports. Natural gas? Lessee, Germany (you'd be surprised how far they've come since our bombers dropped raisins to them) gets over 1/3 from Russia. Austria gets 3/4. Czechoslovakia? (they're actually 2 countries, but we'll cram that detail later) almost 100%. Turkey? (Not quite Europe but they're our friends to keep the EU on its toes): 2/3. Georgia? (The other one, really, Gibson wasn't talking about Atlanta). 100%. And oddly enough, Russia is exporting less abroad and more to its old Soviet "friends" (we call this this CIS now, just think "boo, cis"). Which unfortunately means that while Europe needs them, they don't really need Europe. Here's their Wiki page - see that graph on "Russian economy since fall of Soviet Union and that nice little rising dovetail going up to the right? Yeah, that's their profits. PS - that "current account" biz kinda means their bank account, not bad, not bad, and you might squint at the oil pipeline graph as well - a fine bit of spaghetti, I know, but it kinda tells much of the story.

So would energy sanctions against Russia hurt her? Well actually, Russia frequently halts its own exports. Why? In America, we'd call it "price gouging", but the Russians refer to it as re-negotiating Soviet-era contracts. With a gun. To the head. So like most energy companies these days, Russia can make much more profit while producing less. Charging twice as much and more. Good deal, eh? If only we could slip a windfall profits tax in on that baby. But the point is, if they can voluntarily stop exports, then customers have a hard time saying they'll stop buying. Germany: "We'll freeze this winter rather than pay exorbitant rates". Nope, won't fly. (By the way, Russia nationalized its biggest oil company, kinda like we did with Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, the difference being ours is a white elephant while Yukos is a cash cow. Even bigger, a cash moose you might say. Really impressive operation, and it even made Putin himself a cool billion dollars. Something to strive for, dontcha think? Don't forget your old friends on the way up...)

But here's another little kink in the sanctions thing - as the Economist reports:

A country that almost went bust ten years ago now boasts a $1.3 trillion economy, foreign-currency reserves of nearly $480 billion and a $144 billion stabilisation fund for surplus oil and gas revenue. Annual growth of real incomes has been in double digits. GDP per head has risen from less than $2,000 in 1998 to $9,000 today at current rates of exchange.

Natural resources account for 80% of their exports, China will gladly take what Europe doesn't want, and quite frankly, Russia just simply isn't hurting for cash.

Now, about that other thing you said, "His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that's a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen." Girlfriend, we have to work on that one. First, countries usually control energy supplies coming through or from them (that's how you got that free Monopoly money off the Alaska pipeline last year, remember?). Second, Russia never quite gave up the Soviet Union, at least as far as pipelines go. Well, Georgia was an attempt, but considering Russians can put tanks in faster than you can fly your kids to Juneau, you see how worthless that distinction is. And third, Russia already has the EU by the short and curlies, as with most of the region. (Which is mighty big, by the way - I know Alaska is huge, but think TEN times as big, 1/8th of the world's land. And they tend to negotiate more than fishing contracts with each of their 14 land neighbors and other close acquaintances). There might be some diplomatic pressure, as you mention, but that sanctions thing is rather touch-and-go. Or to put it more bluntly, no-go. And as for taking on a NATO obligation to defend Georgia? Let's just put that one back in the box and forget about it, otay? Nice idea, perhaps in 200 years we'll come back and revisit it.

So how about we draw back some to just tough sounding verbage to keep them dancing? "We will be firm with Russia, we will discourage incursions into neighboring lands, we will hold firm to our energy policies, ensuring we secure America's needs for generations to come." Who could find fault with that?

Oh, by the way - they were taping, and no, they won't erase the tapes, even if we arrange a free hunting trip. I'm afraid we're fucked.

As Mayor of Wasilla building a $15 million sports complex, Sarah Palin faced a dilemma - $15,000 per year on rape kits, or not?

Sarah thought for a moment, and decided, "Let raped women pay for their own rape kits!" Thereby leaving only a $22 million town debt rather than $22.015 million.

This has been another episode of "Mean Mysoginist Mavericks in Government".

Viewers may send in their own recommendations for program topics to receive a free chance to set up large game leghold traps on the mayor's premises in Wasilla Alaska!!!*

(*Offer void where illegal or outside the continental United States.)

Chris Bowers takes a hint from a reader and learns how to advertise. You can do it to. Be your own PAC, your own 527, your own special interest group, hell, your own Lyndon Larouche. If you think Howard Dean unleashed a firestorm with internet fundraising, and Obama/Axelrod took it to the next step of FaceBook organizing, wait until every blogger on the internet becomes his/her own multi-marketing machine.

Candidates aren't taking you seriously? Take it personally, take out an ad. Bring the conversation back to the issues, back to me, me, me. If you don't represent yourself, who else will? That's the democratic way. No more useless electronic town hall meetings, nor hackable e-voting black boxes: scalable, personalized marketing campaigns. Pennies a day, thousands in influence. Your congressman won't know what hit him. But you will. Take the fight to Washington, be your own Mr. Smith. Measure your clout in clickthroughs, measure their effectiveness in your advertising budget. No more middle man, especially if you're a woman. Shaming, shunning, embarrassing, encouraging, insulting - the choice is yours. Send a message to Washington, and make Washington listen to you.

Pay attention now. Because over the next week we might see a bit of sleight of hand, as the press decides that Sarah Palin is really too much and that McCain's halo has tarnished. Pay attention. Because will that really be the way the process goes, will that really be their way of forming a decision? Is the press really assessing public opinion, or simply mapping its own new narratives onto the popular scene and making its own presumptions seem like "reality"? And is there an ulterior force(s) behind that presumption? Ever since Eric Boehlert wrote his nice little expose on shared suspended disbelief of reality I've been waiting to see which blogs left and right would pick up on the phenomenon - the self-pleasing ability to jointly ignore huge swaths of obvious documented fact to collectively adopt a contrary opinion. Psychological studies show that well-educated people perversely are better able to use their IQ's to adopt positions unsupported by facts. And recent studies show the larger the social group, the more intelligent the species of ape. So here we display a group participatory ability at self-delusion encompassing millions at a time (not that this is a fair study - lower primates don't have TV & internet to work with). But here's the problem. When working with groups this large and influences this complex, it becomes difficult to say whether we deluded ourselves, or whether someone deluded us instead, figuring out which buttons to press to make us think we were turning that remote-controlled car? Because as Boehlert points out, the press, the Democrats and basically all of us assumed a patronizingly untrue version of reality to drive through a particular view of reality and subsequent "obvious" result. And Democrats are supposed to be the less media-savvy - Republicans are the "manipulative ones". And the press is supposedly "free" and "independent", even as the come across so repetitive, mimicking each other with the same catch phrases and press release soundbites so they look more like chorus girl dancers and Gregorian chanters than free thinkers and analysts. So what's the mechanism at play when Mark Halperin suddenly wakes up after several years of extreme R.E.M. sleep and notices that Republicans lie profoundly and obviously about just about everything when they get on TV or the campaign stump (including an impressive coordinated perversion of reality we call "spin", though it would be less impressive if there were less willful suspension of belief amongst the audience)? And that McCain and Palin are indeed true to this perverted Republicanism. Is Mark Halperin just a lone clairvoyant Rumpelstilskin? Or has 100 years passed for Sleeping Beauty's kingdom and Obama is our prince? Or is it just another fairy tale, where the wicked witch ensconced in yonder dark castle is peering yet again into her magic crystal ball, ready to unleash her flying monkeys on a new attack, or to put the kingdom aslumber anew, with slightly different dreams but similar results, whispering "sleep, poppies, sleep, poppies, sleep...." In short, who's in control here? And why exactly did we think *WE* were?

Hillary is not the campaign slave maiden/attack dog for sexist issues. She was a major candidate and remains a powerful force on major issues. Some of those, but certainly not all, represent women's concerns and stand to motivate female voter's enthusiasms. If you want to engage Ms. Clinton's help, it is likely in the areas where she is most passionate and competent that she should be engaged, not just where, as Shakesville likes to put it, she has a cooter.

Concerns about Sarah Palin have less to do with her being a woman and more to her being a fresh shiny veneer thrown over worn out horrid ideology. Succinctly stated in vernacular, "lipstick on a pig".

While I'm sure some people like the idea of a pit bull fight in high heels and mascara, that's not a role Hillary signed on for, and you may find it hard to believe, is extremely insulting to assume that this is the you-go-girl task for her that will get all her feminist supporters squealing in delight. In fact, only a suggestion that the l'il fillies go off together in a helicopter and have an aerial polar bear shoot is likely to be more offensive. (Maybe not, but I wanted to throw in that line anyway).

Joe Biden did more for party unity yesterday than I've seen in months, with a simple statement: "Make no mistake about this, Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Let's get that straight. She's a truly close personal friend and she is qualified to be President of the United States of America, she's easily qualified to be Vice President of the United States of America and quite frankly it might have been a better pick than me. I mean that sincerely, she's first rate."

Bravo for him. That doesn't mean he's resigning or has lost his mind. It just shows he knows how to be respectful, stand up for someone, to be a bit modest and gracious, conciliatory. Sports and politics are filled with contenders who should have won but didn't. This might or might not be one of them. But a good contender maintains and deserves respect. Not to be cast as a ringside spectacle of a pitbull fight, lipstick or not.

Good for the O man, finally got a good hard swing. May have come out harder because of McCain's reaction, but all's fair in love and politics.

See, McCain's trying to sell us a pig in a poke, to use the old phrase (dates from the Middle Ages, John). That's not calling this young "Maverick" a pig, just saying she's no reformer, she's a fraud. But then so are most of McCain's policies. Window glossing, bait-and-switch advertising. Read the fine print, all rights void in states near you.

The Big O came out with a poke in the eye, and here's looking for more of them. Only 50 days or so to go, and there are more holes in the McCain/Palin story than you can poke a stick at. So needles & pins, fireplace pokers, pick your instrument and get poking. And remember, we're just poking fun at them, no matter how hard they squeal.

Sarah Palin supports aerial hunting of wolves and bears, over the wishes of 90% of pro-hunting Alaskans.

Sarah Palin opposes abortion even in rape and incest, even for her daughter, over the wishes of 90% of Americans.

When Sarah's husband joined a group to help Alaska leave the country, Sarah showed up to tell them, "Keep up the good work".

Is this the "change" John McCain chose for America?

Is "Maverick" just code for "Extremist"?

Vote Obama/Biden 2008 - Change You Can Believe In. Change You Want.

As a follow-on to my previous post's discussion.

Citizen talking points - take out Sarah Palin before she builds up steam, make her an anchor around John McCain's neck. Copy, repeat, assert, mail on.

Here's the list - short, simple soundbites.

1) Alaskans get $13,000 in oil revenues for a family of four, and an average $12,000 per person in federal benefits. But Sarah Palin as governor decided she needed another windfall tax on oil. That's more money you and I pay at the pump. Sarah Palin - easy with other people's money.

2) Sarah Palin turned her tiny town's balanced budget into a $3000/person debt to build a sports complex. New medical facilities? Forgotten. Sports over health care - the priority we need?

3) Sarah Palin thinks hunting moose from a helicopter is a brave sport. Perhaps fishing with dynamite is next. Is this how we want to use America's wilderness?

4) As Alaska's governor for only 1 1/2 years, Sarah Palin thinks she has foreign policy experience because Russian fisherman fish near her waters. By her logic, the Mayor of Sonoma is Commander-in-Chief ready because of Mexican grape pickers. America's security isn't a joking matter.

5) Sarah Palin retreated from the public eye because the press wasn't nice to her. As Commander-in-Chief, would Putin, Osama bin Laden and Qaddafi act any kinder? Sarah Palin - waiting in the Presidential wings or cowering?

6) Sarah Palin's husband is such a frontiersman, he wanted Alaska to quit the United States. And even joined a group to do that. Twice. A member for 7 years. Does Sarah carry the same frontier spirit as her husband? Is President of Alaska her real desire?

7) Sarah Palin is a Pentecostal who favors teaching creationism in elementary schools. Would she teach speaking in tongues alongside phonics? Laying on of hands alongside surgery and medication? Does Sarah Palin believe in any separation of church and state?

8) Sarah Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before Congress cancelled it. Before she was even governor. Now she claims she forced them to. Next month she'll say she invented the internet and ousted Saddam Hussein. Executive experience - more than empty talk and baseless bragging.

9) Sarah Palin is against abortion. Even for rape and incest. She's entitled to her opinion. But is she qualified to lead ours?

10) Sarah Palin tried to censor books in a library and get a trooper fired for her sister-in-law, while her husband wanted Alaska to secede. Is there any part of the Constitution she's comfortable with?

Sarah Palin - ready to deceive on Day One.

Add your own below, but remember - it's what will inspire a strong reaction against Palin and thus McCain, not just what liberals think Americans should care about in an ideal world. And keep it simple, leave the long-winded stuff to Obama & Biden. :-(

Okay, the blog I saw today had the theory she was a hockey "pest" or "agitator" - less of a skilled fundamentals player than one designed to shake up the opponent's game. But self-referenced "pitbull with lipstick" terminology gives you an idea she's not shy from the fight - she's a "Hockey Enforcer" - a nice way of saying "Goon". And why should she be shy? She was in Ted Stevens' and Veco's pocket as far back as 2002. They've got her back, she knows what bench she's on, and certainly in a state of 600,000 she knew the ground rules. (Even though she may have broken a few to make it to governor, these were certainly not in the public's favor, more a series of backroom brawls).

Now, what do we get with Barack & Co. calling her a "Skillful Politician"? Oh yes, lovely: Validation. The Vetting that McCain didn't provide (because how exactly do you vet a Goon, and we know how poor McCain is with Vet's issues anyway). So Obama being  a nice guy and all is saying that she is capable of handling the politics, and while he goes on to say that it's silly to give her credit for foreign experience just because Alaska signs fishing agreements with Russia, he's already given her a pass as being capable. Dude, the biggest advantage you have right now is that if doddering old McCain teeters over next week he'll be handing power over to a ditz whose "foreign" experience was the 6 schools it took her to get a bachelor's degree and whose major achievements have been sports announcing and running a small town into a huge deficit. Don't give her a get-out-of-penalty-box-free card. Skillful? Let's say it, "the Peter Principle in Action". So she has an 80% approval rating in Alaska? That's because it's run like a country club - disapprove of someone and you're blackballed forever. She's at the center of corrupt oil, and being a yes-woman to a Republican agenda is her ticket to ride (aside from a curious rare moment resigning from the Oil commission which smacks more of self-interest than anything). A $22 million debt for a town of 5000, to build a sports facility? Yet we're going to let her run as a "maverick" and "skillful" at that? Look, Goons never look too smart, but if they take our best player out, either by the kneecaps or in a fight, we're screwed. McCain may be skating on crutches, but if he's skating unopposed, he may even slam one in with that funny wooden stick. Where exactly is *our* Enforcer?