Froomkin Fail

Our Fuzzy President Is About To Come Into Focus

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/10/our-fuzzy-president-is-ab_n_255524.html

We're finally going to get to know the real President Obama.

Once the final outlines of health-care legislation become clear, we'll know what really matters to him. Where he draws the line. How he wields the levers of power. Whose ox he gores when there's goring that has to be done.

We'll know who's really in charge.

What's amazing is that more than six months into a presidency that Obama vowed would be the most transparent in history, we still know so little about some basic things like how he makes up his mind and who influences him the most.

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In which Dan Froomkin (late of WaPo now at HuffPo) said nothing worth reading and actually managed to sound like in idiot in under two paragraphs and two sentences.

What Dan doesn't say is how critical it would have been for Obama to show some real leadership in the last several months instead of whatever it was we actually got served up instead.

So now Obama is really gonna show his stuff, huh Dan? I doubt it because we've seen it already; you just haven't been paying attention.

Epic fails all around.

HuffPo via Political Animal Aug. 10 2009

Conservative Activist Gets In Fight At Health Care Town Hall

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/10/conservative-activist-get_n_255440.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_08/019423.php

Gladney told reporters he was recently laid off and has no health insurance. [emphasis added]

Wait, the conservative opponent of health care reform, fighting (literally) to defeat a plan that would bring coverage to those who lose their jobs, lost his coverage because he got laid off?

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This story is both tragic and hilarious. It points up one of the things that utterly sickens me about U.S. politics - GOP supporters that oppose their own political interests. It would be great if this guy worked for Walmart before he got laid off and also flies a big American flag above his $200 rusted-out trailer park home.

Why do people that need the safety nets promoted by progressives and liberals instead support the political interests of the top 1%?

In the U.S. there is a complete disconnect between one's position in the class hierarchy and how one votes. And in my opinion, there shouldn't be. The fact that this disconnect exists is evidence of some kind of mass indoctrination and for which I normally blame organized religion and our schools.

What else could explain it?

How Obama Intends to Fail

Krugman: "Town Hall Mob" Part Of Southern Strategy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/07/krugman-town-hall-mob-par_n_253705.html

lightningbolt said:
The reason many Obama supporters are not as passionate as the crazy right wingers is because Obama's plan isn't really what his supporters want. Obama's supporters want a single payer system, which is not even being talked about. Therefore, there is no reason to go out and fight.

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Back in May I said this:

Obama hasn't floated a plan of his own and despite his previous support for a single-payer plan he has refused to allow any such plan to be discussed at recent healthcare reform negotiations. His claimed deadline may reflect the political realities of congressional elections in 2010, but it is also defeatist and melodramatic. Where was the forewarning on this? Now everyone is supposed to immediately jump in support of whatever Obama decides his plan will be even though he has refused to state just what in the hell it is? And the single-payer option is off the table? And it's now or never? By 1 August 2009?

He doesn't seem very hopeful, does he?

Obama is carefully orchestrating all of the reasons why any healthcare reform will prove impossible. And despite whatever Obama or any other Democrat may say of it in the future - they are intentionally dropping the ball on this reform issue because they lack both the leadership and the courage to do the right thing. Cowards all!

And today I will go one step further: Obama is intentionally tanking everything. Every fucking thing a progressive might want is being deep-sixed. Obama is an owned man - a "house negro" as Malcolm X used to speak of them. Obama licks the hands of his corporate masters. If they feel bad, Obama feels bad too. Obama doesn't stand for hope unless it's false hope. Obama does not represent change anyone can believe in unless its change for the worse.

Here's the deal: The Dems think they can make people vote for them again in 2010 if they can keep people on the hook on the progressive issues of the day. As I said in early July:

Do you know how the GOP keeps promising the judgmental asshole bottom-feeders in the party that someday they really will outlaw abortion when everyone with any sense knows that they will never do that very thing because it is a) politically impossible and b) extremely useful as an issue to stir the support of their psychotically christian base?

I think healthcare reform and peace movements operate the exact same way in the Democratic party. The Democrats will never go against the monied interests of the health insurers nor big pharma. It just ain't gonna happen. And the Democrats are regularly greased by the military industrial complex too. No hope there either.

The Dems think we all have a big fucking "L" for loser imprinted on our foreheads and that they can keep riding our dashed political aspirations to victory each and every election. They mean for us to keep hoping with no payoff.

I am going to actively campaign against that notion. An all Democrat congress and White House was my final test. They aren't doing what's right and they're not even half trying to do anything worth doing. There is no quid pro quo between my vote and what they may or may not accomplish. They just want me and you on the hook, hoping forever.

I'm done.

My Cynical Take on Lauren Luke

Does anyone remember that fake story about eBay's origins? Here's wiki on that:
The frequently repeated story that eBay was founded to help Omidyar's fiancée trade Pez Candy dispensers was fabricated by a public relations manager in 1997 to interest the media. This was revealed in Adam Cohen's 2002 book, The Perfect Store, and confirmed by eBay.

Well, I am having a very cynical moment when it comes to internet media superstar Lauren Luke because of that kind of cynical and false pandering to the masses. I'm just not quite believing anything at face value anymore. But I'm still soft-hearted enough to recognize that maybe it's me and not her. Ah well...

Here are some Lauren Luke links to get on with what I am talking about:

The Julia Child of eyeliner
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/08/06/youtube_of_lipstick/

Panacea81's Channel YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/user/panacea81?ob=4

By Lauren Luke
http://www.bylaurenluke.com/

It would be great if everything about this young lady could be taken at face value. I'd like to think that some "commoner" has made it to the big time off the back of her YouTube vids and unabashed enthusiasm for makeup and a more glamorous outlook on everyday life. Everything about the girl seems genuine and sincere. I admire her confidence despite being handed generally an average appearance. Confidence is enormously attractive and can overcome many obstacles. I even like that a chubby young woman is being accepted this way into the upper level of the fashion world - that can only do good since the fashion industry has up to this point been absolutely obsessed with making women feel bad about themselves in order to sell more products that no woman really needs in exchange for the money with which most women cannot truly afford to part. The theater signage in my head reads: "Chubby Girl Radiates Confidence Under the Harsh Limelight!"

It's all good. All is well. I'm impressed.

Except that I don't quite believe it. Someone, whether it was Luke herself or some corporate bigwig, recognized that she has a very symmetrical face. In fact, if she dropped some "stones" she'd actually be worthy in some area of media either as a presenter or model or something like that. Something about her is simply too polished. It's been dumbed down and made "sincere" with Lauren's accent and so on. But her videos are clearly edited and something about it smacks of money and a deeper advertising purpose.

I blame advertisers. They have made it impossible to accept anything at first blush.

Maybe the big trick is simply how well Lauren Luke exploits herself.

Rachel Maddow As Captain Obvious

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

This is Rachel revealing the true professional PR consultant/corporatist membership of supposed "grassroots" GOP protest movements. I'd like to say that this is really brilliant reporting but its actually quite obvious stuff. She pulls most of her critical investigative information directly from the websites of these wingnuts. Still, Rachel is smart and that's extremely cool. Stating what is obvious and the truth is actually sort of revolutionary in the U.S. political landscape. Rachel is there most days just telling it like it is and being only slightly smug about it.

We're living in a country where something very like 50% of the population is offensively ignorant, bigoted and Christian. Maybe its just me, but there seems to be some kind of relationship between those three things that is quite hard to overcome. Personally, I think it is one of the purposes of organized religion to keep people relatively stupid. If it were otherwise people would more readily admit that creationism is just a lovely myth instead of trying to get it taught in science classes across the country opposite the teaching of the theory of evolution and the processes of natural selection.

Old-timers must be truly blinkered if they think that a single payer or public option health care system would hamper them in any way. I mean, aren't they enjoying the benefits of Medicare? Medicare is a government run system of socialized medical coverage. I guess that escapes their attention.

Here's wiki on Medicare:
Medicare is a social insurance program administered by the United States government, providing health insurance coverage to people who are aged 65 and over, or who meet other special criteria. Medicare operates as a single-payer health care system. The Social Security Act of 1965 was passed by Congress in late-spring of 1965 and signed into law on July 30, 1965, by President Lyndon B. Johnson as amendments to Social Security legislation. At the bill-signing ceremony President Johnson enrolled former President Harry S. Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary and presented him with the first Medicare card.

My thinking is that if a single payer program fails to gain any traction this time around that we should start going after Medicare and the medical benefits of congress-critters too. Let's get everyone onto the same bullshit private insurance system with which everyone else has to contend.

If everyone suffered collectively and equally under the thumb of the profiteering health insurance industry then, and perhaps only then, would we see real progress on the health care reform issue.

This Modern World

A clear and compelling vision: Hope for eventual change

Source: http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2009/08/04/tomo/index.html

What’s a home garden worth?

http://www.kitchengardeners.org/2009/03/whats_a_home_garden_worth.html

So, if we consider that our out-of-pocket costs were $282 and the total value generated was $2431, that means we had a return on investment of 862%.

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The Slow Food movement asks us to determine for ourselves the true value and meaning of food. For me, making better food choices means making this a better world, it means less oil was used to make and transport my food, it means fewer animals suffered to satisfy my palette and that we have a new way of sticking it to the man by taking a revolutionary stand against the grotesque consumerism that characterizes the 21st century American.

Don't buy it. Make it. Grow it. Catch it. Gather it. Experience it. Share it.

Real value is never found in dollar notation.

We can be more than mere ghosts of the modern age drifting through media-blitzed shopping malls in search of the next consumerist bliss-point.

We can be human beings.