LINES OF THE DAY

". . . But the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past -- or more accurately, pastness -- is a position. Thus, in no way can we identify the past as past." p. 15

". . . But we may want to keep in mind that deeds and words are not as distinguishable as often we presume. History does not belong only to its narrators, professional or amateur. While some of us debate what history is or was, others take it into their own hands." p. 153

Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995) by Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Sunday, January 27, 2008

NOT Billary, Please! Please! Please!

Over the last 8 - 10 weeks my disquiet at the thought of Hillary being the dem candidate and / or getting into the oval office has continued to grow and to sprout ever more ramifications as to why this would be another disaster for our country. We're already up against the ropes from the succession of 8 years of the regime's deliberately disasterous policies, part of which has been to spend the national government out of existence financially, and to create distrust of every federal agency and institution by deliberately turning them into centers of incompetence, and often as well, cesspools of corruption and politicalization. (Ya really didn't believe 'they' were that stupid, didja? Smart enough to steal elections and take out any candidate of their choosing? No, the destruction of centralized federal government is 'their' objective, and 'they've' reached a lot of 'their' goals -- if only by appointing who 'they've' appointed to judgships and pillaging the treasury, the greatest transfer of wealth into the fewest hands the world maybe has ever seen.)

My disquiet began with no longer trusting or believing in Hillary, based on her lies concerning serving in the U.S. senate, and her pandering to the regime over Iraq, as well as her early debacle with health care, and her deep connections to the health insurance companies, her cronyism with Murdoch and other corporatist power brokers, and her long-known secrecy. Transparency is not Hillary. She'll no more make our government answerable to public scrutiny than the regime has.

Now my disquiet includes Bill. He royally screwed us all over while in the Oval Office. He'll do it again, when it's supposed to be Hillary in that Oval Office. The 2 of them will also be fighting over who has the real power. Bill still doesn't control himself sexually, by all accounts. His heart surgery didn't change his life-time behaviors, except in diet. It will be another politically paralyzed presidency, paralyzed by Bill. His rhetorical outbursts in the last 2 weeks on the primary and caucus trails have reminded us all what he is. It will be another politically paralyzed presidency, paralyzed by Hillary, as she tries to stay out of Bill's shadow, and he walks in front of the vice president, creating yet more disunion in the nation.

Bob Herbert had a piece today in the NY Times op-ed page that applies to this, "Questions for the Clintons".

Gary Wills has another, that says everything I've been thinking, "Two Presidents Are Worse Than One."

While The WaPo Magazine has this rather sad article on Edwards, who clearly people admire and respect and maybe even trust, so why don't more people vote for him? I admire him more and more, and believe, considering the break down of who voted for whom in today's SC primary, he's the one of the three who is actually electable, and who also can really pull this country together.

Obama won SC yesterday. Black women evidently are right turned off by the Billary deal. Can you blame them, with all that barely concealed rhetoric that African Americans have heard the entire history of the U.S., that "boy, you just aren't ready yet." Not to mention the disgusting, repellant remarks on the level of "Bill Clinton's had more black women than Obama." Using black women as the bridge in a childish weenie-wave contest between two men is the most dispicable thing they've done yet. As Hillary's well-known for being in control of everything around her, and of Bill too, and even announced by her campaign as an endorsement for abilities as an administrator, can you believe for a second that she was unaware of this as a short-term strategy? How much more of their bad judgment and lack of self-control can this nation endure?

If Obama's not ready now then, when? Obama is NOT my favorite by a very long shot. But he, at least, won't be paralyzed by scandals, if he goes into the White House. And I tell ya, we are all sick to death of those 3 voices out of the last 16 years: the shrubbery AND the billary. I want to hear different tones, different timbres, new language. My ears cringe at the sound of the voices of all three -- shrub and billary.

Frank Rich has weighed in today on this as well.Go here for "The Billary Road to Republican Victory.

It's rather heartening, than otherwise, to see so many of the dem-leaning chattering class leaning toward this point of view today.Here's another, Glenn Greenwald, who has always been more of a billary supporter than not. Bill Clinton: The Chris Matthews of South CarolinaThat so many of this very loosely labeled 'us' are rejecting strongly this trashy behavior of the billary machine to make this suddenly about 'race' rather than character and all the other legitimate issues that lead to choice, speaks well of this 'us.'Or -- maybe, merely our self-interested terror of what the billary machine's ultimate consequences will be: another 8 years of 'them.'

7 comments:

Graeme said...

what kind of democracy do we have with bush and clinton taking turns in the white house?

Flimsy Sanity said...

Good article. Well Edwards is gone - even though his voting record didn't match his words, at least he said the right words. According to the polls it will be the hillbillies and the war monger McCain (remember his singing of Bomb, Bomb Iran). I have moved to a new state and was going to register but there is no one worth voting for. Of course, voting is kind of like praying - it gives us the illusion that we have some small control of events. A few thoughts though.

I was listening to NPR last night and Shelby Steele was tearing down Obama because he gets along with whites. I thought that was a good thing.

Having an ex-President campaign full time for you seems somehow unethical - like bully fun.

Foxessa said...

Lately Shelby Steele's been making his career out of Obama's run for the Oval Office.

He's been on the local public radio stations AM talk shows too.

This thing about 'how black is he really?' is like feminists fighting over who gets to be a feminist and who doesn't. If you go by a very vocal minority, who are mostly very young, inexperienced and students who haven't faced the world outside of academia yet, the only feminist is a transgendered, multi-racial lesbian. A pox on all their houses.

Love, C.

Audrey said...

Shelby Steele asks us to deconstruct the mulatto mythos instead of actually spend time deciding if Obama the man is worth his salt as a leader. As a black American woman of white German and black American descent, I'm bored already with the discussion. Jesse Jackson mouthed off about how he was not black enough (to which I was able to call his behavior absurd and beneath him on WNYC radio, loud and clear) and then there are incidents like Clinton machine and the "weenie wave" C so eloquently wrote of in another blog entry. Yeah, to use the number of black women you had sex with as a measure of your blackness--revolting.

Hillary supporters ask black people to vote our conscience and not our skin colors, then spend many words and much time trying to convince us that Barack is not black. So if his race is not supposed to be an issue, why are they making it one?

I stopped caring what color he was about six months ago.

Aud

Foxessa said...

Aud -- I recall we began discussing Obama at least back last summer -- anyway, a long time ago.

Back then I didn't think of him seriously. But then I hadn't jelled on anyone who was trying to go for the gold -- other than billary, on whom I soured a very long time ago -- though supposedly I'm exactly HER voter. Blech.

Well, now ya know where I fall between these two.

It's not gender, race, blahblahblah that forms my opinions.

Love, C.

Audrey said...

That's what's so great about you: that on the surface you are the Hillary demographic, but you are so not. I considered Hillary too, but soured on her for many of the same reasons you did. It took me a while to decide if I cared for Obama because of his color or because of him.

I always liked John Edwards, and was really sorry to see him drop out.

I take issue with the Shelby Steele's of the world.

Foxessa said...

You 'n me Aud -- Us Lutherans, we'll show Shelby Steele what's what! :)

Probably we should take Michelle along too ....

Love, C.