Power To The People! ... Howard Zinn's "Election Madness"

There's timing ... And then there's TIMING!

And Howard Zinn comes in today with a much-needed dash of cold water.

With the media in a tizzy today, over L' Affaire McCain, and whether the melting maverick boinked a lobbyist, or just sold his soul to her (perhaps both!), and waiting in the wings to flare back up is the sinking ship of Hillary Clinton, Zinn offers, in the March 2008 edition of 'The Progressive', "Election Madness".

A brief snippet;

"Today, we can be sure that the Democratic Party, unless it faces a popular upsurge, will not move off center. The two leading Presidential candidates have made it clear that if elected, they will not bring an immediate end to the Iraq War, or institute a system of free health care for all.

They offer no radical change from the status quo.

They do not propose what the present desperation of people cries out for: a government guarantee of jobs to everyone who needs one, a minimum income for every household, housing relief to everyone who faces eviction or foreclosure.

They do not suggest the deep cuts in the military budget or the radical changes in the tax system that would free billions, even trillions, for social programs to transform the way we live.

None of this should surprise us. The Democratic Party has broken with its historic conservatism, its pandering to the rich, its predilection for war, only when it has encountered rebellion from below, as in the Thirties and the Sixties. We should not expect that a victory at the ballot box in November will even begin to budge the nation from its twin fundamental illnesses: capitalist greed and militarism."

Not likely to catch this kind of observation on your six-o'clock evening news.

Zinn has been there, done that ... He's talked the talk and walked the walk ... He's a historian, playwright, social activist and author of “A People’s History of the United States” (among about 20 others).


Read Howard Zinn's "Election Madness"

Visit Howard Zinn's website

(h/t to Barry Crimmins)

Good Thing Frank Rich Doesn't Work For MSNBC!

For, if he did, after the thrashing Rich delivered on Hillary today, and with they way they handled the David Shuster dust-up, the NBC/MSNBC empty suits would probably roll out their entire prime time line-up to apologize to her.

Rich was mercy-less in his column ("Next Up for the Democrats: Civil War"), tearing apart Hillary's live Hallmark Channel, Wolf Blizter-Situation Room-spoof, Town Meeting ("anachronistic studio set that looked like a deliberate throwback to the good old days of 1992").

"Like the scripted “Ask President Bush” sessions during the 2004 campaign, this town hall seemed to unfold in Stepford. The anodyne questions (“What else would you do to help take care of our veterans?”) merely cued up laundry lists of talking points. Some in attendance appeared to trance out ..."

"However boring, this show was a dramatic encapsulation of how a once-invincible candidate ended up in a dead heat, crippled by poll-tested corporate packaging that markets her as a synthetic product leeched of most human qualities. What’s more, it offered a naked preview of how nastily the Clintons will fight, whatever the collateral damage to the Democratic Party, in the endgame to come..."

"Less than two weeks ago she was airlifted into her own, less effective version of “Mission Accomplished.” Instead of declaring faux victory in Iraq, she starred in a made-for-television rally declaring faux victory in a Florida primary that was held in defiance of party rules, involved no campaigning and awarded no delegates. As Andrea Mitchell of NBC News said, it was “the Potemkin village of victory celebrations.”

It could be, since there's been no wailing out in the blogosphere, on how Rich, essentially, called Hillary and her husband lying scumbags, blinded only by their own, self-centered ambitions, the Hillary & Co. didn't notice, or have a chance to exploit/read Rich today.

They were kind of busy.

First, throwing their campaign manager under-the-bus, soon followed by her fourth consecutive defeat, in less than 24-hours, to Barack Obama, Obama taking the State of Maine's caucus today.

Rich points out, both with Hillary's Hallmark Moment, and out on the campaign trail, the Clinton's exploitation of "race" ("The campaign’s other most potent form of currency remains its thick deck of race cards."), the opportunity of some classic Clinton ruthlessness that lies ahead ("The question now is how much more racial friction the Clinton campaign will gin up if its Hispanic support starts to erode in Texas, whose March 4 vote it sees as its latest firewall.").

And then there's the delegates.

To borrow from Joe Pesci, it's the delegates, it's always the fucking delegates.

"That’s why you now hear Clinton operatives talk ever more brazenly about trying to reverse party rulings so that they can hijack 366 ghost delegates from Florida and the other rogue primary, Michigan, where Mr. Obama wasn’t even on the ballot. So much for Mrs. Clinton’s assurance on New Hampshire Public Radio last fall that it didn’t matter if she alone kept her name on the Michigan ballot because the vote “is not going to count for anything.”

Let us remind Barack Obama, the advice we gave him - and John Edwards - last month, on what he is up against;

"That someone needs to say again - and really accentuate - that he is running against THE CLINTONS!

Hunter S. Thompson, in his laser beam, spot-on "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail", about his view of the 1972 Presidential elections described the ego of a man running for president to that of "a moose in heat".

Well, there's two moose out there, ramming their antlers against anybody and anything that looks to be in their way on calling 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue home again."

Read Frank Rich and "Next Up for the Democrats: Civil War" ... It is such a exquisitely delicious thrashing!


Bonus Clinton Dirt

Barry Crimmins weighs in, less on David Shuster and much, much more on Chelsea Clinton with his "Hedging for a Hoedown" (and it's worth clicking over for the Rush Limbaugh photo only)

Arianna Huffington has some background on Hillary's, suddenly old-new, campaign manager with her blast-from-the-past "Who Is Maggie Williams?"


"Don't listen to that woman behind the curtain"

Okay Decider Guy, Play or Pass?

Edward Copeland, over on The Reaction, has a rather interesting proposal to lay on The Decider Guy, as well as the Congressional Republicans ...

Man-oh-man, would love to see that debate ...

Might be enough to make John Boehner cry...

Check it out!

Democrats, LISTEN TO ME PLEASE

The Night of the Jackal ... And A New Garlic Song - The Congress Sleeps Tonight

"The President wants a blank check. The Congress is not going to give it to him."

There's a scene in the taut, classic thriller 'Day of the Jackal' (and please, don't even think of bringing up the piece of crap with Bruce Willis and Richard Gere), where Inspector Lebel (played superbly by Michael Lonsdale) addresses the secret task force in charge of stopping the Jackal (Edward Fox) from assassinating Charles De Gaulle, and roots out a leaker.

After the astonished members settle down a minister asks "How did you know whose telephone to tap?" and Lebel responds, dryly and succinctly "I didn't, so I tapped them all."

So we now have the Bush Grindhouse, free to do as they please - once again, browbeating the Democrats into another losing vote - and, let's not forget, they have the extra billy club of that nifty Executive Order The Commander Guy gave himself last week.

So aside from some free passes to Wally World, as they jump in their station wagons for a month's vacation (and with the Iraqi Parliament cooling their heels in August, did Congress, or the President give our soldiers the time off over in Iraq?), what more can we do for our shrinking, emasculated Congress?

Why, a Garlic Song certainly would be welcomed, to serenade those that chose not to fight, not to serve, not assist the American people against this egregious attack from this person that occupies the great office of the President of the United States.

You know the tune, so sing along.

The Congress Sleeps Tonight

A-We-Some-Wimps, A-We-Some-Wimps, A-We-Some-Wimps, A-We-Some-Wimps,
A-We-Some-Wimps, A-We-Some-Wimps, A-We-Some-Wimps, A-We-Some-Wimps,

In the Capitol, the mighty Capitol
The Congress sleeps tonight
In the Senate the quivering Senate
Bush Gets His Way, Alright

Near the White House, the Unitarian White House
The Congress sleeps tonight
Near the White House, the law-breaking White House
They gave away our rights

Blush my darling and fear my darling
The Congress sleeps tonight
Don't rush my darling your acquiescing my darling
The Congress sleeps, with no oversight, tonight

A-We-Some-Wimps, A-We-Some-Wimps, A-We-Some-Wimps, A-We-Some-Wimps,
A-We-Some-Wimps, A-We-Some-Wimps, A-We-Some-Wimps, A-We-Some-Wimps

Bonus Links

Glenn Greenwald: Democrats' responsibility for Bush radicalism

Edward Copeland: Even the rulings against it are done in secret

Robert Parry: Bush's Secret Spying on Americans

Daily Kos: Senate Gives in on Wiretapping. 16 Dems Go Along

Sleep well, my darlings ...