Category: politics

Join or Die

Karl Elvis2 Comments

I think I’m in love with Justine Lai. This is a bit of her ‘Join or Die’ series. In her words: “In Join Or Die, I paint myself having sex with the Presidents of the United States in chronological order. I am interested in humanizing and demythologizing the Presidents by addressing their public legacies and […]

I think I’m in love with Justine Lai.

This is a bit of her ‘Join or Die’ series. In her words:

“In Join Or Die, I paint myself having sex with the Presidents of the United States in chronological order. I am interested in humanizing and demythologizing the Presidents by addressing their public legacies and private lives. “

(you can read the whole statement here)


join_or_die_justine_lai.png

back to back

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I feel like I should be writing about the ‘new era’ ushered in today, with Obama’s inauguration. Or maybe about the end of blackest era in american politics since McCarthyism. About how history must remember George W Bush as what he is, the worst president in american history, at least in terms of negative effects […]

I feel like I should be writing about the ‘new era’ ushered in today, with Obama’s inauguration. Or maybe about the end of blackest era in american politics since McCarthyism. About how history must remember George W Bush as what he is, the worst president in american history, at least in terms of negative effects and failures.

But you know, I kind of feel like that job is getting done.

Meanwhile, it’s all about me.

I’m starting my back piece at noon tomorrow. And I can’t wait.

I don’t expect to have much to post. This is going to take a long time, and we’re not going to rush it. I don’t like sitting for more than two or three hours when I’m getting tattooed (the endorphins run out after two and I start getting fatigued). This will be months in the making, then.

I don’t know what part we’re going to work on tomorrow. But the rough sketch I saw last week was fantastic. Klem understood exactly what I loved about the source drawing, and exactly what needed fixing, and nailed it all effortlessly, working together original feel with modern, personal touches. So whatever portion we attack is going to be great.

a dark age nears its end

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America’s fraud-in-chief is finally gone, eight years after he stole a presidency he never won. Eight years too late, with a legacy of death, tragedy, hatred, and economic ruin, we walks away a free man. History will remember him – because we must not be tempted to forget – as one of the worst disasters […]

America’s fraud-in-chief is finally gone, eight years after he stole a presidency he never won. Eight years too late, with a legacy of death, tragedy, hatred, and economic ruin, we walks away a free man.

History will remember him – because we must not be tempted to forget – as one of the worst disasters every to attach itself, parasite-like, to the white house.

History will remember a stolen and fraudulent election, a series of disasters (natural and man-made) ill-handled, and willfully squandered goodwill. It will remember cronyism, wars fought over nothing, thousands of lives lost for nothing, and billions squandered and wasted. History will remember a death toll, a cost of billions, and and a smoking ruin of an economy.

Were the universe a fair place, we would now jail him for his crimes, and then he would look forward to a burning hell for the next thousand years.

Osama Bin Laden’s death toll pales before that of George W Bush; who’s the better extremist now? Who wins? Osama lives in caves and hides. Our outgoing president will carry an honorific and a pension and the titular respect of a nation. Yet he’s done more damage to freedom and world peace than a dozen bin ladens could hope for, and he’s done it in plain sight.

But I do not believe in a fair universe. I see one random and capricious, un-caring and utterly un-interested in tiny human inventions like good and evil.

The deserved punishment, then, can only be in how we remember. Because history is written by the winners, and the last four years of american history is an epic, resounding FAIL.

I hold hope, however.

I am not Barack Obama’s greatest fan; we have profound philosophical differences. But he has the makings of a good president. He carries with him a kenedy-esque fervor and charm, much as Bill Clinton did sixteen years ago. Yet he lacks Clinton’s smugness, and, if we can believe what we see, he also lacks Clinton’s weakness as a leader.

The jury is far, far out on Barack Obama. He is un-tested, un-tried. Yet I cannot recall a man I’ve seen take office, since I first became aware of politics in 1972, about whom I’ve felt a greater sense of hope. He has an advantage no one since Ford has had; that is, following a leader universally reviled. But unlike Ford, who fell into leadership, Obama was chosen by a significant majority.

Certainly, many of those votes were not for, but against. They were cast against McCain’s loose-cannot Behavior, his age, his anger, his obvious failure to understand the profound failure of the last eight years. And many more cast a vote against Sarah Palin, who single-handedly set women in politics back a decade or more. Those votes were not cast for a dynamic young black man, they were cast against a creepy old white one. So the landslide we saw cannot be credited entirely to Barack’s dynamic speaking and appearance of leadership.

Still – he looks, already, the very image of a world leader.

He’s earned an unenviable job; much like whomever is hired to coach for a disasterous team like the oakland raiders, he may have a swamp too deep to drain in the years he’ll be given.

Personally though, in a month of absolute misery, this one thing feels like hope.

First, the truth of the last eight years needs to be written down. Not the populist lies, as became Reagan’s legacy, but the hard, brutal, un-varnished truth. Katrina’s wake, filled with talk, but not action or money. 9/11, to which we responded by stealing civilil rights, alienating the world, and then marching forth under a crusader’s banner to take back the oil-laden holy land. A banking system in it’s worst state since the great depression. And an election system, once trusted world-wide, now the subject of universal suspicion.

There are a hundred, a thousand more; some we know, some, certainly, only to be learned later if at all. But the hard truth needs to be set down now, while it’s fresh, and while we hold hope. Otherwise we risk the rosy polish of a political machine, leaving our children with a notion that the last eight years were some heroic stand against an imaginary them.

Our teenagers must be taught to think, to read, to act politically. I see their fervor on facebook and myspace; they’re flush with a battle won. But NOW is the time to instill memory of the battles lost. In four, or eight, or twelve years, they’ll be casting ballots, and they must learn now, that today’s world is entirely the result of ballots mis-cast in the recent past.

Vote No on Proposition 8

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Get out and vote. Your voting stub is your bitching licenses; if you’re not making a move for change, you’re outside the process, and you got no business bitching about how it all comes out. I know I have readers outside the US; and sure this isn’t your fight. Still, your friends over here need […]

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Get out and vote.

Your voting stub is your bitching licenses; if you’re not making a move for change, you’re outside the process, and you got no business bitching about how it all comes out.

I know I have readers outside the US; and sure this isn’t your fight. Still, your friends over here need to vote to make a difference, so tell THEM. Today we can take down the most toxic and corrupt administration ever to squat in the white house, and make a profound change for intellectualism and reason over fear and evil.

My personal stand is at California’s Prop 8, which does nothing less than amending the california constitution to facilitate bigotry. It’s a profoundly wrong thing, and is a step back twenty or thirty years in terms of cilvil rights. Yet ordinary citizens have been fed lies and believe they’re protecting something that’s in danger.

Keith Olbermann gives good rant

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This is a truly beautiful rant. It’s long-ish but worth listening to every second (after teh cut so save having to load it every time you hit this page)

This is a truly beautiful rant. It’s long-ish but worth listening to every second (after teh cut so save having to load it every time you hit this page)

Read more “Keith Olbermann gives good rant”

I’d HIt That – thoughts on the VEEP candidates

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I haven’t really commnented much on the presidential election. It’s not that I’m apolitcal. On the contrary, I care a great deal. It’s more than i’m so cynical about it, I have a hard time not loathing everyone and everything involved. In short, i think desire to be an elected official should disqualify people from […]

I haven’t really commnented much on the presidential election.

It’s not that I’m apolitcal. On the contrary, I care a great deal. It’s more than i’m so cynical about it, I have a hard time not loathing everyone and everything involved.

In short, i think desire to be an elected official should disqualify people from holding such positions.

The other thing that troubles me hugely is the role religion plays in this country’s politics. This isn’t how the founding fathers envisioned this country (do a little research; most of those guys were atheists, or close to it). America is headed backwards and picking up speed in terms of reverence for religion. That, frankly, is the biggest problem I have with Obama; otherwise, he seems a sound and compatant choice. He’s a smart guy, and seems to have some resonably good ideas; more importantly, he strikes me as someone who’s going to stop and ask questins when he’s on ground were he doesn’t know what to do.

The problem is, though, that religious people often include mythological beings in those queries, and worse, those who claim to speak for mythological beings. The last thing I want at the head of this country (or any country) is people who consult personal delusions and charlatans before making choices that effect my life.

IN short; religion has no place in government. Period.

That said, we’re still a religious country, and that’s not showing signs of being cured in the near future. So any vote is for least bad, not ever for good or best.

Now, i’m not getting into a debate on republican vs democrat. In short, they’re sides of the same coin, both telling lies and pretending to have evidence, while really both operating on purely philosophical grounds.

I side with the democrats for one reason; they’re not as far wrong as the other guys.

My own personal politics are closer to anarchist than anything else; I do not, fundamentally, believe in rules. IN some ways I’m closer to libertarian, but not to what passes for libertarian in american politics (because that version of libertarianism is really more-right-wing-than-right-wing, and has nothing to do with the core ideas of libertarianism as a philosophy).

So I vote for Democrats because they’re closer to my own politics than the other guys. But I vote for them while swallowing bile.

But that’s not really the whole point of my post. I really meant to open a dialog on the recentlly annouced VEEP choices.

Personally, I was ready to vote for Joe Biden in the primary.

When I looked at the field, I made a few quick choices. My thinking was, anyone here was a better choice than anyone on the GOP ticket – because of the influence of religion and far-right-wing thinking in today’s GOP. Anyone who wasn’t republican was ok with me, so we had one singular choice to make; who was most electable. I knocked off Hillary and Obama because – all else aside – I didn’t think the middle of the country was ready to vote minority or woman. So I felt we were handicapping our chances. I then ticked off anyone who was too far left, too far right, or boring.

I was left with Biden as a pick. He’s a hell of a speaker, knows how the process works, has a father-figure look I felt was going to fit well with an angry country. And he’s not afraid to go against the grain. Is he ideal? No. But he looked like the best of the pack to me. Alas, he dropped out before I ever gota chance to vote.

People have bagged on Obama for a ‘safe’ choice. But I think it’s insane to make any other kind. Obama needs to get elected; this isn’t about making a statement, depsite what people like to say. It’s about getting morons out of the white house. It’s about halting the erosions of freedom and economy the bush administration has caused. It’s about turning things around, socially and politically, after nearly a decade spent striving for a new cold war.

This isn’t about the first back man in office; this is about ending the carnage.

So Biden brings several things. First, he’s strong where Obama is weak. He’s experienced, he’s smooth, he’s got the experience of an insider with the attitude of a rebel. He’s someone you can see taking over in an emergency. Is he ideal? No. See above. He wanted to be president; he’s religious. My rules say he should be disqualified on those things alone. But we’re not geting a chance to vote for Richard Dawkins, so we have to select from what’s available. In my opinion, Biden is the best pick Obama could have made, both politically and in terms of leadership ability once they get there.

But how about McCain’s pick, Sarah Palin?

And I admit it; this is why I started this entry.

Have you ever in your life looked at a VP candidate and thought, sit on my lap and call me Daddy?

Miss Wasilla 1984.jpg

Ok, so I’m trying to think of her in political terms. I’m trying to look at her as the Ms President when McCain strokes out (which he’s going to do, you know it). And there’s a lot to hate; anti-abortion, pro-creationism, anti-gay-marriage. She’s pretty much right down the line wrong-headed right winger.

But all I can think of is, wouldn’t those lips look great wrapped around my cock, and I wonder how she’s look bent over my desk with her hands cuffed behind her back.

I’m puzzled, then, about what McCain was thinking. Did he just want to get into her panties? Because I get that. Or was he thinking the swing voters are all going to swing their dicks over this his way if he has a fuckable veep?

Was he thinking se’s going to attract the Hillary vote? Because she’s no Hillary. Hillary’s fans have two left feet and two left hands. And I don’t know that your average american woman wants to look at her president and say, wow, she’s hotter than I am.

I’m not sure he thought through how this Barbie Doll is going to play to voters. And I really am not convinced that a conservative fem-bot is what the country wants one heartbeat from the presidency. Obviously, I have a bias, but thinking as objectively as I can, I’m just not seeing this as a wise political choice.

But damn – wouldn’t she look nice all done up in leather?

EDIT: thanks to Wonkette for dubbing her GILF back in December 06, and my man Bacchus of ErosBlog for modding that to VPILF, which just rocks. AND! He says there are rumors of nekkid pictures of her floating around. We can only hope they surface, for both political and, um, personal reasons.

Can’t Bomb The World into Peace

elvis2 Comments

It’s re-posting other people’s links day. This one’s more serious though. My brutha-man Ray posted about a video that Gordon Soderberg made about Iraq Veterans Against War and the rebuilding effort in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. It’s pretty compelling, and the intro set to Can’t Bomb The World into Peace by Michael Franti […]

It’s re-posting other people’s links day. This one’s more serious though.

My brutha-man Ray posted about a video that Gordon Soderberg made about Iraq Veterans Against War and the rebuilding effort in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

It’s pretty compelling, and the intro set to Can’t Bomb The World into Peace by Michael Franti alone has a huge impact.

Gordon’s page on the video is here.