spiritual pollution...

yesterday I had a handful of discussions concerning what I see as obama's idiocy as of late in running the campaign that lost the democrats two important elections (and should have prevented clinton from ever getting to the white house). and now my head is spinning with rage-ahol and random thoughts that need to be emptied...

read an interesting column in a crap local chicago paper about josh hamilton's rise from the living dead...and it finally said what his story should tell us all (for those of you that don't know, he was destined to be a baseball god, only to throw it all away on booze and drugs, only to emerge from addiction purgatory to become a baseball god) - why do we throw away those that suffer from addiction? if they can hit a baseball a mile we will patiently wait for them to figure it out and fix themselves...if they might be "only" the next great mind or mother theresa, then we say fuck 'em and let them rot in jail...utter brilliance...

if obama continues running the campaign he has recently, he will lose the midwest...place your bets now...

which is one of the things that came up in discussion yesterday...contrary to popular belief, the midwest was only the house of the progressive movement because the economy was falling apart and leaving joe middle america out. get out of chicago and you have, for the most part, a very conservative electorate in most other cases. but they have always been willing to come around for progressive causes when the front-running theme is economic populism. it is why feingold and brown can win in places like wisconsin and ohio...and it is why obama will lose if he continues to shrug off his attacks on free market idiocy as "overheated rhetoric"...

this year could be it - the people, right and left, will embrace an us vs. them theme come election time...the only question is will the democrats finally get it right and make the "us" be average working people and the "them" the filthy rich and global corporations that have been bleeding us dry? or will they follow the same bullshit script that has been losing for decades and agree with mccain that the "us" is america and the "them" are crazed foreigners?

for fuck's sake...why is it so hard for them to see they need to stop playing the game on the far-right's field? if there is one simply lesson that should have been learned from the radical right's rise to power it is this - ideology matters. run ideologues and give them a theme and the people will come. make the theme economic issues from a progressive slant - and you will own the electorate in this climate. ignore the progressive economic view and you leave the public with to decide on bullshit that doesn't have much effect - and you lose on "cultural" issues in places like the midwest, where you should be cleaning up.

but then when you have the exact same people running the exact same campaign year after year after year. and in the meantime, while the republicans have used primaries to solidify their politicians behind a hard-right ideology, the democrats have continuously run around without a progressive theme - instead running on the "we're not really liberal" platform...

and that is the message that I am taking from obama's actions since securing the nomination - that it isn't ok to be an actual human being.

the democratic leadership is meeting with corporate leaders...they want corporate big whigs to know that they can work together...things that make you go hmmmm...

the senate did a study...turns out insanely rich americans are avoiding approximately $100 billion in taxes by using overseas tax havens. good thing we gave them huge tax breaks...

just once, I would like to hear a democratic leader with some balls tell us that it is too late for too little of a trickle down and that we need to blow the dam and bring the whole damn river down...

I guarantee that leader would be the most popular politician in america...

when it comes to environmental issues, I am beginning to agree that the "latte-sipping liberals" are out of touch...the vast majority of average people want to protect the environment and understand the benefits for everyone from doing so. unfortunately, right now the vast majority of average people are having to choose between gas to get to work and groceries or medicine. and so some of my well-meaning friends are appalled that the american people would support off-shore drilling when they are desperate for anything to help them deal with the fast rising cost of living...because the same people that have been calling for taxing gas heavily are those that usually can afford it...

but this is an issue that the left could grab, if they had any fucking brains (collectively). you want offshore drilling to combat the cost of gas? sure thing. but here's the catch, this time we are actually going to let you, the american people, own what is rightfully yours. instead of paying Big Oil to take your oil from your backyard and sell it at inflated prices on the world market, we are going to let you take it out of your own backyard and dump it straight into diffusing the cost of oil in this country...

look...all I'm saying is that the two biggest issues in which the american people overwhelming disagree with mccain and republicans on are the trend in economics towards "free" trade and deregulation and the war in iraq. obama is now taking the token democrat path and moving towards the republicans on the two issues that screaming a progressive message from the rooftops would assure victory on. bloody fucking brilliant strategy.

take a page from the roosevelts...when times get tough for people, give them an outlet for their anger and frustration and channel it into progressive politics through economic populism. its a tried and true method to bring folks to the liberal cause...go back to it.

I don't wanna know anything about the mixed up tales that you're shouting about...