Motley Moose – Archive

I’ve scored a precious “work from home” day and thought I’d keep my old buddy CNN running in the background as they ramp up to tomorrow.  Prominent on my IGoogle frontpage is my faithful “Bush Countdown” counter that I clearly remember installing, with great despair, when it was a thousand something.  One day, four hours and 42 minutes when I checked in this morning, the day I had waited over a thousand days for, and CNN doesn’t seem to give a damn.  

CNN and I have been constant companions even longer than that — I had moved over from the broadcast networks somewhere between 9/11 and “Shock and Awe” — and I had come to depend on CNN to relate to me the “mood of the country”.  I’ve noticed over the years how, as public opinion goes, so goes CNN.  They slavishly adored GWB and faithfully disseminated White House talking points until the country turned on him post-Katrina.  I clearly remember the ass shellacing they gave John Murtha a few months before for daring to publicly question the war.

but ever since Katrina, CNN and I have been pretty much on the same page as far as George W Asshat was concerned.  Until this weekend, until today.  I can only assume the rest of the country is out of synch with me too — all tightly focused on hope and change and history being made and moving forward.  But I’m not ready to move forward just quite yet.  

Believe me, I support the fight for gay individuals to enjoy all the same rights as straight folks.  Yet as this ancient feminist watches the entire gay marriage fight from the sidelines I can’t help but wonder just what the hell, exactly, gays believe they are fighting for.  I fully understand the need and the right to legally recognized civil unions.  What I can’t comprehend is the desire of the gay community to participate in a tradition fermented in subjugation, dehumanization and every evil of the unchallenged patriarchy.  You’d think, above all Americans, gays would be the first in line reject all that stuff.  Go figure.  

Back in the day, before “feminist” was a progressive cuss word, we saw marriage for exactly what it was always intended to be — a dolled up dog and pony show designed to make palatable a simple but critical business transaction — the purchase of a woman with the intent of transforming her into dutiful domesticated chattel and brood mare, aka a “wife”.

And now gay partners want in on the practice, even in the face of virulent defense of sexist bedrock tradition and at the expense of more attainable gay rights.  Oh well.  Maybe gay marriage would once and for all refashion what a marriage really is and all a wedding represents.  Good luck with that, by the way. Feminists are pretty much done beating their heads on that cave wall.  

I had an interesting experience today that reminded me why progressives really can’t afford ambivalence on the future of unions.  And as we face both the upcoming EFCA fight and  state “Right to Work” initiatives in 2010 ( not to mention the current slog through the public flogging of the evil UAW )  a strong reminder and warning seems in order.

Please read on as the truth might surprise and alarm the hell out of you.  Let’s engage in a little re-edumacation on just how progressive work really gets done.  

I write with certain trepidation, not wishing to offend or set off any new divisive debate.  To be quite clear, I 100% support the right of all Americans to civil unions and to protection from any discrimination based on their private lives.  And few things would make me happier than to see this country move beyond discrimination of all kinds against the LGBT community.  

My arguments are with the assumptions being drawn from the passage of Prop 8.  I also see problems as an organizer with the fight to date for GLBT rights, both in the methods and message.  

As someone not directly effected by the loss and half a continent away from the Prop 8 campaign, I toss out observations perhaps of limited value.  More than anything, I hope to start a productive discussion and accept I may well be shown to be dead wrong.

Since the conventions, McCain has lost the enthusiastic support of fiscal conservatives and the intellectual wing of the Republican Party.  He  never fully captured the unqualified support of the most reasoned Christian conservatives.  His support among active duty military and veterans is very weak for a Republican, as is faith in him from small businesspersons and the Wall Street regulars. McCain hemmorages support as both the man and the campaign seem hellbent on doing the once unthinkable — damaging the Republican brand even more gravely than George W Bush himself.

McCain is losing the visible support of reasoned Republican voters as they stand back in the shadows, disturbed or embarrassed for their own sullied identity.  Thus McCain’s support is decanting down to the lowest common remainder — people who hate Barack Obama — because they believe he’s actually a Muslim, because he’s black, because they can’t think of him as a “real American” and/or because his intelligence and magnetism alone seems implausible or threatening to them.  They have no real tangible “McCain Plan” and their candidate leaves them nothing to follow, so they are left to stand united only in hatred and xenophobia.

And standing on the front line is “real American” Sarah Palin, the Joan of Ark of the new McCarthyism.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday slammed Sen. Barack Obama’s political relationship with a former anti-war radical, accusing him of associating “with terrorists who targeted their own country.”

What?!

Does this mean John McCain knew an accomplice to terrorists was campaigning for president and chose to do nothing about it until now!?    

Sarah Wildman raises an excellent set of question in her opinion piece in the Guardian today.

Part of the problem is that Palin isn’t being marketed as, nor is she expected to be, a politician. That’s all well and good for PTA president, or mayor, or maybe even governor in a state without a huge number of people. But when we’re talking about the highest executive office, there needs to be a few criteria in place beyond relateability.

Ironically, though, even on that, Palin falls down. She pretends to be a representative of the American everywoman … Yet outside of talk of theoretical football match side conversations, she had nary an argument about what these women actually need or want… what Palin’s folksiness exposes is not so much her “real” American self, as her inability to see beyond her own experience.

Bearing in mind, of course, that there is something to be said also for man’s activities, but  also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.  There’s no point in arguing about the causes, however, we need to  be arguing about the solutions, as in how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?  After all, we all already know global warming is real.  

So this is the time, by golly, to roll up our sleeves and argue about how to fix it before it’s too late.  My suggestions are as follows —  

Nothing clever or insightful here, just one Democrat screaming at my television as Republican douchebags, one after another, spew horsecrap.

Stupid douchebag observation 1 —

“the whole deal fell apart after Nancy Pelosi made a speech.”

oh.  really.  You mean to tell me you show ponies will sell the economy up the river because of a speech?!  What?  What?!

Um.  hand up in the back of the room — shouldn’t you be voting on a bill?