Author's Note: I originally posted this on a small mailing list I run, under my "real-er" name(Forsooth, the Internet has caused me to have so many personalities that I deserve my own zipcode...), but I felt I had to share my own take on the daily revelation-fest that our country in which our country is now engaged. I recognize that in doing so, I may be "outing" this nom de plume to whatever few members of that list might be engaged here. I would ask them to maintain my anonymity.

Otherwise: fuck it.

-----------------------------

There has something that has been lost in the US: ethics. We have become
so bound, hand and foot, by the endless mindless prattle about the great
god of "Morality" that we have discarded ethics. Few today, in the US,
know how to lead an ethical life, in ways small and large. Witness the
latest about Judge Jay Bybee: He is now communicating, through close
friends, that he has regrets about writing the torture finding that lead
to all the torture our country engaged in. That it "got away from him".
Ponder that. "Got away from him".

I have an answer for The Good Judge:

Dear Judge Bybee:

You are either the biggest liar or simplest, dumbest, most guile-less,
credulous and anacephalic motherfucker to ever to hold a law degree from
a major university in The History of Mankind. "Got away from you"??!!
What did you think those rapacious and evil bastards in The Bush
Administration would do with your finding? Use it to kick off
conversation at their next salon at Dick's house?

You are a lawyer. You know that treaties, once ratified, are not lists
of gentle suggestions or respectful and well-couched advisories for what
should happen in a perfect world. They become law of the land. No treaty
ever signed has ever had such far-reaching import, has been such a
fundamental guidepost to what kind of nation and people the United
States is, than The Geneva Accords. You, you knuckle-dragging goon,
issued a finding that shredded that law to its sub-molecular level and
allowed the worst amongst us to engage in behaviors and actions that
would make a excised segment of liver fluke recoil. "Got away from you".
By extrapolation, and in violation of Godwin's Law, I then submit that
The Final Solution just "got away" from poor old Dolfie, you schmuck.

In the world of major, word-parsing assholes, you sir, have jumped to
the head of the class. You have taken that scabrous art form and
redefined it brilliantly. You are its Picasso and you painted "Guernica"
with your brush.

Lawyers have something that the good ones hold very closely to their
hearts, both personally and professionally. Military officers have
something just like it: In the lawyering world, it is called "ethics".
In the world of military officers, it is called "Honor". It is the
bedrock upon which the really good ones build their careers and to them,
it is inviolable. My good friend, The Country Lawyer, a man whose used,
soiled and stained underwear you are not a fit person to carry, would
have flattened the first jerkoff that asked him to write such a finding.
He's an old Hockey goalie. He could do it in a heartbeat, round
horn-rimmed glasses, signature bow-tie and all.

I look at Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a man who has been crying out in the
wilderness about what really happened, a man who put his personal and
professional reputation on the line. I look at Gen. Karpinski. I look at
the Col. who wrote the first damning reports on Abu Ghraib. I see the
same dedication to ethics. I see the same dedication to honor. Honor
above all.

You sir, and the people whose spittle you so readily licked, have none
of these qualities. Surely, you have a comfortable sinecure on the Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals for your travails, but that is hardly
recompense. Recompense, sure and awful, is something you truly deserve.

You have stained us all, we Americans. We shall now carry the stain of
your misdeeds to the end of this union, whenever this is. You have
spawned a generation of frothing maniacs who still, in opposition to all
reason, ethics, honor and intellect, accept your finding as some new
form of gospel. In their words and deeds, they wipe their pustulent
asses with The Geneva Accords. At no time, could you summon a moment's
courage to speak out and say "Wait! I wrote that! That was not the
intent of that finding! I didn't mean that! Torture is wrong".

Of course you didn't. For you are a spineless, careerist worm. Whichever
way the wind blows, right, Jay? Right?

After passing, all a person leaves behind is his or her good name and
the remembrance of his or her good works, great and small. Or bad. Oh,
how you will be remembered. How you will be remembered. And the company
you will keep in that rememberance. Such company, indeed.

With all good wishes for a long life of ignominy,

-T.

Last Thursday, I started getting a stomach ache, centered on my umbilicus and radiating downward. Being a protypical tough guy, with lots of martial arts training, I sneered at this pain. It would pass, right? Interestingly, said pain was having none of that sneering crap and set out to kick my ass. Soon, I noticed that the pain was radiating to the right side of my abdomen. I had a sense that was not A Good Thing®. I went to the ever-reliable interwhasis thingamabob and looked up "Appendicitis". Yes, we were getting consistent with appendicitis here. It suggested taking my temp. I walked to the local drug emporium and gift shoppe and got myself one of them new-fangled beeping thingies. Weird. Where the hell is the unreadable scale and the toxic mercury? Would this thing even work?

Well, my first temp was 99.7. I waited a half hour and it was 99.9. Another half hour and I was 100.7. That was it. Time to hie and fie myself to a decent local hospital. I called first and they knew I was coming.

In I go adter a surprising lack of administravia, get into an exam room, get into hospital mufti(you know, the kind your ass hangs out of...) and a doctor comes in. He proceeds to palpate my McBurney's point and then they spend the next half hour prying my fingernails and toenails from the ceiling tiles. Yup. Definitely some peronteneal inflamation there, kids. Oh yeah. Press down, let go rapidly, T_S goes off like a shuttle.

So I spend the next 1:30 drinking "Contrast", essentially radio-opaque bug juice you remember from day camp. I have had worse, like Martini's at a Holiday Inn bar in a shithole town. Then I got crammed into a big, whirring donut with an IV bolus shooting some stuff that kinda felt like liquid electricity into my arm(radio-opaque dye) and then off to the toidy to slake the snake and then back to the exam room. Doctor comes in, says he's the surgeon, I have quite the ruptured appendix and either it or me is a goner. I chose appendix. I'm a chickenshit like that. I mean, we grew up together, but there are limits.

Of course, before I went in, the nice lady came in and gave me the smoking cessation lecture. I appreciate the sentiment, but the timing was...a little flawed.

I went into the OP, they switched me off(for verily, with today's anesthetics, that is what happens: they push that sucker into your IV and it's like they flipped the non compis mentis switch. You are out. No 10 count).

I woke up about 2.5 hours later with not a speck of saliva within a parsec of my mouth and the anesthesiologist screaming at me that I had to quit smoking. Really. I love Seventh Day Adventist Hospitals. I am surprised they didn't give me a Cashew Butter enema, too. And maybe a fake hot dog facial.

I was in there for 5 days, 400 gallons of Saline IV and 12 gallons of Zosyn, an IV antibiotic that I understand beats ZipStrip as a paint remover. And it's a floor wax.

I learned a 2mg Morphine push kills pain, but hurts going in. You don't really sleep on it either. Just kinda go lalalalala for 15 minutes, until they come in to take your vitals again and pull another gallon of blood. I literally ran out of veins in the mainline of my left arm. Note: Now I really fucking hate needles. I mean, I hated them before, but any needle that comes near me, for a while, dies.

So I layed there and listened to my bonehead room mates argue with the staff. About little things like their 93% blocked carotids and rotten gall bladders. The guy with the carotid face planted from it. Right side of his head was one huge bruise. Did he want to listen? Nah. He watches Doctor shows. He knows best. I understand the McCain voters a lot better now.

A digression: I don't have TV here. What the screaming FUCK is it with all the judge shows on TV? In fact, how do you people watch ANY of that crap. Even the good stuff sucks sweaty balls!

When I came home, I felt like hammered shit. That said, I was starved for some contact with the outside world and some news. I opened up Thunderbird to check email and one of the first things I saw was an email from, of all people, one William Rivers Pitt, a writer of small note from Bastahn MA, wishing me well and telling me I should get back soon to read all the messages. What messages? What the hell is Will doing writing me? I mean after all, we have corresponded, and talked on the phone twice and whatnot, but hell...I am kinda like the wiseacre kid making cracks from the back of the class and he's like, you know...Will Pitt. And all.

Then I got here and saw the threads and well-wishes and all the nice thing and the expressed concern...

Jeesus, people, I don't deserve you.

I don't have much family left and what I have, well, I would be far better off leaving that discussion for therapy. I have good friends who have been there for me thoughout this, and they know who they are, including and especially Tace. But when so many folks reach out in this manner, at a time like this...it truly is overwhelming. I tend to, and I suspect many others here do as well, go through life not knowing or recognizing how blessed I am by the good folks around me. By not seeing that people care or that they are even capable of caring. It's a fault of mine and I suspect that others amongst us do it as well. The last 8 years seem to have encysted a lot of us in a hard, nacrous shell.

You do me such honor with your friendship, with your caring and your patience. Your good wishes touched me in ways I have not been touched in a long time, since I am such a loner in real life.

Thank you for your good wishes, thank you for your caring and thank you for being here. DU is far more than a forum.

Way back when dirt was in beta testing, I worked for an oft-rumored but
little seen(these days) Big Rock Star(BRS). This all took place back in
1986, well...for most of us in the music business back then, healthy
lifestyles were not exactly fashionable. Let's just say that most, if
not all of us, in the whole music business, needed our heads examined
back then, and perhaps a day or two on a kidney dialysis machine.

Letterman, being a fine Son of The Midwest, wanted BRS on the show in
the worst way. First, BRS was going to just go on and play with Paul and
the boys. That said, he wanted a lot of the crew there, including me.
There was about 5 of us that got flown in to Manhattan and put up at a
nice hotel, in suites, at Letterman's expense.

BRS got the coldest of feet, no-showed. We flew out the next day.

Negotiations occur. Now, BRS wants certain members of the band to play
as well. This NEVER happened back then as this was when Letterman was at
NBC and his stage was about the size of the standard postage stamp. Well
before the Ed Sullivan Theater era. Well, even though the word got back
that Paul and the boys were a little miffed, as they are the best copy
band in the known universe and justifiably proud of that, but Letterman
and his people relented.

A few days later, back flies the crew, and equipment, with even more
people going into suites in a Manhattan hotel at Letterman's expense. As
was the cartage and storage for the gear BRS wanted as well, at
Letterman's expense. As were the plane ducats.

Hey, we were lovin' it. Eatin' and drinkin' on Letterman's dime, in
Manhattan, is a roadie's dream gig. We enjoyed ourselves immensely.

BRS gets weird again and no-shows again. Last minute as usual. And when
I mean last-minute, I mean with a couple of hours before the taping.

Well, that was it. Even though Letterman has a justifiable rep as a
really nice guy, something like that was not going to go un-lampooned,
derided, and cut to ribbons with razor-sharp wit. That was something
Dave did that night, quite pithily and with amazing regularity that
evening, but even worse, it continued for months. Oh, Letterman was
gonna get his pound of flesh and get it he did. Believe me, you do not
want to spend a lengthy period of your life as a running joke of
Letterman. Being flayed alive has to be preferable and certainly more
enjoyable.

I would like to add that years later, BRS did go on Letterman,
apologizing profusely and quite honestly, that he had done very little
TV in his life and was scared shitless of it. Of course, he and the
band, who were there in totality, tore the place up. Apologies had to be
made and proprieties addressed, and when you are a band, the best way to
do that is play your guts out and turn the crowd into gibbering idiots.
BRS and the band delivered just that, Letterman was happy, God was in
His Heaven and all was once again right with the world.

I guess the point of this is to say that if McFeeb played Letterman like
that, dumping him but giving Couric face time, do not expect this to go
un-addressed, in that most Letterman-like of manners. A cost will be
computed and it will, in the most witty of ways, be flayed out of the
hide of McFeeb. Of that you can be sure.

Way back when dirt was in beta testing, I worked for an oft-rumored but
little seen(these days) Big Rock Star(BRS). This all took place back in
1986, well...for most of us in the music business back then, healthy
lifestyles were not exactly fashionable. Let's just say that most, if
not all of us, in the whole music business, needed our heads examined
back then, and perhaps a day or two on a kidney dialysis machine.

Letterman, being a fine Son of The Midwest, wanted BRS on the show in
the worst way. First, BRS was going to just go on and play with Paul and
the boys. That said, he wanted a lot of the crew there, including me.
There was about 5 of us that got flown in to Manhattan and put up at a
nice hotel, in suites, at Letterman's expense.

BRS got the coldest of feet, no-showed. We flew out the next day.

Negotiations occur. Now, BRS wants certain members of the band to play
as well. This NEVER happened back then as this was when Letterman was at
NBC and his stage was about the size of the standard postage stamp. Well
before the Ed Sullivan Theater era. Well, even though the word got back
that Paul and the boys were a little miffed, as they are the best copy
band in the known universe and justifiably proud of that, but Letterman
and his people relented.

A few days later, back flies the crew, and equipment, with even more
people going into suites in a Manhattan hotel at Letterman's expense. As
was the cartage and storage for the gear BRS wanted as well, at
Letterman's expense. As were the plane ducats.

Hey, we were lovin' it. Eatin' and drinkin' on Letterman's dime, in
Manhattan, is a roadie's dream gig. We enjoyed ourselves immensely.

BRS gets weird again and no-shows again. Last minute as usual. And when
I mean last-minute, I mean with a couple of hours before the taping.

Well, that was it. Even though Letterman has a justifiable rep as a
really nice guy, something like that was not going to go un-lampooned,
derided, and cut to ribbons with razor-sharp wit. That was something
Dave did that night, quite pithily and with amazing regularity that
evening, but even worse, it continued for months. Oh, Letterman was
gonna get his pound of flesh and get it he did. Believe me, you do not
want to spend a lengthy period of your life as a running joke of
Letterman. Being flayed alive has to be preferable and certainly more
enjoyable.

I would like to add that years later, BRS did go on Letterman,
apologizing profusely and quite honestly, that he had done very little
TV in his life and was scared shitless of it. Of course, he and the
band, who were there in totality, tore the place up. Apologies had to be
made and proprieties addressed, and when you are a band, the best way to
do that is play your guts out and turn the crowd into gibbering idiots.
BRS and the band delivered just that, Letterman was happy, God was in
His Heaven and all was once again right with the world.

I guess the point of this is to say that if McFeeb played Letterman like
that, dumping him but giving Couric face time, do not expect this to go
un-addressed, in that most Letterman-like of manners. A cost will be
computed and it will, in the most witty of ways, be flayed out of the
hide of McFeeb. Of that you can be sure.

These Wall Street Guys, the ones with their hands out for 700+ god-I-can't-comprehend Dollars in Federal, Taxpayer-funded Aid, these are the same guys who pumped the stocks of companies whenever they layed off workers, aka: taxpayers? And these are also the guys who pumped the stocks of companies whenever they sent jobs overseas?

These guys? They are the ones that want our money?

People more appropriate for use as examples of someone hanging by their necks from lamp posts while having a burning tire around their necks? These guys?

I just wanted to make sure I wasn't confused here.

Here's what I posted in a response to a thread here, and I will expand on it:

There are no free markets. Never have been. The difference now is that the utter fuckups and jerkoffs on Wall Street have ripped away the thin veneer that has shielded what they were really about, their real relationship with government, from the one-fodder-units.

What we have, and what we have had since Reagan, and from when the repukes accelerated the process in the 90's, is classic, pure, unadulterated Mussolini-Style Facism.

The government and the tax dollars we pay in exist to serve corporations. Not the people, not the common good, not civil society, but to make the wealthy few wealthier and indemnify their wealth. They exist to enable their every profligate scheme, many ripped from the annals of organized crime history.

And we, the one-fodder-units, get The War on Drugs and The War on Terror, DHS, ICE, The FBI, The IRS, Government Intrusion into our every financial transaction, taxes and fees and Government Spying for our trouble, to keep us in place and feeding this monster.

Oh yeah: and cable TV. Lots of channels of cable TV. With lots of 24-hour fundamentalist programming and shopping channels.

specimenfred1984 added: "I'll add that it's not just TV, it's a highly refined network of propaganda that covers the entire "full spectrum dominance" of all media. The propaganda has been taken to new heights only dreamed of by former fascist regimes."

Terry In Austin added: "Free" is the mother of all marketing catch-words

It sounds good, it's hard to knock, and it's utterly meaningless until you specify "free from what?"

"The Free Market" (tm) is just as much a pile of branding BS as "The Free World" (tm). The latter includes nations that are cheerfully dictatorial, while the former includes near-monopolies like Microsoft."


The fact is, a lot of people here on DU, many of whom fancy themselves as the types of thinkers who possess one of those Tibetan Crystal Knives that "cut through illusion" may well be kidding themselves. In the interest of avoiding a complete cognitive breakdown, they cling to comforting illusions about America and what it is and what it means, the frames of thought that have been fed to them in other times, when things were, at least to a small extent, different.

Well, things have changed. This is not the United States of America you were promised in school, by your parents and in Boy and Girl Scouts. That America is gone. Finished. Tits up. A Norwegian Blue Parrot of a country. Face the facts and you will start on the path of being an aware and effective citizen, and perhaps, become a real agent of change.

We can no longer afford the luxury of our illusions that we live in safe and comfortable times of economic opportunity, personal liberty, protection of constitutional rights, or a government that is by and for The People. If that ever truly existed, those times are gone. The events of the last week have proven that in the starkest terms. The United States of America now exists to serve only the most privileged and wealthy. The rest of us are well and truly screwed, blued and tattoo'ed, fucked, flustered and far from home.

Now, Facism is a strong word, and one with much baggage, all honestly earned. That said, we must be exacting in our use of words in times like these, and sadly, when one looks at Mussolini-Style Facism and then at the country we live in today, it is the only reasonable word we can use to describe the system we now live under, when that system is viewed honestly and in its totality, without the filter of those comforting illusions. The starkest example is that our tax dollars, pried out of our hands every year, sometimes in the cruelest manners that can be contrived, are evidently collected to indemnify the wealth of the few who can afford to buy into the American Facist System and Connected Person Funfest. Reasonable health care? Nope. Crumbling infrastructure? Fuhgetabouddit. Meaningful and gainful employment? Are you nuts? There are more. Too many more to list.

There is an elephant in the American room that all avert their gaze from and work very hard to not discuss. If one has the temerity to say "Look! An elephant! By the drink cart!", he or she is derided, shunned, cast out from polite society and given a crown of tin-foil.

The elephant, on the other hand, orders another Sidecar from the roving waiter at the cocktail party and snickers. The elephant is no less there for all the denial.

When you ignore that elephant in the room, you are doing the bidding of those who are profiting most from this perversion of America. You are surrendering to pirates. You are trading Jesus Phones, SSRI's, flat screen TV's and a new car for the very things that make America America. You have bought into their bargain, on their terms, then you come here and squeal about it.

For shame.

Take it from a drunk in recovery: This denial behavior is EXACTLY how guys like me got our asses in The Drinkin' Sling. Ain't a dime's worth of difference.

We have to stop taking to the fainting bench whenever someone uses the "F" word, and I don't mean "fuck". America has a problem that is destroying its way of life. It's citizenry will remain powerless to deal with it until said citizenry rips the scales from its eyes and looks clearly and honestly at what is destroying The United States:

We are a Facist Nation now, as defined. Facism has destroyed our economy and now Facism is raping our treasury, for all the world to see. Shamelessly. Openly. Our government serves no one but the few, the connected, the wealthy. We, the citizens, have been cast adrift by the government, to fend for ourselves, but not too much or we will end up in prison. Meanwhile, the economy rapers get a golden parachute.

There is no other honest way to describe what has occurred.

There's what should be giving you impetus this election season. Not Sarah Palin and her religious practices. Not porcine makeup tips and pointers. Not Hillary Clinton's loss in the primaries. Not how Barack the boy was raised or what his pastor said from the pulpit. Not Joe Lieberman's sad silliness. Not whether Obama may have, at one time in his career, supported some laws that gun owners don't like. These and more are all distractions, the cheap tricks of the parlor mesmerist.

The only real issue in this election is that The American System is now a Facist, Elitist, Neo-Royalist system. Everything else recedes into insignificance. Would that we could have a candidate speak to this sad and sorry fact.

But I suppose that is asking too much.

Without economic security, all other forms cease to operate. They cannot continue, unless the government starts nationalizing defense industries and other corporations, a decidedly dead-end solution.

When one looks around and takes stock, it is not hyperbolic to suggest that we are in a crisis that is making a very destructive strike at our economic security. That said, the warnings have been issued to us and our government for years. None of this is a complete surprise. Even people in the maladministration have been warning of this calamity since 2001, to no audience. In the meantime, we have formed a massive bureaucracy called The Department of Homeland Security that costs untold billions to maintain and seems to have no other purpose than to harass, detain and jail citizens, tourists and little brown folks, with little or no rhyme or reason.

They have, once again, fucked the dog, this time in Texas, as they redefine the word "useless" when it comes to disaster management, and they certainly have done nothing in the defense of economic security. They sure loves them some abrogated privacy, however. And seized laptops. They love them seized laptops.

Conclusion: this maladministration and its designees, who are tasked to protect our security, have failed. Utterly. Completely. They have chosen to sell us out in the now-dimming hope of a cushy corporate job at the end of their tenure and in service to an old and hoary ideology. Their 13 pieces of silver are just that meager.

But when will enough be enough? When will The American People shake off their collective torpor and rise up? Not in violence, but definitely in one voice, in righteous anger?

Where is the howling? The incessant din of raised voices? The palpable anger at this malfeasance?

Why are we just taking this on the chin?

Many, if not all of the jobs that are being sent overseas by the large corporations are jobs that were created through tax breaks, tax credits, favorable deals on real estate and state subsidies on utility costs. All money from you and me and that guy over there. The Republicans, in their anacephalic worldview, then felt that tax breaks for the destruction of those jobs was a great idea. So that word was made flesh.

In our little slice of paradise, when we do something that harms wider society, we face sanctions. The sad fact is, these corporations face rewards for whatever they do, no matter how socially and economically destructive. This is not sane policy, especially when you consider that corporations have worked long and hard to have the rights of the individual. Well, they should also have the responsibilities and sanctions of the individual.

Instead of rewarding job destruction, especially jobs that were paid for from government handouts, not only should the tax breaks for offshoring be repealed, but it should go farther: if the jobs destroyed are with companies who have received government welfare for job creation, penalties should be enacted. The companies should have to pay back, to the government, the computed cost of each job, in tax dollars, indexed for inflation. Their tax breaks should also fall incrementally, with each job destroyed, as should other benefits. If facilities are closed due to the job destruction, and the corporations balk at paying the penalties, then said facilities should be seized by the government and offered up, under very favorable terms, for worker-led and run corporations in that sector, to compete in that market, against the very companies that used to run the facilities. If the companies offshore and close the facility, the government should move quickly to stay the removal of machinery and other assets of production from the facility, to make sure that the dollar amount worth of the facility is not degraded and that any ensuing company has the potential to be quickly competitive, or the machinery and other assets can be liquidated for monetary recovery. All monies received from this should be dedicated to retraning and the creation of new jobs. Where these industries face restrictive tariffs, from certain countries, that restrict their global competitiveness, similar tariffs should be put in place for the products and work product that comes from said countries, and those monies collected should be dedicated to retraining, education and job creation.

After all, tax dollars paid for much of those jobs and facilities. The criminals should not be allowed to get away in the dead of night. We have to make the process of government-subsidized a self-sustaining process.

We have to start giving corporations the same negative feedback, for their negative actions, that the average citizen receives every day. Only then, will the tide of offshoring of prime jobs start to abate.

Sarah Palin is the culmination, the end result of many years of the Republican party's outreach and seduction of the most radical elements of the right. The extremists, the Christian Identity people, the regional separatists, the militias, the whackos and the crazies. This outreach was started by Helen Chenoweth, back in the early 90's, when it became apparent that minorities were not rushing to join the Republicans and the party felt that by tacking right, they would pick up votes and ground troops.

The views that Palin and others ascribe to are not new. They have been around for quite a number of years, amongst quite a number of groups. They can best be described as "the views of us and them". Essentially, this says that everyone who is not the "us" is the enemy. Anyone who is different in skin color, ethnic background, religion or whatever is the enemy. History shows that the lengths the adherents to this philosophy will go, to strike against this enemy are sometimes quite extreme. As in killing, bombing, robbery and more. Oh, the greatest enemy is the federal government, which stands between them and their aspirations, and collects taxes along the way. Make no mistake: The Alaska Independence Party was, at its core, about just such things.

Sarah Palin is the end result of all this. The Republicans know they are running from a deficit position and they need their fingiest of fringe base. They don't seem to care that in empowering these positions, they open a Pandora's Box. Of course, the Republicans that are peeling away from their party and endorsing Obama, like Jim Leach and potentially Colin Powell, know this intimately. You can be sure there are more. They just aren't talking about it to the press.

For the real background on all this mess, I will once again suggest you go dig around in here: http://dneiwert.blogspot.com /

Dave is the expert on Pacific Northwest radical right. You will be illuminated by his writings and insights. Another reading suggestion is the book "The Silent Brotherhood". It will let you know what happens when these people take it to its farthest extreme.

Happy reading.

After reading this rather hefty thread again(http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... ) I am reminded of a possible way that outsourcing/offshoring might be addressed in a constructive and creative manner. I assure you, I thought this up all by my lonesome.

It is no secret that many of the jobs that large corporations are sending overseas are jobs that were created through tax breaks and credits, utility giveaways, and other emoluments doled out by every level of government. Now, in a rapacious urge to increase profits and "enhance shareholder value"(shareholders=executives), they send these jobs offshore and bloat the rolls of the unemployed. With no end in site.

Now, when you or I do something that is of detriment to larger society, we face consequences. The list of sanctions is long and sometimes terrible in their effect. On the other hand, although corporations are rewarded for the creation of jobs through all of the emoluments, provided by government and listed above, they face no real consequences when they destroy jobs and send them overseas. All they receive is a reward from Wall Street, when their ratings and stock prices go up. This is no way to run a goat rodeo.

But it can change, with some political will.

What I propose is that with rewards come responsibilities and with the abrogation of responsibilities should come penalties. When a company announces that they are destroying jobs in the US, to send them overseas, then that should be the time that state and federal labor departments should step in, assess the amount, in dollars, that these companies have received over the years in these special breaks, count back to the beginning, add market rate interest to that dollar amount, and if the company is not going bankrupt, assess that penalty against the corporation, under the penalty of hard asset forfeiture and criminal sanctions, should they not pay. All assessed penalties to be put into a locked pool to be used to create new jobs.

In this way, corporations will be forced to face the consequence of their actions and think twice about being dedicated followers of fashion(for that is what drives a lot of the offshoring), and perhaps the tide will be stemmed, a bit, and new jobs will start to be created.

It is well past time for this nation to put some sting in its response to outsourcing/offshoring jobs. There must be consequences for economically destructive actions. If there aren't, then stop calling this a nation of laws.

Not because "my" candidate won and the other lost. Not because "my" candidate lost and the other won. No, nothing like that at all.

I am not celebrating because I have been here before, twice with congressional campaigns I worked on and twice with presidential campaigns, especially in these times. We KNOW how compromised our electoral system has been over the last 8 years or more. We KNOW that the media wants to have John McCain's babies. We KNOW that the repukes will bring it all. Everything we know they will bring and some that even now, we just are not prepared for, either tactically, intellectually or emotionally.

I see people celebrating tonight and I wish I could join you in your unbridled joy. I really do. But in comparison to winning the general, Barack Obama has seen little of what is coming at him. To complicate matters even more, there is a large group of Democrats of my age group(I am 55), many of them women and a lot of them who have old-school feminist philosophies. They, understandably, felt that this would be the time for their candidate. A woman candidate. They are angry and feel betrayed by the Democratic Party. After all, wasn't Sen. Clinton the "inevitable" nominee? Wasn't it her time? Had she not earned it with her national service and, of course, putting up with the indiscretions of her husband?

Was she not a natural symbol for women who have given, given and given again, only to be tossed out, pushed aside, passed over and betrayed by a job, by a child, by a spouse or partner and now, even a party?

Sen. Obama has, rightly or wrongly, inherited the mantle, the responsibility, yes, the blame for so many wrongs suffered by women over so many years. Now, as a real test of his leadership skills and his abilities as a diplomat and consensus builder, he is going to have to reach out to the supporters of Sen. Clinton, supporters who invested everything, yes, even the sum total of women's history in the US in her candidacy. They thought it was their year and in a way, it should have been. It is long past time.

So no, I cannot tonight celebrate with these currents and eddys in the political river. Ahead is hard work: healing people, healing a party and then, winning an election. Make no mistake about it: For all but our most senior members of DU, this is the most important election in your lifetime. The next 100 years, minimum, of this nation's direction, prosperity and decency hinge on this election. If we blow it, piss on the campfire and call in the dogs. It's over and we might as well roll them wagons.

All that has been won is the first round of a Karate Tournament. Nothing more. There are many more rounds to go and plenty of ways for us to have our heads handed to us.

Obama supporters and yes, his campaign: Reach out. Reach out with humility, with kindness, love and understanding to the supporters of Sen. Clinton. Know that many of them hurt far beyond the loss of a presidential primary. The wounds are deep and they will not soon heal, but you can clean them, bind them up and soothe them. True warriors know mercy, charity and kindness and choose them every time.

Clinton supporters: Your nation needs you, now. Probably more now then ever before. Breathe. Then breathe again. Sit in a sunbeam. Work in the garden. Scratch the cat or dog. Hug a child. Visit a hospital or nursing home. Do it several times. Then, when it's time, come back.

We have hung here for 8 long years, together. Keeping each other sane and alive in some of the darkest, most painful and disorienting moments I can remember. We did it together, taking strength when needed and giving strength when necessary. Together is how this election will be won. As Democrats and DU'ers.

One more thing: There are those amongst us who would seek to profit by sowing the seeds of discord and disunity. Know that they are here and know that such things are as much a game to them as anything. Don't play their game. Don't give them an inch of satisfaction, for to them it might be a game, but we have to keep our eyes on the deadly seriousness of this election. If we don't, we have failed most miserably and posterity will ultimately be very hard on us, indeed. As it would have every right and reason to be.

A brainstem attached to a mouth. No higher processes exist in his brainpan.

I have this friend I have made. To not out him and make a spectacle of him in public, let us just say he works for a very big motor sports team, in an area of the motor sports world that is known for a lot of very right-wing, bigoted O'Reilly-quoting boneheads.

In an email to him, today, I self-effacingly outed myself as a Big Ol' Liberal. You know: knows the words to "The Internationale", plots the end of civilization, facist, "we've come for your daughters...that sort of thing.

I had no idea of his political stance, so I was interested in seeing what the response would be. His response was that his daily bookmarks, right at the top, include The Great Orange Satan, Crooks n' Liars, MyDD, The TPM Sites, AmericaBlog, Minnesota Publius(He's from South Great White North) and other hotbeds of liberal, progressive sedition. Sounds like a rock-ribbed DFL'er to me.

Of course, I hipped him to this joint, so if we ever get a new member named "Racing Slick", give him a big howdy. He's one of us and has a heart as big as the state he hails from. He is a man of good works and great compassion. And he loves poodies. I think all liberals must love poodies.

And if you are reading this, you Mac-running smug bastidge, you ain;t got a hair on your ugly ass if you don't grab a mitt and get into this game. If you don't, I will stuff some of my homegrown habaneros down your pants.

Man, I do love finding me some heretofore unknown ones of us. And he's one of the best bloggers out there. No telling how much he could tear it up if he blogged politics. He's that good.

I fix computers.

Recently, someone gave me a Dell desktop system they no longer wanted. Sadly, the processor was bad. Luckily, it took an old 1.6GHz Pentium4, of the correct core revision, that I had here. It booted right up.

So I cleaned it up, inside and out, cleaned and tweaked the WindowsXP that was on there, added security software and got it running well. It was nice: had both WordPerfect and Word on it.

Now, what to do with it?

I called the local rape crisis and domestic abuse center. I knew that a computer can be a powerful tool to help women coming out of bad situations re-mainstream, especially when it comes to a job search. After a week, they found it a home. An aside: Being a guy and dealing with women from a domestic abuse and rape crisis center can be a little bit on the weird side. Let us say that I found an endemic and institutionalized wariness and distrust of males. I also find that quite understandable. Illustration: I was told to goto the center's office which is right across the street from me, to drop something off. They would not open the door for me. I had to talk to someone through the glass and push some materials through a mail slot. As I said, it is still understandable, but if you are a guy, be forewarned.

If, in this holiday season, you find yourself sitting on old computer stuff, please call up your local social services agency and see if they have service consumers who could benefit from your donation of that working computer stuff. You could be making a huge difference in someone's life and giving them a powerful tool in their recovery from bad and hard times.

On edit: I will be doing this sort of thing again, when I get a working or repairable system. I will also be using a Linux distro, where appropriate, as a replacement OS. Saves money.

I have this friend who is going to be spending a week in Philly soon, for the national NEA convention. I wanted to recommend a few good restaurants for her to try while she was there. She needs to kick back in the evening, as they work their tails off during the day.

So, I did what any self-respecting, Internet-addicted, Progressive Democrat would do in that situation:

I emailed Atrios for his suggestions on restaurants there. After all, the man lives in Center City and all.

Now, as soon as the email went out, I had second thoughts. After all, this is Atrios we are talking about here. Mover, shaker, bon vivant, man about town, advisor to kings and presidents, knaves and fools. Would he have time for me? Would he cop a moody and tell me to go intercourse myself and stop bothering him? Would Lord Kos even allow him to suggest some boites? Would he get...SHRILL??!!

Truthfully, I was worried that I had taken too many liberties. My experience is that the noted and notorious are different from you and me: they're a lot weirder. A lot less patience with the rabble.

About...ohhhh...30 minutes passed. "Bing" goes Thunderbird and there it is: A Guide to Fine and Fashionable Philly Dining with an Edge by The Good Doctor Atrios. Clear, concise, immensely helpful and sure to give my friend tons of ideas for good times while in Philly.

Me? I was flat gobsmacked.

It's at times like that I thank my lucky stars for the progressive community, even without the politics. The A-Man did not have to take the time to respond. He could easily have shit-canned my email, but instead he came up with a list of sheer gold.

Damn, I loves me some Big Sweaty Lunk right now. Thanks, Duncan. Forsooth, you da' man.