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eridani's Journal
Are we engaging in a political contest with people whose brains don't work like ours? Failing to understand one way or another will put us in a strategically weak situation.
IMO empathy is one of a number of human personality traits which can be placed on continua. Bell curves are probably oversimplifications, but might serve as a starting point for discussion, with "neurotypical" being at the middle of the curve. Note however that people a couple of standard deviations in either direction can be perfectly functional socially. I'd also like to avoid any nature/nurture controversies--the empirical observations are the same either way, and where people fall on the continua certainly owes as much to life experience as to inborn traits. Let's consider three distributions of traits--cheerfulness/depression, social intelligence, and empathy.
Cheerfulness/depression continuum
Grey pit dwellers-->wet blankets/sourballs-->neurotypical wearers of slightly rose-tinted glasses-->terminally perky
A few years back, one of my coworkers had an article hung in his cubicle describing the job performance of cheerful people versus sourballs, which concluded that the sourballs had more realistic perceptions of complex problems and were more likely to come up with deeper, more thorough and more creative analyses of problems. The terminally perky were far more superficial. Depressed people, when evaluating their own job performances, tended to agree with others' evaluations of them--they did not underrate themselves; their performance self-evaluations were simply accurate. More optimistic people had higher opinions of themselves than their coworkers did.
It's well known that optimism and cheerfulness enhance the immune system and lead to better recovery from a whole spectrum of diseases, so individuals will be selected for that trait. The human norm is probably therefore having a somewhat rosy tint to perceptions of reality. However, it may well be that the tribe needs at least a few people to perceive more accurately what is really going on, and to more creatively deal with new situations, so there would be group selection for this. The price paid is that a few on the far end of the spectrum will periodically get trapped in the grey pit, the dark night of the soul. (To the extent that genetics is involved, it probably works like the distribution of sickle cell hemoglobin genes in malaria-prone regions. The price for having half the population malaria-resistant is having 25% of the population with sickle cell anemia.)
Social intelligence continuum
Expert dolphin-like divers in the social swim-->neurotypicals-->nerds/geeks-->Asperger's syndrome-->high-functioning autistics--> completely dysfunctional head-banging autistics
Human social connectedness depends on the ability of most people to read social signals. However, it is also clearly beneficial to human society to have some of its members partly stripped of that ability so that they can perceive reality logically without dealing with misleading conceptions deriving from pure social utility. That's where we get scientists and engineers from. (Charismatic politicians are at the other end of the spectrum.) The price we pay is that a few people will be doomed to spending their lives banging their heads on hard surfaces.
(Note: I'm not discounting possible environmental causes of autism here, just suggesting that if there are environmental causes, we are possibly looking at an overlay of environment-related cases sitting on top of a full spectrum of personality types within a normal range. Similarly, type I and type II diabetes are very different conditions despite the fact that they have problems with blood sugar control in common.)
I think that the male/female differences in continuum location come about because it can be absolutely lethal for women to be unable to read social signals emanating from those who have been known to kill or maim them for such misreadings. Whether by biology or sex-role socialization or both, it is the case that girl geeks are usually somewhat less geeky than boy geeks--this enables them to mediate between boy geeks and society at large, even though they are generally unable to keep up with the junior high female "in" crowd.
Empathy continuum
Sociopaths-->near sociopaths-->soldiers/emergency workers-->the neurotypically empathic-->altruists-->hearts tending to bleed uncontrollably all over almost everything
Empathy is the human norm--we really do feel other peoples' pain. It creates social bonds because acting to relieve others' pain relieves our own psychological distress. However, it is also necessary to be able to suppress empathy for self-defense and for dealing with emergencies. Your chances of survival are greatly enhanced if your emergency room team does not feel your pain, but instead treats you like a malfunctioning meat machine until your vital signs are stabilized. If we need to suppress empathy occasionally to survive, it immediately follows that a few people will inevitably turn out to be entirely too good at it--hence sociopathology. To sociopaths, others are never anything but objects to be used for their own benefit. On the other end of the spectrum are people almost incapacitated for self defense because of their intense empathy--that's where religious traditions like Jainism come from.
Looking at phenomena like the high suicide rate among police officers and the incidence of PSTD in people exposed to battle conditions, we seem (thankfully) to not have enough people trending toward sociopathology to completely fill our needs for protection/emergency response career positions. PSTD exists because the majority of our cops and soldiers are neurotypically empathic.
So, what does all this have to do with conservatives?
Of the three continua I have described, I think that they are different from us on the empathy continuum. I'd label them as near-sociopathic, not Ted Bundy-style complete sociopaths, but having the same relationship to Ted Bundy as people with Asperger's syndrome have to head-banging autistics. The parts of their brains that process the information "How would I like it if someone did that to me?" function either poorly or only intermittently. And it's a common enough condition that I sure wish there was a common readily recognizable term analogous to Asperger's syndrome that we could use to describe them.
It explains at least a few things, like for instance how rule-bound and authoritarian they are. This indicates deviation from neurotypical empathic ability. Consider how Asperger's syndrome people deal with their inability to read social cues--they compensate by using rulebooks that they generate based on careful observation of neurotypical behavior. (#47. When a neurotypical says "How are you?" this is not actually a request for detailed information.)
Theologians, confronting the observation that people who did not share their particular religious beliefs nonetheless mostly behaved perfectly reasonably toward each other, came up with the concept of natural law. That is, inborn empathy is the foundation of human ethics and the source of the Golden Rule proverbs found in every known human culture. Lao Tzu famously observed "When virtue is lost, benevolence appears, when benevolence is lost right conduct appears, when right conduct is lost, expedience appears." In other words, discard natural human empathy and immediately you need a lot rules and regulations to make people behave ethically.
So, perhaps the conservative insistence on punitive law enforcement, unthinking obedience to authority and displaying the Ten Commandments everywhere reflects real awareness of themselves as deficient people who can't function socially without a detailed rule book. Lots of sociopaths and near-sociopaths, after all, can pass for normal in society if they decide that following the rules is more convenient and pleasant for them than not following the rules. Naturally a near-sociopath will perceive neurotypically empathic types as "bleeding hearts," because that's how someone in the middle of the continuum looks to them from their position at the other end of it.
Situational sociopathology
Consider the well-known experiments of Stanley Milgram, which demonstrate clearly that just about anybody is capable of sociopathic behavior under the right conditions. This is analogous to situational depression, which results not from a genetic tendency to be in that place on the continuum or chemical imbalances in the brain, but from specific lousy things that happen to people.
Similarly, widespread situational sociopathology can result from truly threatening events, like the 9-11 attacks. The urge to strike back indiscriminately will eventually fade as we get back to normal, just as we eventually recover from the death of someone close, divorce, job loss and the like.
So, we have a core group of near-sociopaths that aren't going to change, and the rest of us who are capable of temporarily acting like them. If that first group isn't too large, we're in luck. All it takes to devalue the conservative memes is for more of us to be like the actors in Milgram's second set of experiments. A single voice saying "No, don't apply more intense shocks" snapped the rest of his experimental subjects out of their befuddled-by-authority stupor.
Any suggestions on realistically dealing with the minority of incurable non-empaths? Just let them have their Ten Commandment monuments? (It's certainly no favor to someone with Asperger's syndrome to advise them to just get along without their collections of rote recipes for social interaction and go by instinct and direct perception like other people do. That makes about as much sense as hollering "Make more insulin, dammit!" at diabetics.) Go along with a really punitive legal system to some extent? What?
http://www.pnhp.org/blog / A Policy Response to Health Care for America Now Posted by David Himmelstein, MD on Wednesday, Jul 9, 2008 Health Care for America Now (HCAN) is pushing a superficially attractive health reform model that has a long record of failure – akin to prescribing a placebo for a serious illness when effective treatment is available. They would offer Americans a new public insurance plan and a menu of private ones, with subsidies for coverage for low income families. This approach reprises the format of Medicare’s ongoing privatization. Despite promises of strict regulation and a level playing field that would allow the public plan to flourish, private insurers would (as they have done in Medicare) predictably overwhelm regulatory efforts through crafty schemes to selectively recruit profitable, lower-cost patients, and avoid the expensively ill. Like the Medicare Advantage program, originally touted as a market-based strategy to improve Medicare’s efficiency, the HCAN plan would evolve into a multibillion dollar subsidy for private insurers whose massive financial power (amassed largely at government expense) would prove a political roadblock to terminating the failed experiment. Unfortunately, proposals like HCAN’s that cede a central role to private insurers can only add coverage by adding costs. They promise savings from computerization and chronic disease care management. Yet the Congressional Budget Office has warned that there is little or no evidence for such savings. The HCAN proposal forgoes most of the $350 billion annually in administrative savings possible under single payer national health insurance (NHI). Administrative waste is a natural byproduct of the private insurance firms that would retain a central role under HCAN’s plan. Private plans’ overhead is 12-fold higher than under NHI; the excess is squandered on marketing, underwriting, utilization reviewers and profits, and for the billions paid to executives. And the multiplicity of insurers envisioned in the plan precludes paying hospitals a global, lump sum budget; such budgets would save additional billions by obviating the need for most hospital billing and much of the internal accounting needed to attribute hospital costs to individual patients and payers. HCAN’s proposal duplicates key elements of health reforms that have passed (and then failed) in multiple states: Massachusetts in 1988; Oregon in 1989; Tennessee, Minnesota and Vermont in 1992; Washington State in 1993; and Maine in 2003. In each case, rising costs scuttled the reform effort; none had a durable impact on the number of uninsured. The 2006 Massachusetts law, which incorporates many of the features of HCAN’s plan, is already threatened by rising costs, despite offering skimpy coverage and leaving many uninsured. And Massachusetts, with its low rate of uninsurance to begin with, and a large fund devoted to care of the uninsured, offered the optimal conditions for trying such a plan. HCAN’s proposal tries to avoid a head-on collision with private insurers, but the result is a plan that cannot achieve universal coverage or make care affordable. For physicians, offering a placebo in place of effective treatment is a serious ethical violation. Hence, while we salute the good intentions of the members of the HCAN coalition, we must warn against their proposal. http://www.ninenineohnine.org/pages/Basis_... ***** HEALTH CARE FOR AMERICA ***** Reference: HCFA proposal and the Lewin Group evaluation 1 — Private and Government Bureaucracy 2 — Health care restrictions; health care for “most”, not all 3 — Number of Uninsured: 1.3 million estimated 4 — Complex with Many Costs: Financial and emotional stress for many … Citizens are forced to pay health premiums; if you don’t enroll, it will be done automatically “for” you … Increased business costs 5 — Thousands of health insurance plans 6 — Limited Benefits 7 — Poor efficiency 8 — Financing managed and influenced by many ***** SINGLE-PAYER ***** Non-Profit Single-Payer National Health Insurance Reference: U.S. H.R. 676 1 — Simple and Efficient 2 — Health care choices; health care for all with dignity 3 — Number of uninsured: zero 4 — Simple with Minimal Costs: Peace of mind for all 5 — One health insurance plan 6 — All medically-necessary coverage 7 — Excellent efficiency 8 — Financing managed by one public agency Bob Haiducek — Bob the Health and Health Care Advocate P.S. I’ve heard from people all over the country that my volunteer webmaster and I … with advice, consultation and assistance along the way from others … have been coming up with some excellent work, but I think that work has been largely a kind of “hidden treasure.” Thus, I hope you find a few gems of useful information in the detailed table.
Not bad for a guy who ran on a balanced budget program! http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden... I AM certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days. In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone. More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment. Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men. True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish. The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit. Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men. Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... I got one actual answer--nationalizing the oil industry. That actually is far left, but nobody came up with one single real world example. That means that any talk of Obama "moving to the center" is 100% content-free, as not one single post on DU has criticized him for failing to advocate oil industry nationalization. What this is about is being a wuss, and the independents and apoliticals do not respect wusses at all. http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/research... The fallacy matters in terms of Democratic electoral strategy. The Democratic base consists of people who are mostly or totally progressive, just as the Republican base consists of people who are mostly or totally conservative. How does the Democratic Party as a whole, and how do Democratic candidates in particular, speak to those who are biconceptual? I am a cognitive scientist and believe that people's brains play a significant role in elections. From the perspective of brain science, the answer is a no-brainer. (Sorry, I couldn't resist!) You speak to biconceptuals the same way you speak to your base: you discuss progressive values, and if you are talking to folks with both progressive and conservative values, you mainly talk about the issues where they share progressive values. What that does is evoke and strengthen the progressive values already there in the minds of biconceptuals. The losing strategy is to move to the right, to assume with Republicans that American values are mainly conservative and that the Democratic party has to move away from its base and adopt conservative values. When you do that, you help activate conservative values in people's brains (thus helping the other side), you offend your base (thus hurting yourself), and you give the impression that you are expressing no consistent set of values, which is true! Why should the American people trust somebody who does not have clear values, and who may be trying to deceive them about the values he and his party's base hold?http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050815/nich... Unfortunately, Sanders is not peddling easy fixes. What he has to teach is not a new scheme for organizing a campaign or raising money. There's no Bernie Sanders gimmick. Rather, Sanders offers confirmation of a fundamental reality that too many progressive pols have forgotten: An ideologically muscular message delivered in a manner that crosses lines of class, region and partisanship is still the best strategy. "Bernie earned people's trust over a long period of time by taking strong stands and sticking to them," says Peter Freyne, a columnist for Burlington's weekly newspaper, Seven Days. "There's a connection between what the politician says and what the politician does. And it's always there. The consistency of where he's coming from and who he's looking out for has been there since I started covering him in 1981." There is nothing cautious about Sanders's politics: He opposes the war in Iraq, he is an outspoken critic of the Patriot Act, he condemns corporations and he maintains a lonely faith that government really can do a lot of things--like guarantee healthcare for all--better than the private sector. Nor is there anything smooth or prepackaged or focus-group tested about the way he communicates. After almost thirty-five years of close to constant campaigning, first as the gadfly candidate of the left-wing Liberty Union Party for senator and governor in the 1970s, then as the radical mayor of "The People's Republic of Burlington" in the 1980s and, since 1990, as the only independent in modern history to repeatedly win a US House seat, Sanders has forged relationships with generations of Vermont voters, many of whom echo the sentiments of Warren attorney Mark Grosby, who says, "I used to be a diehard Republican. Now, I'm a diehard for Bernie."
Eisenhower perhaps? http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eis... "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children." "A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility today. How could you have one if one of its features would be several cities lying in ruins, several cities where many, many thousands of people would be dead and injured and mangled, the transportation systems destroyed, sanitation implements and systems all gone? That isn't preventive war; that is war." "Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid." "It is my personal conviction that almost any one of the newborn states of the world would far rather embrace Communism or any other form of dictatorship than acknowledge the political domination of another government, even though that brought to each citizen a far higher standard of living."
Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, owner of War Emblem (who won the first two of three Triple Crown races in 2002) was at the top of the list of a group of well-connected Saudis who left the country from Lexington, KY in a luxurious customized 727 shortly after 9-11. According to one of bin Laden’s top operatives, Aziz knew well beforehand that a major attack was to take place in the US on 9-11. And the Bush administration let the bastard fly the coop. The very fact that a couple of hundred Saudis were flying around within the US to central pickup points like Lexington, while US citizens were prohibited from flying from Minneapolis to Chicago is totally outrageous.
On March 30, 2002, Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan and questioned by two teams of intelligence agents. One of the teams consisted of Arab Americans posing as Saudi agents, who hoped to scare Zubaydah into thinking he would be turned over to the Saudis for the usual torture and beheading. Far from being intimidated, Zubaydah was relieved, and told them that a call to Prince Ahmed would explain all—and he knew all the phone numbers from memory. He also told them to call Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud and Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, members of the House of Saud related to King Fahd.
He said that several years earlier the royal family had made a deal with Al Qaeda in which the House of Saud would aid them as long as they kept terrorism out of Saudi Arabia. The interrogators insisted that 9-11 changed everything—the House of Saud would not stand behind them after that.
Zubaydah said that 9-11 changed nothing, because Ahmed and the others knew beforehand that an attack was scheduled for America that day. They didn’t know exactly what it would be, and they didn’t want to know. Bin Laden knew the Saudis couldn’t stop it without the specifics, and also that they couldn’t turn on him without disclosing their foreknowledge.
Bush helped Ahmed leave the country right after 9-11, unmolested until June 22, 2002, when he supposedly died of a heart attack in his sleep. On June 23, Prince Sultan died in a car wreck. On July 30, Prince Fahd died in the desert of thirst. None was older than 43, and all are beyond questioning now. That these three were named by Zubaydah and then died young a couple of months later is extremely suspicious. Sources: Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Scribner, 2004 Gerald Posner, Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11, Random House, 2003
All I planted came up
balsam and nasturtium and
cosmos and the Marvel of Peru
first the cotyledon
then thickly the differentiated
true leaves of the seedlings,
and I transplanted them,
carefully shaking out each one's
hairfine rootlets from the earth,
and they have thriven,
well-watered in the new-turned earth;
and grow apace now--
but not one shows signs of a flower,
not one.
If August passes flowerless,
and the frosts come,
will I have learned to rejoice enough
in the sober wonder of
green healthy leaves?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy The gift economy connects; the commodity economy separates. Hyde does make the point that sometimes you really need separation--gifts are not appropriate for cops or judges. http://www.southerncrossreview.org/4/schwa... There is another area of Western culture where a remnant of the old gift economy is still active: the scientific community. In examining the community of science, Hyde begins by noting that within this community it is the scientist who shares ideas with others--- who gives away rather than acquires--- who receives the most recognition and status. What, then, is the effect on science of treating ideas as gifts, as contributions to the community? Hyde presents an interesting case: The task of science is to describe and explain the physical world, or more generally, to develop an integrated body of theory that can account for the facts, and predict them. Even such a brief prospectus points toward several reasons why ideas might be treated as gifts, the first being that the task of assembling a mass of disparate facts into a coherent whole clearly lies beyond the powers of a single mind or even a single generation. All such broad intellectual undertakings call for a community of scholars, one in which each individual thinker can be awash in the ideas of his comrades so that a sort of 'group mind' develops, one that is capable of cognitive tasks beyond the powers of any single person. The commerce of ideas--- donated, accepted (or rejected), integrated---constitutes the thinking of such a mind. . . .. 'deas in physics are discussed, presented at meetings, tried out and known to the inner circle of physicists working in the great centers long before they are published in papers and books. . . .' A scientist may conduct his research in solitude, but he cannot do it in isolation. The ends of science require coordination. Each individual's work must 'fit,' and the synthetic nature of gift exchange makes it an appropriate medium for this integration; it is not just people that must be brought together but the ideas themselves. In science, as elsewhere, the circulation of gifts produces and maintains community, whilst the conversion of gifts to commodities fragments or destroys that same community. However, we are now witnessing the commodification of ideas within the scientific community. Universities and industrial laboratories, which used to produce basic research that was released into 'the public domain' now patent and otherwise protect their research. Discoveries emerge not as contributions but as proprietary ideas for which users must pay a fee, a usury.
http://www.beggarscanbechoosers.com/labels... Right-wing nutcase Michael Graham's latest controversy---in which he said he wanted to see someone "whack" the Clintons in a Sopranos spoof isn't the first time he's used violent rhetoric when discussing the Clintons. In 2003, Graham said of Hillary Clinton: "I wanted to bludgeon her with a tire iron."
Such inflammatory language is nothing new for the right-wing. Recall how Ann Coulter once wrote that the debate over Bill Clinton should be about "whether to impeach or assassinate."
Recall also the comment by Jesse Helms in 1994: "Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He'd better have a bodyguard."
Or G. Gordon Liddy's comment in 1995, when discussing how he'd used stick figures of the Clintons for target practice. "Thought it might improve my aim," he said.
I guess the right-wing nutcases excuse the above inflammatory comments as "humor."
The problem is, the Secret Service isn't an organization known for its sense of humor.
What's baffling is that right-wing nutcases can continue to use violent inflammatory language when discussing the Clintons and face no repercussions.
But when you talk about George W. Bush these days, you really need to watch what you say. Or else, you're going to get a visit from the Secret Service. Given damned near 15 years of that vicious crap, WHY would Hillary even consider using the tern "assassination" during her campaign at all, never mind how long ago 1968 was? This is an ongoing situation--both Obama and Clinton have received death threats during this campaign. This is not a matter for casual conversation a la Clinton, or even sick joking a la Fuckerbee. http://rodonline.typepad.com/rodonline/200... The race to the White House becomes more competitive and much more dangerous. The two leading Democratic presidential candidates are now walking around with increased Secret Service protection after being targeted by death threats.
NY1 reports authorities have arrested a first year student at Louisiana State University and charged him with planning a terrorist-style attack against Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY).
Nineteen year-old Richard Wargo is being held on $1 million bond after authorities say he asked classmates to help him carry out the attack, and, they found evidence in his dorm room to back him his claims. As a former First Lady, the senator has routine Secret Service protection.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is now under 24/7 Secret Service protection—the earliest ever for a presidential candidate—after receiving numerous racist death threats. The most recent was found on a white supremacist website and prompted the senator's campaign to request the protection. "I wished we lived in a country where that is not a problem, but it still is," says Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), an Obama confidante. said. "The fact that Barack Obama is such a highly visible African-American candidate, I think increases his vulnerability."
Just got back from the WA-07 convention, where 7 Obama and 2 Clinton delegates werr selected. I was not in the running, and so left to recover from an all-nighter. I saw just one copy of the following on the walls, and so photographed and scanned it. Then I remembered that Google is my friend and used the internets tubes. This is quite a story. Hope he was one of the seven. http://www.obamadelegates.org/account/Maji... My name is Majid Al-Bahadli. Since I have become an American citizen I have voted in every election and have participated in ant-war demonstrations and peace rallies, but this is the first election where I have been totally committed to making a difference in this country. I believe that if Barack Obama becomes president, we can finally end this terrible war in Iraq and present a new face to the rest of the world that America can be proud of. I am from the city of Baghdad in Iraq, and I feel like I am always being pulled in two directions when I talk to my family and my friends in Iraq. I try to defend Americans as people, while at the same time I have to answer for what we have done to the Iraqi people by our policies both now and in the past. I have a hope that a President Barack Obama could set a new course in dealing with other countries, especially in talking to our “enemies” and help bring about new coalitions that can work together to create a more stable, open, and peaceful world. I have been inspired by Barack Obama to believe that each individual can make a change. In my Iraqi American community, I came up with several Obama button designs using English and also Arabic writing. Once I put them up on the internet, Arab Americans and others who were interested in them contacted me from New York, Pennsylvania, California, Washington DC and as far away as Hong Kong. People have carried my buttons to their countries such as Egypt, Morocco, and United Arab Emirates. This helps activate the Arab American community in this country to talk about and endorse Barack Obama, and increases his stature abroad. One of my most popular buttons has Barack Obama written in Hebrew, Arabic and English. I have actually managed to have Arabic people wear Hebrew lettering and have defended my button as a statement for the peace process. I have since come up with many other button designs, crated for all the different kinds of people who support Barack Obama. I have about 22 different designs in all and I have made thousands of buttons from them. They all promote Barack Obama and raise money for his campaign—though I have given hundreds away. I have stood on street corners selling them and talking to people about Barack Obama and went to Oregon recently to register voters there. I have also worked making buttons with the 43rd District and we managed to send over 10,000 buttons to Pennsylvania. We gave 2000 buttons out when we canvassed in Oregon and are working to make more of them for Montana as well. I have actually been politically active my whole life, but until I became an American I was not free to express myself. I was raised in a political family, and was surrounded by political discussions at home for as long as I can remember. When I was 13 years old, in 1980, my uncle and cousins were executed because they worked against Saddam’s regime which had taken over in 1979. Many other family members were executed or imprisoned also for their political activities. In 1991, when I was 23 years old, Saddam invaded Kuwait. At that time the Americans encouraged those of us who were against Saddam to rise up against him. I participated in that uprising. When the Americans decided to pull back and leave Saddam in power, I was forced to leave the country or face certain death from the Iraqi government. Over 150,000 people lost their lives when Saddam’s armies punished those who had fought against him. Iraqi police hunted me for days and I barely managed to escape them. Finally, I sneaked through an Iraqi checkpoint and ran straight into the arms of an enormous Americans soldier and surrendered to him. He arrested me, and I was sent to a prison camp in Saudi Arabia for POWs and was later classified as a political refuge which is correct. For almost five years I lived in the middle of the desert in a broken tent with thousands of others who also resisted Saddam’s tyrannical and unjust government. Eventually I arrived in Seattle as a legal resident alien, and later became an American citizen, So my story, like so many people’s story, has everything to do with the consequences of American policies in the world. America supported Saddam; America invaded Iraq in 1991; America pulled back and let Saddam regain power; America saved me from certain death from Iraqi police. Then America sent me to live in a prison camp and finally America adopted me and gave me a new home. Seattle is now my real home, where I can have a vote and a voice and help contribute to making this country the best it can be both for its own citizens and for the rest of the world who are so affected by America’s behavior. I know well how damaging it is when people do not have the right to participate freely in a political process and I am honored to have come this far. I hope you can help me go all the way to Denver.
I'm sure you know the tune--
Bring me some whiskey, mother,
I'm feeling frisky, mother.
I need a sheep to keep me warm through the night!
I need a lover, mother,
No, not my brother, mother.
I need a sheep to keep me warm through the night!
Gerbils don't make it, mother,
They just can't take it, mother.
I need a sheep to keep me warm through the night!
Owls, bats and other critters,
Just tend to give me jitters.
I need a sheep to keep me warm through the night!
I need some lanolin
Softer than flannel-in
I need a sheep to keep me warm through the night
I need an ovine lover
No other so-fine lover
I need a sheep to keep me warm through the night.
Some think a swine is fine,
And some like a horse of course, but
Those in the know, know that sheep are the best!
Their fleece is soft and white,
They keep you warm at night.
England's perverted, but Scotland's depraved.
Monogamy is folly
I think I'll clone dear Dolly
I need a sheep to keep me warm through the night
Twins, triplets and quadruplets
Sheep lovers know the scoop--let's
Find us a sheep to clone for pleasure tonight
Snails, bats, and other critters
They just give me the jitters
I need a sheep to keep me warm through the night
Bring me my sheets of rubber
Bring me my peanut butter
England's perverted, but Scotland's depraved.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-duca... Her double masquerade of gender and class has been so compelling to some working class male voters because it taps into a deep vein in the American collective political unconscious that dates from the founding of our nation, and one that Republicans have understood and effectively exploited for decades. In the 1840 presidential campaign, Martin Van Buren said his opponent, William Henry Harrison, was "a man who wore corsets, put cologne on his whiskers, slept on French beds, rode in a British coach, and ate with golden spoons from silver plates." Here in this example of early negative campaigning we have a clear illustration of the link American men have always made between effeminacy and aristocratic manners and privilege. It was, after all, George H. W. Bush's patrician patois and upper class mannerisms that led Newsweek in 1988 to suggest his greatest political vulnerability was "the wimp factor," and thereby coin a term that would become a permanent part of our political lexicon. Not only did this feminine attribution haunt the public career of Bush 41, Bush 43, as many have observed, has struggled to defend against and compensate for this legacy. More recently, we have the example of Barack Obama, the black candidate raised by a poor single mother, being called an "elitist" because of his grace, equanimity, intellect, dismal bowling performance, and reluctance to completely inhale his Philly cheese-steak. This, along with his willingness to negotiate with enemies, we are told, should lead us to question whether he's man enough to be commander in chief. The Clinton crew, along with their chief ally, John McCain, have made strenuous efforts to define Obama as a cosseted and effeminate toff, whose pretty words only confirm his deficient manhood, and thereby his unfitness to lead the nation. When you think about it, Clinton's complaint against her opponent -- "you always want to talk" -- sounds oddly like the familiar kvetch that so many emotionally constricted sexist husbands direct at their more relational spouses. In applying the GOP approach to feminizing male opponents, and directing class resentment away from the real elites, Hillary Clinton has gone beyond her more familiar adoption of the ruthless, sociopathic say-anything, dirty tricks politics of her erstwhile Rovian right wing enemies. She is reinforcing the conservative attempt to equate manhood with belligerence and predation. In addition, she is trotting out the well worn but still effective propaganda technique employed by this country's actual ruling oligarchy of wealth -- reducing class to personal style, taste, or the specific products people consume (brie versus Velveeta). Those who actually own or wield control over our shared resources are rendered invisible in this rhetorical sleight of hand.Barack Obama stands in stark contrast to the attitude of the Clinton campaign. His guiding political ethos has always been one of bridging but not overlooking divisions, while privileging dialogue, debate, and negotiation over conquest. This is not only a new politics. It is a new masculinity, one that is inclusive of those panhuman qualities previously disowned and projected onto women. It remains to be seen if Hillary Clinton, with her Hobbesian hard-on, will succeed in turning the Denver convention into a war of all against all. If so, the life span of the Democratic Party may be nasty, brutish, and short.
What it makes her (and all too many of her supporters) is a frightened, submissive nervous bedwetter of a Democrat. All too many Dems (even those with solid voting records and platforms that support our own frames) use Rethug memes and frames for exactly the same reason, and despite all the human suffering the Rethugs have caused over the last 30 years, too many Dems are still too frightened to break Rethug frames and start using their own. A big component of the problem is the DLC effort to squelch any and all populist frames, of course. However, in the process of taking on the DLC, we need to get over our own fear first. I’ve been tearing my hair out getting nitpicky squabbling about minor differences in the platforms and voting records of Clinton and Obama in reply to my attempts to discuss framing. Once and for all, framing is NOT policy dammit! Clinton’s voting record for the most part establishes her as a Democrat, but that has not stopped her from using Rethug framing, and constant use of Rethug framing by Dems has caused us to lose national elections from 1980 on, and from 2000 on it’s caused them to be close enough to steal. Also, it really clouds the discussion to say that Clinton actually is a Republican, because that too distracts from the issue of framing. People who think that Democrats who attack other Democrats with Rethug framing are doing them a favor by “vetting” them are full of shit. That’s not vetting; that’s just being one more Rethug 527 swiftboating operation only with funding from Democratic money. If you don’t know that, the sociopathic shitstains at the Weekly Standard sure do—they’re pissing their pants with delight over the fact that Clinton is so strongly validating them by constantly agreeing with them. And if you think that will make them grateful enough to her that they’ll stop supporting Roger Stone’s anti-Clinton Citizens United Not Timid 527, I have a really great deal from a Nigerian barrister that I’m sure you’ll want to take advantage of. (On the other hand, attacking any Dem from the left really is doing him or her a favor, but that’s a whole different topic.) Framing that we damned well need to break—fast. “Strong on defense” is the first. The only reason that people will tolerate a military establishment with a minimum of 700 military bases all over the world that have diddlysquat to do with actually defending American citizens is that scaring the shit out of said citizens has been the policy of the haves and have mores since the end of WW II, so that they can use our military establishment to make the whole “free” world safe for 50 cents a day labor. You could justify using a significant of our total resources to counteract the (strictly regional, though large) Soviet empire, but in reality most of our military capability during the cold war era was in fact used to bully poor countries into serving transnational corporations. Since 1989, when the Soviets realized that they could no longer afford to be an empire, the haves and have mores have tried to reinvent a military mission to justify the massive imperial investment. The Somalia intervention by Bush the 1st was an attempt at positioning our military mission as social workers with tanks and cluster bombs. Ended badly, and the public didn’t buy it. Then it was boogaboogabooga! Drug lords are stealing your children! That worked for awhile, but then it wore thin. Then we had boogaboogabooga! Terraists will kill you in your bed! Leaving aside the question of whether 9/11 was allowed to happen (at a bare minimum, the Bushies knew something was up and did not care to know anything about the details), the fear meme was ramped up to an extent that we haven’t ever seen in our society. Given a world in which resource wars are becoming the norm and a population that is moving toward unsustainable numbers, Peak Oil and global warming, terrorism and random outbursts of violence are definitely problems. Those problems have no military solutions, though, and wasting our resources on world domination is preventing us from solving them. Given that such a large percentage of our population derives their paychecks from the military-prison-industrial complex (only a small percentage of whom actually have their own lives at risk) the frame is not easy to break. But one thing we should fecking well demand of our candidates is that they quit using the fear frame. Clinton has been absolutely vile in this respect, from the 3am ad to the obliteration statement. Obama has not and will not break the imperialism frame (our real elite will not allow anyone who does that to be nominated), but he at least has submitted to the public the frame of “good judgment” as an alternative to “toughness”. That’s a start. If we are stuck temporarily with imperialism as our default foreign policy, smart imperialism at least gets fewer people killed than the stupid variety the neocons are implementing right now. And may I remind you that the majority of Dems in 2004 did exactly the same thing? Remember the Gephardt Osama ad used against Dean? The “For a Stronger America” Kerry/Edwards tshirts and bumperstickers? "Reporting for duty"? Not in any way denigrating his many good qualities, but the very choice of Kerry as the candidate was based on Democratic fear and acceptance of the meme that fighting terror requires military experience because it is a job that requires military force. Why couldn’t we have done some frame-shifting by breaking the association of military power with strength? As in just using the terms TRUE strength, strong enough to do the right thing, strength where it counts, etc. Closely related meme “we are at war”Well, no “we” aren’t, at least not the country as a whole. Our soldiers and their families are at war, but nobody else is. The people who wanted the war with Iraq now treat its injured veterans like disposable human garbage. Going shopping is what the Bushies think that having the rest of the country be “at war” means. If our candidates won’t ask why, if we are supposed to be “at war,” there are no ration cards or 90% top tax rates like there were when we were really at war in the 40s, we damned well ought to. Another related frame “commander in chief”That is among a president’s duties, but that is not what we are electing. Again, Obama with his emphasis on “good judgment” as the prime qualifier for the presidency breaks the frame. Clinton just reinforces it, and therefore continues to trash the general election prospects of both candidates. http://www.rockridgenation.org/blog/archiv... Though the words themselves are neutral, they have been used within a right-wing frame that is not obvious. The frame includes the following:
--The overriding challenge facing our country is military in nature.
--The military role of the president is therefore far more important than all of the other jobs he or she performs.
--Military experience, or direct experience with military affairs (e.g., the Armed Services Committee) is the single most important experience needed for the presidency.
--The country should be governed on a military basis. The state should first and foremost be a security state.
--The temperament needed for a president is martial; the president should be a fighter and should be engaged in fighting.
--The governing style for a president should be giving orders and making sure they are carried out. Others in public service should be obedient to the president’s orders.
That is what it means to make the “commander-in-chief” question the main issue in a campaign. The commander-in-chief frame shifts the role of the president away from governing our nation and into the more limited scope of managing military affairs. It takes us away from domestic questions, including other questions of protection and leadership.
That frame is not what America is about. It does not embody fundamental American values. Nor does it portray what the role of the government is in our democracy. The dual roles of government are protection and empowerment, as we have written elsewhere. Protection is not just military or police protection, but a wide range: consumer protection, worker protection, environmental protection, social security, protection from natural disasters and disease, and protection from economic devastation.
The kind of military chain of command and absolute authority in wartime does not apply to most functions of the president. The president is not supposed to be commander-in-chief of Congress, nor commander-in-chief of the FBI or the Justice Department, nor commander-in-chief of the American people. Right now he isn't even Commander-in-Chief of Blackwater, a private army. See also http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01... The very destructive “elitist” frameThis particular frame that Clinton is promoting makes Scaife, Murdoch, and Buchanan wet themselves with joy. Their frame is that the haves and have mores are not our elite—our real elite is educated technocrats. You know, those snotty bureaucrats that tell real he-men that it’s illegal to shit in the reservoir. Over-educated sorts who read and do math and who are trying to fool the salt of the earth with nonsense about global warming and Peak Oil. It’s pretty hard to add anything to what Thomas Frank said on the subject in What’s the Matter with Kansas.I’ve gotten into it on this board with more than one person who thinks that because the two most corporate-friendly candidates are the finalists, and neither is offering a populist program that would make every working class person instantly forget about the Repuke cultural definition of “elitism,” it’s therefore OK to use that Repuke elitist meme on either of our candidates. Fine, if you think that McCain and his plan of stripping away employer-provided health care and replacing it with nothing is an acceptable alternative to either Democrat. The Repukes have all the advantages here. The MSM constantly recycled the Kerry windsurfing photo, the Gore “earth tones” anecdote, the Dukakis tank picture, etc. Edwards was far more populist than either Clinton or Obama, and before he dropped out we were treated to sneers about the too-pretty Breck Boy expensive haircuts and the big house. His populism did not exempt him from that crap. If we could get in a time machine and bring back FDR, they’d use the “elitist” shit on him too, ferchrissakes! There is NO good reason for any Democrat to go along with it under any circumstances. If Clinton thinks that they’d never pull the same nonsense on her in a general election, she’s totally delusional. We’d get the Tuzla video 24/7, and that idiotic Annie Oakley pose would be constantly ridiculed. We never get any constant repetition of the real backstory on the Repuke stage sets, the totally fake Bush “ranch” whose owner drives a truck to “clear brush” because he’s terrified of horses. Or constant shots of Fred Thompson’s fake red pickup truck. http://guerillawomentn.blogspot.com/2007/0... Even though the Dem base despises the real elitists of the DLC, any Dem, no matter how populist, gets stuck with the “elitist” label because you see the windsurfing shot 24/7 and never see the phony pickup truck at all. Clinton is despicable for deliberately contributing to this MSM-based problem. Obama has so far done the right thing by refusing to use “elitist” memes against Clinton (despite the obvious fact that she has ten times his net worth), and by directing his counterattack solely at McSame. Good move to brush off as trivial and funny an accusation of “elitism” from an owner of eight mansions directed toward a guy who had just paid off his student loans a few years ago. The related “activist” frameSo, what’s wrong with a term that quite a few progressives use to describe themselves? The problem is that the Repukes and Clinton link it with “elitist.” If you are an activist, the fact that you even have time and energy for doing anything besides vegetating in front of American Idol after a day’s work makes you an ”elitist.” Never mind that you have to fight for scraps of time with all the survival demands you are also dealing with. The problem with the term is that it makes what should be a concern with the basic duties of citizenship seem weird and abnormal. http://prorev.com/shilling.htm 'Customer' and 'consumer' were not the only words being used to change the nature of citizenship. Daniel Kemmis, the mayor of Missoula, MT, pointed out that the word 'taxpayer' now "regularly holds the place which in a true democracy would be occupied by 'citizen.' Taxpayers bear a dual relationship to government, neither half of which has anything at all to do with democracy. Taxpayers pay tribute to the government and they receive services from it. So does every subject of a totalitarian regime. What taxpayers do not do, and what people who call themselves taxpayers have long since stopped even imagining themselves doing, is governing."
Then there was growing use of the term "stakeholder" that covertly diminished the citizens' role to that of a minor participant. Ironically, 'stakeholder' literally means a person who holds the money while two other people bet. Whoever wins, the stakeholder gets nothing.
Another phrase that started cropping up was 'civil society,' a patronizing description of people who, in a democracy, are meant to be running the place. The term has come to used in elite circles with roughly the same condescension of a bishop talking about a church altar guild. Personally, I now try to avoid using “activist” where “citizen” or “active citizen” would work better. Ditto taxpayer and customer. Obama has not only broken this frame into small pieces but smashed it clear out of the park as well. Far from being a “messiah,” he says as often as possible that he isn’t going to change diddlysquat unless his supporters stay organized and involved after the election. He’s put his money where is mouth is and spent it on organizing and training. After 9/11, there was a great upwelling of an urge to do something for America from people of all political stripes, answered by the Repukes with a call to go shopping and to be afraid, very afraid. Finally we have a call to common citizenship from a presidential primary finalist. In contrast, Clinton has expressed nothing but contempt for “activists,” and thereby for the very notion that average people should spend any time at all seeking to influence the direction of public affairs. Her “experience” and her policies and programs will save us, not our own actions. Presumably there are people who doorbell and phonebank for her, but clearly they are not “activists,” presumably in the same sense that users of alcohol and nicotine “don’t do drugs.”  The “blame America first” memeI don’t think that we can count on either candidate to attack this one yet, even though it would be great for the Dem populist base if they did. It fits in with the “elitist” framing, and it is really easy to reframe. The original frame is that the true “America” is the haves and have mores who dictate American foreign policy. The corollary is that the rest of us poor saps who just live here are not qualified to be “America.” All we have to do to change the frame is to say that the corporate elites who want to sell our port security to Dubai (home to the banks that finance quite a few terrorists) are the same people who decide we have to attack countries that never attacked us. Corporations demand that we physically threaten other countries who won’t go along with having “free” trade imposed on them, but they incorporate in Bermuda so as to avoid paying taxes for this service. When Repukes (or any Dems that buy into the Repuke framing) say that “we” have to defend “our” interests, the only appropriate response is “Whatchu mean WE, Kemosabe?” Of course Clinton can’t possibly do that since Bill is shilling for Dubai and the Columbia “free” trade agreement. Obama could do it but has not done it, and may well be too afraid to break this particular frame and go that openly against our real elite. That makes this one, again, up to the rest of us. Standing up for DemocratsObama seems to have a hands off approach here, inadequate, but better than people who really ought to know better and just pile on when Dems get publicly attacked. Not just Clinton is at fault here, but also Pelosi and Elizabeth Edwards. It turned my stomach when Pete Stark apologized. Ditto Kerry. I really hope that EE took Jane Hamsher's advice to heart. http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/200... In arguing in favor of their measure, Democrats asserted that President Bush and Republicans were unable to find the funds for medical insurance for children while spending tens of billions of dollars on the war in Iraq.
At one point in the debate, Congressman Stark came to the floor and made these remarks. "You don't have money to fund the war or children. But you're going to spend it, to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq, to get their heads blown off, for the president's amusement." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher... I can see we're going to have to set up some sort of "Democratic PR school" soon. They've become so accustomed to being George Bush's whipping posts they no longer recognize it when they have the advantage, and as the John Kerry incident demostrates they are in sore need of a few remedial lessons on how to press it when they do.
First of all — I don't care if John Kerry was eating live babies on TV, one week out from an election you do not repeat GOP talking points. Ever. It makes you look like a big wuss who can't stand up to the Republicans, even when they're playing from an exceptionally weak hand on an issue you own. For all those anxious to be seen as the tough defenders of national security, huddling in a crouch position while they pummel you about the head and bleating "yes, yes, we deserve this" does not have the best optics.
<snip>
Secondly — did I mention that the Democrats own the issue of Iraq? Even the WSJ acknowledges it is the #1 factor influencing people's votes this election. If the Republicans want to bring it up, that's a perfect opportunity to pivot and attack:
Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton seems to be taking her political cues from Rush Limbaugh at a wholly inopportune time. You expect Rush, who evaded military service thanks to a large boil on his butt, to defend fellow draft dodger George Bush by castigating Viet Nam war hero Kerry. But why does Hillary Clinton have to jump into the Sista Souljah business? http://firedoglake.com/2007/09/15/note-to-... / You're a smart woman. You of all people should know about the asymmetrical intimidation problem that Paul Krugman talks about -- the one where the media is afraid to go after Rudy Guiliani for claiming he's a rescue worker, but they'll try to demolish your husband over a haircut because they know that they'll get swarmed by the right wing noise machine for the former and pay no price for the latter. That's how it works.
So I was really disappointed today to read at Taylor Marsh's place that you had joined with Diaper Dave Vitter and John "McCarthy" McCain to attack MoveOn. We (and by that I mean the netroots) defend you when the MSM try to make your campaign a pinata over stupid, insignificant stuff. When they try to say your race should end because of your illness, but don't say squat about Fred Thompson's lymphoma. We're your first line of defense, the only messaging machine that progressives have.
So here's the rule. You never repeat right wing talking points to attack your own, ever. You never enter that echo chamber as a participant. Ever. You never give them a hammer to beat the left with. Just. Don't. Do. It.
The war is a desperate mess. When offered the opportunity to cudgel your own side, you pivot and attack. How about, "glad you mentioned that...I think an ad is about as relevant to George Bush's growing collection of toe tags as a haircut is to the problems facing this country." Or, "thanks for the opportunity to discuss this, Chris. I personally would not choose the word "betrayal" to characterize General Petraeus's lack of judgment or skewing of the facts to perpetuate the war, but I do think we should be looking at the fact that this was the bloodiest summer ever in Iraq and asking ourselves if the assessment we're being given about the situation is realistic..."
There are any number of ways you can answer that question well and none of them involve attacking MoveOn. The pivot and attack technique demands reframing of Repuke talking points. Clinton needs to start doing it, and Obama needs to do it a lot more. End of story.
The following is a quote from an article in the New York Review of Books "Godot Comes to Sarajevo" (Vol XL #17, pp 52-59, October 21, 1993) by Susan Sontag. (Not online, unfortunately.) She went there to put on the play "Waiting for Godot" when Sarajevo was under daily bombardment--people wanted artistic diversion as much as they wanted food. The quote is a very brief aside from the main topic. The only actor who seemed to have normal stamina was the oldest member of the cast. Ines Fancovic, who is 68. Still a stout woman, she has lost more than 60 pounds since the beginning of the siege, and this may have accounted for her remarkable energy. The other actors were visibly underweight and tired easily. Lucky must stand motionless through most of his long scene but never sets down the heavy bag he carries. Atko, who plays him (and now weighs no more than 100 pounds) asked me to excuse him if he occasionally rested his empty suitcase on the floor throughout the rehearsal period. Whenever I halted the run-through for a few minutes to change a movement or a line reading, all the actors, with the exception of Ines, would instantly lie down on the stage.
Another symptom of fatigue: the actors were slower to memorize their lines than any I have ever worked with. Ten days before the opening they still needed to consult their scripts, and were not word-perfect until the day before the dress rehersal. It ought to be obvious to anybody that Ines was energetic not because of weight loss, but because she had the weight to lose. Note that she is still fat after having endured severe famine conditions for a couple of years. It seems to have been much easier for her to tolerate going from 300# to 240# (my guess) than for Atko(hypothetically) to go from 160# to 100#. This tells you why some people are fat--more of their ancestors than usual had to withstand conditions like this. It pays to have at least a few people in every society who are still mentally alert and physically capable under conditions that make metabolically normal people weak and stupid, even if they have major disadvantages when times are good. Sure looks like at least one fat old lady could really sing it during bad times. If you have a metabolism like Ines, the only hope for coming close to "normal" weight is a lifetime commitment to recreating the famine conditions your ancestors were genetically adapted to, and for many people that isn't going to be feasible. The health nazis think that fat people ought to be required to live under a permanent state of siege, Sarajevo or the equivalent forever. What if you would prefer to have an actual life?
And just think--she has the gall to call Obama an "elitist." http://bendaniel.org/?p=158 http://youtube.com/watch?v=LVrQkunIZXo This has the potential of becoming a huge story: Doug Coe, a man Hillary Clinton has called a “genuinely loving spiritual guide and mentor for many” has been caught on tape praising the personal relationships shared by Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler. In the same speech Coe expressed admiration for the dedication of Chinese soldiers who, according to Coe, were forced to chop off the heads of their mothers as a demonstration of their commitment to the People’s Republic of China. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080331/ehre... At the heart of The Family's American branch is a collection of powerful right-wing politicos, who include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe and Rick Santorum. They get to use The Family's spacious estate on the Potomac, The Cedars, which is maintained by young men in Family group homes and where meals are served by The Family's young women's group. And, at The Family's frequent prayer gatherings, they get powerful jolts of spiritual refreshment, tailored to the already powerful. <snip> "Sharlet generously attributes Clinton's involvement to the under-appreciated depth of her religiosity, but he himself struggles to define The Family's theological underpinnings. The Family avoids the word Christian but worships Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God's "dominion" on earth. Insofar as The Family has a consistent philosophy, it's all about power--cultivating it, building it and networking it together into ever-stronger units, or "cells." "We work with power where we can," Doug Coe has said, and "build new power where we can't." Obama has given a beautiful speech on race and his affiliation with the Trinity United Church of Christ. Now it's up to Clinton to explain--or, better yet, renounce--her long-standing connection with the fascist-leaning Family."
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