Crandolph’s Barbaric Yawp

James Wolcott on Ann Coulter:

"It’s not worth wasting any more outrage on the subject of Ann Coulter.  We all know what she is, and can hear in the brief quiets between her brash pronouncements the squeal and squeak of mice running wild in the messy hayloft of her mind. She’s an empty uproar with long legs and long shiny hair and a reputation for extending the cocktail hour indefinitely that casts her with what Paddy Chayevsky emphemistically called ‘an aura of availability.’ Middle-aged men and younger can daydream that if they met her under under auspicious circs, as they say in Bertie Wooster novels, they might have a shot, a reverie harder to entertain about Wonkette, whose wedding ring is powered with a special wolf-repellent ray. Coulter may have female fans, I wouldn’t know, but her media stardom is primarily a male fantasy that is both sexist and racist. She is the pinup pundit of White Prerogative, her arrogant vanity perfect for a country and a media-political culture that refuse to recognize its postindustrial decline and decay. A country that still thinks it can whip the world into obeying its will."

One would hope this sort of thing would, finally, bring the Deaniacs to their senses:

Link to article.

Was there ever any question that the US would eventually ‘win’ the shooting war and overtake Iraqi territory?  Did anyone ever expect the Iraqis to ‘win?’  That said, was not the eventual occupation of the country, with its attendant puppet government and petro-dollars a-flowing, a given?

Why, then, have most of the invasion-era critics of the Bush plan for that occupation remained silent?  Precisely what about the nature of international law or the human and financial costs of occupation has changed?

The worst part of it is that for several months opinion polls have shown a slight majority of Americans favor a withdrawal, and once again the strategic and moral disaster that was "ABB ‘04" has left a leadership vacuum on the majoritarian side of a pressing issue.

Thanks to Rich Doran for passing along this opinion piece from Pravda.  As I understand it, Condaleeeeeeeeeezzza was Chevron’s "Russia expert" in the sense of figuring out how best to exploit the massive natural gas and oil wealth of the (former) USSR.  I always rather doubted she knew more about the place than that, aside from a few parroted demonizing platitudes of the elite eastern university Poli Sci gatherings.

On the whole, America’s prestigious Poli Sci departments were always packed with frauds in the "Sovietology" area, drastically misunderstanding - if not actually lying about - Soviet society, government stability and military capabilities.  They almost helped our Cold Warriors kill us all, never forget that.  These people were both morally corrupt and intellectually mediocre, despite the accolades they awarded each other.

Now that the USSR’s gone, and the domestic middlebrow paranoiac symposia book markets with it, many of these same jerks have rechristened themselves "terrorism" experts.  Terrorism - of course - broadly defined as Muslim use of violence.  They are having the same success in that area as in the former in prediction and transfer of our wealth from American domestic needs to the weapons market.

Damn them all to Hell.

Hi folks, I have a rant in the pot on the upcoming DA race in Philadelphia.  In the meantime, enjoy this photo of the upper cataract of Yosemite Falls - America’s highest - I took in Yosemite National Park last November.

Read it and weep, Yoshie Furuhashi breaks down the ‘progressives’ in Congress by the numbers:

"The ‘bankruptcy reform’ bill "passed the House on a 302-126 vote on Thursday, a month after the Senate voted 74-25". Techpolitics reports that not only did 73 House Democrats vote for the bill but those who voted for it "included 10 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, 13 members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, 2 Progressive Caucus members and all but 3 Blue Dogs."

That’s very high perecentages of the respective "progressive" caucuses of the party recall; there aren’t many of these people.  Recall also that it was specifically the CBC which led the attack on the Nader campaign, arguing that an independent political movement in 2004 would seriously hamper the DNC’s and CBC’s objectives.  (They were, in the end, unfortunately correct; people like Nader with any power would never have voted for nor otherwise aided and abetted the credit industry to the severe detriment of working families.)

Link to full article.

Apparently the new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie is awful (extended review contains spoilers).  Does modern Hollywood have the capacity to do anything with an established winner without ruining it?  The Magic 8 Ball says "SIGNS POINT TO NO."  No, even when presented, silver-platter style, with a witty, orginal story with mass appeal and a built-in rabid fan base.  These long, painful days of cultural, social and economic decline in what was once a potential-pregnant society fill me with ennui and disgust.

Finally I’m getting around to commenting upon one of the songs I mentioned in my test-post, John Prine’s "Sam Stone."  In 1971, Prine’s debut album (referred to as the "Haystack" album because of the cover photo) came out on Atlantic Records, if the liner notes are to be believed owing to the intervention and championing of songwriter extraordinaire Kris Kristofferson.  It was the right album at the right time, a wise country/country-rock affair in the wake of The Byrds, Gene Clark and CCR helping build a young, hip music-buying audience who could appreciate a more intellectual take on an old genre.

Prine is both a great musician and a sharp lyricist, and had two awesome anti-war songs on the album, "Sam Stone" and the ever-timely "Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore."

In ‘71, I was born into a working class family, son of a Vietnam vet who was wounded twice, developed substance abuse problems and picked up and left before ‘72 rolled around.  Think this ditty resonates with me?

An excellent cover version also appeared, in the form of a minor hit, for Swamp Dogg.  The Dogg was a political dude and managed to make Nixon’s expanded enemies list, which may have had as many as 600 names.

Sam Stone
©John Prine

Sam Stone came home,
To his wife and family
After serving in the conflict overseas.
And the time that he served,
Had shattered all his nerves,
And left a little shrapnel in his knee.
But the morphine eased the pain,
And the grass grew round his brain,
And gave him all the confidence he lacked,
With a Purple Heart and a monkey on his back.

Chorus:
There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes,
Jesus Christ died for nothin’ I suppose.
Little pitchers have big ears,
Don’t stop to count the years,
Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios.
Mmm….

Sam Stone’s welcome home
Didn’t last too long.
He went to work when he’d spent his last dime
And Sammy took to stealing
When he got that empty feeling
For a hundred dollar habit without overtime.
And the gold rolled through his veins
Like a thousand railroad trains,
And eased his mind in the hours that he chose,
While the kids ran around wearin’ other peoples’ clothes…

Repeat Chorus:

Sam Stone was alone
When he popped his last balloon
Climbing walls while sitting in a chair
Well, he played his last request
While the room smelled just like death
With an overdose hovering in the air
But life had lost its fun
And there was nothing to be done
But trade his house that he bought on the G. I. Bill
For a flag draped casket on a local heroes’ hill.

Repeat Chorus

# # #

I took this photo in Mexico City, near the Plaza Garibaldi, in 2003.

It’s here for a splash of color.  Clicking on it opens a larger image.

… in a failure-positive society.  Link.  I think Ms. Wheelchair Minnesota and the employee who quit are great examples of that rare breed of American who (excuse pun) show some spine.  Good for them.

According to an Japanese proverb, The nail that sticks up will be pounded down.  Not to get all Ayn Rand here, but there’s another good observation from the animated feature The Incredibles: [paraphrasing] "When everyone is special, no one is special."  So let’s squelch the the impulse to succeed!  Yes, that’ll fix everything.

In a 1967 demo of a song titled "King Rabbit," which they never properly recorded, The Who sang about a rabbit king (hey, I don’t write ‘em, I just comment upon ‘em) who showed great courage by standing on his hind legs "in a time of need" and "for his rabbit creed" despite the advice of doctors to roll over and die quietly.  Lyric, scroll down to second page.  I find it a moving little ditty.  Maybe someone needs to pipe it into the offices of certain non-profits.

In an awesome essay on the crisis of the suicidal Cobb-directed "lesser evil" national Green Party, 2004 indpendent VP candidate Peter Camejo writes:

"But most amazing is how, after telling the world in thousands of speeches how terrible a president George Bush is and how if Nader runs it is such a crime because the terrible Bush might get elected, the Democratic Party-including the so called progressive Democrats (Ted Glick, a hard core Cobb supporter, claims there are 130 progressive Democrats in Congress)- gave George Bush 39 standing ovations at the State of the Union address, surpassing the previous year’s amazing 18 standing ovations with an additional 21 ovations all in one hour. The Democrats are not an opposition party. They are a prevent-an-opposition-from-arising Party.

We have not heard a peep from the PDA, The Nation, Moveon.org, The Progressive, Norman Solomon etc., about the fact that their choice for president just gave Bush 39 standing ovations. Apparently it is not something they feel is worth commenting on. In fact the silence is deafening as Democrats cheer Bush and openly declare how they are shifting away from what is majority opinions in America on one issue after another. An amazing numerical coincidence has just occurred when the Democrats in congress overwhelming voted for Bush’s request for funding for the continued illegal occupation of Iraq: only 39 Democrats voted no. Of course many Democrats vote no when they know the motion will pass. Their no vote becomes cover when they live in strongly anti-war districts. The pro war vote included some of the more famous progressive Democrats like John Conyers and Jesse Jackson Jr.

Let us not forget the massive totalitarian campaign to not allow a pro-peace candidate, Ralph Nader from being on the ballot. Not one elected Democrat in the nation publicly opposed their party’s campaign against democracy. Not one leader of the PDA said one word in opposition to this totalitarian campaign."

CounterPunch remains one of the only left-leaning organs to retain its senses on the war issue and the 2004 vote, publishing a series of damning columns on "liberal" apologists for the war effort.  At this point, the Bush Administration itself may end up starting to withdraw some troops on its own before the 2006 elections roll around.  After a humiliating series of articles, including Norman Solomon’s nationally syndicated column, pointing out that MoveOn.org had been silent on opposing war and occupation for nearly 2 years, they finally issued a too-little-too-late plea for their donators to contact Congress and urge voting against the Bush Iraq budget.  The Democratic Party in the House - the people MoveOn worked to put in office in 2000, 2002, and 2004 - responded by voting for the Bush Iraq funding by a ratio of about 5:1.

It is indeed time to "move on" to better things…