Nil Desperandum

Obama has done as he promised he would.
His words were and are clear.
Obama will be the President he promised to be in stump speech after stump speech.
That will get us nearer to the goal the Democratic Party has sought for many years.
If that displeases any of us to the Left, too bad.

He told us.

This is what we voted for.
--ml

Dum Luks Stockpot, politics

Discrete

Political appointments are actions.
Political speeches are words.
Political appointments are announced in political speeches.
Political appointments are still actions not words.
Actions still speak louder than words.
Even when they are modified by the adjective political.
Actions in the month preceding are indicative of the sorts of actions to expect the month after.
Disappointment looms.
--ml

Dum Luks Stockpot, politics

Marking Sand

Mary Soderstrom kindly remarked today on my post: Where is the Start of Half a Circle?

Right on, Martin!

Still and all, I think Obama will at least appoint better Supreme Court judges than McCain would. And I must say that it is good to see that there hav been some changes for the beter in race relations--40 years ago the idea of an African American as president would have been unthinkable.

Cheers

Mary

So perhaps I should make my thoughts a tad less murky, to wit:

My reaction to our election of an African American to the Presidency: About bloody time. But why isn't he succeeding a female?

My reaction to the election of a Democrat, any Democrat: Thanks for the breathing room to try to clean up the mess, that includes moving the Supreme Court away from the extreme right wing and restoring the force of law bound in the Constitution and the various treaties that were broken in the last eight years.

My reaction to electing Obama specifically is that he is an excellent choice for ordinary times. That is times when the business cycle is not too exaggerated; when the rule of law is firmly established; when politicians, will he nil she, accept responsibility for their actions.

This is not one of those times.

This is a time that calls for radical (that is: to the root) change. We need to make our democracy serve all its people, not just the wealthy few. We need economic democracy as well as political democracy.
To get there we need to examine the events of the past forty years. There are ideas we were taught to accept about politics and the economy which do not work to most people's benefit. Rather they take from most to give too much to a very few who do little to earn it. This need not be a search for justice or retribution. It needs to be a sorting of good ideas from bad, with the bad thoroughly noted as such so that no snake oil salesman can peddle them to us in future.
To get there we need to consider ideas from all points of view. That we ignore every idea from the political left hobbles our creativity.
My fear is that Obama will give less attention to these ideas then they merit because the right of center is more congenial to him. To succeed in this country in the past two generations required this of every Democrat from Ted Kennedy and Dennis Kucinich to Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman.
I hope to be proved wrong. I hope that Obama, and his administration, will rise to the times even more effectively than Franklin Roosevelt did.
--ml

Dum Luk's Stockpot, politics

Where the half circle ends

Steve Benen notes:

 the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins insisting, "Moderates never beat conservatives.... What Tuesday was, was a fact that people wanted change, and it's a rejection of a moderate view."

So the shorter version of my previous post is:
Republicans win by moving right.
Democrats win by moving right.
There is no left.
There is no center.
Everything is hunky-dory.
--ml

Dum Luk's Stockpot, politics

Where is the start of half a circle?

Via Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly comes this quote of James Kirchick in the New Republic:

For the past 40 years, the Democratic Party has been most successful when it has governed from the center -- when it has governed at all

!! [consternation]!!

Lets see: Forty years back would be 1968. That year we rejected a worthy Democrat tainted by a stupider than usual war to pick a complete felon who continued the war another six years or so while establishing the broad strokes of the conservative kleptocratic agenda. Resigned to avoid responsibility for his crimes he left us in the hands of an inept, gently bumbling, incompetent who might rate an honored niche in history had he stayed in Congress. '76 brought a rare aves: a nuclear engineer who didn't pat the appropriate bums as they required. His policies, if continued, would put us ahead of the curve now so far as energy and climate change are concerned. But he was an engineer, so he was conservative -- except in a context of right wing conservative ideology. Not being a politician, he fell to a consummate sock puppet for the second run at the conservative kleptocracy. The befudlement of the populace continued apace through twelve years. Then we rejected a second term for the CIA apparatchik/aristo to elect another good ol' boy. This Democrat was a thorough going politician, and a DLC conservative. He did a few good things that hurt a hell of a lot, except not the capitalist aristocrats. He did a few bad thing's that hurt a hell of a lot, except not the capitalist aristocrats . So, after two terms we elected his Vice President and then stood by sucking our teeth while the Supreme Court, an organization with no part in elections, appointed his oponnent. This creature capered and preened as his staff constructed the grand Lazy Fair Kleptocratic Con With New 24/7 Open Vault at the fed. He opened Branch offices in exotic vacation spots like the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq. He created a meritocratic government in which the only merit was a expertise in particular fairy tales. These myrmidons rewrote laws to suit themselves. Tortured all and sundry. Drowned a city. Made even stupider than stupid wars. And generally assert the divine right of assholes, just not yours.
With the exception of the Watergate Investigations the Democrats in Congress spent the period taking care of any bidness but the people's. For the past thirty years these fine speciman's have honed their abilities as forelock tuggers.
The result of all this "centrism" is a complete conservative victory. The economy is in ruins due to greed and government is incapable due to corruption. We've elected another conservative Democrat and accept the label "liberal" applied to him by the con/kleps. The punditocracy is in full cry to hobble him.

Kirchick may call this "success". He may call it "centrist".
I think anyone with an understanding of the two terms as used by most of the world, would disagree.
--ml

Dum Luk's Stockpot, politics

Digby Speaks

it's not that I believe liberals are purely good and decent. We have many, many faults and are almost preternaturally talented at seizing defeat from the jaws of victory before we even get finished celebrating.

The temptation to put the blame elsewhere is too great if you believe there can be no doubt one is right.
--ml

Political Deflation

CEPR - The Reagan Question: Are You Better Off Now Than You Were Eight Years Ago?

In his closing remarks during the final presidential debate of 1980, Ronald Reagan famously asked the American people: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

Almost forty years on of a world dominated by the ideas and policies Reagan supported it is fair to ask an altered form of the question: Are we better off than we were forty years ago?
Very few can honestly answer in the affirmative.
--ml

Dum Luk's Stockpot, politics, Reagan

The Writer's Dilemma

A writer's worst dread is to be unread.

However gratifying the praise of crickets may be, only the publisher's check, if accepted by his, oh so clever (just ask him), banker, puts beans and such on his table.

Every one can write.

Just because you are good, does not mean you are good for that market.

Craftsman enough to be published, the duration of a reader's notice is short.

Few trouble to spend much time reading.

The only thing more petrifying than reading last month's issue is the medical appointment that usually follows.

How to cope with the half life of short fiction is every writer's knotty dilemma.

Along comes Rob Hunter to whack it in two like Alexander did the Gordian Knot. He collects a bouquet of his published short fiction, including one novella, into a handsome paper back. This removes the stigma of 'past issue' while opening the tales to broader audiences who may not be readers of a particular magazine. Is the candle worth the game? Yes. Emphatically yes. If you had a character cellar to pepper your stories with saps, clowns and God's fools in the manner of a Damon Runyon, a William Saroyan, a Ring Lardner, Junior, all rolled into one, while keeping the tale original you might almost match Rob's efforts here. These works are as varied as the nine patch quilts he limns so evocatively while remaining the clear effusions of a single master story teller.

For examples:

A Pass on the Tabouli offers a slice of peripheral vision. The characters inhabit the world we only glimpse out of the corner of our eyes. That world vanishes if looked at full on, lost in a fog of conventional feelings we choose to call reality. One might call a spade a spade in either world, but only in that peripheral world are we not too polite to admit that when we do the reason we refuse to dig is that we are lazy. Even that only when the tabouli is off.

Boys Night Out: Lycanthropy offers a plausible diversion from a narrative of conversational mixed doubles that illuminates suburban gender roles.

I Want to Share Your Wheat. A passage de danse for fore and back brain, digits and a cool green monitor filling with ampersands. Only those who know the horror of a blank page will appreciate the depth of this fantasy.

A Perfect Homburg. Further adventures of Jim Everhardy, our proxy mystery player: Everywriter. Who knew that a “38 Dodge chrome hubcap beats a gent’s best felt in the muse's duckpin league?

An Unwarmed Fish Artemis' Friday stand in nymph, Bambi, teaches Everywriter the value of not appearing with only a soundbite at a satire fight. Especially if it is a Friday duello in a modern day Duffy's Tavern caught in a Thursday time loop and well larded with spoonerisms. Wellerisms! Can't get enough of them.

Klein, the Clone Explores with nostalgic eyes the joys and perils of growing up twin and cloned in a blue rinse world of flags of all nations, noodle kugel, Mah-jong parties and an absent father – his body, not his head-- lost in Willipaq. Mistakes do happen.

The Nine Patch Variations. Libby Pease contemplates the infinite finitude of memory as she discovers the true, and only, existential question: Now, where did I put... what was it I'm looking for? Meantime William, call me Bill, Powell, detached from the silver screen, kibitz's on Libby's quilting, while the scallop casserole simmers seductively.

The Runaway Bungalo. Santa Expidito choreographs Mama Coca's tainted clams into a pas de trois for waitress, gentil hombre, and machine pistols. Not only the butterflies die. Oh, yes. Pirates!.

In all, there are seventeen entries to odd corners of Manhattan, Massapequa and Maine, and points South, North, East and West. Views of paranoid borders with Canada and the id abound. At just over a buck a tale this is the perfect bound perfect gift for the quirky and normal on the list. Go see Rob’s site: onetinleg.com for ordering details.

Not convinced? Rob, it turns out, is incredibly generous as well as marvelously gifted. Besides containing lanolin he is a voice artist of dexterity with timing to die for. Many of his stories are available as Mp3 files.

Hear him tell it.

Own and give your own copies.

Delicious.

Let me close with a poor song of my own but inspired by the The Song of the Rice Barge Coolie

In the interstices angst may provide
Glimpses of ids or sills inside.
Inevitable suicide?
Or wonted homicide?
You decide.

--ml

Tags: Robert Hunter, Dum Luks Community

Cui Bono

There is no evidence that the current administration is particularly stupid. Certainy no more so then the pit run of humanity.
All the evidence pointed to with shock and horror merely proves that the administration's goals are not our goals.
Pirates do not cosset ordinary prisoners. Pirates only care for those who will pay a sufficiently large ransom to make the game worth the candle.
--ml

Dum Luk's Economics

Money is intrinsically valueless.
It gains value only when two or more parties agree to exchange something of value for it.
Capital, whether land or money or time, is worthless until one or more people agree to do something for it, or with it.

Economic theory is mostly an attempt to obscure this by exalting the owners of capital. This is inherently duplicitous. The scale differential makes it absurd that anyone might own land. Nor does land own people. Does a large mammal own the bacteria in its colon? Or vice versa?

We live in a closed system. One in which every action, or failure to act, has many ramifications beyond its direct effects. Time we started an economy based on that reality.

--ml