The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => History => Topic started by: Arachno-capitalist on June 03, 2008, 03:16:13 pm
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/clinton (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/clinton)
Well. Glad that show is over. Next up: OBAMA VS. MCCAIN VS. BOB BARR VS. RALPH NADER
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Less than an hour after the AP released her plans to concede, other operatives deny the plan and say she will go to the convention.
Because... you know... Robert Kennedy got shot, so anything can happen. (Obama immediately receives advance secret service protection)
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All serious presidential candidates get Secret Service protection. Obama's had his for over a year now.
YES WE CAN HAS OBAMA
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(I think he was saying that Clinton is going to take out Obama.)
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For six months I've been saying that if anything happened to Obama, the number one person of interest would be Mrs. Clinton.
Since she made the Robert Kennedy comment, her getting on the ticket could be a little ironic. Hopefully we won't see any picture of her holding a beagle up by the ears.
Stranger things have happened. Oliver Stone is probably taking notes.
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Given that he's working the change angle so hard and her main selling point seems to be 'I've been there, done it I know how to play the game' I can't see how they could make a convincing pair of running mates.
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What's funny to me is back during the primaries I heard a bunch of republicans saying they were voting for Hilary in the primary, because Hilary as a candidate would ensure a republican win in November.
Now I keep hearing democrats saying that Obama has to take Hilary as a running mate because a ticket without Hilary on it would ensure a republican win in November.
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Just please tell me that it's over.
I swear that there were at least two primaries prior to this week that they said on the news were the last one. Was this really the last one, or are they lying again? Or did I want it to be over so bad that those previous times, I was hallucinating?
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Hey, don't worry; the dogs like it!
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I can just see the internet conspiracy documentarys spinning now if clinton gets the veep and obama bites it.
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Augh, people. Am I the only one who initially interpreted the statement the way she says she meant it?
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http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/police-shut-down-assassination-art-exhibition/ (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/police-shut-down-assassination-art-exhibition/)
I guess free speech is cool as long as you don't make art about political figures getting killed. U.S.A, land of the free.
I'm not entirely convinced on how this exhibit is different from films about presidential assassination like Death of a President, or Vantage Point - which were great works of entertaining cinema.
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I'm a looooong time Clinton supporter and I heard it as:
"He's black! He's black! They're gonna kill him because he's black, vote for me or the black dies!"
I mean. Christ help me, I hate to say it but... yeah.
That's what she said fifteen times before when she said it the other times and that's what she meant then too. She wanted to say it without having to admit that she was saying it. She's way way WAY too smart for anything else to be the case.
Jim Webb. Southern moderate. Large military experience but anti-the-war-against-the-Iraqi-people. It's the only thing that makes sense. Clinton threw her credibility out into the streets like the guts of a roadkill dog, hanging on way way way the fuck too long. Best to hide her for a few years.
A shame, too, as she really was the one with the best combination of issues and the ability to get shit done.
Total MacBeth clusterfuck.
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I just assumed that she was putting it out there as a "what if."
"I'm not saying anyone should take a shot at him - I'm just saying that if you're unstable and hate black people... well, don't let me get in your way." -- Hillary Clinton, paraphrased
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See, when Pedro first told me what she said, I thought, What's the big deal? She's invoking a cultural touchstone to point out that historically, the democratic candidacy has been decided much later in the year than it has been for the last few election cycles. I mean, a lot of people remember RFK's assassination, so it makes sense that she'd use that as an example of someone who was still running for president well into the summer of an election year.
I've heard people invoke the date of JFK's assassination to point out that presidential bids starting a year before the election is an old practice -- Kennedy was, after all, campaigning in Dallas on that fateful November day -- so it made sense to me that Clinton was doing the same thing with RFK's assassination. I'm not Hillary's biggest fan or anything, but I just didn't read any malice into the statement whatsoever. Pedro had to explain to me what all the fuss was about.
Guess I'm in the minority, though.
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Its all about the context.
The context was a brilliant person backed against the wall, with absolutely no rational chance of success and yet no ability to admit defeat, left to sway in the wind and throw every kitchen sink she could think of without admitting that she was hucking heavy porcelain with total reckless abandon.
She'd been existing in some kind of twisted nowheresville, putting the infintesimally small chance of her grab at the big brass ring over the integrity of her party and the future of the nation... basically since Super Tuesday.
For months and aching sprawling gaping yawning burning months.
In that context, with her brilliance, anything she was saying HAD to be taken the worst and darkest way it could be reasonably read... because she had been rolling the dice on ripping the country apart for a "what if I were the last man on Earth" chance at the presidency for such an unimaginably long period of time.
With those facts at hand, there's nothing else she could've meant and I fuck*ng hate saying that.
But some of the greatest minds in our history have dashed themselves in shreds to the streets over matters of pride and... Hilary certainly falls in that wheelhouse.
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I took it the way JL did, though I did think the fact that she'd miscommunicate so badly and was unable to control the aftermath counted against her more than anything else.
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Plus the RFK comparison isn't apt. IIRC when he was running the primaries didn't start until March, not January 2nd. So still campaigning in June was no big deal at all back then.
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The primaries may not have started as early then, but they didn't end any later. We just had the last few this week. My own state didn't vote 'til May. Besides, whatever happened to going to the convention? There's no shame in that. That's why we have a convention, for Pete's sake. People are just impatient, is all.
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The primaries may not have started as early then, but they didn't end any later. We just had the last few this week. My own state didn't vote 'til May. Besides, whatever happened to going to the convention? There's no shame in that. That's why we have a convention, for Pete's sake. People are just impatient, is all.
Right. My point is 40 years ago the primaries started in March and ran through June with the convention in August. So RFK was 3 months into the process. Now we start in January and go until June so this thing has already been dragging on for 6 months. No even counting pre-primary campaigning.
And the current mentality is that if we wait until the convention then that's not enough time to effectively campaign before November. Which I can't even wrap my head around.
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I was kind of hoping she'd stay in until the convention, and we'd have another '68.
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Apparently Obama is having a free rally today that's supposed to fubar traffic. Which is totally what we need after yesterday's wonderful storm-fueled commute.
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"Going to the convention" would consist of basically three more months of this ridiculous headstart for John McCain wherein the mainstream press would continue to treat him with kid gloves because the big story would remain "the woman and the black trying to kill each other, ripping the party apart as they go".
Months will be needed to debunk the image of the most lobbyist-upped warmonger in the world as some kind of moderate maverick something or other that he has never been... it might already be too late, to be honest.
Rebranding in this media age takes TIME. For better or for worse and both.
As for "another '68"... holy shit, how did that mess work out for us? Yeah, fine, we've got some documentaries for old hippies to make bragging about their old scars, "Jaws"-style... but we ended up with Richard Goddamned Milhous Motherfuck*ng Nixon, you know.
Let alone that there is no youth movement to sustain a '68 so... even if we COULD have that, even if there was any benefit TO it, even if it wouldn't turn into some fuckin' weird parody of activism as sponsored by fuck*ng Prius and Whole Foods... "Violent Rebellion... brought to you by... Follow Your Heart Vegan Mayonnaisse and by... the NBC Television Family... remember, Green is Universal!"?
All we'd have would be a bunch of uppermiddle class white folks in their middle forties, pissed that they were too young to ever really be hippies, going to goddamned Getting Your Skull Based In By Cops Fantasy Camp...
No less sad and no more real than if, when I am forty, I have the bread to go to Mets Spring Training Fantasy Camp or goddamned whatever...
No, no, all things considered, I'd rather not have all that.
I'd rather the devil horns were stuck on McCain four months ago instead of these awful gut-churning frauds of that asshole being "cool" by chumming it up with Jon fuck*ng Stewart twice a fuck*ng week, you know?
I'd rather not see the next reality show "So You Think You Can Activist?" all over CNN for a coupla weeks in August.
No more iconoclastic bullshit, no more posturing, no more taking a hard line on this or that just for the thrill of feeling like Jesus when the dude flipped over tables...
Lets just FIX things, huh? Fix them slowly if that's what's needed, not just fail at fixing them quickly so that we can feel like we're doing things and we're oh-so-cool, fuck Ralph Nader, fuck him with an unsafe car right up your ass, you know?
Lets just start fixing things, fuck the symbolism and fuck feeling good about ourselves while we're doing it.
Work to do. But first we need a mostly-liberal president and a Congress he can work with.
So let's fuck*ng DO that.
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Dude, by all means, vote for Babar with my compliments. Go for it. YOU CAN DO EEET!
Me, I'll be voting for the most well-meaning guy with a chance of winning.
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Me, I'll be voting for the most well-meaning guy with a chance of winning.
That cuts way too close to a quotation to pass up,
"...But there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong. If this is too blind for your taste, consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way."
Undoubtedly, LFM is pleased to sit in opposition to anything Heinlein had to say. :)
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'Course, I'm rooting for primordial root-in-the-mud gridlock as the favourable outcome of the national elections this spin of the circuit.
That's the kind of thing I like to see. Everybody sucks, let's just put them all in a place where they can't do any more harm.
I know that sounded sarcastic, but that is exactly the way I vote. Democratic governor, republican state assemblies. Republican president, democratic house and senate. It's why we have three branches, people.
As for "another '68"... holy shit, how did that mess work out for us? Yeah, fine, we've got some documentaries for old hippies to make bragging about their old scars, "Jaws"-style... but we ended up with Richard Goddamned Milhous Motherfuck*ng Nixon, you know.
Yeah, okay, Nixon wasn't the best outcome. But it was exciting! And historic! I mean, fuck, here we are talking about it 40 years later. We need something to happen. The government doesn't really do anything anyway. We may as well have some fun with it.
I'm only half kidding. When did I get so jaded?
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Holy Shit, I live in Boulder and if there were a protest (featuring the youth I have met here) it would be exactly what lfm says, only the vegan mayonnaise is called veganaise, their slogan is follow your heart. On the other hand, there would be a shit ton of drugs, so like, I mean, you got to make compromises. Also, veganaise is pretty good.
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America's in that awkward stage, trying to decide whether it would be better to change and join a world wherein it is not The Empire or better to use its influence in the Middle East to trigger Armeggedon as changing takes so much thought and energy.
That's... I mean, that's the basic choice between Obama and McCain, as it stands.
A guy who really thinks that if we all get along, our grandchildren will have flying cars... or an old soldier, riddled with PTSD-fueled rage, who probably thinks this situation all so awful that perhaps there should be no grandchildren at all.
Call me crazy but the choice is wicked clear, if not perfectly fulfilling.
Our spoiled American asses want something perfect now or GODDAMNIT NO ONE CAN HAVE ANYTHING. WAH WAH WAH! To not vote or to protest vote is the choice of a spoiled and petulant child.
"I! WANT THAT! TOY NOW!" "I! WANT EVERYTHING! RIGHT NOW! OR NEVER!"
Terrible Ralph Nader gibberish.
The kind of mental masturbation that plays a fiddle perfectly while the world burns down.
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A protest vote is, essentially, a vote against any kind of incrimental change. Any kind of step-by-step change, any kind of change that happens in shades, to forgive the subtle pun.
We like to believe that things just HAPPEN politically because... well... history writers are generally goddamned lazy and history teachers are rushed and underfunded.
There are political seasons where simply getting the nation headed back in a sane direction is victory enough and... the only reasonably possible victory at all...
And this is surely one of those seasons.
In the words of Richard Dreyfuss, "baby steps to the bathroom".
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Whee! This is fun!
When you guys gonna start making out? I wanna have some popcorn ready this time.
Especially if cappy's gonna take off his shirt and reveal his firm, athletic body.
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I'm stripped down to the loincloth and oiling up as we speak.
It could get ugly, if ugly's your thing.
Hopefully some tasteful manscaping has already been accomplished. Oil on body hair....ish.
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I have been known to vote Libertarian in the past, and have had the "wasted vote" argument too many times to count. I've always said that I only waste my vote when I vote for someone I don't really want, but am choosing as the lesser of two evils.
That being said, I probably won't vote Libertarian this year - we've seen economic libertarianism in action since 2000, where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class disappears. I started calling myself a Libertarian for their social policies, and it seems like that part of the platform is being ignored (see the rumors that persisted for so long that Ron Paul might run for the Lib ticket).
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Oh, my Lord! Bush policies Libertarian? Libertine, perhaps. In the way of a sailor staggering drunkenly through the red light district with his pockets splitting from raiding the ships' treasury. Clinton was positively stingy in comparison. We're still paying people not to grow tobacco, stuffing public funds into the oil companies' exploration coffers, servicing a groaning deficit, and making sure that massive corporate farms get treated with the gentle kid gloves intended for family businesses. There has been an explosion of bureaucracy and its attendant thirst for public money, and all that ignores the anti-Libertarian adventures of our militaries. The Libertarian party can be accused of many shortcomings (not the least of which is total ineffectiveness), but to tar them with Bush's brush is ludicrous.
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Perhaps I'm a little off there - I retract the comparison.
That being said, I'm now convinced that without government stepping in and DOING something, the people who own the factories will continue to move them to China. The people who own the software will continue to have Koreans and Indians update them (and answer the phone when someone can't make it work). The number of people running their own businesses will shrink, as the Walmarts and Home Depots and Barnes and Nobles will use their size advantage to erect a barrier to entry so high that no mortal can hope to climb over it.
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Watch out JL, I'ma in this one.
I'm stripped down to the loincloth and oiling up as we speak.
JL, rugby hardens the body and the spirit. My body is a machine with purpose.
You guys are making me all tingly. Stop saying the right things!
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Nationalize Micro$oft!
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Did I mention, vote for Bob Barr, the Libertarian savior for America?
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Babar1.jpg)
OK, I feel better now. Carry on arguing.
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Small businesses are still the largest employers in the U.S. Wal-Mart may be the largest single employer, but compared to all of the small businesses it works with, it is a drop in the ocean.
Your body may be comprised of mostly non-cancer, but that's generally of little comfort.
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American politics is the best spectator sport ever.
Just saying.
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Better than Taiwanese parliamentary debate?
(http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1339455.jpg)
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The game itself isn't the most complex or entertaining, but the colour commentary is great.
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The game itself isn't the most complex or entertaining, but the colour commentary is great.
Oh, shit, not the race card. TOO SOON!
Also, I ain't got no loincloth but I know where to get a sumo belt. Still not sure if I want a piece of this...
but really, people, what good is a 'protest vote' or 'third party' vote as long as the electoral college still elects the president anyway?
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Oh, shit, not the race card. TOO SOON!
Not what I meant, but canned anyway.
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Man, I ain't tying on the mawashi yet but I've gotta say the idea that total deregulation will make everything better is a fantastic load of hoss shit. I mean unless you're really into plutocratic feudalism, then total deregulation works pretty good.
Also I was fully expecting Hillary Clinton's big surprise speech to be her dragging a lookalike out on stage, shooting the lookalike, blaming Skrulls and demanding a rematch.
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Also I was fully expecting Hillary Clinton's big surprise speech to be her dragging a lookalike out on stage, shooting the lookalike, blaming Skrulls and demanding a rematch.
So awesome.
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Not what I meant, but canned anyway.
Mwah! For some reason, that's pretty funny too.