Pride (In The Name Of Love)

One man come in the name of love
One man come and go.
One man come he to justify
One man to overthrow.

In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.

One man caught on a barbed wire fence
One man he resist
One man washed up on an empty beach
One man betrayed with a kiss.

In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.

Early morning, April four
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky.
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride.

In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.

In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
all words and music of this song copyright by U2

Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

In today's world, that could refer to a vast multitude of things.  In this case, however, I have reference to one particular subject....namely, me.

I'd wanted to talk about this on Monday, which is the day I did a deed I'd swore I'd never do.  But life got in the way as it often does and I had to wait until today.  

I'd made frequent, loud, and public oaths.  I swore down to the marrow in my bones I'd never, ever, ever do it.  I'd been snide, mean, cynical, rude, and frankly downright cruel and hurtful in treatment of people--real friends, even--who disagreed with me.

After the utter debacle that was the Samuel Alito confirmation, I re-registered from Democrat to Independent and have since withheld my vote from all Democrats, which I saw as my only means to protest that fiasco.  (And many others)

But on Monday...*deep breath*...

I re-registered as a Democrat so I could vote for Barack Obama in Pennsylvania's primary.

crossposted at My Left Wing, ,Blue House Diaries, Wild Wild Left, Street Prophets

Well, fuck, I guess he got bored dancing exclusively on the graves of New Yorkers.  Time to deface New Orleans once more before he goes!
          --Yours truly, reacting to Bush's SOTU announcement to hold this year's North American Summit in New Orleans

Normally, I'm not the kind to start a diary of any sort out this way, especially with an lead quote from myself.  But when Meteor Blades tells you to start a diary with it you don't ask questions.  You just do it.  So I did.

This State of the Union is perhaps the most valuable of Bush's reign.  Why?  Well, they've all been so entirely worthless, that the fact that this one has had a single lone happy side effect makes it by default the best.

As nyceve so ably documented,the conflict in the Congo is unbelievably stomach churning and tragic.

Well, in a certain type of way, it just got even more so:

KINSHASA, Congo - Rebels have seized an area in eastern Congo that serves as a wildlife habitat for endangered mountain gorillas, threatening one of the last known populations of the animals, conservationists said Sunday.

Shelling and heavy gunfire could be heard from the headquarters of the Virunga National Park, and rangers were forced to flee over the weekend, said the international conservation group WildlifeDirect.

Only 700 mountain gorillas exist in the world, of which more than half live in the Virunga conservation area, a huge swath of territory at the intersection of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda.

Link

adapted and somewhat recast to make it site specific from a diary originally written for My Left Wing

With the possible exception of Iraq, I don't think I've ever been in a situation where I've desperately wanted to be proven wrong in my predictions of disaster yet was utterly convinced I would be right as I have been with this Democratic Congress.

Casting a brief glance around the liberal blogosphere, it seems that this may be the final bill of divorce for many people and the Democratic party.  For me, it was Alito.  There have been many other candidates for "last straws" since then.  It seems the Dems are determined to montly provide one to the disaffected.  Many even on such a hardcore Democratic site as this seem fed up.  (Whether they'll follow through on their disaffection is quite another matter.  We'll see; forgive me for having my doubts regarding your sincerety in your fedupittude.)  Even Glenn Greenwald, who always seems to know what to do, seems set rather adrift by this latest surrender.

Allow me now to take a moment to pin most of this blame for this fiasco squarely where it belongs:  at the feet of the netroots.

crossposted at Blue House Diaries and My Left Wing

Before we begin, this isn't about any Sean Penn movies.

No, it's about this:

"I came home a hero, and now I’m a bum."
               --Sam Ross, Jr.

It's Sam. But it could have been me.  Or you.  The reality is that it is thousands of others.  

There was formerly a diary here which people seemed to like.  Circumstances have dictated it disapper.  C'est la vie.  This sentence is strictly filler only so as to meet the length requirement.  Still not there yet, so I'll add this one.  And another.  And still another.  And yet another.  

cross-posted at My Left Wing and Blue House Diaries

Let me tell you a story.  It's a story of course.  Purely hypothetical.  Nothing like this could ever really happen.  Everyone likes a good story, though, right?

Suppose there was a young child at recess building something (a castle, a ship, whatever) out of Legos.  This kid is totally minding his own business when suddenly the big, dumb, mean, ugly, cruel class bully comes storming up out of nowhere.  He then proceeds to do what it is that bullies do--he pushes the kid over, kicks the Lego structure into a million pieces, which sends blocks flying everywhere.  Then, just for good measure, he jumps on the helpless child and punches him repeatedly in the face.

Look, I didn't say this was a heartwarming story, did I?  Stick with me.

11th grade American History, circa 1999.  Just after lunch in rural western Pennsylvania.  The teacher:  Mr. Calhoun.

I don't know where he is today or what he's doing.  I know he's retired and I hope he's still alive and having fun.  He was a child of the 60's, slightly burnt out maybe, but a really smart and funny guy.  He would show the film version of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" on the last day of school every year, and to hell with what the school board thought.

He was also a great teacher.  And one day during the World War II unit, he said something...

I was never any good at titles.  And, anyway, is a title really necessary?  Probably not.  But then again, I'm not sure.  How sure of anything have any of us been in the past five years, except that the Bush Administration are a bunch of sick, evil fucks?

I stayed up late that night, finishing my first big assignment of that college year.  I'd procrastinated as usual.  I finished about 2:30 in the a.m. I brushed my teeth, put on my bedtime playlist (Celtic music and Bela Fleck), rolled myself in my blankets and fell asleep.

I was 19 years old.

Dear folks,

Can we talk?  Because we really need to.  It's important. 

I have shit to do.  I'm in the process of moving out of my apartment, which is running me ragged.  I'm looking for jobs.  I have to get ready to go to my current godawful one.

So I hope I'm communicating some measure of the importance of what I have to say...

Perhaps it's just me.  Perhaps it's just my misreading of the tenor and tone of the reactions from some of my fellow Americans to the horrors currently being practiced in Lebanon.  But it seems to me that there is an undercurrent of painful surprise running through the various anguished wails of revulsion. 

I find that people are surprised that these things are happening at all.  I find that people are surprised that the Israelis seems to think this operation can end in anything but ultimate futility.  I find that people are surprised that Hezbollah would continue to perform aggressive actions against Israel despite the clear fact that it could result in nothing but what has happened.  I find people are surprised that Syria doesn't try to stop Hezbollah from doing this shit. (Pardon my expropriation, Mr. Bush.)

Why are we suprised by any of this?  Doesn't this all seem, well, familiar?

Holy Joe has been taking a lot of flack in recent weeks for this comment:

"It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander in chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war, we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril.

Now, I believe Joe Lieberman's picture appears on the OED next to the word "douchebag."  But in his charmingly awkward "Joementum" sort of way, he actually kinda-sorta-almost hit on something worthwhile there, without intending to.

As usual, Joe was trying to suck up to the President and the GOP, which I'm convinced he's a closet member of.  I'm going to take the small kernel of an idea he dropped and try to nuture it into a beautiful flowering plant of electoral victory.

frontpaged at My Left Wing

George Walker Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C.

Dear Fuckhead,

Crap.  I'm sorry.  Reflex action.

Dear Sir,

I'm sure you have all the advice you can stand these days.  I'm sure there are people pressing in among you from all sides--very learned people too!  People with degrees from Yale, Harvard, Princeton. Yak, yak, yak is probably all they wanna do, right?

Let's face it: The blunt truth is that life is getting you down right now, Mr. President.  Nothing seems to be going right.  You're under threat of censure.  Iraq deteriorates daily.  Support for an invasion of Iran is practically nil.  You managed to duck Congressional investigation into your (alleged!  I'm on your side here!) law breaking activities.  That's good.  But nothing else seems to be adding weight to your rather high-riding pan right now.  (I'm using an analogy about scales.  Is that okay?  I don't want to talk over your head.) 

frontpaged at My Left Wing

...because I got a whole mass to cut through right now.

As I right these words, right above Kos' post making excuses for the power play that stabbed Hackett in the back, is this quote:

Crashing the Gate is a refreshing, bold exposé of the status quo party politics that are threatening to make Democrats the permanent minority party. -- Donna Brazile

Now then, leaving aside for a moment the question of whether or not DONNA FREAKING BRAZILE of all people can ever be an effective or serious critic of status quo politics (by the way Donna, have I thanked you yet for running Gore's campaign with an ineptness that would make Michael Dukakis' campaign manager go "Damn, that was inept"?) does anyone see an inherent contradiction going on here?

frontpaged at My Left Wing

I made mention to some folks the other day that I have a habit of collecting jokes that are awful, disgusting, and tasteless.  Really, many of them can only loosely be called "jokes" since the primary reaction isn't laughter.  Or, if it is, it's not laughing at the humor, it's a kind of startled, disbelieving laughter that people can come up with such perverse things.  (Yeah, I know, it's a bizarre hobby.  Well, at least I don't correspond with serial killers in prison like you do.  Yeah, you, over there.)

In any case, I'm going to share one of these terrible jokes because I think it accurately illustrates how I--and I suspect many others--are feeling these days.  Then I'm going to expound a lot and hopefully come to some kind of coherent point.

Brace yourself.

frontpaged at My Left Wing

Water, grapes, yeast and sugar.  What do they have to do with each other?  Seemingly nothing.  But mix them in a sterile container, put a lid on and then walk away for a while.  Come back, drink heartily and feel good.

A rattlesnake is as much afraid of you as you are of it.  Encounter one in the wilderness and, despite its venom and noisy tail shaking, it will slither on its merry way given a chance.  However, should you get the bright idea to pick up a stick and start poking it repeatedly, you do so at the peril of your life.

What are the lessons here?  Mix the right ingredients together and you get wine.  Torment a rattlenake and you'll get bit.

So what you ask?  I'll tell you.

As much as it pains me to do this, because I truly think this may have been the first time I've strenuously and seriously disagreed with Atrios in the nearly 3 years since I've been reading his blog, there's no other word for his condemnation of Joel Stein's new LA Times column but "wankery."