Don't provoke

Three drunken women
savagely beat the wrong man
for wolf-whistling at them.

Do you remember in the movie, For Whom the Bell Tolls, when Akim Tamiroff, in a magnificent performance (for which he was never given sufficient credit), kept repeating the line, “I don’t provoke?” Probably most of you don’t, but it doesn’t matter. I mention it only because it is so applicable to the situation President Obama is in at the moment. You will recall, no doubt, that when George W. Bush was President, protesters were arrested merely for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts. Now protesters at Obama rallies come armed with 9 mm semi-automatic pistols and even assault rifles. They are not arrested, presumably because carrying observable arms is legal (wearing anti-Bush t-shirts is illegal?) in some places. I suggest that this is, among other things, a deliberate provocation. What do you think might happen if they were arrested (personally, I think they should be and their guns confiscated and melted down into paper weights). The hue and cry would be immediate and huge, “Obama is going to take our guns away,” “Obama is a Fascist,” Obama is Hitler,” and probably even worse totally unfounded accusations. Large numbers of loonies would believe this and would be spurred on to even more outrageous acts. Of course this behavior is not only provocative, it is also threatening, especially because our President is described as Black (he is just as much White). I am surprised we have not seen more overt threats of lynching. Anyway, Obama must stick to the refrain, “I don’t provoke,” much to my dismay. So far he seems to be remarkably adept at this. I admire his patience, but I also think sometimes he is wasting his time by being overly cautious with these corporate funded nitwits.

Kudos to Barney Frank for putting at least one of the most outrageous of the lunatic fringe in her place. Of course the Fox Propaganda machine immediately jumped all over him for “talking down” to the people. One might well ask, how in the world can you not talk down to such utterly ignorant people. I think he might have insulted dining room tables as they are probably capable of greater understanding of the issues. Actually, I suspect these people are so abysmally ignorant they are not even aware they are being talked down to.

It seems like the public option will be the measure of Obama’s Presidency. I don’t know what kind of reform would be possible without it, but obviously there is more to health care reform than the public option. Nonetheless, it appears that the public option is becoming symbolic of Obama’s resolve, if he continues to insist on it he will be seen as a strong and courageous President, if he backs down from it he will look weak and ineffective. I do think Obama made a great mistake when he did not present Congress with his own plan and insist they pass it. It is pretty obvious that you cannot let a Democratic Congress try to do anything on their own. He also made a mistake by assuming he could get bipartisanship out of the current Republicans who are more of criminal conspiracy than a political party. Their aim is to bring down the Obama Presidency, just as they tried to bring down Clinton. They don’t care about the public, the public good, the nation, health care or anything else that might improve things for common citizens. It’s power they want, power that brings them more and more wealth at the expense of everyone else. They are in truth the party of greed and “no.”

The Afghan elections must be going on at this very moment. The Afghans are not stupid, they know the elections are already determined by the U.S. and U.N. Karzai will win and continue to rule (in Kabul, at least) along with his appointed warlord ministers. I find it unbelievable that we continue to support him (and his drug dealing brother), especially now after they just passed a law allowing husbands to refuse their wives food if they refuse their husbands sex, and also making it a law that women must have their husband’s permission to work.

John Ensign, our Nevada Senator who disgraced himself with an affair with a woman who worked for him, now argues that he did nothing illegal (and that should somehow make it okay for him to run for office again). He is also trying to argue that what he did was not as serious as what Bill Clinton did. This is interesting as I believe you could easily demonstrate that what he did was far, far worse than what Clinton did, but why bother. If he thinks that the legality of what he did is really the issue he is obviously too deluded to understand even morality 101 (and in fact, his claim begs the question, as he quite likely did do something illegal). Somehow we seem to muddle along, lost in our clouds of illegality and immorality, while even the animals must be laughing at us.

LKBIQ:
The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.
Mark Twain

TILT:
More deer are killed annually by automobiles than any other way.