Sarita Peron de Palin & You

"I come from the people;
They need to adore me
So Christian Dior me
From my head to my toes.
I want to be rainbow high."

Especially since word of the $150K wardrobe hit the airwaves, the comparison between Eva Peron and Sarah Palin has been irresistible, and thanks to my buddy Michael, I'm not the first Lefty blogger to pick up on it.

Naomi Wolf's comparison of Sarah Palin's role in Bush's GOP to Eva Peron's role in her husband's coup in Argentina may be the most substantive example, but there's a lot of it going around. See, for instance, My Left Wing.

Do read Naomi Wolf's post on HuffPo about "the muse of the coming police state." Keep in mind that right now, here in the USA, we're witnessing the waning days of an eight-year presidential assault on the people's powers (the Constitution) and what could indeed be a third consecutive stolen election. If you still doubt that a coup is plausible, only consider what's at stake, what we've seen in the last eight years, and who's controlling elections in presently red swing states. This is serious stuff. Here's an excerpt:

"Please understand what you are looking at when you look at Sarah "Evita" Palin. You are looking at the designated muse of the coming American police state.

"You have to understand how things work in a closing society in order to understand "Palin Power." A gang or cabal seizes power, usually with an affable, weak figurehead at the fore. Then they will hold elections -- but they will make sure that the election will be corrupted and that the next affable, weak figurehead is entirely in their control. Remember, Russia has Presidents; Russia holds elections. Dictators and gangs of thugs all over the world hold elections. It means nothing. When a cabal has seized power you can have elections and even presidents, but you don't have freedom."[Emphasis added.]

What we're talking about is fully contextualized in Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine. If you have not read that documented analysis of current, global political/economic developments--readable, astounding, mind-boggling--then you ain't seen nuthin' yet, baby. You ain't seen nuthin' yet.

Again, at the moment, on this day, during this week, and on Nov. 4th especially, this is about the reality of stolen elections--e-voting machines that flip votes; fraudulent voter ID, voter intimidating, vote chaging, purging registration rolls, blocking owners of foreclosed properties from voting, etc., ad nauseum.

Reports are pouring in from early voting states of vote tampering, intimidating, vote flipping, purged rolls. It isn't theory. It's reality. Here in the USA, we have a concerted, widespread, systematic Republican effort to manipulate the election, a president willing to intervene in the election process, and a corrupt and partisan Department of Justice.

We know it's coming. The question is, what do we do about it.

Mississippi Mud

Truthout reports today on two predictable but still appalling immigration developments in Mississippi. In one case, "more than 100 workers in Pascagoula, Mississippi walked off the job at a Mississippi shipyard last week to protest conditions similar to slavery," involving bait-and-switch offers from a Northrop-Grumman subsidiary in Bombay. The Indians were promised residency, green cards, and jobs in return for payments of up to $20K. What they got is disgusting.

But in its infinite wisdom, Mississippi will be charging immigrant workers with felony offences for working in the US illegally, but giving exploitative employers a free pass, apparently.

If you note the terms of this law, you will see that everything in it is designed to increase the number of persons in detention and to maximize their days in prison. Mark my words: This will turn out to be just one more RepubliCon scheme designed to provide fodder to privatized prisons on the per diem Federal compensation dole. Betcha good money.

You heard it here first: Prison privatization, including immigrant detention centers, is just the newest version of human trafficking.

When Truth is Optional

I saw Ari Fleischer on Wolf Blitzer's "Situation Room" this evening. The pair of them reminded me of something I've wanted to say for some time.

When truth is expendible and one party owns the public communication resources, can we speak of living in a democracy?

I don't think so. The people depend upon timely access to facts in order to have any control whatsoever of their affairs. Without candor and truth telling, an investigative and fair press, and a prioritization of stories based on the public interest rather than the public prurience, the people have no chance.

That is what we are up against in this election, I believe. The months between now and November will be filled with lies, distortions, planted stories, incessant negative coverage of Democrats and incessant positive coverage of Republicans, and finally, rigged voting and vote counting.

Let's see if I'm too cynical. My sole remaining hope is that the people have learned in the last seven years the alternative to a free and fair media, accurate reporting, truth as the inside boundary for partisans and the rest of us as well, fidelity to the Constitution, and dedication to the public interest.

Wigged Out on Dumb

I'm getting wigged out on dumb.

Everywhere I look, everywhere I turn, there's another drool-slinging, toe-stumping, head-whopping, over-the-top and under-the-bottom damn stupid dumb thing ready to join up with all its slack-jawed, cud-chewing, flat-topped buddies to give me a heart attack if I'd just let 'em.

In no particular order of crawling-on-the-floor stupidity, Duncan Hunter recently opined that the US military doesn't have time to experiment with gay soldiers. Where has he been for the last 300 years? If he doesn't know there've been gay soldiers since time began, then he's too stupid to be let on national TV. If a tree falls in the forest and he wasn't there to hear it, it didn't fall? What a maroon. Then, in another episode of GOP diplomatic genius, he went on to allow as how the US military does real fighting, unlike the Brits and the Europeans. Wait. I thought they were among the "Coalition of the Willing"? I'm trying to find my way inside Duncan Hunter's head here, and it's not pretty. I'm wondering what he means. He's implying that countries that include gays in their military forces can't play rough? Like he thinks the Israelis girl fight?

I heard this morning on the news that some woman in Arizona is hosting Taser parties. Not Tupperware parties, Taser parties for that special girl in your life. They come in silver, black, and, wait for it, pink. The idea is that every female possess a Taser, I guess. As for one guest of party hostess Dana Shafman (is that an emerging pun?), "Scheur said that once the Taser enters her house, she will keep it in a locked box under her bed with the key high enough so her children cannot open the box." It might be me, but (a) what good will it do locked in a box under her bed where she will not be able to get at it when the cat burglar pirouettes through her pied à terre, and (b) what means "with the key high enough so her children cannot open the box"? High enough? Already we have people walking around with guns in holsters at, you know, the dog-walking park. Now we'll have ladies with Tasers? Suddenly Phoenix skies are slashed with blue streaks. Martial law is declared. I can't wait for the first bimbette to Tase the fool who cuts her off in high-speed traffic, and if you think Christmas shopping is fun now, just wait. Tip: Whatever you do, don't reach for the last Dooney and Bourke. Honey, pack up. We're outta here.

There's a new group. Vegansexuals. I'm not kidding. I don't think I'm allowed to tell you the image that first came to mind, but let me just say that if I were a vegetarian who wanted sex only with other vegetarians, I'd get a new brand. It reminds me of that great riff Lily Tomlin does about peanut oil, coconut oil, corn oil, baby oil . . . .

We Americans are flying in ever-decreasing concentric circles on the matter of immigration, and if you just stop and think a minute, you will see that that trajectory takes you where the sun don't shine. We are actually formulating national policy, proposing to elect a new president, and passing state laws on the basis of a whole load of crap brought to us exclusively by Far Right racists. And all this time you thought it made sense. What part of "do your homework" don't we get?

This belongs in the day-late, dollar-short category, I know. But remember when we all said that supporting Mukasey for Alberto Gonzales' replacement as AJ was stupid, because, as night follows day, it follows that anyone that Bush nominates for anything is NOT GOOD FOR AMERICA? Well, Mukasey's in now, and if his messing around with "investigating" the untimely demise of the CIA tapes doesn't hack you off, then maybe this will. Turns out the DOJ is the lead cheerleader for a new plan to allow the GOP to commit voter fraud:

In legal briefs filed at the Supreme Court before a January hearing over the constitutionality of Indiana's 2005 voter I.D. law, the Department of Justice and other defenders of the ID law are making several new arguments that, if accepted by the court, would allow states to create barriers to voting without showing these laws address real problems.

What this means is that every Democrat who voted for Mukasey is dumb as a sack of rice. Among other things, if the courts buy this transparent Kremlinesque tactic to steal the next elextion, the GOP need only allege that armies of undocumented workers are lining up to steal the vote for Democrats, and they will be permitted to erect barriers to brown, black, poor, and Democrat voters, and our "Justice" department is for it. And you thought the Democrats would win in 2008. Har.

This is all the stupid I can take for one day.