Of course, Obama isn't Muslim. At all. He belongs to the Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th St. on the South Side of Chicago. From the "church" and "Christ" in that name, I'm guessing it's a Jesus kind of place.

I figure you're probably just referring to the rumors that he's Muslim, which have traction because he's black and his father and step father were Muslims. I understand that the rumors can be powerful, but that doesn't mean they should be repeated as if they're true.

Well Mike, "ripping off one in polite company", all I was asking for is some odds -- an office pool if you'd like. Why? Because we tend to be cloistered and think that many in the world think as we do, if only they were normal.

I didn't use the word, instead choosing "offed" because TIA having chomped through the telcos traffic would find this exchange juicy enough to draw attention.

My point was I thought relatively simple:

1. It looks pretty obvious that some democrat will win the next election. If some democrat doesn't it will really highlight the questions of 2000 and Ohio in 2004.

2. Our crop of democrats are leftyish by American standards. Not really of course, but checking out FreeRepublic or Fox, they might as well be the devil incarnate since they support universal healthcare in some variation or another. And our country, being founded on white Christian principles, would never be the same once some Muslim got elected and Muslimfied it -- burqas on 5th Avenue and all. You say, he's not a Muslim? Then why does he have a Muslim name, and Bob Kerrey keeps referring to him as if he was? It's all highly suspicious if you ask me.

3. Lone nuts is about right. You think that Fox, or FreeRepublic is going to take credit for the prodding afterwards? We're a country of self-starters. Well, we're self-starters that live in trailer homes in very large numbers anyway. We never self-started ourselves out of the trailer park and mobile homes, but present us with some black guy to be tied to the back of a pickup truck, or a gay person that needs whipping on some winter night, and that self-starting initiative borne of white Christian morality perks right up. We don't need to have vast rightwing conspiracy when you have millions of O'Reilly viewers waiting to be famous in the wings, nursing their grudges and PTSDs.

4. After the 2004 election, The Daily Mirror ran the headline: "How can 59 million people be so dumb?" So I'm asking, "Out of those 59M, you're not willing to give me office pool odds?"

5. I usually try to avoid the keywords used in driftnet collections, but JS brought the phrase forward, attributing it to the "media". My thoughts? Really, the media? Will the media do all the democrats in? Because really, whatever democrat wins will still be painted by the brush of lefty socialism that's responsible for the coming recession and the loss of Vietnam/Iraq (that was going so well until they sold us out).

Sheesh Mike, I don't mind being hoisted from the comments, but I get the impression it was to point out the poor quality of my farts.

No, seriously, pull my finger....

Mike references yesterday's comments by "the redoubtable" donescobar. I pick as an example:

Cioran nailed it: "It took 2000 years to build the West and 100 years of psychology to destroy it." So, boys and girls, live up to your potential and Enjoy, Enjoy, Enjoy.

As regular readers of this blog may possibly vaguely recall, especially with the help of Google, there was an extensive exchange of views between Mike and donescobar on the relationship between the Corporate Media arm of the MICFiC and the common people's appetitie for the truth (if any) back on March 30, 2006

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/000855.html

donescobar

Vast majority of MSM readers don't want "uncomfortable" news or opinion. They want "facts" that will help them improve their jobs/careers, relationships, diet, and financial situation. One nation under self-help.

The whole thing is interesting, but I want to pick up one particular point. Like our comrade in struggle donescobar, I too love humanity, but often can't stand people. I decry the lack of citizens, and the plethora of consumers, conformists, and cowards.

And yet, having read a lot of books by the half-Scottish "storyteller" - in his daughter's characterization - and self-alleged Sufi master Idries Shah

but at least the structure recognized that government functioning under the threat of physical harm is a sham.

The power of the Right is ALWAYS the implicit threat of violence.

Imho: The Kennedy assassination was the first overt move of the Murkin fascisti agenda to reduce the USer republican democracy to the borderline authoritarian state we see today, and the wholesale totalitarian state they plan for. Fascism is often called the 'revolt of the Elite.' Kennedy's assassination was their first shots.

I had to pawn my "redoubtable" to buy a replica of the nativity scene ("Jesus Slept Here")for my front lawn to annoy my ACLU neighbors.
(Lie. I have no front lawn.)
But:
Yes, an appetite for and delight in confrontation--verbal, ideological, social-has been sapped by blanketing of any "dialogue" through TV, the corporate mindset in all areas of our lives, the indiscriminate puffing up of the human potential movement to replace achievement with entitlement, and on and on.
A big generalization, but I think it applies. Recall, if you can, an old neighborhood tavern, where you could hear people vent, worry, argue about personal and national stuff, economic and social gripes, political frustration. Today, our neighborhood tavern is Appleby's, where we sit and consume and "Enjoy," as ordered by our waitperson.
After a visit to the old tavern, you might be eager to march on City Hall. After Appleby's, you twaddle out to the car and home to TV land.
We had pieces of "popular culture" once, now our culture is mostly mass culture, from suburb to slum. And there's no public square for democratic exchange, argument and engagement there.
Who benefits? We know the answer to that.
What to do about it? That I'd like to hear.
Cheers. Anyway.

Here's something I recall from one of Idries Shah's books (from memory, so phrasing is approximate):

The disciple asks the spiritual master, "Why is it so hard to find a brother in Baghdad?"

The teacher replies, "If by 'brother', you mean someone to help you carry your burden, it may indeed be hard to find one in Baghdad. But if you mean 'someone whose burden I can help carry', then brothers may not be so scarce."

I bring this up to bolster my point that is unfair to blame the last century or so of psychology, whether you mean Gustav Fechner, William James, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Joyce Brothers, and/or Dr. Phil, for a populace interested in "bread and circuses", as in ancient Rome, or who "whitewash the tombs of the prophets their ancestors killed", as Jesus allegedly said of the residents of Jerusalem.

As Erich Fromm said, (and again this is from memory - Wikiquote has a lot of good stuff from him, but not this) - The purpose of all the true religions is to help man overcome his narcissism. Speaking ex cathedra as Pope Devananda of the Sentient Beings Unitarian Universalist Association, I assure you - he's right. In your heart, you know he's right.

Happy Holidays, y'all. Seriously.

By the way, from time to time (more often than I would want to) I go to the airport and wait for my wife, missus charley, m.d., to return from a business trip. Generally speaking, I don't like the long drive, paying $4 an hour or fraction thereof for parking, the delayed flight arrivals, and so on. But there is one thing about the wait that gives me pleasure - watching people be happy about being reunited with family and friends.

Give the word a chance to say
That the word is just the way
It's the word I'm thinking of
And the only word is _ _ _ _

Ted said

"1. It looks pretty obvious that some democrat will win the next election. If some democrat doesn't it will really highlight the questions of 2000 and Ohio in 2004."

Those questions are already highlighted in some minds. But as far as 2008 - if the choice presented to the people ends up being

a)the aging harridan with a notoriously dysfunctional marriage, who's already been co-president for eight years with a man who was impeached - vs.

b)the hero and former prisoner of war whose appeal is so broad that his Senate colleagues from across the aisle are already endorsing him

then I could believe that the American people (who elected Nixon twice, remember) would actually prefer (b).

May the Creative Forces of the Universe send us all dreams of sugarplums this holiday season.

Of course electing Nixon twice taught us something. To elect Reagan twice and George W. Bush twice too.
By the way, it' not what's in the psychology, it's the way it's been slathered in huge gobs on everything so we won't look at much of reality underneath.
My X-mas slogan, as in Obama, Oshmama and Hillary, Pillary:
It's not ideas that convince people, it's people who convince people.
Enjoy the stuffing.

During the Warren Commission hearings Commission member Allen Dulles, whose CIA under him were responsible for so many coups and assassinations around the world, said that all assassinations in the U.S. are done by lone nuts. And why should we question such an expert?

So now when we talk about Lincoln's assassination we talk about that lone nut John Wilkes Booth, never mind about all of his accomplices being hanged. It's lone nut, all the time. Sondheim's musical is all about lone nuts. Great minds like Noam Chomsky see no conspiracies in killing leaders. At least in America.

http://southofheaven.typepad.com/south_of_heaven/2007/02/close_enough_fo.html

I think it's laughable to suggest that sufficient numbers of white people in the United States would use their SECRET ballot to vote for a black man or woman as President,no matter how polite they express their support to CNN.
However,if he wins the nomination and were the unimaginable to happen,I would sure hope there's not a Lieberman clone as VP,because you've got to believe there's at least one person in this great country of ours who won't be thrilled with a black guy as their chief executive.

Donescobar is not wrong, per se. Foucault in the 70s and 80s claimed that the whole purpose of 'the human sciences'--psychology and psychiatry included, along with sociology, anthropology, ethnology, and even 'history,'--was to create the conditions of possibility and the technologies for universal surveillance.

donescobar IS wrong, per se, and Foucault claiming something is not a reason to believe it is so.

In my opinion.

I'm not wrong, per se; I'm wrong, per se.
OK, I'll per se vere and bite: what, exactly, about?
It's o confusing posting on a site full of innerleckshuals and Ph.Ds.

That foucault said it is in and of itself not warrant to believe it, without the evidence of your own experience. the relevance of the observation stems from its (uncomfortable, to some) truth-to-life.
No matter the claiim of the advocates to the contrary, the purpose of 'science,' for milennia, has been 'prediction' for purposes of 'control.' Foucault, of course, translated this into 'surveillance in the service of power'.

'Human' science disappeared into 'social engineering' without a ripple. The wholesale surveillance state has been a "Liberal" dream since Bentham. Its genius being that since, in the perfect Panopticon, one might be at ANY time under observation, one NEVER knows when one is under observation, and so constrains one's behavior to conform to the expectations of the watchers whether they be watching or not.

Agreement with the main point is not necessary, since experience indicates that that is indeed the direction in which society and culture are 'developing' (it can scarcely be called 'progress').

Beyond Pavlov's Dog, psychology ends up as an approval stamp of THAT day's propaganda. (Example Dr. Phil) ABSOLUTELY no-one has any real idea of what goes on in the next person's mind, no-one. All WE really know is certain COMMON reactions to specific situations, usually artificial (tied up starved dog and a bell) and narrow in circumstance. YET it sells and sales are good and growing.
I, for one, being more of an existentialist in nature, prefering the empirical ( I'm a 'show me' kinda guy), feel that only one thing can be proved, through public record, about Mr. Obama---whether he pays TAXES or not. ANYTHING beyond that may be TRUTH or a lie and his receiving MY vote has just as much chance as any other candidate receiving it, party be damned.
As things stand now, and if there is an election (looking kinda iffy sometimes) and I am alive and able to vote, I'm voting for Michael T. Meyer.

Mike Meyer -

1)This is sort of jokey -

since you don't know what's going on in my mind - how do you KNOW that I don't know what's going on in your mind? Hmmm?

but seriously, an interesting article that bears on the question of intersubjectivity, in an interspecies context, is found at

http://www.harpers.org/archive/1993/11/0001465

"Can an ape tell a joke? Learning from a Las Vegas orangutan act" by Vicki Hearne, Harper's Magazine, November 1993

2)This is an accurate report of a real life incident -

I called the number you give for Nancy Pelosi's office, and told the person who answered the phone I wanted to express an opinion - I was immediately put onto a tape line, with a recorded greeting from Speaker Pelosi. At the beep, I said I thought that Bush and Cheney should be impeached and removed from office, for the good of the country.

[end of report]

It occurs to me that there's no way I would ever know if anyone even listened to the recording - assuming a recording actually was made.

The wholesale surveillance state has been a "Liberal" dream since Bentham. Its genius being that since, in the perfect Panopticon, one might be at ANY time under observation, one NEVER knows when one is under observation, and so constrains one's behavior to conform to the expectations of the watchers whether they be watching or not.

1) "He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows when you've been bad or good
So be good, for Goodness' sake"

Well, not just for goodness' sake - for the sake of eternal life in Paradise, or unending torment.

2) And speaking of the Panopticon - the county sent me a nice color photo of my car going 36 miles per hour in a 25 mile per hour one. It cost me $40.

I'm too old and too lazy to make myself into an intellectual. It just isn't going to happen for me. So, the following comment gets the following lazy, uninformed, but entirely appropriate response from me.

The wholesale surveillance state has been a "Liberal" dream since Bentham.

Also, the original post contains an error.

it's better than the FSM.

There is nothing better than the FSM. Please correct this, or rather, allow his noodly appendage to work through you in issuing a correction. Thank you.

Lively, folks--thank you. Your thoughts are always appreciated.

Ted: not at ALL criticizing your comment, or indeed the piquancy and/or volume of your farts. What I was trying to express was the reactions that I get when I bring up the issue--to, say, my Democratic Chicagoan Obama-funding father. One would think that Dad, having lived through the assassinations, and the civil rights struggle, would respond, "Holy fuck--black guy + Presidency = we gotta do something extra to make sure he's safe." But that's never the response; it's always a wince and a hope that the fickle finger of fate does not smudge our country again. But anybody who looks into any of the assassinations soon finds that the F.F. of F. had little to do with it. (It was busy breaking up The Beatles.)

Yes, I know Obama isn't a Muslim--at least when my brain isn't cramping out of eagerness to show off what I learned in junior high Latin. But y'know, the reality of Obama isn't at issue; it's the perceptions of him that are being created.

It reminds me of Chomsky, who believes that it's pointless to investigate the JFK assassination because he believes JFK was a right-winger's wet dream. (See also Scruggs above.) Yet in the case of MLK, Chomsky sings a different tune. Which leads me to believe that ol' Norm is completely unreliable on this topic; to me it should call him into question in a general sense. Political critiques must stem from objective realities; and ignoring the preponderance of physical evidence in a murder case because what it suggests doesn't fit inside your mental map of how the world works suggests at the very least rigidity, and at most a fundamental lack of rigor.

Dig me, Mr. "Obama is a Muslim" questioning Norm Chomsky's intellectual rigor! What the hell, it's Xmas and I'm a little giddy.

What you or I (or Norm) thinks about somebody doesn't really matter; the question is, where do they fit in the worldview of some crazy-ass right-winger with lots of dough and QJ/WIN's phone number? (QJ/WIN being the codename of a CIA contract killer active in the 60s and 70s.) That's awkwardly expressed, but I think you see my point.

...and yes, I know his name is "Noam." (Not sure if he's Muslim or not.)

i can think of wingnut reasons to murder the b*tch, too, and her sore/loser treehugger fellow traveler -- all hail the myth of liberal treason

ps. treehugger who won a peace prize for similarly-kingly unpatriotism

pps. hope, if not safety, in depth and breadth

Fuck the fuck off. And no, I don't know who Bentham is, nor do I care.

Ecce homo: Mid-dull Murka Speeks

i had another thing, what was it ... ahm ... oh yeah. hate crimes are up. ordinary people also need protecting.

I don't think it's pointless to investigate JFK's assassination. Let a thousand adders be driven into the light! I do think the adulation he receives is creepy in a very low rent PoMo way. It places more emphasis on the power of myths than is justifiable. Dating the start of the Bad Times from his assassination is comic book tipping point, Great Man Theory of history stuff. He was mediagenic, he was the scion of a rich family (Oh, Camelot!), he was murdered on television and he was a less remarkable man than his veep. Liberal royalism is no more worthwhile than wingnut royalism.

we gotta do something extra to make sure he's safe

I see the focus in the wrong place; I don't want to authorize more praetorians, even to protect archetypes. Like bad guests (and bad commentariat), the praetorians never go away once you fund them. It just grows until it consumes everything.

Nationalism drives our worst instincts; rid us of nationalism, and the creeping menace of the trailer parks clear up. IMO.

"The reasons I dislike Hillary and Bill aren't very logical. It's plain spite, which is a self-destructive, but (for me) a personally gratifying force in itself."

lol, and you deign to counsel others?

You've got style, I'll give that much to ya.

"The reasons I dislike Hillary and Bill aren't very logical. It's plain spite, which is a self-destructive, but (for me) a personally gratifying force in itself."

lol, and you deign to counsel others?

You've got style, Ted, I'll give that much to ya.

mistah charley ph.d. Congratulations on your calling, you are NOW working for YOUR own political well being. When you call and you desire to have a HUMAN receive your message, say it IMMEDIATELY after your greeting before you are placed into voicemail. MAKE YOUR DEMANDS within the first few words and the PERSON on the line will relay that message. If your message runs on too long, you get the machine. (I personally believe it is recorded but I some what doubt it is heard) Just as an example--I use " Mike Meyer, Sheridan Wyoming and I demand impeachment of the president and vice president. Have a nice day" and the PERSON says they will tell the Speaker, and we hang up. (although these days the phone person usually says my statement before I do, once I say my name) Call often and I'm ABSOLUTELY SURE you will devise your own quick statement to avoid that damn machine.

Mike of Ange, Johnathan:

Where is the Donescobar reference you made? Could you provide a link as I am not familiar with that conversation.

Also why would any one shoot Obama. I am actually quite mistified why anyone on the left feels that he will be a revolutionary. If anything Edwards has the militant rhetoric. Being nakedly anti-corporate power.

Obama seems to feel there is some "big tent" in which the republican power brokers can be drawn into to make a deal. Sounds like a recipe for deception of the left to me. Cooperation of the minority party is not necessary to run the country as 2000-2006 showed. And this year we learned the will of the majority of the country was not enough to effect the running of the country. Less we think this is something new FDR did the same, it just that we in the middle and lower classes benefited from it. Actual without FDR there would have been no middle class.

Given this who is there to negotiate with for Obama. What can his rhetoric be other than deception. Especially when the guy went along with the Military Commissions Act and is now inviting Arnold into his cabinet. Arnold!

Kennedy was killed because he stood up to the power structure. Of the dems running Obama appears to be the least likely to do so.

Convince me otherwise please. I loved his 2004 DNC speech. I wanted to believe he was that guy. But I see no evidence what-so-ever. Which means to me there is no danger of him taking one for the team at all.

Scruggs, as the JV-level historian I am, I'd vote for the middle way: history's the story of extraordinary individuals acting upon, and being acted on by larger trends/conditions. Of course Kennedy-worship has been 'way overdone, but there's no denying that it has pushed American politics in very real ways; the '64 Civil Rights bill wasn't just about LBJ's consummate legislative skills, it was also about using the memory of JFK as a cudgel. Call it cheesy, inaccurate, even absurd--yet "Camelot" is real because people believe in it. History-as-process lends a comforting inevitability, but a case can be made that without an Octavian there's no Roman Empire, and without an FDR, there's no New Deal. Heck, just compare Jesse Jackson to MLK and it's impossible not to see the relative catalytic power of one individual versus another.

Ted, I'm with you regarding Praetorians. Yet I would like to see an effective check on the implicit threat of violence. Surely there must be other solutions besides a standing mini-army?

Patience, Obama doesn't have to draw down in Iraq or decide to scatter the CIA to the winds to be messed with--if I had to wager, I'd go with Jon's "neutralization by media" angle. Less risky, just as effective.

I don't get the octopus metaphor (it is a metaphor, right?). If Presidents are murdered through some conspiracy of the elites, isn't it Bush who is most in danger of earning all-expenses-paid trip to Dealy Plaza?

Bush has certainly outlived his usefulness to our ruling class, so if they're concerned about securing his "legacy" of tax cuts and out-of-control defense spending, they could do worse than the two-tickets-to-Ford's-theater treatment. With W looking down on us from heaven, it would be practically our sacred duty to "finish the job" in Iraq, as he would have wanted it finished, and to repeal the estate tax, for good measure.

Obama's no threat, as others have noted, and he's actually quite useful in renewing the myth of our "two-party" democracy.

Lone racist nut, sure. But if Obama does meet his Charles J. Guiteau in a Washington train station (Too obscure? Sorry.) I don't think the octopus will have a tentacle in it.

While we're talking about the "Great Man Who's Just a Pawn in THEIR Game" interacting-with-larger-trends-and-conditions Middle Way theory of history, and Barak the Great Conciliator in particular, let's not forget Paul Krugman's critique of Obama's role in reviving the "social security is on the verge of bankruptcy" myth.

SteveB, the octopus was a jokey stand-in for all the malefactors possible. As to the reality, my opinion is this: Think about all the jockeying that goes on in the business world--aboveboard and hidden, legal and illegal, big-time and small-time, temporary and permanent. Now increase the stakes, and you have politics.

I don't try to ascertain the reasons why x person would be a threat to y group/person. All I know is that people get shot, but that we can (and do) prevent it from happening--in fact, much more often than it succeeds. The "lone nut" meme is a transparent lie, and you need look no further than your boy Guiteau. When the President starts walking around Washington by himself again, I'll start believing that lone nuts can pull off modern assassinations. My sense is that lone nuts wound (think Bremer, Sarah Moore, Squeaky Fromme), while killers with backing kill (Booth, Oswald?, Ray, Sirhan).

It's not IMPOSSIBLE that lone nuts can and will murder important people, simply through strokes of malign fate. (See Archduke Francis Ferdinand.) But in this time and place, it's highly unlikely, and given the connivance engendered at the nexus of immense money, fame, and power, I think the sensible course is to assume conspiracy until the evidence insists otherwise. In the case of JFK, RFK, MLK et al., the evidence inevitably takes you into very strange places that underscore the opacity of people and their motives, and their almost limitless ability to convince themselves that their desired ends justify horrific means. Conspiracy is simply human nature, and the richer and more important a country is, the bigger the temptation. Wise countries throughout history have recognized this, and have taken steps to lessen its impact. We should too--'sall I'm saying.

Yeah but I hope nobody is suggesting that there could be a gov't conspiracy to get Obama. He's as establishment as they come. Don't flatter him with the label of assassination-worthy, in the elite view.