Why Isn't Ted Nugent In Jail Now?

By Manifesto Joe

I don't seriously believe that Ted Nugent ought to be in jail now, because that would confer on him martyr status that he doesn't deserve.

But it's a question to ponder, since the heavy-metal bad boy turned NRA poster boy seems to have threatened the president of the United States during time of war.

Columnist LZ Granderson of CNN.com put it this way:

Nugent's words were: "If Barack Obama is elected, I'll either be dead or in jail this time next year," which sounds to me like he's open to directing his disapproval of Obama in a way that is violent and unlawful. When you see that statement next to Nugent comparing Obama and his colleagues to coyotes that needed to be shot, as well as the need to "ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November," I don't see how that rant cannot be looked upon as a threat on the president's life.

Here's a link to the entire commentary.

Not much has generally happened to people in cases like this before. But it's worth noting that in 2007, a federal judge refused to throw out a case in which an Indian national was alleged to have urged the assassination of then-President George W. Bush and threatened other administration officials. Here's a link to that story.

In that case, Vikram Buddhi was sentenced to 57 months in prison.

Perhaps as scandalous as the double standard that may lurk here is the wishy-washy response from Slick Willard Romney's presidential campaign. Nugent has endorsed Slick Willard despite the latter's support for an assault-weapons ban while he was governor of Massachusetts. Nugent explained that at the time, Romney wasn't in America, he was in Massachusetts.

"Divisive language is offensive no matter what side of the political aisle it comes from," said Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul. "Mitt Romney believes everyone needs to be civil."

Here's a link to a Washington Post commentary, with more detail on exactly what Nugent said.

Again, I wouldn't want Nugent to have the kind of martyr status he would have if he's charged with a crime over his remarks. But it may be a question worth pondering.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

I'm Sad To Say Obama Is Pandering On Corporate Tax Cut

By Manifesto Joe

The fundamental dishonesty of the Mainstream Media business press tends to come out at times like this, as President Obama is proposing a cut in the U.S. corporate tax rate, down from the stated "35%" down to 28%. Unfortunately, this is when the fundamental dishonesty of many politicians comes out as well.

The MSM business press, while widely reporting that the current U.S. corporate tax rate of 35% is among the highest in the developed world, fails to report that two-thirds of American corporations aren't even paying it -- or anything at all, effectively. They acknowledge that many corporations, because of loopholes, don't pay an effective rate that high. They fail to report how prevalent, and how widespread, that failure to pay is. It's so bad that two-thirds of them basically pay NOTHING.

Don't believe it? Here's a link.

I can provide many others. Suffice it to say that two-thirds of U.S. corporations, according to numerous studies, have been shown to dodge federal income taxes to such an extent that their effective rate is little or nothing.

What Obama proposes, as I understand it, is to cut the nominal rate from 35% to 28%, with the trade-off of closing a lot of the loopholes that have permitted corporate giants in America to get by year after year paying virtually nothing. Sounds like a reasonable trade-off. I'm a political realist. So, on the surface, it sounds quite pragmatic.

But Obama's plan, again, as I understand it, would introduce a new set of loopholes into the mix, after closing some of them. While additional loopholes, for "green technology" companies and such, may seem like a good idea, it's an idea best left for a time when our federal government can actually AFFORD such breaks.

Granted, one of the nastiest pieces of Republican demagoguery is blaming the current accumulation of national debt on Obama. During Reagan's presidency, the national debt TRIPLED, from about $1 trillion to about $3 trillion. During the absurd "presidency" of Il Doofus, the national debt doubled from about $5 trillion to about $10 trillion while this imbecile was busy doing something that was tantamount to -- well, if FDR had decided to invade Argentina after the Pearl Harbor attack. That's about what the Iraq invasion amounted to, in hindsight.

But now is not the time to introduce any new proposals for loopholes. After 20 or so Republican debates, some of us have a general idea of how batshit crazy most of their "hopefuls" are.

(At the most recent debate, Ron Paul was asked to describe himself in one word. His choice: "Consistent." Yeah. Consistently insane.)

Some of us are looking desperately to the president for leadership. I like the man, but I've been disappointed. I hope to see MORE of the best stuff from him.

Contrary to what Darth Cheney once said, deficits DO matter. America can't afford to run up too much more. As nice as breaks for "green" companies would be, we've come to a time in which all and everyone must ante up.

I understand that Obama is running for re-election, and that he must "dance with them what brung him," as the saying goes in Texas. But now is the time to see statesmanship from him, not pandering. Everyone must share the sacrifice. And that means everyone. Close the loopholes for all, and please, please, don't introduce any new ones.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

'Occupy Wall Street' Protesters In Danger Of Becoming Dupes For The Republican Party

By Manifesto Joe

This isn't going to be a popular post among many on the "left," or what's left of it. Politics, for those who have studied the subject for a while, clearly emerges as the art of compromise. It's certainly necessary to have the activists outside on the streets, but perhaps even more important to have those nasty insiders who actually make the "sausage" laws that we have to live with for generations.

I'm happy in one sense to see lots of people on the streets in the "Occupy Wall Street" protest movement. It's high time that a lot of Americans understood that the system has long been rigged against them. Not that this is anything new -- it's just gotten worse over the past 30 or so years.

A sad thing that I'm seeing in this movement is the Mainstream Media spin on it, and how many people in the rank and file of it are playing into its hands. It's being depicted as a protest against "bad economic conditions" rather than against the fundamentals of a capitalist system that has reverted to its primitive and brutal roots, with few mitigating forces to shield ordinary people from its ill effects.

One laid-off worker in New York was interviewed by the MSM, and he said that he saw no real difference between Bush and Obama. The middle class in America, he "reasoned," is actually worse off after nearly 3 years of Obama than it was after 8 years of Il Doofus.

I would have to say to such a person that he was missing the salient point. If a Bush surrogate had been elected president instead of Obama, such people would INDEED be able to see the difference, quite starkly. Obama clearly hasn't been everything that the remaining progressives in America might have wanted. But they fail to see that the Il Doofus "kleptocracy" was given an almost totally free hand for nearly seven years before the meltdown got fully under way, and that Obama's policies, while not all we wanted, have served to keep things from getting much worse than they might have been.

I'm one person who was very unhappy and railing against the "kleptocracy" that we were seeing all through the '80s during the Reagan years, but I didn't notice many people raising any cain back then. It was, in fact, hard to get anyone to even listen to the alternative viewpoint. Now, we have political neophytes taking to the streets and railing against things that have been happening for decades, not just for a few years. Come to the party, folks. Some of us were telling you all this shit back in the days when you were dutifully casting your first votes for Republicans.

Again, Obama hasn't been all I would have liked, but in the current climate, it's unlikely that anyone electable could have been. He was forced to work with a Congress that wouldn't give him what he wanted. In November 2008, we elected a president, not a dictator. As an example, the public option narrowly passed in a heavily Democratic House of Representatives. In the Senate, it had a majority, but fell short of the 60-vote "supermajority" that our system requires to enact damn near anything. DINOs like Ben Nelson and "independents" like Joe Lieberman wouldn't put it over. For politically savvy people, this wasn't a surprise. Our system is awash in corporate money, and people like that know that they can't stay in office without that largess.

So, the public option fell short. And then, what was the reaction of the voters? Over 30% of the people who voted for Obama in 2008 didn't show up at the polls in 2010. The Republicans, fueled by the faux populism of the Tea Party and Koch brothers' money, won the House back in a near landslide. People like me told you what was going to happen after that. And you were surprised?

Get real, folks. Some of us out here were fighting this battle even before some of you were born. And it's been damned thankless.

Don't let the MSM distort this into something else. Even Newt Gingrich is trying to make this out into some faux right-wing populist BS. Don't let it happen!

Obama isn't what I wanted, and probably even less what you wanted. Would you prefer Rick Perry, who calls Social Security a Ponzi scheme? Or Mitt Romney, who wants to increase the military budget and add 100,000 troops to our fighting force, and yet still presumes to balance the federal budget?

Well, it's looking more and more like you're going to get one of those right-wing demagogues. Then perhaps you will see, the hard way, what the difference is between a hard-right-wing fool and a centrist compromiser. I'll take the latter, thank you.

Compromise is hard. Dealing with moronic ideologues is harder. You're about to find that out.

I'm reminded of lines from The Second Coming, a poem by William Butler Yeats.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Don't let it happen, protesters. Another presidency like that of Il Doofus could really, really do this country in.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Bin Laden Isn't Qualified To Be Dead Until Donald Trump Sees The Death Certificate

By Manifesto Joe

The problem is, how would we know that it wasn't a fake?

I guess that means that "The Donald" and all the rest of us will have to see the bullet-riddled body. But if the face has been shot to pieces, how would we know that Special Forces didn't just dredge up some 6-foot-4, skinny Arab for target practice? How would we know that Osama isn't actually still alive, scarfing hummus and falafel and advising that closet Muslim in the White House?

Well, by now I suspect you get the point of this sarcasm.

Any credit here for Obama?

Barack Obama seemed downright presidential Sunday night while announcing this big score of scores. But will he get any credit? If you watch Fox "News" during the next week, I'll bet that Il Doofus gets much more credit than Obama will. And Bush 43 couldn't get this guy for over seven years -- in fact, Bush diverted U.S. attention away from bin Laden and the Afghanistan-Pakistan region with his rogue-nation invasion of Iraq. That cost this country countless billions, some of which should have been focused on a terrorist network that actually attacked us. And according to some estimates, it cost over a million Iraqi lives.

I hope that the American people have sense enough to know that this day should have come much sooner, and likely would have, if the country's priorities hadn't been grotesquely and viciously distorted by ruthless, self-serving people.

This post is going to strike some people as irreverent and brutal. Sometimes honesty has an unfortunate way of sounding like that.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

'Birther' Imbeciles Don't Have Everyone Fooled: They Hate President N****r

By Manifesto Joe

Right-wingers are forever accusing their foes of playing the race card, and thereby crying wolf. But I've been watching the bile being spewed at President Barack Obama for a few years now -- going back to the early days of his 2008 campaign -- and there seems to be no other explanation for all this hatred in the absence of any reasoned discourse.

To phrase it in the most direct way, a lot of people who hate Obama do indeed hate his policies, but what they hate much more is the fact that there's a n****r in the White House.

You'll notice that I'm expurgating that word. Even Richard Pryor and Muhammad Ali weren't doing that in the 1970s. I'm doing it because I respect the fact that, over time, it has become much worse than crude slang. It's an expression of pure, unadulterated hatred for a large group of people.

Bill Clinton was the target of a lot of venom while he was in office, and much of it seemed ridiculous. Remember those bumper stickers with the "C" in Clinton incorporated in a communist hammer and sickle? Hell, I actually knew a couple of misguided people who were avowed communists, and they both thought Clinton was a neoliberal, corporate-friendly jerk.

Obama has governed little different from how Clinton did, and how Hillary would have. The far left doesn't claim him and is more than a little upset with him. But, considering that this is pretty obviously a family man without most of the personal baggage that Bill Clinton had, the attacks on him from the right have been even more ruthless. Race hatred seems to be the only way to explain it.

I don't seem to be alone in this conclusion. Here's a link to a story that appeared after Obama called a news conference to release his long-form birth record.

Now, of course, Donald Trump and others are also questioning Obama's academic record. They are pointing out that he didn't graduate from Columbia University with honors, which means that his cumulative GPA would have been less than 3.3. They are alleging that he could only have gotten into Ivy League schools as an affirmative-action student.

Do these people remember Il Doofus?

I do, and not at all fondly. This is a guy who got into Yale only because of the first, most corrupt affirmative-action program -- the "legacy" one for rich little shits. Bush II was said to have gotten through Yale largely with the help of "gentleman's C's." Then he gets into Harvard Business, where one professor remembered him as a guy who would say something in class quite explicitly and clearly, and then have the nerve to say, just a couple of minutes later, "I didn't say that."

I went to a private college as an undergraduate, someplace about on a par with Occidental College, where Obama went his first two years. I was a straight "B" student most of my first two years -- I didn't go to a good high school, and there seems to be a sort of social grace associated with making "A's" at a tough college that doesn't permit grade inflation. By the time I was a junior I started making the dean's list, but I had made so many "B's" by then that I finished with something over a 3.2 GPA, short of the 3.4 needed to graduate with honors. I can identify very much with a student like Obama probably was.

I would say that, in hindsight, it seems like a terrific investment in human capital that Obama was accepted by Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review and graduated magna cum laude. He went on to become a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago. All that amounts to one hell of a lot more than Il Doofus ever thought of doing.

And as for Donald Trump -- his daddy was the "self-made" man, not him. "The Donald" got a business degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, then followed daddy into the real estate/developer business. Like all the recent Bushes, Trump is a son of a bitch who, as Texas legend Jim Hightower phrased it, was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.

Trump has always been an opportunist. I doubt that he harbors personal malice toward Obama; he's just "capitalizing" on the vast amount of race prejudice that's out there. Living in Red State America, I've seen and heard ample evidence of it. I can remember standing in line to be seated at a restaurant, and hearing some festering redneck who was leaving talking about "Barack Osama" and the like, on the eve of the 2008 election.

I understand exactly what this is all about. It's about President N****r.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Wealth, Education, Youth, Ethnicity And The U.S. Economy's 'New Normal'

By Manifesto Joe

Judging from what the polls are telling us, the American people are on the verge of being rendered a drooling mass of chumps yet again -- by Republicans once more calling for continued low taxes on the wealthy and big corporate interests, while relentlessly whittling away at the labor arrangements and social safety net that made the U.S. middle class of the 20th century possible in the first place.

The most recent comprehensive polls in Texas put President Obama's approval rating in the state at 36.8%, compared with 57.5% of likely voters who disapprove. The approval rating for Obama is much lower in some of the major population areas, like where I live. Even though gubernatorial challenger Bill White, the former mayor of Houston, has distanced himself from Obama, what this probably means is that Texans are going to re-elect Governor Rick "Goodhair" Perry, who would then be on track to be the state's chief executive for 14 years.

The poll, conducted Sept. 15-22 by Blum & Weprin Associates, also breaks down in some interesting ways. Obama does best among certain distinct groups.

Young Voters

Among those under 30, Obama gets 52.3% approval, compared with 38.7% disapproval. This could be spun in different ways. Republicans would suggest that Obama has retained popularity among inexperienced idealists. Democrats would suggest that perhaps the younger voters have not yet been so thoroughly immersed in the right-wing brainwashing that seems to pervade the current U.S. political climate.

Ethnic and/or Racial Minorities

Obama has a 93% approval rating among African-Americans, compared with only 5% disapproval. The obvious GOP spin: Obama is black. The Democratic spin: African-Americans are also much less likely to believe much of what the likes of Fox News disseminates. Me thinks they've been lied to before.

Among Hispanics, the trend is similar, though not as overwhelming. Some 66% approve, and 28% disapprove, of Obama's performance.

Wealth

I suppose this should be a no-brainer, since wealthier Americans have enjoyed lower taxes than residents of the rest of the developed world for many, many years, and they want to keep it that way. Obama isn't even suggesting dramatic changes, but any changes are enough to piss off richer people. That's the kind of self-centered society Americans consist of now. Those making $100,000-plus a year disapprove of Obama, 64-30. As one moves down the income categories, Obama's popularity shifts among Texans making under $30,000 a year. They like him, 51-45.

Republicans would resort to obvious elitism here -- the "successful" people tend to dislike Obama, and the "layabouts" figure him as a more likely source of new handouts. An opposite spin -- it's been my experience that most people in higher income brackets have always been there, and have no serious idea of what life is like for less fortunate folks. The latter group knows all too well.

Education

This may be the most revealing statistic. Obama doesn't do badly, in Texas at least, among the least educated. Less than high school: 44% approve, 53% disapprove. Among high school graduates, it's 43-53, statistically the same. Obama fares worst among those with "some college" -- only 18% approve, while 71% disapprove. It gets a little better among college graduates, at 32-63.

But here's the part that may be the most telling. Among Texans reporting "college-plus" as their education -- people with graduate or professional degrees -- Obama gets a 56% approval rating, compared to 41% disapproval.

We can get into some serious elitism here. There's an old saying that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, hence the Tea Party level of popularity of Obama among Texans reporting "some college." If I remember students like these accurately from my college days, they lasted in the academic world just long enough to get the idea that they really knew something, when they actually didn't know much at all. They often lacked either the intelligence or the discipline to finish the job.

Of course, the Republican spin on this would recall former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's condemnation of fellow academics. Such people, Armey said, have absolutely no idea of what it's like to go out and make a living in the real, private-sector world. This from a guy who came to prominence as an economist teaching at a state university, who was on the public payroll for years and years before gaining a more lucrative position on the public payroll as a member of Congress.

As a person who lasted in the academic world long enough to get a master's, my observation is that my peers are intelligent enough to know that the current economic morass took 30 years to make. It didn't start as soon as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took the reins of Congress in January 2007. But, it's often quite convenient for Republicans to be one-dimensional thinkers, and even to distort the facts as they see fit. If you happen to be holding the bag right now, it doesn't matter to such political opportunists what kind of policy travesties were ongoing in the 1980s. (What we have here is often too many business administration courses, and not enough history and economics.)

The New Normal

The two obvious megatrends in the U.S. economy from the 1970s until late 2007, when the bubble burst, were: (1) deregulation, particularly in the realm of high finance, and (2) "supply-side" economics, the remarkable belief, even against empirical evidence, that giving tax bonanzas to rich people and big corporations will create jobs and put the economy in overdrive.

Call it the New Gilded Age. This ruse went on for so long that, despite its rather obvious cumulative failure, "supply-side" still has a huge following. I can understand how it started. By 1980, the U.S. was suffering from what is called demand-pull inflation -- too many dollars chasing too few goods. An economic correction was admittedly needed.

But once Reagan and his cronies got in office, their long-range intentions quickly became clear. Cut taxes on the rich and on corporations, while quietly raising them on working people in the form of high Social Security payroll taxes. Look the other way while companies are exporting jobs to low-wage countries. The wealthy types that these people represented never liked the higher marginal tax rates needed to maintain even a modest welfare state, nor did they like the labor arrangements that forced them to pay living wages to Middle America. The middle class of the 20th century is gradually dismantled, leaving the U.S. with an ever-richer elite while the rest of us settle for scraps from the rich man's table.

It worked just well enough, and just long enough, for some Americans to prosper and become true believers. As for me, and many others like me, I'm still waiting for my "trickle-down" from the first time. It always felt and smelled more like "tinkle-down" to me.

Here's a link to a good article on the subject: "The New Normal: What to Expect of Our Economy."

Even a crusty old capitalist like Henry Ford understood that the economy doesn't do as well if you're not paying working people enough for them to be able to actually afford the products that they are making. Now, they often can't even afford the ones being imported from Mexico and Indonesia, being made by people who now have the jobs that used to exist here.

The demand side matters, too. But the poll numbers are clear. Americans are being duped, yet again. It looks like they are going to need more than one lesson.

And it looks like they are going to get more than one lesson.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Obama's Vacation: Have The Republicans, At Long Last, No Sense Of Decency?

By Manifesto Joe

It's not enough that Republicans oppose anything and everything that might address the country's socioeconomic ills.

President Obama can't even go on vacation. The minute he and his family landed at Martha's Vineyard, these ludicrous hypocrites started calling him "the Clark Griswold president" -- a reference to the character played by Chevy Chase in the National Lampoon vacation movie series.

I suppose that if one is a ruthless, disingenuous, opportunistic gob of political pond scum, it's a good gamble that the American people, at least enough of them, are this stupid and also suffer from amnesia. Given the huge success that the right wing of the Republican Party has had at the polls over the past 30 years, there must be some truth to this.

But how many of us have forgotten Il Doofus, and how much time he spent on vacation in that prairie oasis of Crawford, Texas? Not everyone, and certainly not me.

In the first place, anybody who would want to spend an August vacation in Central Texas has got to be a drooling idiot. Where I live in Texas, today it was something like 110 in the shade this afternoon. I had to spend some time outdoors earlier, and it felt like a sauna out there. I sweated out a fresh shirt in less than an hour. At least the Obamas have the good sense to go up north to Martha's Vineyard in August. That's evidence of their intelligence.

Then, let's look at the numbers. This is from a Washington Post article:

Veteran CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller, a fastidious keeper of presidential statistics, has kept count. By his tally, Obama has embarked on nine "vacations" since taking office, bringing his total days off to 48. Some of those trips lasted a day and some, like his Christmas holiday in Hawaii, more than a week.

By comparison, Bush had visited his ranch in Crawford, Tex., 14 times at this point in his administration and spent 115 days there. And yes, Democrats let him have it, too, complaining that he was a chronic vacationer.

White House advisers made clear in the days leading up to this getaway that a president, especially a wartime president overseeing a country in the grips of economic distress, is never really on vacation.

Here's a link to the entire article.

There are plenty of grave political issues to argue about right now. This isn't one of them. But this illustrates how low, slimy and contemptible the Republican right wing has become, that they would begrudge a president of the opposing party a few rounds of golf, reading time, and some precious time with his family. Il Doofus was on vacation on Aug. 6, 2001, when he was warned that a terrorist attack on U.S. soil was imminent. He stayed in Crawford for a month after that. Funny how the Republicans never mention any of that.

The world suffers from the staggering number of people in it who are stupid, or lacking in moral character, or both. And, unfortunately, there are also a good many who have plenty of moral character on a personal level but have trouble thinking their way through a grocery list.

As long as there are all of the above in America, there will be a Republican Party. And that's sad, because the U.S. needs a responsible conservative political party, and a responsible opposition party. Right now, it has neither.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

With Health Care And Appointments, Obama Has Told GOP: I'm Not Jimmy Carter

By Manifesto Joe

I hope he's not LBJ, either, with the two foreign quagmires he inherited from Il Doofus. But he seems to have put the Republicans on well-deserved notice. He genuinely tried to work with them, and they are quite determined not to let it happen.

So, Obama decided to use the current congressional recess to put through 15 stalled appointments that are holding up the wheels of government. Here's the story from Yahoo! News.

The Republicans are, ironically, braying like jackasses about this, even after they have threatened the filibuster in many unprecedented ways to hold up routine nominations. I think they need to reconsider their choice of animal mascots. The elephant is a noble creature, famous for its memory. Nothing could be further from the current Republican reality.

Jimmy Carter is arguably the best former U.S. president -- a man unquestionably ethical, and of very high intelligence. Unfortunately, he wasn't prepared for the kind of partisan games he encountered in Washington, perhaps because of his lack of experience in the Beltway. He will always wear the albatross of "ineffectual" in retrospectives on his presidency. I think Obama, after a sincere period of bipartisan efforts, has concluded that this is not going to be the way to get things done in the current climate.

I worried about Obama at first, and confess that I voted for Hillary Clinton in the March 2008 Democratic primary here largely because of concern about Obama's relative inexperience. It would appear though, that a few years in the Senate, plus the expert background in constitutional law, prepared him much better than widely expected.

He hasn't delivered entirely on the promise, but something is better than nothing. I'll take something.

Hit 'em again, Barry.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

GOP = Grand Old Psychoputzes: Poll Says 24% of Republicans Think Obama May Be The Anti-Christ

By Manifesto Joe

That's according to a newly released Harris Poll. That's right -- nearly one-fourth of Republicans in the sample think President Barack Obama may be the anti-Christ.

Where's the theme from The Twilight Zone when you need it?

Here's the story -- from The Raw Story.

Among the other responses: Two-thirds of Republicans think Obama is a socialist. Some 57 percent think he's a Muslim. And, 45 percent agree with Birthers that Obama wasn't born in the U.S. and therefore isn't qualified to be president.

I will concede that, during my years as a progressive/liberal blogger, I have seen examples of kookiness on the far left. But I've also noticed that it generally occurs in a very tiny "out-there" fringe group. Among Republicans, we're talking about 2 out of 3 who are so ignorant and/or psychotic that they told pollsters that they think Obama is a socialist. The genuine socialists out there have gotten good laughs out of that one. For those who might be reading this from a contrasting view, please pick up a Webster's dictionary and look up the definition of the word "socialism."

It's hard to gauge whether this is a product of ignorance or some sort of mass lunacy. I think it's some of both. John Avlon of The Daily Beast, who has written extensively about the Republican lunatic fringe, wrote about this survey:

The poll, which surveyed 2,230 people right at the height of the health-care reform debate, also clearly shows that education is a barrier to extremism. Respondents without a college education are vastly more likely to believe such claims, while Americans with college degrees or better are less easily duped. It's a reminder of what the 19th-century educator Horace Mann once too-loftily said: "Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge."

OK, so a hell of a lot of these people are simply old-fashioned dumbshits. It reflects the vintage John Stuart Mill thought: Not all conservatives are stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

But there are some eerie parallels to other times and places where a sort of mass madness has occurred. I seldom watch Fox "News," because it's bad for my blood pressure. But when I've watched it, it looks a lot like a far-right version of what Soviet state TV must have looked like to the people of the former Soviet Union. It's a version of "facts" that's absolutely through the looking glass, and darkly. Yet, I've been in situations like in hospitals, convenience stores, etc., where the TV authorities had nothing but Fox "News" on, 24/7.

People are being indoctrinated in this manner each and every day. And not all of them are classically stupid, or bad people. Members of my wife's extended family are almost all Republicans. Many have good hearts. Where their heads are is another matter. Some do indeed believe that Obama is a Muslim, and that the Democratic Party has been dominated by "socialists" ever since the New Deal. And, if the poll results from Harris are a good indicator, they believe many other mentally disturbed propositions as well.

Mass stupidity, sadly, has always been with us. Mass madness comes and goes. I'm very worried that we're in one of those mass-madness periods. I really hope I'm wrong.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Obama Needs To Remind McCain Once More: 'The Election Is Over'

By Manifesto Joe

There's nothing in the Constitution about a three-fifths Senate majority required for approval of anything. It's time to run these obstructionist shitheads over.

The Thursday show, intended to be a public summit on health care, ended up illustrating one thing quite clearly: Congressional Republicans are going to obstruct anything that President Barack Obama tries to do. It's time to roll over these assholes with a Peterbilt truck.

During the exchanges, Obama reminded Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that "the election is over." McCain snippily came back with something like, "Yes, I'm reminded of that every day."

Obama ignored that and took the high road. I'd say he's taken the high road long enough. I wish to God he'd said something back like, "Well, I'm here to remind you of that again today, senator."

It's time to throw that 60-vote Senate "rule" out, and put these right-wing, special-interest-ass-licking minority shitheads in their proper place. The American people want health care reform, and they clearly voted for it. A simple majority in both houses of Congress, followed by a presidential signature, can bring it. Let's have it. And since we're at it, let's do the public option, too.

I'm not sure what the ramifications would be in November, but it looks as though the Democrats are damned if they do, and damned if they don't, anyway. It's time to rip these sons of bitches three or four new assholes.

Democrats -- real ones, that is -- it's time to go barefisted. These people have used the filibuster with unprecedented frequency, even to block midlevel nominees. It's time to turn them into road kill. Make the filibuster history, and give this country back to the American people.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Obama, Not Quitting, Kicks House GOP Ass On Their Own Turf

By Manifesto Joe

Barack Obama may go down as a one-term president, given the corporate money that is almost certainly coming to bear against him after the recent Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance. But he's telling Republicans, with no uncertainty, that he's not quitting, and will be in their faces until the day he has to leave office.

Obama was very presidential, and nothing short of brilliant, during his videotaped encounter with House Republicans during their Baltimore retreat Friday. This may have been one last bid to get across to an intractable opposition that, with the current caliber of partisanship, absolutely nothing will get done. And, there will be somebody to blame for that.

The president hit many of these doctrinaire righties in an uncomfortable spot when he talked about their response to his general health-care overhaul proposal. This had the endorsement of former GOP Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker and Bob Dole, and of former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. It's a "centrist" proposal, Obama emphasized.

But, the Republican reception was such that, "you'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot." There was uncomfortable tittering in the hall. Obama didn't back down or even blink once. That's what the response was like, he reiterated.

The Republicans in the House have been playing to their right-wing constituents, exaggerating a milquetoast overhaul into some "radical" government takeover of health care. Obama stood in front of them and basically told them so.

One thing I was very proud of seeing was a U.S. president who can not only speak English, but do so extemporaneously and very eloquently. I think it bothers some of the Republicans that they are up against someone this articulate and formidable.

But the most important thing that happened Friday was that Obama signaled to the so-called "loyal" opposition -- let's see something realistic. He pointed out that the notion of 30 million more Americans being covered for health care at no additional cost is -- well, fantasy. And, the idea of offering private insurance coverage across state lines? Fine, but with no standards for such, the insurance companies are certain to cherry-pick healthy people, among myriad other possible abuses.

I was encouraged by something that will probably be what progressives will have to settle for, for the next 20 or more years, after the Supreme Court's decision to give the country over to huge corporations. Obama shows a fighting spirit, at least within the framework of trying to get results. He's not quitting.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Misgivings About Obama's Afghanistan Policy

By Manifesto Joe

After several days to ruminate on the matter, I still find myself in a state of utter ambivalence about President Obama's decision to ramp up the Afghanistan war. I want this president to succeed -- but I faintly smell napalm in the morning, and I don't love that smell. This involvement is beginning to look a lot like a small-scale Vietnam with sand and mountains.

Although I have what I believe is a healthy skepticism about war in general, I'm no pacifist. My left knee doesn't jerk every single time the U.S. embarks upon military action. But there are just enough Vietnam parallels to make this a bit disturbing.

First, the Differences

There are contrasts between this action and the invasion -- yep, I said invasion -- of Vietnam. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong never attacked Americans on our own soil -- ever. One could argue that neither did the Taliban. But they harbored people who did -- namely, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.

I would characterize the initial U.S. assault on the Taliban as justified, as does Obama. It's just a shame that the Bush-ordered action didn't result in a quick knockout (the capture or killing of bin Laden), and that opened the door for all kinds of international mischief by the Il Doofus administration, most tragically the Iraq invasion.

In contrast, I would characterize the U.S. invasion of Vietnam as virtually a rogue action, with little justification at its core. I have concluded this largely with the benefit of hindsight. At the time, without hindsight, many if not most Americans wore blinders about 'Nam. Obstructing vision on one side was the Domino Theory, which now looks like nonsense. Blocking the other side was the notion of a monolithic communist threat, the idea that a commie is a commie is a commie. That's no more true than a fascist is a fascist is a fascist, or a capitalist is a capitalist is a capitalist. Any broadly drawn political or economic ideology will contain within it some diversity, even conflict.

The assumption in Vietnam was that a communist there was the same as a Soviet one, or a Chinese one. And of course, a common view during the Cold War was that any and all communists must be opposed, at any cost and regardless of ethics. We largely know now, 40 years later, that some communist regimes were expansionist, while others were not and are not now.

Around 1946, Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh actually approached the U.S. for support, with an appeal to our sense of independence and self-determination. He was ignored, and we backed the French colonialists in that war. In 1954, with the French in defeat, the Geneva Accord called for a plebiscite for eventual reunification of Vietnam. The U.S. opposed and ultimately blocked that vote -- because it was sincerely feared that Ho would WIN. So much for democracy and self-determination of peoples.

The U.S. involvement in Vietnam was fatally flawed from the beginning. I don't believe that to be the case in Afghanistan, where arguably, a much more clear and present danger was lurking, and the leader of our enemy would never have invoked the name of George Washington, as did Ho.

Here's Where the Involvements Start to Look Alike

-- In Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, we're fighting seasoned guerrillas who have fought multiple foes, generationally, and prevailed because of the simple fact that they wouldn't quit. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong lost every major battle, and it's estimated that about 3 million Vietnamese died during the U.S. involvement. Yet they fought on, against us and many of their own people. It eventually became too expensive for the invaders to sustain their effort.

-- Afghanistan, like Vietnam, is a place that has been historically untenable for any occupiers, all the way back to Alexander the Great. The British and the Soviets found the place equally inhospitable. Can the U.S. expect a different result?

-- The Karzai "government" bears more than a passing resemblance to the corrupt General Thieu regime in South Vietnam. With friends like that, it was harder to fight the enemy. And yet, we expect to establish a strong, democratic and relatively honest central government in a place that has never known one?

Again, I want the Obama presidency to succeed. The U.S. is just starting to emerge from 28 years of political reaction. Obama's success is crucial for keeping America from lurching back into the stupor of the Reagan/Bush/Gingrich/Bush II years.

But I fear he's in a no-win situation. He's escalating, and if it doesn't "work" soon, the Republicans will hammer him. If he had refused to do so and started a gradual withdrawal, there's a serious danger that the Taliban would eventually retake Kabul, and Obama would certainly be blamed for that and characterized as weak.

Since I can't be less ambivalent about this, I'll wrap up. My hope is that, seemingly against the odds indicated by history, Obama can somehow have the U.S. emerge from this involvement relatively unmuddied, and with our re-energized progressive movement still intact. He has my very, very reluctant support.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Rush Limbaugh, Obama, Ad Hominem, Ad Nauseum

By Manifesto Joe

One of the things that's remarkable about right-wingers is their chutzpah. Herr Rush Limbaugh, postmodern court jester for the Third Reich, may be the biggest, or at least the fattest, example.

Lardbaugh's latest outrage was his tirade last week against President Barack Obama. Huffington Post reported that:

During a rant in which he Limbaugh accused senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett of unfairly pressuring the Chamber of Commerce, the controversial radio host slammed Obama as "this little boy, this little man-child president whose primary job, if you will, in life has been leisure. This guy is more practiced at leisure than anything else."

You can view the video here.

Let's see, now. A "man-child president whose primary job ... has been leisure."

Perusing Wikipedia's biography of Lardbaugh, one notices things such as these:

Education
Limbaugh graduated from Cape Central High School, in 1969. His father and mother wanted him to attend college, so he enrolled at Southeast Missouri State University. He dropped out after two semesters and one summer; according to his mother, "he flunked everything", even a modern ballroom dancing class.[1] As she told a reporter in 1992, "He just didn't seem interested in anything except radio."[4]

It appears that Herr Lardbaugh's mouth, clearly hyperactive in more ways than one, has been his ticket to getting through life. He was no student then, and regarding his accuracy, the easiest job on the planet today would be a gig as his fact-checker.

Here's more from Wiki:

Draft status
Limbaugh's birthdate was ranked as 152 in the Vietnam War draft lottery. No one was drafted above 125. He was classified as "1-Y" (later reclassified "4-F") due to either a football knee injury or a diagnosis of Pilonidal disease.[1][5]

He came from a well-to-do family, lousy with lawyers. More from Wiki:

Limbaugh was born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, the son of Mildred Carolyn "Millie" (née Armstrong), originally from Searcy, Arkansas, and Rush Hudson Limbaugh, Jr. His father was a lawyer and a World War II fighter pilot who served in the China-Burma-India theater. The name "Rush" was chosen for his grandfather to honor the maiden name of family member Edna Rush.[1] His family has many lawyers, including his grandfather, father and brother David. His uncle, Stephen N. Limbaugh, Sr. is a Ronald Reagan-appointed federal judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri and his cousin, Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr., is currently a judge in the same court, appointed by George W. Bush. Rush Limbaugh, Sr., Limbaugh's grandfather, was a Missouri prosecutor, judge, special commissioner and served on Missouri's state House of Representatives from 1930 to 1932.[2] Limbaugh's grandfather was a longtime president of the Missouri Historical Society. Rush, Sr., died at age 104, and was still a practicing attorney at the time of his death. The Federal Courthouse in Cape Girardeau is named for Limbaugh's grandfather.

Let's see some more. He's been married, and divorced, three times. You wonder what's wrong when a guy as rich as he was born, and as filthy rich as he got later, just can't stay married. Does it have anything to do with the fact that he's a world-class misogynist asshole? Or maybe with his apparent need for 100-mg. Viagra pills?

More still: His weight problem has been obvious for decades. He's been addicted to illegal drugs (oxycodone and hydrocodone).

His racism has been on display regularly throughout his radio career. More from Wiki:

On March 19, 2007 Limbaugh referred to a Los Angeles Times editorial by David Ehrenstein which claimed that Barack Obama was filling the role of the "magic negro", and that this explained his appeal to voters.[39] Limbaugh then later played a song by Paul Shanklin, "Barack the Magic Negro," sung to the tune of "Puff the Magic Dragon".[40]

Here's Limbaugh on NFL star Donovan McNabb:

Sorry to say this, I don't think he has been that good from the get-go. I think what we've had here is a little social concern in NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well, black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve ...

[On "free trade"] If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, let the unskilled jobs, let the kind of jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do, let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work.

Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?

There's plenty more along those lines. I'd say it calls into question his qualification to assess Barack Obama accurately in any way.

His misogyny is, of course, richly documented. Let's not leave out his homophobia:

The difference between Los Angeles and yogurt is that yogurt comes with less fruit.

And, let's not leave out his brazen hypocrisy:

I'm appalled at people who simply want to look at all this abhorrent behavior and say, "Hey, you know, we can't control it anymore. People are going to do drugs anyway. Let's legalize it." It's a dumb idea. It's a rotten idea, and those who are for it are purely, 100 percent selfish.

When you strip it all away, Jerry Garcia destroyed his life on drugs. And yet he's being honored, like some godlike figure. Our priorities are out of whack, folks.

There's nothing good about drug use. We know it. It destroys individuals. It destroys families. Drug use destroys societies. Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods, which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.

Finally, there's the matter of ego. The Pigman has depicted Obama as having a titanic one. Can he be serious? To wit, Lardbaugh's descriptions of himself:

Half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.

Talent on loan from GOD.

When I think of Herr Lardbaugh, somehow another, very different metaphysical region comes to mind. Well, that's enough of this for now. Barack Obama, self-made sort of guy with a JD from Harvard Law, physically fit fellow, author, law professor, married only once and still married with two kids, etc., etc. ... he seems to have accomplished quite a bit for a man of such abundant leisure.

Contrast him with a fat, thrice-divorced, draft-dodging, ex-drug-addicted college dropout who is all opinions and no background, all prejudice and no facts, who has made a fortune with his mouth. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Tea Party Bozos: Brown Shirts, Or White Sheets? Neo-Nazis, Or The Klan?

By Manifesto Joe

You didn't see this kind of blatant disrespect for the office of the presidency, even back in 1993-94, when the Clintons were trying to put across a version of national health care. President Bill Clinton, an indiscreet man, always caught hell from a lot of directions; but no congressman ever called out during one of his speeches to a joint session, "You lie!"

President Barack Obama is, from all evidence, a good family man, so they can't get him there. Other than cigarettes and an occasional chili dog, he has no major vices. So, why all the vitriol?

I'd really hoped our society had matured beyond this. But I think the general disrespect comes from one very ugly thing: To millions of white Americans, this is President N----r. That's the big difference between Bill Clinton in 1993 and Barack Obama in 2009.

During the past weekend, "Tea Party" bozos gathered in large numbers in Washington, D.C., and in cities around the country. They reportedly carried signs showing Obama depicted as the villainous Joker in the Batman series, with a Hitler mustache, and with a Pinocchio nose. "You lie!" appears to have become a mantra with these people.

Imagine that, during some speech back during the 2002-03 run-up to the Iraq war, that Rep. Dennis Kucinich had called out, "You lie!" to Bush's horseshit about weapons of mass destruction, now clearly one falsehood among a vast number from the Il Doofus administration. Or, that some Democratic congressman had been playing with his Blackberry during such an event. (Rep. Eric Kantor, R-Va., was caught on video doing exactly that during Obama's speech.) I can imagine the bulging neck veins on Fox "News" the next day, and the calls for resignation.

In case anybody thought that these Tea Party protests were some kind of spontaneous grassroots uprising, this article from veteranstoday.com by Gordon Duff gives a list of the corporate sponsors of this organized trashing of the president. It's quite a list, and would make up a good boycott.

This is from Mr. Duff's commentary:

Did you notice the pile of insurance companies, the defense contractors, the US Chamber of Commerce and the NRA? Check the list carefully. Look into who these folks are. This is the group funding, what they hope will be, a civil war in America.

These are the folks sending out gun toting protestors talking about "watering the tree of liberty."

These are also the richest people in America and the most powerful and include some of the biggest polluters, the biggest protectors of illegal immigration and thousands and thousands of lawyers working for big business against everyday Americans.

This is the single biggest group of "Washington insiders" ever assembled, if not insurance industry or defense, all are directly aligned to the Republican Party and help formulate failed Bush policies.

Let's face the truth. There is only one reason all those uneducated white people are out yelling and screaming, guns left in their luggage on busses paid for by taxpayer money sucked in by the biggest pack of corporate thieves that ever bribed a congressman.

Its all about the "N" word. We are having a convention of Americans in love with the "N" word, people who use it every day, folks afraid of black people they don't know, people easy to scare.

Joe Wilson for Grand Wazoo: If the sheets fit ...

In case there was any remaining doubt about U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (KKK-S.C.) and his background, here's a tidbit from The Daily Beast. Before Wednesday night, Joe seemed to be someone who could pass as just your typical Southern Republican congressfool. But he may not be so typical.

The "You lie!" outburst was unprecedented, and there's no way it would have happened to a white president, however liberal.

This is the very first time on this blog that I have "played the race card." Sometimes one has to play the cards that are dealt, and I sure as hell didn't deal them.

I'm not going to go far into the accuracy of what Obama said, because it's virtually irrelevant. The crux of it appears to be that although the House version of the health care bill expressly forbids noncitizens from getting services under this measure, there's no explicit provision for enforcement by requiring proof of citizenship. That, of course, is something that could be added during the process. But no disagreement like this can possibly justify such blatant disrespect for the office of the presidency.

Throw shoes at Joe?

No, not at me. I'm talking about Joe Wilson. I challenge someone out there to throw a pair of shoes at Joe "You lie!" Wilson. There's no direct parallel, but it would be interesting to compare the U.S. reaction to such a thing with the one regarding Bush in Iraq.

The Obama school speech

In Arlington, Texas, school Superintendent Jerry McCullough apologized Friday for administrators' decision not to show Obama's speech to local schoolchildren live on Tuesday morning. There were many other districts that did the same, but Arlington's decision became national news when it was reported that 500 fifth-graders would be bused to a Sept. 21 event with former President George W. ("Il Doofus") Bush speaking at the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium.

If the hypocrisy weren't clear already, it ought to be by now. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who have no problems with being hypocrites.

Or racists.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Furor Over Obama Speech To Schoolchildren Is Epitome Of Right-Wing Lunacy

By Manifesto Joe

Reagan did it, in 1988. So did Bush I, in 1991. So, why is it controversial for President Barack Obama to address schoolchildren tomorrow about working hard to become good scholars?

Today the White House released a Web page with Obama's address. Here's the link.

Now, here's a video of President Ronald Reagan's address of Nov. 14, 1988. If this wasn't at least a generically political speech ... well, compare it with Obama's personal, rather than ideological, tone.

My first impression about the White House releasing Obama's speech a day early is that perhaps the intention was to embarrass the right-wing goons who have stirred so much feces about this. But you can't embarrass insane people.

And when insane people -- at least, the right-wing brand -- become vocal enough, authority figures listen. School districts around the country have been opting out of carrying Obama's speech in their classrooms.

Among these are a number in my home state of Texas. A bunch are in Tarrant County (Fort Worth, Arlington and suburbs), which, unlike neighboring Dallas County, was carried by McCain-Palin in 2008. Here's some of what the chairman of the Tarrant County Democratic Party, Steve Maxwell, had to say in a recent e-mail:

As you may have heard, President Obama is planning to deliver an address to the young people of our nation, on Tuesday, September 7. The message he will deliver is one of hope, of encouragement and of importance. President Obama is a shining example of what can be accomplished in this country by anyone willing to dedicate themselves getting an education, and has the willingness to pursue his or her dreams. This is the message he wants to deliver to the school children On Tuesday, the President will encourage students to care about their education, to apply themselves, to stay in school and to graduate. I believe this is a message our kids cannot hear enough.

There can be no more effective promoter of such a message than the President of the United States.

Unfortunately, some local radio hosts and Conservative activists have interpreted this as an attempt to indoctrinate students. Predictably, schools have received numerous complaints. As a result Arlington ISD, Aledo ISD, Mansfield ISD, Eagle -Mountain Saginaw ISD and Grapevine Colleyville ISD are all declining to show the speech live.

And then, there are those parents who have declared that they are simply going to keep their children home tomorrow so that they don't hear the simple story of an African-American who, against great odds, became a law professor, a U.S. senator and finally the leader of the "free world."

It's been said that it's often better to laugh at, rather than weep over, a sad and grotesque situation. So I'll leave you with a bit of morbid humor gleaned from YouTube:



Here's one of the comments this comedy video got:

Tell me something then, WHY does Obama need to address the CHILDREN?!? WHY??? Their own parents and teachers can't tell them to try hard and be good little communist fascists?  Hitler did the same fucking thing. Ever heard of the HJ? The Hitler Jugend or Hitler Youth.

That's coming next. Obama has already laid out his plans for MANDATORY civil service or community service. Either you are too stupid to see it or you approve of BIG BROTHER OBAMA telling our CHILDREN what to do and think.

Sigh ...

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Obama's Eulogy For Kennedy

MJ has been busy lately, but can't let much more time pass without posting a tribute to a flawed yet genuine hero, the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. Here is President Barack Obama's eulogy to, arguably, the most effective lawmaker of our era.

Click here.

RIP, Ted. -- MJ

"Birthers," Wingnuts Who Think Obama Was Born In Kenya, Make Me Ashamed To Be From The South

By Manifesto Joe

This has become the Whitewater of the Obama era. Despite evidence and still more evidence that Barack Hussein Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Hawaii (a belated happy birthday to a fellow Leo, Mr. President), a large number of Americans, almost all Republicans, don't believe that he's an American citizen. And they are heavily concentrated among white Republicans in the South.

This reminds me a lot of Whitewater in the '90s and the "questions" that dogged Bill Clinton throughout his eight-year presidency. I was not quite as intolerant of right-wing kooks back then as I am now. I suffered through a litany of conspiracy theories from acquaintances.

Bill and Hillary were not only dogged by the specter of an investment in which they lost money. Bill Clinton, I was told by these crazies, was directly involved in over 100 murders back in Arkansas, during his governorship. We went through various "Troopergates," "Tailgates," and so forth. A special prosecutor was appointed, and spent over $40 million to eventually find out that Clinton apparently got a couple of blowjobs from an White House intern and lied about them. And then he wasted a lot of time and money getting Clinton impeached, and without a conviction, over the likes of that.

Now we have the same raving lunatics sizing up Barack Hussein Obama. Clinton was indeed a wheeler-dealer and a Falstaffian figure who had a hard time keeping his pants zipped. Obama admits that he sampled a few drugs while he was in his twenties, mostly pot. Now it's a big deal for him to have a beer, and there's much ado about trouble giving up his smokes. Other than that, he's a model father and husband, a regular Mr. Cleanhands.

So, the rubber-room refugees zero in on this citizenship horseshit. And they're mostly, though not exclusively, Republicans in the South. To wit, a recent column from usnews.com:

According to a new poll from Research 2000 (commissioned by Daily Kos), a majority of Southerners either believe that Barack Obama was not born in the United States (23 percent) or are not sure (30 percent). Only 47 percent of Southern respondents believe Obama was born in the USA. By contrast, 93 percent of Northeastern[er]s said yes, he was born here, 90 percent of Midwesterners did and 87 percent of Westerners.

Here's a link to the whole column.

I have been argumentive and contrarian quite often with people who characterize Southerners as stupid. Why? I have encountered my share of dumbass Jersey-talking Yankees, and my one visit to Southern California was quite an eye-opener. There, I learned that there's just a marginal difference between a philistine who sips Chardonnay and wears designer jeans and a philistine who chugs Miller High Life and got his or her jeans at Wal-Mart.

But after seeing the results of this poll, I don't know if I can muster a defense for fellow Southerners anymore. Forrest Gump was only partially right -- stupid is not merely what stupid does. It's also what it says. Words can be poison, and this notion is utterly toxic.

I stand ashamed to be a native Southerner, with deep roots in states other than Texas (Alabama, North and South Carolina, Arkansas). I hope I can consider myself an exception, but we seem to have de-evolved from the rest of Western culture.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Advice For Obama About Iraq: Voices From The Past

By Manifesto Joe

President Barack Obama has made clear that, while he isn't going to do anything rash, he intends to make a clean break from many Bush administration policies, and in particular those regarding the Iraq war. That sounds like great news to me.

But, I'm a believer in history, and in the lessons of context that it teaches. It's a good idea to listen to voices of experience, from the past, and Obama should heed them. Here are a couple:

"If you're going to go in and try to topple Saddam Hussein, you have to go to Baghdad. Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's current there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists? How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect people that sign on for that government, and what happens to it once we leave?"
Then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, in 1991.

"Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in 'mission creep,' and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq ... Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different -- and perhaps barren -- outcome."
Former President George H.W. Bush and former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, in their book "A World Transformed" (1998).

It all seems a bit confusing. But I am hopeful that President Obama is a student of history and can learn from it. Clearly, our rulers of the past eight years have been astonishingly oblivious to its lessons.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

While Watching Inauguration, Thoughts Of A Long-Dead Sibling

By Manifesto Joe

My only sibling, a sister, was killed in an auto accident in 1981, only three weeks after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as president. Today, while watching the inauguration of Barack Obama, I thought of her, and what she would think about America today if she's been watching this on some fourth-dimension TV set.

"An African-American president, in 2009? I thought it would take a century," I can almost hear her say. Then, during the parade, "They're a great-looking couple. Listen to the screams -- it's like Elvis came back from the dead. ..."

"Joe Biden? I remember that young smart-mouth from back in the Seventies. He was still in the Senate last year, and now he's vice president? Unbelievable."

I felt sad that my big sister, who would have been pushing 55 now, didn't live to see this day.

I also felt great pride in America, more pride than I've felt in a very long time.

After 28 mostly depressing years, it really is, at last, "morning in America." I hope you can see us now, Sis.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Republicans Who Call Obama A Socialist Are Showing Either Ignorance Or Desperation

By Manifesto Joe

In the demented spirit of a godfather of American fascism, Joe McCarthy, plenty of Republicans, led by McCain attack dog Sarah Palin, are hurling the dreaded "S" word at Barack Obama. It's right-wing regurgitation, like projectile vomit.

The dreaded word in McCarthy's time was "communist." Now it is "socialist," and the far right bases this on Obama's clearly stated intention to enact very limited income redistribution for the benefit of working-class and middle-income Americans.

This misnomer reveals the stupidity of those who use it with any sincerity, and the desperation of those who actually took political science and economics in college and surely know better.

Socialism defined

Here's a basic definition of "socialism," from Webster's New World College Dictionary:

1. any of various theories or systems of the ownership and operation of the means of production and distribution by society or the community rather than by private individuals, with all members of the society or the community sharing in the work and the products.

Please note that the crucial part of the definition has to the with "the means of production and distribution." I am unaware that Obama has ever advocated nationalization of industries, Israeli-style kibbutzes or anything else that characterizes bona fide socialism. He is clearly, like almost all other American progressives, a welfare capitalist. He favors a system of private ownership, but with restraints, checks and balances, and limited intervention in the public interest.

Many conservatives, being ignorant, disingenuous, or both, have greatly expanded the definition of "socialism" to include any and all kinds of income redistribution that works for the benefit of those roughly at or below median income. To broadly paraphrase one of their heroes, Adam Smith, the richer people among them say nothing of their own gains; they complain only of those of other people.

Any time any public entity, whether a local hospital district or the federal government, makes any decision about taxation and/or appropriates money for anything, income is redistributed. It's a question of to whom.

What Americans have seen for about 35 years, more rapidly at times but always steadily, has been socialism for the rich, certainly by the "broader" definition of the right. A federal tax structure that was once progressive, and remains so on paper in some senses with the retention of brackets, has been gradually rendered impotent by the fine scalpel of legislators and tax lawyers. Most corporations now pay little if any income tax, and the very wealthy have myriad shelters with which they happily dodge responsibility for upkeep of the infrastructure, or even for bankrolling the latest war meant to increase their profits.

Socialism for the rich

As for socialism for the rich, I won't even go into corporate welfare, intrinsic advantages of the rich in the legal system, the system of legal bribery we call campaign finance, etc. I'm just sticking with their definition -- redistribution of income. The distribution of wealth is more unequal than it has been since 1929. (Remember what happened that year?) And this hasn't happened by accident. The '80s supply-side economists led by Arthur Laffer and David Stockman were quite above board in their intention to favor corporations and the rich in taxation, in the apparent belief that such policy would spur investment, create jobs, actually increase tax revenue, and result in "trickle-down."

For the most part, with some interruptions during the Clinton administration, the program of socialism for the rich was put over, and with accompanying indoctrination against anything faintly liberal or progressive. The New Deal was ancient history; and in the minds of many, the opportunistic right succeeded in perversely melding it with the failure of Soviet socialism, or with anything that strayed in the very least from a laissez-faire, supply-side party line.

I stopped being a fan of Ralph Nader after he ensured the presidency for an apocalyptic buffoon like George W. Bush. But Nader said something on a debate show that has stuck with me since: "They (the big corporations) want to socialize their losses and privatize their profits." Never was anything truer said.

Obama, though merely bringing a rather mild bourgeois liberalism back to the table, faces the wrath of fools conned by this right-wing economic nonsense, and the venom of those who would use ignorant "fellow travelers" of the far right to stay in control of the wheel.

But, with two days left until the deciding moment, history appears to be tilting toward Obama. Americans have had 28 years to endure "upscale" socialism. Many who don't listen to frothing-at-the-mouth rhetoric know firsthand what such policies have done to them. Indications are that a large turnout of such folks will hugely favor Obama.

Here's a link that shines more light on the subject. There aren't many real socialists left in America, but here's what their presidential candidate thinks about Obama. And, here's one more from the MSM, its own nasty self.

Meanwhile, "this one" voted early -- and I suppose it's not hard to guess that "this one" voted for "that one." I urge anybody who hasn't done the same yet to get to the polls Tuesday. We don't want to see the future postponed for another four years.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.