As long as I live, I’ll never forget the speech he gave the day at a rally in Cape Town in 1990. Not one word of retribution or anger. Soon followed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions: “Witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations were invited to give statements about their experiences, and some were selected for public hearings. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution.” Meanwhile, the New York Times is mischaracterizing Mandela an “icon of “peaceful resistance”. It’s amusing to see how confused the media gets over Mandela’s long and loyal friendship with History’s Second Greatest Monster (after Jimmy Carter, of course), Fidel Castro. Anyway, the ANC was in a shooting war against apartheid. The white racist government several times offered Mandela his freedom if he would renounce the violent struggle – he refused. Every day after his release that there wasn’t a bloodbath seemed like a triumph. I’ll tell you one thing, the white people of South Africa have an awful lot to thank Mandela for. Starting with their lives.
Tuesday, some congressional assbags held a hearing they cleverly titled “The President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws.” That’s congressional fancy talk for “impeachment”. Another nail the Republicans want to hammer into democracy’s coffin. Impeach Clinton to undo that election. Bush v Gore, Voter ID laws. Keep Obama off the ballot because someting something someting birf certificate, Voting Rights Act, Lifetime bans on felons — who are still citizens after all — voting. Apportionment of electors only in blue states. When the GOP went unhinged under Clinton, at least they waited until they found out he got a blowjob so they could at least pretend they were impeaching him for a reason instead of just for the hell of it. Here though, they’re talking about doing it for nothing at all.
Dear GOP,
Here is the difference between us impeaching one of your presidents, and you impeaching one of ours: YOUR GUY TRIED TO SUBVERT THE CONSTITUTION. OUR GUY WAS SLUTTY.
This is why our impeachment succeeded and yours failed.
//history lesson
With Thanksgiving behind us, there is a crispy clean feeling in the air. The kind of feeling that can only mean one thing: time to start capitalizing on other people’s feelings of lack of self worth, to rake in boatloads of cash. Rea$on for the $ea$on, right? Well rally the troops and calibrate your reindeer-seeking missiles, because I’ve made a stunning turnaround in my thoughts about Black Friday mayhem.
Black Fri – day - noun – the overhyped, much maligned Day After Thanksgiving. A NY Times report from 1975 cites Philadelphia Police officers, frustrated by the congestion caused by shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving, derisively coining “Black Friday”. Retailers tried to rebrand it Big Friday” – didn’t stick. Then someone’s dad made up something about it meaning “in the black” and now that’s what it is.
For those of us who’d rather eat glass than be inside a store any time in the weeks before Christmas, the Black Friday experience is hard to understand. But I have come to see it not as some great scourge on society, but as another wacky American ritual, like Super Bowl Sunday, or arbitrarily moving our clocks back and forth, that we cling to in an effort t0o feel alive and connected.
Some of the more…” intense” scenes from Black Friday are reminiscent of a bustling ancient marketplace, maybe in Bangladesh – instead of dates and figs, it’s waffle irons and off-market toasters.
One day a year, the isolated, listless populace experiences an adrenaline surge and comes together en masse to participate in a competitive ritual, a sacred pre-Christmas tradition of lining up outside big box stores to snap up merch. Ordinary American people collectively participate in a ritual of their own making, with its own symbols and beliefs, experiencing that certain frisson that comes from simply being part of the crowd. It is part of their Thanksgiving tradition, and they’re going to endure lines and risk potential injury/death.
The great thing about unchecked capitalism is that you can make a buck no matter how much you deceive people about pretty much anything your greed uses to get it’s fix.The more you milk ‘em the less trouble you can get in. It’s The American Way – the dream lives on. Politics and religion really are the two greatest scams on earth and America is the easiest place to work ‘em.
Among CNN’s 20 questions about the multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran:
“Is Iran the only nation with a nuclear program?”
“Who are these six world powers”?
“What’s a centrifuge?”
Ok, stop right there. Maybe I am an elitist, liberal snob…”maybe”…..okay, saying I am, may I suggest that if you don’t know the answers to these three questions you no longer get to have an opinion about this deal? May I suggest that if you don’t know the answer to these three questions, you probably ought to go back to reading about The Big Game, or Brian Griffin getting run over by a car, or Miley’s lip-synching cat, or Homeland’s further descent into asininity, or whatever else happened last night, and stop trying to pretend that you understand anything about the world that exists outside of your immediate vicinity?
.
Mad (at) Libs(™), a phrasal template word game where one player – a Republican – prompts another player – also a Republican – for a list of words to fill-in-the-blanks, before reading the – often comical or asinine nonsense aloud.
OMFG!!That horrible Obama did ____________
OMFG! That horrible Obama did not ____________
OMFG!!That horrible Obama went to ____________
OMFG!!That horrible Obama did not go to ____________
OMFG!!That horrible Obama changed_____________
OMFG! That horrible Obama did not change ____________
OMFG!!That horrible Obama said____________
OMFG!!That horrible Obama did not say ____________
No president ever ever ever has been this ______________ (mean, uppity, attention-seeking, selfish, etc.).*
Just pencil in something new every day and off we go…you can use the same word at the same time in all the blanks and that’s completely okay, too. The only part that matters is “That horrible Obama”.
* Black. The answer is always “black.”
