Thomas Disch, 1940-2008

Writer Thomas Disch has died. Apparently bereft over ill-health and the death of his partner, the speculative fiction writer committed suicide.

His "On Wings Of Song" is one of my favorite books. I'm saddened that a writer so important to my growing up is gone. But I feel clueless in somehow not actually knowing before that Disch was gay. I guess I must have assumed it in some way: the sexuality in "On Wings Of Song" is so true and clear it could only have come from a gay man. The book tells the story of a near future--now even closer and easier to see--when right-wing religious fundamentalists rule the land, when food shortages force people to eat doggie kibble, and when people find comfort in artists embracing and re-envigorating outdated forms of art or in transcendant drug-like states. It's a funny book, and a tragic one, but its hints of gay identity meant a lot to me as a young man and I read and re-read it many times.

Thanks Thomas Disch. May you find peace.

Oh No He Didn't.....

Un believable item on the Huffington Post.

So the PRESIDENT of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, is having a state visit with President Bush and this is what he says:

PRESIDENT BUSH: Madam President, it is a pleasure to welcome you back to the Oval Office. We have just had a very constructive dialogue. First, I want to tell you how proud I am to be the President of a nation that -- in which there's a lot of Philippine-Americans. They love America and they love their heritage. And I reminded the President that I am reminded of the great talent of the -- of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House. (Laughter.)

He is referring, of course, to his kitchen help. The mind boggles.

And now a few words about John McCain

Sheer awesomeness.

The Democrats' Future War Problem

Several things have been evident on the world stage lately. First, the Iraq "war" is on hold until Bush leaves office. The pro-Iran Shi'a government has been trying to wrestle authority from the pro-Iran Shi'a militias including Sadr's Jaish Al-Mahdi, and while sections of Sadr city have been destroyed or turned into walled ghettos, mostly the militias have backed down rather than stand and fight. Both Shi'a forces have been busy denouncing the U.S., who continues to sprinkle the country with money. The various Sunni forces have decided to milk the occupation for money and guns, establishing their own mini-states while they wait out Shia-U.S. drama. And meanwhile, the conflict in Afghanistan has been heating up and spilling over into Pakistan.

Since the U.S. and its Nato "allies" have taken over the job of fighting mujahedeen from the Soviets, it's increasingly evident what a trap Afghanistan is for imperialism and neocolonialism. Unable to root out the bases of so-called terrorists, or even to dislodge the Taleban medievalists, the mightiest war machine ever is about to find itself stuck in the same mud that helped destroy the Soviet Union.

Assuming Obama wins, and assuming he actually withdraws American forces from Iraq even as the violence restarts, Afghanistan will remain as dangerous quicksand. Since most Americans, even liberals and leftists--yours truly notwithstanding--believe somehow that the U.S. and Nato are doing something good in Afghanistan by punishing the 9/11 planners or preventing their resurgence, they will follow this colonial adventure blindly until it's too late to see it for what it is. Now Obama gains points for saying that the conflict in Afghanistan should be escalated while the one in Iraq should be ended. What's gonna happen if it turns out that Afghanistan is the real Vietnam here, not Iraq?

I think it's predictable that the mildly modernizing puppet Karzai regime will come to the same end as the succession of home-grown communist regimes that the Soviets rushed in to bolster. Surely the Taleban was odious and its policies abhorrent. (Though I still recall its first mention in the NY Tiems years back when it was presented as some band of religious students trying to end corruption and bring peace and a golden age to Afghanistan as it struggled to drive out the mujahedeen warlords between the occupations of great powers.) But surely the lessons of colonialism and imperialism and its meddling shows that the medicine is always as bad if not worse than the nativist brutality it seeks to remedy.

Let so-called terrorists be dealt with as a law-enforcement problem. Let the Afghan and Iraqi peoples determine their own destinies. And let the armies of imperialism be brought home... there's a country to be rebuilt. Yeah, that swords into plowshares bit sounds damned good.

A Little Reality Check

So after his briliant speech last night, upon his apparent win of the Democratic Party nomination, Obama today joined the parade of politicians kowtowing before the (conservative, republican) zionist confab AIPAC.

Sadly, Obama said noxious things like Jerusalem must remain "undivided" and the capital of Israel, and went out of his way to show his support of Jews by showing his support of toughness for Israel and against its victims, er, opponents.

One of the tragedies of Israel is what it has done to the America's Jews. The Jewish political establishment is no longer an institution of social justice or labor; it's a cheering section for the vile and racist zionist settler state. Just as America is turned blind to the racism, futility and organized-crime-enablement of the war on drugs, so does this knee-jerk support of Israel turn peace-loving people into the allies of monsters who use cluster bombs, apartheid/nazi style ghettos, nazi-style collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, land-stealing, and military confrontation.

I'm glad Obama says he "supports the Jews" but I am horrified that he is doing the same old dance of stupidity to the orchestra of Zionism. One should not need to prostrate oneself before the state of Israel to show one's commitment to social justice for all American ethnic groups. No matter how much Obama is forced to grovel, these war-mongering conservative Zionists will not support him anyway; they are too poisoned by their cheerleading of the up-is-down politics of Zionism. They have moved on from the civil rights movement and the black-Jewish alliance of old time social justice.

On the other hand, since I don't really believe in a two-state solution, I guess Jerusalem should remain undivided. As capital of a democratic and secular state of Palestine, open to all its Muslim, Christian and Jewish residents. One can only hope.

President-To-Be Barack Obama!

That pretty much says it. Barack Obama has received enough delegates in the flawed and corrupt democratic party system to be the party's nominee in November.

He's not perfect, and it's gonna be a hard fight against the republicans (and hopefully not any more against the Clintonites), but, God bless him, I think he's got a chance to be president. What a potential revolution in American society we are in store for.

The audacity!

Obama in 2008!

get out get out get out get out

Shockingly, Hillary Clinton did not concede tonight. It is past time for this self-serving unprincipled carpetbagger to go.

ENOUGH!

Honor for Heroes of the Past

Today, May 19th, is the birthday of two long-gone heroes.

Malcolm X, of course, was the heroic African-American muslim leader who made a long journey from being a petty street criminal to devout muslim to "black nationalist" to a leader with a complex and nuanced view of American capitalism. An amazing orator, he was gunned down in his prime by assassins rejecting his political evolution, including, allegedly, the later minister Louis Farrakhan.

Ho Chi Minh, on the other hand, did not die young. A complex figure, he lead his small nation to stand up against the mightiest powers of colonialism and imperialism in 20th-century history. Successfully resisting French, Japanese, and American domination of his country, he died before the reunification of Vietnam and the route of America's military adventure. While his adherence to Stalin-style communism considerably narrowed the focus of his country's political opposition, his humble nature and heroic leadership showed that destiny was not in the hands of European-American aggressors and their gangster-like local lackeys.

Assassination Humor

Yes, that's former serious Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, speaking to the NRA, joking about how funny it would be if somebody tried to assassinate Barack Obama. And also, what a sissy Obama is. Wait til you hear the jokes Huckabee cracks when he visits the American bed linens and rope manufacturers associations. Hil-ar-ious.

Seriously, WTF. What is wrong with this country.

In better news, if my boyfriend and I lived in California we could get married. Yay!

Hillary Says Obama Only Supported by Lazy Ni**ers

In an interview with USA today, Hillary Clinton said:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

Um, did I really read that right? Why do the following lyrics pop into my head about now....

I was working part time in a five-and-dime
My boss was Mr. McGee
He told me several times that he didn't like my kind
'Cause I was a bit 2 leisurely

Seems that I was busy doing something close 2 nothing
But different than the day before

Newly released photos of weapons of mass destruction

A fascinating set of photos, found on an unknown camera, has been released after a 60-year embargo on publication. They're of the aftermath of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and unlike most published photos, show the human aftermath and not just damaged buildings. They're hard to look at, but as we contemplate Hillary Clinton's pledge to obliterate Iran they're a useful reminder that one nation--not Iran, not the old Soviet Union--has used nuclear weapons of mass destruction against civilian targets and that nation is the U.S.A.

The collection can be seen here.

The War on Children.

Literally.

Above, a fatally wounded child removed from a building demolished by a US airstrike in Baghdad. This week.

Below, the "collateral damage" (read: murder) from a US missile strike on an alleged "terrorist" in Somalia. From the BBC:

"We heard a huge explosion and when we ran out of our house we saw balls of smoke and flames coming out of house," Dusamareb resident Nur Geele told the BBC.

"The house was totally destroyed to the ground, also other houses nearby," local elder Ahmed Mumin Jama said.

Dr Ahmed Mahdi at Dusamareb Hospital told the BBC he was treating eight civilians, including women and children, for burns and shrapnel wounds.

"The house that was attacked was a small concrete villa and it has been destroyed," he said. "The adjacent houses which were made from traditional mud were also destroyed. The sight is quite horrific."

One of the women has since died, bringing the death toll so far to 11.

Yessir, proud to be an American. Due process. Right to a fair trial.

Jump, ni**er, jump!

The sad spectacle of media crucifixion of Barack Obama continues. When Obama first responded to the media/Clintonite uproar over the rev. Jeremiah Wright with his speech on racism, he took the high road. Making an emotional and intellectual appeal for clarity and realism on the subject of race, Obama's Philadelphia speech was compared by the media to JFK and MLK. For a moment.

But the manufactured Wright "controversy" did not end there. The attacks continued. Not in a way that actually debated anything said by Rev. Wright, or any position actually held by Obama, but in the way of insinuation and implication. Obama was even asked how patriotic Wright actually was.

I've heard and read some very thoughtful explorations of this subject. Usually, the more of Rev. Wright's sermonizing and speechifying they play the better and better he sounds. I agree with most everything Ive heard him say, and that which I don't agree with, I completely understand why he would say.

But then Wright came out of his period of silence, and repeated many of the things he had said before. And the media, beholden to the corrupt political establishment that has bought and purchased it over the last few years, basically forgot everything Obama had said and started repeating the same old nonsense.

Nevermind that Hillary Clinton organizes a prayer breakfast led by a right-wing cultist, or attends a church that codifies and institutionalizes bigotry against gays. Nevermind that McCain sought out the endorsement of a super-rightwing nutcase preacher who, in addition to his anti-gay hatred, organizes Christians to support Israel to help bring the apocalypse closer. Nevermind that the North Carolina governor pretty much used a mild form of the word "faggot" ("pansy") when he was endorsing Clinton and she offered no distance or protest.

But the media called Obama to eat shit and throw his former pastor under the bus. And sadly, that is what Obama did. "Jump!" they said. And he did. And now he will discover, I fear, that they just wanted to see if he would jump. They will continue to say "Jump! Ni**er! Jump!" and each time Obama will be sadly disappointed he's really not welcome at the party at all. The racism he hopes to transcend has just been mashed in his face.

I'm disappointed that Obama didn't find a way to transcend this circus of crucifixion. I don't know, of course, if it will be fatal to his campaign. I hope not. It doesn't change my support, which is as strongly qualified as it is strong. But if I was in Chicago, I know damned well I'd be trying to find where Jeremiah Wright was preaching now. I may not be a Christian but I do know who's on the side of the righteous.

God DAMN America.

Sean Bell, murder victim

The name Sean Bell can now be added to the growing and tragic list of innocent people murdered, with the full support of the law, and for no real reason, by New York City policemen. A Queens judge has just found the officers indicted in his death not guilty.

A sad sad day for justice and the people of New York.

one giant prison

So last month or so it was announced that ONE PERCENT of the American population is behind bars. Yes, one in every hundred people. Today it was announced that the absolute number of people behind bars in the US is the highest in the world. Yes, higher than the number of people in prison in China, which has a population well over one billion people.

Statistics show that over 50 percent of the people in prison are there for drug-related offenses, which is complete madness.

Hey, it's a free country!

"we will obliterate them"

Clinton further displayed tough talk in an interview airing on "Good Morning America" Tuesday. ABC News' Chris Cuomo asked Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons.

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

Nice way to go after Jewish votes? To prove you're tough? How about answering with truth like, "Iran doesn't actually have nuclear weapons." Or saying, "The middle-east should be nuclear-free."

It's tragic, really, how beholden to Israel politicians are. Even Barack Obama has taken some really disgusting positions on the subject. When former President Carter recently visited with Hamas leaders in exile in Syria, even Obama condemned him for meeting with "terrorists."

Will Israel be the destruction of any progressive movement in the US?

Bitter? Damn right I'm bitter.

So Barack Obama said that voters in Pennsylvania have become bitter over years of failed promises. War criminal lunatic McCain and my (hah!) senator Clinton are condemning him for being an elitist, for not saying that Pennsylvania voters are optimistic.

Well well well. Let's talk about bitter. Let's talk about elitist. Let's talk about optimism.

Laid off after giving 16 years to a single company because of a crappy economy and because american corporate culture is closer to that of medieval feudalism than 21st-century democracy? You bet I'm bitter. Reading the news and reading casualty reports of an american war, and seeing pictures of americans smashing in the doors of innocent civilians and bombing the fuck out of a country just like the vietnam war I witnessed in my childhood? you bet I'm bitter. A senator who has nothing better to do but feather her own multi-million dollar nest, support fascistic resolutions against flag burning, war against Iraq and threats against Iran, who coddles the racist swine of the zionist movement like they were tonguing her asshole? You bet I'm bitter. A president who has in eight years nearly destroyed the constitution, yes I'm bitter. A population who has been hypnotized into thinking voting for American Idol is more important than voting for President, who re-elected Bush and is actually considering voting for a senile right-wing pig like McCain? You bet I'm bitter.

A presidential candidate who sat on the board of Wal-Mart for 5 years and who, with her husband, made ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS in seven years dares to call someone ELSE elitist? You bet I'm bitter. Who has danced around flinging shit and negativity and had her surrogates toy with racism and loaded language and she has the nerve to say now that Obama doesn't understand how OPTIMISTIC the voters are? Yeah I'm fucking bitter.

A man running for PRESIDENT who doesn't even understand who is fighting who in the war he suggests continue for A HUNDRED YEARS and people are gonna vote for him and he says Obama is OUT OF TOUCH? Jesus H fucking Christ.

I don't know how Obama does it. To stay so positive, to avoid getting sucked into this swamp of disguting garbage. I admire him. Me, I want to set something on fire. Maybe I'm just gonna go back to listening to jazz. Better for my heart.

Vote for Obama. Your life depends on it. Heck MY life depends on it.

Hillary Clinton's Line of Bullshit on Iraq

Hillary Clinton is now trying to position herself as "more anti-war" than Barack Obama. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that unlike Obama, Clinton helped start the war in the first place--and that's some big thing to set aside--here's what Clinton said in December:

Hillary Clinton: Goal to remove all troops from Iraq by 2013, but no pledge
Q: In 2006, Democrats were elected to the majority in the House and Senate, and many believed that was a signal to end the war. You have said that will not pledge to have all troops out by the end of your first term, 2013. Why not?

A: It is my goal to have all troops out by the end of my first term. But it is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting. We do not know, walking into the White House in January 2009, what we're going to find. What is the state of planning for withdrawal? That's why last spring I began pressing the Pentagon to be very clear about whether or not they were planning to bring our troops out. And what I found was that they weren't doing the kind of planning that is necessary, and we've been pushing them very hard to do so. You know, though, about the Democrats taking control of the Congress, I think the Democrats have pushed extremely hard to change this president's course in Iraq. The Democrats keep voting for what we believe would be a better course.

I think it's a fair criticism of Obama to say he is waffling a little on his exact plans to end the war. Kucinich and Richardson, who both pledged to remove troops immediately, with none of this ridiculous "slow draw-down" crap, had a better position. This is a tremendous failing of the Democrats. But at worst, Obama has the same position as Clinton, who as shown above has waffled plenty. I have suggested she could easily be the LBJ of this war before, and I say it again.

Her current posture on the war is solely political. Her actions, as shown by her capitulation to Bush's war drive 6 years ago, speak louder than what she's currently saying. The war must be ended, immediately. Clinton will simply not do that. The proof of this pudding is in her vote for the Lieberman/Kyl amendment, virtually granting to Bush the power to go to war with Iran that she granted him to go to war with Iraq.

Om Mani Padme Hum?

Shangri-La is under attack! The holy spiritual people of Shangri-La are being oppressed! The Oympic torch must be stopped!

Well I must point out with all the hullaballoo about the Beijing Olympic torch and the unrest in Tibet, that in American liberal fascination with Tibet, the Dalai Lama, Buddhist spirituality, and the certainty of its self-righteousness opposition to oppression in foreign countries, not everything is what it seems.

Tibetan Buddhism surely is a wonderful spiritual path, and while I have heard that the Dalai Lama has some unfortunate views on homosexuality, as a religious person outside the mainstream of Abrahamic tradition I throw no stones at its belief system or adherents.

However, I would point out that his supporters in the west seem to be endorsing a medieval theocracy with a documented and unglorious history of slavery and feudalism. I say to these supporters of Tibet the same thing I would say to supporters of Israel: if you believe separation of church and state is a defining principle of modern democracy in the United States, you need to believe the same thing about separation of church and state in other countries, no matter how like Shangri-La you imagine them.

It may be that the Chinese are oppressive to the Tibetan people, and Tibetan autonomy and self-determination is no doubt a laudatory goal. I don't excuse the subjugation of peoples. But the smashing of a brutal and backwards feudal theocracy? Go Chinese People's Liberation Army!

To the Americans caught up in protests of the Olympics, I say, your main enemy is at home. You want to help the people of Darfur? You want to help the Tibetans? End US imperialism and international corporate rape. Dismantle the CIA. Remove American troops from Korea. Remove American troops from the middle east.

Here's an interesting perspective on Tibet.

My Second Choice for President