Atta boy, David! Axelrod strikes back.

Take it to 'em, David.

This is what I like to see (and hope to see a lot more of)!

After prominent members of Junior's gang of shysters broke with accepted decorum and publicly criticized the Obama administration, the President's senior adviser, David Axelrod hit back today in an interview with the Washington Post.

First, there was Big Dick Cheney warning that, unless the United States continues to torture and abuse detainees, Al Qaeda will storm into our living rooms and throttle our dogs and cats before our very eyes... or something like that.

Dick, haven't you figured out yet that you don't matter anymore?

Axelrod's response? "I was disappointed in [Cheney's] comments not because he said–stated the obvious which is that there are threats that are grave, but that he suggested that somehow the President’s decisions on torture in Guantanamo would increase the likelihood of that."

Well, perhaps not as emphatically-stated as I would have liked, but at least it's fit for print. (And if the Washington Post were to ever ask me to comment... well, let's just say there would be a lot of square bracket [] replacements.)

Then, there was Andy Card, Junior's nominal chief-of-staff, whom Junior sent out to fetch cheeseburgers whenever the talk got serious. Andy was all in a huff because President Obama and his advisers didn't wear suit jackets in the Oval Office.

Junior violating Andy Card's dress code

Axelrod hit him with a pretty good zinger, quipping: "We're wearing short sleeves because we have to roll up our sleeves and clean up the mess that we inherited." (And, of course, after Andy had shot his mouth off, some web-wise surfer discovered photos of Junior sitting at his desk in the Oval Office in his shirt sleeves! (Gasp!))

And lastly, there was Karl Rove himself. Axelrod's counterpart. Rove wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal bitching about the way that the new administration is handling the financial crisis (the crisis that Rove helped to create).


Quoth Axelrod: "You know, the last thing that I think we're looking for at this juncture is advice on fiscal integrity or ethics from Karl Rove, anyone who's read the newspapers for the last eight years would laugh at that." Is it just me? Or does Axelrod seem to have a special contempt for the man that Junior called "Turdblossom?" (And really, who among us doesn't?)

Axelrod's comments are hard-hitting and serve to remind the public of the absolutely sh*tty job that the Bush administration did when they held office. It's not just that they were corrupt, but that they were also inept!

As the remnants of the Republican party whine and cry and do their best to discredit Obama, even at the price of our national economy, Democrats generally, and the Obama administration specifically, should continue to remind the public of what it is that the Republicans truly represent: incompetence, corruption, sadism, plutocracy.

Obama's lesson: there's no bargaining with a rattlesnake

Excuse my effrontery, but being a scion of the Klamath Basin, where rattlesnakes ply the lava-sculpted landscape, sending up their percussive warning, like so many agitated crickets, I feel I could have saved President Obama and the nation a lot of heartache and pain in the battle over the stimulus package. If I somehow could have communicated with the President before he sent the bill to Congress, I would have told him: you can't bargain with a rattlesnake.

Even now, the two versions of the stimulus package, the version passed by the House, and that passed by the Senate, are being reconciled in conference. But what has become apparent to many Washington observers is that President Obama's hope for bipartisan cooperation in this time of crisis was overly optimistic. The Republicans, still locked in the delusion that their regressive domestic policies are admired despite the resounding whipping they have received in the last two national elections, are not going to play ball.

President Obama's stimulus package was carefully crafted beforehand to attract bipartisan support. In addition to funding many programs favored by Democrats (and by the voting public) the package included significant tax cuts to sooth the feelings of Republicans still chafing (like tiny, little Mussolinis) at their diminished role in setting national policy. The administration's hope, I surmise, was to submit a bill that addressed the concerns of all parties; a bill that would sail through both houses of Congress with large majorities.

The president took bold public steps to reach out to the Republicans. He met with the minority caucuses in both houses. He threw a cocktail party where you just know that GOP House Leader John Boehner drank everybody else under the table. He invited Republican leaders to a Superbowl party at the White House.

But the Republicans, still angling for political advantage and unaware of how despised they are in the eyes of the public, rejected the President's overtures.

Word leaked out that Boehner had already sent the word down to his caucus: vote against the bill. And, sure enough, not a single Republican cast a vote for the stimulus. Recently-elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele later cooed "the goose egg that you laid on the president’s desk was just beautiful. Absolutely beautiful." How's that for bipartisanship?

After the Democrats passed the legislation through the House by virtue of their majority, there were rumblings about a Republican filibuster in the Senate. But then certain northeastern Senate Republicans, displaying some dim awareness of public sentiment, nixed that effort. Maine's two senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, and Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter sided with the President in voting to end debate in the Senate, providing the 60-vote majority to allow the legislation to move forward. Good for them, but it is hard to characterize their votes as heroic (despite clueless Joe Lieberman's call for them to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor). Polls are showing that the public approves of Obama's job performance at a rate of 67%. Congressional Republicans? Not quite so good. They come in at 31%, with 58% disapproving.

President Obama's patience has apparently worn thin. Last Thursday, he took to the national airwaves, broadcasting a speech he gave before a crowd of House Democrats. He ripped into the Republicans with some real zingers. "I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office." Or how about, "If you’re headed for a cliff, you’ve got to change direction." Whammy!

That's how its done!

It looks like the stimulus package will pass. And, just like the vast majority of Americans (with a few notable exceptions) I hope it works. But more than that, I hope that President Obama has taken to heart something that we Klamath Basin folk know by instinct: when you're dealing with a rattlesnake, a shovel works wonders.

Nieve en el cielo gris

La nieve se cae del cielo,
La nieve se cae del cielo,

Nunca he visto un tiempo como este,
Cuando todo el mundo puede ver
La manta que amenaza a enterrarnos
Abajo del vacío blanco y frío;

Hoy día el cielo es gris,
Hoy día el cielo es gris,

La esperanza que nosotros tenemos
Se queda más allá de las manos
Extendidas con nuestros corazones pobres
Marchita, marchita; ¡ay, ay, ay! marchita;

Hoy día el cielo es gris;
La nieve se cae del cielo;

How long before "populist rage" boils over?

Something is afoot.

• On June 27, 2008, a family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, facing foreclosure on their home, marched with sympathizers to the National City Bank and demanded to see the bank manager to insist that something be done to halt foreclosures. As they marched the crowd chanted "Criminal Offenders, Predatory Lenders!" The protest broke up when police arrived and asked the crowd to disperse. (Read about it here.)
  
  
• In October 2008, Sheriff Tom Dart in Cook County, Illinois, ordered his deputies not to enforce court-ordered evictions, saying "We will no longer be a party to something that's so unjust." (Read about it here.)
  
  
• On December 3, 2008, employees of Republic Windows and Doors occupied the manufacturing plant in Chicago, demanding that Bank of America, which had recently received hundreds of billions of federal bailout dollars, extend credit to the workers' employer so that Republic could meet payroll. After an occupation of 6 days, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America conceded to worker demands and agreed to pay a settlement of $1.75 million. (The corporate media were largely silent about the protest, but you can read about it here.)
  
  
• In rural Alaska this winter, villagers are resorting to harvesting nuts and berries and hunting game in order to avoid starvation. In remote areas of the state, milk costs $10 per gallon, a dozen eggs costs $22, and the cost to heat homes is running $1500 per month. (Read about it here.)
  
  
• On February 9, 2009, a group of protesters, angry about home foreclosures climbed on board a bus in Connecticut and drove to the homes of various big bank CEOs to protest lending practices. Here's the video from CNN:
  
  

The term being thrown around in the big newspaper editorials is "populist rage." Well, here's a clue for the wise punditry: fear does that to people. When times are good and everybody feels fat, the plebs don't mind so much when the financial pirates skim the cream off the milk bucket. But when people are losing their homes, when the price of food starts to disrupt their daily routines, when every day brings news of thousands of jobs disappearing and fear starts gnawing at their minds, people get a little cranky when the pigs gobble up the last of the lettuce in the federal treasury.

Somehow, in the twisted mindset of the Ayn Rand schoolboys that sit atop the financial ponzi scheme that has been bilking this country for at least the last 8 years, billions of dollars of executive bonuses are reasonable, fair, and just. But federal spending for health care or education or infrastructure maintenance are omens of looming socialism.

How far from here...

History is replete with bloody predictors of where this is all leading. Shall we go through the list? October Revolution? Bastille Day? Things have regressed to the point that these kinds of comparisons can't be scoffed away. Just this week, reactionary elements in the United States Congress fought tooth-and-nail against any significant measures to address the crisis.

...to here?

As I said in my post entitled "Best of times, worst of times," one has to imagine that the greedy capitalists, freshly gorged on the public treasury, must, at the very least, be experiencing some indigestion at these stirrings among the commoners. If the rabble is starting to coalesce into more-or-less organized entities, if they are truly desperate for food, if they are actually gathering at the homes of fat cat bankers and corporate titans to protest... how long until peaceful protest morphs into something else entirely? How long until the crowd becomes a mob? How long before they cobble up the scaffolding in the public square?

President Obama may be too little, too late.

Movie review: The Wrestler

This weekend, I finally made it to the theater to see Darren Aronofsky's much-acclaimed film, The Wrestler. Aronofsky is one of today's most formidable directing talents with a sparse but powerful resumé. I first became acquainted with his work when I viewed his 2000 masterpiece, the enormously powerful, absolutely brilliant, and deeply disturbing Requiem for a Dream.

The Wrestler features Mickey Rourke in the lead role, playing an aging professional wrestler, Randy "The Ram" Robinson, who must come to terms with his physical demise after abusing his body for 20 years. Randy's life as a professional wrestler has not been easy. Apart from the physical toll of his profession, he's alone, living in squalor, and estranged from his grown daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood). His only human connection is with a stripper, Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), herself facing the truth of her years, in whom he sees a potential companion with which he might try to forge some new life, away from the wrestling ring.

As the film progresses, we watch Randy come face to face with his own mortality. A serious health problem prods him into confronting his squandered past, the emotional and material poverty of his present, and his less-than-promising future. He sets out to discover if there might be some other life out there worth living.

The Wrestler is being billed as "the resurrection of Mickey Rourke," and for good reason. It may be a measure of Rourke's talent as an actor, but I feel that his characters are depictions of Rourke himself. So too with his portrayal of "The Ram" Robinson. But, in a break from previous roles (John in Nine 1/2 Weeks, for example, or Harry in Angel Heart), Rourke is no longer a smirking, super-macho, wise-cracker who defies the world. Randy "The Ram" is a man well-acquainted with defeat: humbled, bewildered, sorrowful. It is a masterful, heart-rending performance. And Tomei and Wood are both outstanding in the supporting roles.

In one scene, while performing a "lap dance" for Randy at the strip club, Cassidy (Tomei) tells Randy her impressions of the film The Passion of the Christ. She expresses amazement at the suffering endured by the Christ character. "They were giving it to him with whips, arrows, rocks. Everything. For the whole two hours." Randy, whom we have seen suffer similarly while plying his own trade as a professional wrestler, shakes his head in resigned acknowledgment. "Tough guy," he says. (Take that, Mel Gibson.)

The Wrestler uses no digital remastering for its imagery; the film is grainy. The camera perspective suggests a day-in-the-life chronicle like those typical in documentaries. There is no musical score. The dialog is bare bones, real: no poetic flourishes. Even Randy's soliloquy at the close of the movie is restrained, inarticulate, entirely believable. Taken altogether, these various techniques render an effect of sad resignation, of surrender.

In my mind, there is no doubt that The Wrestler succeeds. Just as he did with the earlier Requiem for a Dream, Aronofsky completely avoids sentimentality; he remains dispassionate and objective as he unflinchingly depicts the fall and destruction of his protagonist.

The Wrestler is an outstanding work. I give it my highest recommendation.

Fruit of the Reagan Revolution

"Kiss it, plebs!"

Virtually every day, the headlines announce massive lay-offs. The corporate giants that have been held up as paragons for the capitalist world are shedding jobs, dissolving like phantasmal oases leaving us standing in a barren economic desert. This condition has been at least 30 years in the making. Ever since Ronald Reagan tottered up to the world podium with his unapologetic defense of greed, laced with all his home-spun, folksy mockery, it has become unfashionable, if not downright treasonable, to suggest that maybe there should be some oversight or regulation of corporate engines, that perhaps there should be some restraint on unbridled greed.

President Carter was ridiculed for sounding the alarm about the energy crisis that many people saw coming after the oil embargoes of the '70s brought the US economy to its knees. Rather than face that uncomfortable reality, the American electorate opted for a feel-good demagogue who talked tough while structuring the apparatus that morally-bankrupt capitalists would use to fleece them for the next 30 years.

Save for a small group of obstinate reactionaries, people everywhere not only acknowledge the concept of global warming, but seem to recognize that it is probably too late to do anything to avoid the devastating consequences that it is sure to bring about. Even if we were to immediately curb emissions today, the CO₂ that is already introduced into the atmosphere is melting away polar ice at a rate never before seen in Earth's geologic history.

Soon enough, of course, our CO₂ emissions will abate, for the simple reason that the lifeblood of modern civilization, petroleum, can no longer be extracted at a rate to satisfy demand.

Conservatives still hold Ronald Reagan up as their patron saint, claiming his presidency ushered in "Morning in America." Well, maybe so, maybe so. But here we are, in the cold light of day.

Now what?

GOP: Sabotage! It's all they've got.

Honestly, I don't know if the economic stimulus plan proposed by the Obama administration, passed by the House, and currently being debated in the Senate is a good idea or not. But, I'll go out on a limb here and venture that nobody knows.

What I do know is that the Republicans are determined to undermine President Obama. They have nothing else. They are currently despised by the general public, as we've seen from the results of the last two national elections; they have no heir apparent to put forth as the "daddy" that their mindless supporters so desperately seek; they have no real idea about why they have been rejected.

In spite of President Obama taking the extraordinary step of going to Capitol Hill to meet with Congressional Republicans to hear their concerns last week before the stimulus vote, not a single Republican stepped out of line when John Boehner put the hammer down. None voted in favor of the stimulus package.

And have a look at what GOP mucky-mucks have been saying lately:

• The zombie king, Big Dick, hissed and spat from his Wyoming crypt just yesterday about the supposed folly of the Obama administration's cessation of the worst of Cheney's policies. I wrote about it here.
  
  
• Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX) called for a Taliban-like resistance to Obama administration policies. "Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban," Sessions said. "And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban -- I'm not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that's not what we're saying. I'm saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with." Read about it here.
  
  
• Rush Limbaugh was even more blunt: "I hope [Obama] fails." (Q: What's the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg? A: One is a bloated Nazi gasbag; the other is an airship.)
  
  
• And, just to top it all off, former Bush White House Chief of Staff, Andy Card, complained that President Obama's lack of a jacket in the Oval Office offended Andy's sensibilities. In an interview with Inside Edition, Card said "there should be a dress code of respect" in the Oval Office. This is the same Andy Card whom Junior once dismissed from a meeting by telling him "You're the chief of staff. You think you're up to getting us some cheeseburgers?"

In 2004, Republicans had 229 House seats, and 51 Senate seats. Today, after the disaster of Junior's second term, they have 178 House seats, and 41 Senate seats. And now, all they can do is cross their fingers and hope that Obama fails.

Doesn't it all seem petty and useless? But more than that, it is revealing isn't it?

With no direction, no leader, and no ideas in the face of the economic crisis this country is currently facing, the Republicans revert to the only game they know.