The New Media

Happy Birthday, Mr President

Dear Mr President;

Surely you are a man of some worth, sir, for the confederacy of dunces arrayed against you is a legion of limitless imbecility. It is always astonishing how stubborn ignorance can remain in the face of facts, but bigots are not known for accommodating reason into their worldview. Equivocating know-nothings blandly libel you and your supporters and the referees of media shrug, having long been compromised and confounded by an establishment that longs to be radical, and a culture that is aching to undo itself rather than be led by a black man whose middle name is ‘Hussein’.  This is not to say that anyone who disagrees with you is a Klan-loving inbred homunculus; I’ve disagreed with you about plenty of things, most recently the way White House fired Shirley Sherrod without even an investigation. I think you’ve been far too cozy with corporations that have been downright un-American in their treatment of Americans, for another. Nobody’s perfect and I try to temper my hopes and expectations with my pragmatic sense; the thing ideologues can never accept is that compromise is the grease that keeps the engine of politics running. Your office is tasked with governing and that is something that you have done admirably considering that the situation generally looks ungovernable.

It’s funny, a few years ago the people who are ready to take up arms against you were explaining to me how I’m not a patriot because I wrote some blog posts excoriating George W Bush. I suppose this sort of a thing is a matter of perspective: I thought that Bush was illegitimately elected because his brother was the governor of Florida and his secretary of state who certified the contested results was also Bush’s campaign manager for Florida. Also, the supreme court justices who voted for him were placed there by his dad and his dad’s friends. The people who think you were illegitimately elected believe it was because you were born in Kenya or Mohammedland or something and that you are an Islamic Manchurian Candidate who is a secret Black Panther and hates white people. So it’s almost exactly the same kind of reasoning, I suppose. Like, I opposed the Bush tax cuts, spending increases, and deregulation of businesses because I thought it could have a devastating affect on the economy. Today, your opponents are fighting your nefarious plan to take our guns and put us into camps, or make us socialists, or turn white people into slaves. I’m actually not clear on all of the various plots. They are numerous and quite complex, but I’m sure Glenn Beck could explain it with a chalkboard.

Try to enjoy the day today, sir. It looks like the oil leak might actually be under control, so take the afternoon off. Drink a beer. Have a smoke or two. Try not to feel discouraged; remember, almost half of us know that you are a natural born US citizen and that of the quarter of us who think you aren’t, it’s really only about eleven percent that are absolutely sure of your perfidy which is about the same number of adults who are certain that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old and that people co-existed with dinosaurs. So, that should cheer you up or make you really depressed depending on how you look at it, I guess. They say that people get the leaders they deserve and I’m not certain that we deserve you, sir, but we need you. Thank you for your continued service. Happy Birthday.

Sincerely,

Winston Delgado

Holy Crap

I guess this makes up for losing the Olympics…

I honestly had to look at the headlines twice to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

I was giggling all the way into the Clown Factory thinking about the steam coming out of the ears of various conservatives… I am going to really enjoy hearing their thoughts on this.

*******
Prof-
There’s a lot of right wing idiots who are  talking crazy right now, and I don’t see how this news will help the situation at all. While I don’t believe for a minute that these cretins could actually pull off the fantasy coup that they are fwapping to with spastic abandon, that doesn’t mean that people aren’t going to get hurt. We live in interesting times.

Leave the jokes to the pros, Mr. President.

Mocking handicapped people is the lowest form of humor. Even if one is being self-deprecating, the deprecation of the disabled is implied. I’m not one of those rubes who longs to have his President be a simpleton that will drink beer with him or a down-home yokel who says ‘shucks’ and giggles at himself  after he farts in church. I really don’t need my President to be one of the clowns who caper on the television to keep mouthbreathers entertained. What I want is a President who will do his job and leave the jokes to the professionals.

If you think it’s funny to call someone retarded, two things are true: A) you are not funny. B) you are not very smart. This isn’t a matter of ‘political correctness’ or ‘sensitivity’, but rather a truth I can prove with a slide rule and an Etch-a-Sketch.

UPDATE****************************************
I’m on board with this campaign.
Wow. Me n’ Sarah Palin agree on something. Whaddya know? Strange times, kiddies, strange times. And it kinda chaps my ass. Mr. President, you have managed to annoy me.
RIGHT FRAKKING ON.
SPREAD THE WORD TO END THE WORD.  

SIGN THE FRAKKING PLEDGE. THEN KEEP IT.

Oh, btw, PUMA and other assorted maniacs…

LOOK!!!!! The Bible Obama’s getting sworn in on. And homophobe Rick Warren is giving the sermon. If you were one of the people who vehemently insisted to me that it would be a Qur’an and a Mullah, I hope you feel silly right now and would reconsider some of your other cherished beliefs. I realize this is unlikely, but seeing as how Texasdarlin’ has finally recognized herself to be an ignorant blogger who bloviates, I suppose anything is possible. Seriously, just read the weasel-word-laced ‘disclaimer’ on the right column of her site and be staggered by the leeway she allows herself to spread lies and misinformation. She banned me for pointing out that one of the Obama theories she was propagating originated on white supremacist websites. She said I was ‘race baiting’.

In related news, RNC Chairman Mike Duncan shows some class. I’ve noticed a big division forming on the right wing between the foaming maniacs and the people who are starting to see that their associates are foaming maniacs who have led them horribly astray. Hopefully it keeps them too busy to obstruct the next President from doing his job.

Pragmatism, not Ideology

One of the things that annoys ideologues the most is to talk about pragmatism. My conservative friends predictably get riled when I argue that their ideology is impractical and that they haven’t taken into account the consequences of turning their ideologies into actual policy. Coming from them, the word ‘pragmatism’ sounded like ‘women’s health’ on McCain’s lips. But with the election of Obama and his obviously pragmatic approach to governing becoming apparent, now it is the turn of left wing ideologues to turn ‘pragmatism’ into a dirty word.

That last link is to a Glenn Greenwald column in Salon. I usually agree with him or at the least find him to be interesting and provocative, but in this case I think he’s falling into the same trap as his counterparts on the right wing. I do agree with his notion that ideology can be an useful framework for seeing the world and approaching previously unconsidered situations, but I think he puts too much weight on it. For one thing, he changes the basic premise of the Iraq War in order to suit his argument. The problem is that the Iraq War (as Greenwald himself has repeatedly argued) was an ideologically motivated conflict, not a pragmatic one. There were and are no pragmatic reasons for invading that nation, although there are now pragmatic reasons for not unilaterally and abruptly withdrawing (in the same sense that while there are no pragmatic reasons for suddenly jamming a butcher’s knife into your stomach, there are pragmatic reasons for suddenly pulling it out).

The primary problem of the Bush Administration is that it has only operated from an ideological stance over the eight years, only stooping to pragmatic approaches when it has been forced to. Obviously the further left wing of the Democratic Party is disappointed that Obama isn’t going to appoint Starshine Q Moonbeam to be Secretary of Defense, and I think that’s a beautiful thing. The Clinton Administration was very successful at governing (as opposed to ruling, which is what we have endured for the past eight years) and it only makes sense to bring in some of those people to do jobs they know how to do.

It is difficult to overestimate how bad things really are right now. Even if one doesn’t pay attention to the news or otherwise insulates themselves from reality, it should be obvious that the US has some very serious issues to deal with. An inexperienced Cabinet would have a dangerously steep learning curve to deal with and the country cannot bear another stumbling executive-in eight years Bush never hit a stride and so Obama is going to have to hit a perfect one with his first step.

Opus Magnum & opus minimae

Obama’s grandmother dies the day before the election. How metaphysically improbable is that? My sympathies to him and his family. What a strange mix of emotions that one must be feeling.

I have been a devoted fan of Berkeley Breathed’s work since I first saw ‘Bloom County’ in the newspaper around twenty five years ago. Two of my favorite shirts that I regularly wore when I was 14 or 15 were my ‘Don’t Blame Me, I Voted For Bill n’ Opus’ and ‘Penguin Lust’ tees. Whenever I hear ‘I Am the Walrus’ and John Lennon sings the line elementary penguin singing hare krishna, this image pops into my mind:

elementary penguin singing hare krishna

That’s from one of the earliest appearance of Opus, maybe twenty three or four years ago. It’s a simple little strip that is hilarious and endearing. Mr. Breathed is retiring the character and although I understand his reasons, it still makes me a little sad. At least Opus got a proper ending rather than an abrupt cancellation. The last strip is here, and the last panel of the strip is here. If you are unfamiliar with the most recent version of the strip, browse through the archives and enjoy.

‘Bloom County’ was one of the reasons I started drawing cartoons myself. I doodled Opus and Bill the Cat (among others) endlessly in high school and it affected my style of illustration. I still make cartoons when I can, but it’s more difficult and time consuming than most people appreciate. Back when I was annoying PUMA’s I started putting together a strip featuring ‘myiq2xu’, one of the proud PUMA clownbloggers. He enjoys altering dissenting commentary. As it quickly became obvious that the PUMA’s were just a handful of irrelevant loudmouthed neurotics I lost interest with the strip and moved on to other things. But I’ve been getting a lot of traffic from the PUMA sites lately and figure that today is as fine a day as any to post these panels. That the modus operandi of the PUMAs is to delete dissent and argument, I believe it is fitting that I never wrote dialogue for these strips. Click on the image for full size and caption.

ARTCRIME INK: EPISODE 43:23341L/22Q (Furious Buddha and The Prof Meet The PUMA KLOWN)

Myiq2xu pontificates about the evil of Barack Obama. Miss Mayweather thought this image was disturbing and I agree. However, it resembles myiq2xu's own avatar so it's not really character assassination.

Here he continues his deranged pontifications, most likely about the certain existence of a video of Michelle Obama using 'whitey' as a racial slur.

I never did a drawing for the panel where Furious Buddha assaults myiq2xu with Sarcasticus. But as my comments were deleted, it’s more aesthetically pleasing for the reader to imagine the scene.

The aftermath of the attack. Myiq2xu makes a lame joke.

The Prof asks a question and Furious Buddha explains that myiq2xu is a mutant troll, a new breed that regenerates and is scary looking but ultimately harmless and pitiable.

A lame joke referencing Monty Python and the Holy Grail is made. Sorry I didn't really bother finishing this one.

The last panel would probably be Furious Buddha and the Prof walking away. In any case, I hope you enjoyed this lame non-cartoon.

Barack Hussein Obama is an Arab. Except when he’s a black man. Also he’s a scary terrorist. Except when he’s a white flag waving wimp.

The Chicago Tribune is picking up on what the rest of have known for a while now: The guy who originated the ‘Obama is a Muslim’ rumor is an anti-semite nutjob. Of course, this doesn’t stop the demented conservative base from embracing everything this lunatic says as gospel. It is no small irony that the people who fret about Obama’s ‘shady connections’ are so willing to associate themselves with ranting racist garbage. What is strange is that they are so vigilant in ‘moderating’ away comments from their posts but eagerly allow such toxic individuals to get right next to them to whisper in their ears.

Another comment that will soon be ‘moderated’:
Winston Delgado
on Oct 13th, 2008 at 1:59 pm Your comment is awaiting moderation.

You are a coward who can’t even defend his own stupid provocations. Your mouth is writing checks your spine can’t cash. However, I am appreciative of you providing yet another fine example of right wing wimps who like to talk tough but run away squealing without even crying ‘uncle’. Go put on some clean pants and try to act like a man from now on.
Thank you.

Now, Dear Reader, what would make the Furious Buddha so antagonistic? Since ‘Political Byline: conservative liberatian opinion ‘ has already deleted the post that is the focus of my outrage, you must go here to see what the clever mouthbreathers did. Yes, that really is a picture of Obama and a noose with the caption ‘The fucking solution’. Even though the big brave conservative libertarians have removed the article, ‘Washington  Scandal’ has preserved the post in it’s entirity. 

It would be easy to dismiss this blog post as just another troglodyte cousinhumper shooting off his mouth, but according to alexa he gets enough traffic to put him in the top 900,000 sites on the web-which doesn’t sound like much but it’s a lot more traffic than I get, Dear Reader, and he had people like Michelle Malkin linking into his filthy little post. Out one of side of their mouths these people sneer that Obama supporters cry ‘racism’ at every criticism and out of the other side they cheer every repugnant racist catcall that comes from their crowd.

Forty or so years ago, people called Dr King a ‘communist’. Hoover’s FBI worked with conservatives in the media such as Pat Buchannan to spread baseless rumors about him. They attacked him with dogs, threw bricks and stones at him, and when they first heard that he had been murdered felt something like joy in their dark tiny hearts. I would have not compared Barack Obama to Dr King six months ago but the confederacy of dunces that has arisen to oppose him looks very familiar to me.      

The Dow flucutated over a 1000 points on Friday. This year’s nobel prize winner in economics describes our current financial crisis as resembling the Great Depression. And the right wing is shrieking that the Democratic nominee is an ‘Arab Terrorist’ and the GOP candidates are encouraging them. They are so irresponsible that it is difficult to believe that they are actually doing these things, but when the chips are down people tend to show their true faces. And it appears that the true face of the right wing is not pretty at all.

***Update. The wingnuts really are allowing the most deranged among them generate their talking points. Here at this prominent PUMA blog they weave elaborate accusations that Obama was born in Kenya and isn’t an American citizen at all. Let’s see how long this comment lasts:
furious buddhaYour comment is awaiting moderation.
I find it interesting that you are running with the same theories that can be found on ‘White Nationalist’ blogs such as ‘Stormfront’. Doesn’t the fact that Ann Dunham, Obama’s mother, wasn’t in Kenya at the time he was born, and was in fact, demonstrably in Hawaii at the time he was born refute your ‘theory’? Unless, of course, there was some sort of miracle surrounding the circumstances of his birth that allowed him to be in two places at the same time. That’s about the only way your ‘theory’ could work. 
-Winston Delgado

I won’t link to the Stormfront article directly, but here’s the google search that will lead you to it.

UPDATE II***
That took about two minutes. I tried again for my own amusement.
Sorry. You obviously deleted my comment because my laptop freaked out and cut a portion as I hit post, leaving it an incomplete thought. Here it is in full. I’m certain that you are a decent person capable of fair political discussion and weren’t just deleting my comment because it disagrees with your premise. I’m certainly not accusing you of racism, just pointing out that you are propagating the theories of racists.

Original comment-
I find it interesting that you are running with the same theories that can be found on ‘White Nationalist’ blogs such as ‘Stormfront’. Doesn’t the fact that Ann Dunham, Obama’s mother, wasn’t in Kenya at the time he was born, and was in fact, demonstrably in Hawaii at the time he was born refute your ‘theory’? Unless, of course, there was some sort of miracle surrounding the circumstances of his birth that allowed him to be in two places at the same time. That’s about the only way your ‘theory’ could work.
-Winston Delgado

And before I could even post this update, ‘texasdarlin’ deleted the above comment and replaced it with this:
ADMIN NOTE: Comment deleted for race-baiting, user banned.

Joe Vogler vs. William Ayers

Joe Vogler was the founder of the Alaskan Independence Party. He had secured sponsorship from Iran to speak before the United Nations to denounce American tyranny and demand independence for Alaska shortly before his body was found wrapped in duct tape and a plastic sheet in a quarry. Allegedly a platic explosives sale had gone badly. Todd Palin was registered to vote as a member of the AIP. Earlier this year Governor Palin sent a videotaped greeting to the AIP convention.

William Ayers founded the Weather Underground in 1969. He turned himself in to authorities in 1980. The charges against him were dropped. By the 90’s Ayers was a professor of education at the University of Chicago. Barack Obama met him when they were serving on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Project, a non-profit founded by noted conservative William Annenberg to distribute funds in the Chicago Public School system. They also served on the Wood Fund together and Ayers hosted a ‘coffee’ for Obama, which, as anyone familiar with local politics knows, doesn’t exactly form a blood bond between two people.

Obviously, guilt-by-association is about the last tactic left in the bag of trick employed by the Right. It’s a dangerous card for them to throw out, however, as so many of their associates are dripping in slime. And it’s not like they’re courting the smart people vote, either.

Tuesday Night Fights

Liveblogging Obama/McCain at Port Awesome tonight.