had a long, personable politcal talk (dialogue with listening and back and forth)with friends in deep south this summer. they like mccain/palin. country first and all.

in some ways, they're pretty unamerican, actually looking for some big strong govt. to come and protect them from the terrorists. i commented that terrorism is a real issue and obviously something to be concerned about and fought, but not nearly so frightening as having our freedoms eroded until we live in a dictatorship. they were unconvinced. so you're willing to lend blind faith in the same cats who brought us the war?

tactic: but i don't know anything about obama--he's a muslim as far as I know

sigh.

but in other ways we agree about things, but there's always a but. they think the health care insurance companies are pirates, but that "socialized" healthy care would screw us even worse. there must a rational middle ground right? (see obama's latest commercial. not sure what i think about that just yet)

they're trying to turn this into a third world country with cheap, unorganized labor, i said. they agreed, but when i tried to connect the "they" to mccain's plutocratic cadre of lobbyist handlers, they reminded me that he was a war hero.

they conceded that that in and of itself wasn't proof that he'd make a good prez, but they were still drinking the koolaid.

in that city pretty much everyone depends on defense industry and thinks the same way (as so many humans tend to do), but man is it frustrating. i get it, i understand where they're coming from, but at some level it's not just about them being victims of propoganda; it's also about them stepping and drinking the koolaid because it feels good to belong, and feel good to be self-righeous, and paying attention to reality and standing by actual principles is a lot or work.

dear cary, what do i do? ha. the personal don't amount to a hill o' beans compared to the bigger political. i wonder if this whole bailout fiasco will change any minds? if they'll make a connection between fox-in-henhouse republican rule and their dwindling 401s?

too many are willing to buy even the slenderest of justifications for why this is all the libs' fault.

it's like palin--i can empathize on the human level, but when i actually think of all the pain and suffering this b.s. has and continues to cause, i start getting pissed all over again.

it's time for conservatives to step up and recall some actual conservative values, as Glen Greenwald so ably noted.

side note--my one white friend who grew up in deep country small town where black folk and white folk didn't really, y'know, date, had her dna done and found out that she has people from africa in her ancestry. ah, technology...

"Icould list ways she could improve her 'performance' but as a concerned citizen, I'd rather not help her.

-- MrEdCT "

yeah!

i suppose the last resort of coping with 0"branding" troubles would be to improve the actual "product"; that is, come up with a pair of cnadidates intent on serving the interests of the nation as a whole rather the interests of the true elitists in the oil, big pharm, defense/offense, etc., industries. and then have them speak honestly and intelligently about how they planned to do so...

of course, it would help if we didn't think and talk in these absurdly reductive terms to begin with

the laser-like focus of the corporate mentality has helped them amass enormous profits, but their myopia has led to some pretty disastrous results

this election isn't just a spectacle and buying products doesn't make us whole citizens or human beings

hmm. all seem awkward. fair enough, salon ;)

what's clear is that true patriots aren't afraid to criticize what they love in the hopes of improving it.

this is sorta, y'know, the american way and the entire purpose of democracy.

dead-enders like palin aren't comfortable with gray areas and want to pretend that being a "good american" means submitting mindlessly to orders and ideas from the an authoritarian state.

it's a reprise of the whole "with us or against us" / "if you have reservations about this war you want the terrorists to win" / "freedom fries" line of total bullshit the neocons trotted out before the invasion of Iraq to stifle discussion, debate, and dissent—those practices vital to any true democracy.

and look how that turned out.

this is all an aside, really. the charges are ludicrous and unbecoming a true statesperson. but, again, it's really all the implicit assumptions in the method and tone of attack that really get my attention.

big brother/sister, anyone?

I wonder if the moderator of the debate will find it useful to step in as a representative of the reality-based community?

Sarah Hepola: "But just because you're 'meta' doesn't mean you're 'interesting.' "

Well said! I like experiments and even often ironic self-consciousness, but it should be the vehicle, aye, and not the destination...?

"No one who supports Obama (more than 50% of the country by current poll estimates) believes that Warren Buffet supports a socialist candidate for president. No one who supports Obama believes Colin Powell supports a terrorist candidate for president."

-- Clockwork Smurf

Nicely said! Thanks, too, Glenn, for the article.