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Congrats on getting your salon card moments after the GOCon ended in Sept.. But if you think your 'tude invites discussion, then you don't know jack, or pounce or sunspot. You aren't addressing the article, just ragging on those who comment, and on salon itself, which you joined, and I believe paid for. Ever read Faulkner? Sound and fury and all that? No one is engaging w/u b/c you seem happy, unhappy, to fume, and unlikely to have an exchange of any value with anyone, even yourself. If you like to simply beat up liberals, meet me at the Venice Pier and I'll show you where the vegan peace-nik ends and screaming judo-girl begins. At least we don't yank your posts like slick-looking right-wing-nut sites do, loaded w/violent scary stuff and threats to Obama *already*, like this one:
http://patdollard.com/
I don't drink Kool-Aid or join cults/religions, and I have followed Obama intellectually for a long time. The Obama-noia out there is the result of willful ignorance, the signature trait of our current POTUS. Obama is the only pol I've ever followed who possesses Negative Capability, and it's about time for that. He is a complex cat, an excellent writer, speaker and delegator. He is married to a smart, strong, warm woman and both come from middle-class homes. Hallelujah! Radical socialists with spooky agendas don't raise bubbly, happy children like that. 6 year-olds do not tow the line.
Now as for your other misguided perception: Obama is not protectionist b/c he wants agreements to be fair to workers and not just CEOs. He has supported and voted for FTAs, but is not a sheep. CAFTA was a bad deal. Sure NAFTA is good for Texas, but it sucks for NC and the textile industry. On balance it's good, but the quality of product isn't factored in and THAT matters to me. Cheap fabric ultimately costs more and gone are the quality twills and indigos from the Carolinas as well as the indigenous pattern weavings of the Tepehua, over run by cheap yarns from the US. Lovely strawberries from Chile, loaded with toxins. If the US would stop subsidizing corn, fluid dairy and paying farmers not to grow, we might be able have truly free-trade, but don't delude yourself we ever had it. We need to change the way things are pointed. If our farmers are encouraged to grow what grows seasonally, and are subsidized to learn how to implement safe fertilization, pest control and rotation techniques, they will no longer be dependent on growing corn for Big-Gulp softdrinks and we will all benefit healthwise. Enough? How about the subject article now?
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The Fundamentalists have static perceptions of a world they wish was static. They got stuck on "life" and dis-remembered the 'liberty and the pursuit of happiness' part as they head into my doctor's office and bedroom to straighten me out. It's a privacy issue - not 'abortion rights' as you Republics like to call it. Most Democrats are far more libertarian than you probably think. So stay the f out of my medical procedures and my sex life, stop bugging my tele, reading my emails, firing my independent-minded civil employees for not being fundamentalists, stop running your Humvees over my Constitution, calling increased effluents "Clear Skies" and giving no-bid contracts to your immoral, greedy, um, "Christian" friends (Blackwater).
And those Holy Rollers who claim to be close enough to the holy spirit to KNOW what is, to believe the Bible infallible, well, to them I say - your God's a dick. To wonder and question is a joy. The human imagination and intellect are protean wonders one could, and I do, spend a lifetime marveling at and learning from. To have to KNOW so desperately that you have to make it up, and unimaginatively put your own face on your God's face in a show of true vanity (a sin isn't that?) and be done with it, is a bummer. Philosophers would perish and what would we do in a world run by fundamentalists except observe the death of imaginative thought and courageous journeys into the unknown? May they lighten up or move to Wasilla. Amen.
