Month: September 2014

Hi, Steven D here, and this is a special guest appearance from the award winning progressive blog, The Field Negro. The Field is one of my favorite reads and has been for a long time. He’s given Booman and I a shout-out on many an occasion and we have been more than happy to return the favor.

Field works as an trial attorney in Philly (originally from Jamaica) and is a social justice activist, and his blog focuses on issues of race and human rights, though like anyone, he writes on other topics as well. Make sure you do yourself a favor, if he isn’t already on your favorite sites, to check out everyday and wander over to the his blog. You’ll be glad you did.

This ODS (Obama derangement syndrome) is no joke. And here I thought that the folks over at The National Review were the smartest of the wingnut lot.

William F. Buckley, Jr., the intellectual racist, must be turning over in his grave.

Sarah Palin blaming the media and Obama for her daughter’s potentially criminal behavior I can understand. Let’s face it, she is not too bright. But this kind of rhetoric coming from a so called intellectual is surprising.

I never heard of Jim Geraghty before, and after reading what he had to write for National Review I am glad I didn’t.

This genius actually said that Barack Obama is to blame for the NFL’s domestic violence problem.

“Jim Geraghty, an editor at the conservative National Review wonders if it’s possible that the recent scandals rocking the NFL might in some way be traced to President Barack Obama.

“Does our president just reflect a broad cultural trend in the behavior of leaders,” Geraghty wrote Monday, “or does he set the tone from the top?”
From there, Geraghty goes on to chronicle a number of national scandals, like the IRS’s alleged targeting of conservative groups and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodel‘s [sic] botched response to a rash of misconduct within the league:

… Goodell told CBS This Morning he never saw the second tape of Rice striking his wife before Monday. He said, “when we make a decision we want to have all the information that’s available. When we met with Ray Rice and his representatives it was ambiguous about what actually happened.” Friday afternoon, he announced the league would be making a new effort in dealing with unacceptable player conduct . . . by forming a special committee. …

The country feels deeply betrayed by its governing and economic elites. Enter Obama. He’s elected. …

And you know what we got. Stimulus waste; State Department employees on paid leave over Benghazi; “At this point, what difference does it make?”; the VA, where the secretary belatedly discovered an “unacceptable lack of integrity within some of our veterans health facilities,” Obamacare, where Kathleen Sebelius let the president go out and say things about the website she knew weren’t true, and still kept her job for several months. The NSA.

Geraghty concludes: “The message has been sent, far and wide: Accountability is for suckers.” [Source]

Just wow.

Let’s give conservatives a gold medal for the shark jumping event in the clueless Olympics.

My man even threw in a Benghazi reference for good measure. He made sure that there is enough red meat for all the hungry ODS sufferers out there.

I can only hope that their coverage under Obamacare will help them pay for a cure.

(Field Negro)

I am currently eating lunch, so here’s a song about that meal by the Upper Crust, who are the ideal band for our new Gilded Age.

And here’s a song about the table at which they ate:

Consider this an open thread: feel free to speak ill of your betters, peasants.

Got an email from Martin’s father thanking me for keeping the site running. I appreciate that, but in all fairness, I must offer my thanks to the community here at Booman Tribune for stepping up. You have all been incredibly supportive, and for those who are posting diaries and sending me your work to my email (stevendbt at yahoo dot com) for publication, I am forever indebted to you.

Now a personal story.

Our family have been trying to help a young man, a friend of ours, get back on his feet. He’s had a very difficult life. He was born into a Jehovah’s Witnesses family that did not believe in education so he never graduated high School. They did not believe in mental illness either. Unfortunately, he showed signs of severe OCD (at its worst he hears voices in his head telling him how bad he is and the OCD ‘tics’ he exhibits are primarily to shut his consciousness off from that) and anxiety disorders from an early age.

He was abused by his parents (no details because I won’t share that publicly, but imagine the worst) leading to what I consider PTSD like symptoms (depression, nightmares, paranoid delusions), and, oh yes, he is gay. When he came out to them at 16 they threw him out of the house and onto the streets to fend for himself. Most of his extended family shunned him with a few exceptions.

With that background, he found it hard to hold and keep a job. Like many with untreated people with mental illness he tried street drugs to self-medicate, in his case, heroin. He’s a recovering addict now.

Not a surprise he fell through the cracks of our health care system. Generally, he was only seen by doctors when he went to the emergency room. We have him signed up for Medicaid, but every psychiatrist refuses to treat him because of his past history of addiction. They do not want to be caught prescribing meds for his mental health conditions, which are often controlled substances.

The only mental health treatment the county offers is group therapy, often a very stressful environment for him. And that treatment is more related to the fact he has a history of addiction, not specifically targeted to his other, more significant underlying issues. His parents did agree to pay airfare to Florida where he sees a friend from his teenage years who became a doctor. She is literally the only M.D. who would agree to prescribe pyschoactive meds for his OCD, ADD, anxiety and other problems, and she’s a general practitioner, not a psychiatrist or psychologist.

This year his grandmother died. He also recently received a week long visit from his parents for the first time in years. Unfortunately, that was very stressful for him. In addition, he’s been going through the process of obtaining disability benefits, and needless to say, that’s been a long, difficult bureaucratic nightmare. He has not been sleeping the last few nights because his nightmares related to past trauma make him so fearful he keeps himself awake, leading to sleep deprivation and an exacerbation of his other disorders.

The last two days, the walls crumbled. He became delusional (thought for a while he was part of a special crimes unit profiling serial killers because of the TV shows he watched to stay awake were all in that vein), paranoid, a little verbally belligerent (not to the point of violence). However he would then quickly become weepy, depressed and talking of his “will” and his plans for his funeral. To the best we can tell, these are signs of a dissociative state, where he literally does not know what he his doing, where his is, and even at times his identity. We are considering getting him a full psych evaluation. Of course, first we would have to take him to the emergency room.

He is representative of all too many people who are poor and have mental health issues. There is no system in place to help people in his condition. We are lucky he gets any treatment at all due to his involvement in the county’s drug addiction program, and his doctor friend in Florida. But it is not enough. More and more of the poor, mentally ill population are left to the police to deal with, and we all know how that’s been working out, don’t we?

And yet, as Martin’s father reminded me our big-hearted Republicans and conservatives want to slash more funding for those in poverty (hat tip to Booman’s father) because they are so “lazy” and of course, no government programs always equals more jobs. Except it doesn’t.

[I]t’s still amazing — and revealing — to hear this line being repeated now. For the blame-the-victim crowd has gotten everything it wanted: Benefits, especially for the long-term unemployed, have been slashed or eliminated. So now we have rants against the bums on welfare when they aren’t bums — they never were — and there’s no welfare. Why?

First things first: I don’t know how many people realize just how successful the campaign against any kind of relief for those who can’t find jobs has been. But it’s a striking picture. The job market has improved lately, but there are still almost three million Americans who have been out of work for more than six months, the usual maximum duration of unemployment insurance. That’s nearly three times the pre-recession total. Yet extended benefits for the long-term unemployed have been eliminated — and in some states the duration of benefits has been slashed even further. […]

Strange to say, this outbreak of anti-compassionate conservatism hasn’t produced a job surge. In fact, the whole proposition that cruelty is the key to prosperity hasn’t been faring too well lately. Last week Nathan Deal, the Republican governor of Georgia, complained that many states with Republican governors have seen a rise in unemployment and suggested that the feds were cooking the books. But maybe the right’s preferred policies don’t work?

Well, I’m off to get coffee. Will have a special guest blogger with a post from his site a little later this morning.

On the recently front-paged article Former Senator Webb thinking of running for President…a post about the possiblility of a “peace” candidate running for preznit in 2016…Marie2 posted the following historically quite  accurate comment:

In 1972, George McGovern was fifty years old.  He had served four years in the US House and ten in the US Senate.  He’d supported and worked for Democratic candidates before running for office himself.  He wasn’t merely anti-war but pro-peace.

The most qualified DEM POTUS nominee since FDR with integrity as well.  But Americans (including the DINO wing of the DEM Party) overwhelmingly preferred the drunk, venal Nixon and his creepy henchmen.  It’s been Nixonlandia ever since.

 
I elaborated on this idea.

Read for the rest of the story.
In 1972 the power of the American PermaGov-owned media was reaching its peak. It had already proven itself by whitewashing the assassination era in the minds of the lumpen publitariat. The media made Nixon president under orders from the PermaGov…it will act the same way under similar orders if an anti-war/pro-peace candidate does surface this year here in Omertica, bet on it… and it broke him when he disobeyed orders from the same interests. “Deep Throat” my royal Irish ass!!! The whole Watergate thing was an intelligence hustle the media segment of which was run through Bob Woodward, an intelligence media asset if ever there was one.

Have things changed now?

Not a chance. Not strategically, anyway. The strategy is to hustle the rubes, just as it’s always been. It’s only in terms of tactics that things are different in the current setup. Tactically the operation has become much more complex. The change is in the media system itself. It’s digital and thus much more dispersed than it was. More complicated. No more 2 or 3 newspapers and 2 or 3 TV networks; now it’s all over the place.

Is that a weakness? Let us pray that it is, but I think that dispersal problem will be overcome as well. they have promoted the Iraq War v.3 pretty damned well, as a cursory look at the top of today’s Google News page will certainly attest. Its lead headline as of 11:30 AM EST, 9/24/14?

From the Amazon-owned Washingtoon Post.

US military leaders: Strikes in Syria are just the start of a prolonged campaign

Riiiiight…

 (By the way…Amazon is a CIA business partner if not even deeper in the intelligence mix. Bet on that as well.)

The general result in the minds of the gawping American public?

Geez, Martha!!! It sez right here!!! We’re in it for the long haul. Them lousy ISIS guys!!! They’re gonna get whut’s comin’ to ’em now!!! Betcha!!!

Yup.

About the latest “peace” candidates? We’ll see, won’t we.

Looks like business as usual, to me.

War business.

Calvin Coolidge said “…the chief business of the American people is business.”

Maybe then.

Now?

We’ll see.

On recent evidence? It’s obedience that is their chief business.

Obedience to the media’s dictates.

Watch.

AG

In comments, dataguy asked that I post some videos of the bands I play with.

It’s a timely request: as I mentioned a few posts down, I just got back from 6 days on the road with April Mae and the June Bugs, an Americana/roots band from south Jersey. It’s a big jumble of sounds: a little rockabilly, a little bluegrass, some swing, and lot of blues.

Tour went very well: the highlight for me was a couple of sets we did early in the morning at Fort Payne Middle School, playing for an exuberantly enthusiastic audience of 7th and 8th graders, followed by a similar show for 5th and 6th graders.

So, here’s a nice clip from a show we did back in March 2014, with Muscle Shoals alum Russell Gulley.

Also, get well soon Booman, we miss you!

Promoted by Steven D. I think Booman would agree with you about our dear Uncle Bobo.

Shorter David Brooks, “Snap Out of It“, New York Times, September 23, 2014:
I don’t know why everybody’s so upset. There’s nothing wrong with our government that couldn’t easily be solved by eliminating partisanship and getting legislators to dock their own pay if they don’t get their work done. Meanwhile it’s autumn in New York! And the city’s the most walkable it’s been in years, in the parts I go to!

I love walking in New York too, I’m not going to lie. Still, it’s a little bit fatuous to be so pleased to be a wealthy person (just sold the Cleveland Park place for about $4.5 million, we hear) in the most unequal city in the United States.

Driftglass keeps calling Brooks a Whig, but he’s always been a Tory, longing for an imaginary time when America was governed by the well-reared, well-behaved younger sons of a squirearchy:

America was governed best when it was governed by a porous, self-conscious and responsible elite — during the American revolution, for example, or during and after World War II. Karl Marx and Ted Cruz may believe that power can be wielded directly by the masses, but this has almost never happened historically.

Porous? I guess there’s tiny holes in the barriers between the upper and lower orders through which the occasional Horatio Alger hero might manage to sqeeze.

The Cruz reference must be to the senator’s anti-Obamacare campaign last year when he was demanding that government respond to the people’s desires, as Ezra Klein reported when he was blogging the famous non-filibuster just a year ago:

Cruz isn’t so much making an argument against Obamacare as an argument for direct democracy, or at least a high level of responsiveness to public opinion. “Americans feel like they don’t have a voice,” Cruz said. “I hope to play a small part in providing that voice for them.”

The comical thing was, as Ezra noted at the time, that he didn’t seem to know what public opinion was, which was opposed to defunding the ACA and to cutting spending on Medicare and Social Security, and in favor of progressive taxation on the wealthy and gun control.

Also Cruz is one of the especially retroactionary anti-democracy crusaders who thinks we should go back to having our state legislatures name Senators instead of electing them directly:

Prior to the 17th Amendment, the state legislatures’ ability and authority to select senators was a powerful check on the federal government coming and intruding on the prerogatives of the state,” Cruz said on Thursday. “Because if you have the ability to hire and fire me, I’m a lot less likely to break into your house and steal your television.”

Lol, steal your television. Because direct elections allow all kinds of riffraff into the world’s greatest deliberative body.

Cruz doesn’t give any fucks about the Will of the People; he cares about the state governments, elected in turnouts so low it could be 1820s England, making it all the easier for corporations to buy them. He was just demogoguing the refs, who obediently rolled over and called him a populist, but really it’s too silly to tolerate.

The other comical thing, of course, is how in order to build his both-sides-do-it paragraph structure, Brooks has to get his left opposite number to Cruz in the form of somebody who died in 1883 and wasn’t even an American, though he was an enthusiastic supporter of big-government leftist president Abraham Lincoln. At least Marx did believe in direct democracy, it seems, though he didn’t have all that much to say about it.

Cross-posted at The Rectification of Names.

Promoted by Steven D. Questions: Would Webb really be an anti-war candidate? What’s your reaction to him as a potential candidate to oppose Hilary Clinton and/or Joe Biden?

From politicalwire :

Former Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) said he was seriously considering running for president on an anti-war platform, The Hill reports.

Said Webb: “I have strong reasons for being a Democrat. Basically if you want true fairness in society you want to give a voice in the corridors of power for the people who otherwise would not have it, I believe that will come from the Democratic Party and we’re taking a hard look, and we’ll get back to you in a few months.”

What is good about Webb is very good, and what is bad, is well…

Webb is the populist Democrat incarnate in some ways.  I heard him give a speech in NH at the Jefferson/Jackson dinner in ’07.  He went on for some time, and quite persuasively, about the disaster that was Iraq.  He then talked at some length about the incarceration of young African American men, and the disaster that is drug sentencing.

He was against the Iraq War from the beginning, and even more than Bernie Sanders he is skeptical of US intervention in the Middle East. He is instinctively populist.  There are downsides – as those familiar with his record can attest.

His entry would be interesting to say the least.  We need an anti-War Democrat.

Got this video in my email from The Climate Reality Project. Said I should watch it. I did. You should too.

Now share it on social media or email the link to friends. Because, why not?

Just got back from a wonderful tour of Alabama with April Mae and the Junebugs. It was a swingin’time… so here’s some Lionel Hampton to put a little swing in your step.

Apart from swingin’ and jivin’, what’s on the agenda today? Consider this an open thread.

Good morning everyone.

The latest on our misadventures in the Middle East, are reports that the US military and five of our “Arab Allies” have started bombing the Islamic State or whatever one chooses to call it in Syria (hat tip to Oui – go read his diary). From the BBC:

The US and five Arab allies have launched the first strikes against Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria.

The Pentagon said warplanes, drones and Tomahawk missiles were used in the attacks, which targeted several areas including IS stronghold Raqqa. […]

Separately, Centcom said US forces also attacked a network of al-Qaeda veterans named Khorasan who had established a safe haven west of Aleppo and were plotting imminent attacks against the West.

The LA Times is reporting the attacks on Aleppo, as well.

Though Aleppo is the largest city in Syria, I’m sure we and our friends only bombed the bad guys, and not any women, children or other innocent people.

Oh wait, maybe not:

The strikes targeted Raqqa, an IS stronghold in eastern Syria the group captured in 2013, and the cities of Deir al-Zour, Hassakeh and Abu Kamal.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists on the ground, said more than 20 militants were killed in two strikes on IS positions in Raqqa.

Earlier, it said 30 al-Qaeda-linked fighters were also killed in strikes west of Aleppo, but it later raised the figure to 50. Eight civilians, including three children, were reported to have died.

Well, they are only “collateral” damage, right? Gotta kill a few civilians break a few eggs to make an omelet (or scrambled eggs). I’m sure no one will hold it against us. The BBC story, by the way has a nice map graphic showing the cities and towns in Syria that were struck in this latest episode of our never-ending war on terror.

Meanwhile Israel is back in the news as well, as its defense forces claim they shot down a Syrian jet fighter “attempting to infiltrate Israeli airspace in the Golan Heights…” Not exactly what I would call an encouraging development. The IDF also says that in Hebron yesterday they shot and killed two “suspects” wanted for the killing of those two Jewish teenagers in the West Bank back in June. The same teens whose murder led to a retaliation murder of a Palestinian boy “Muhammad Abu Khdeir, in his East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat” by “Jewish extremists” (NY Times description, people, not mine), which led to you know what:

The June 12 disappearance of Naftali Fraenkel and Gilad Shaar, both 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19, as they hitchhiked home from their West Bank yeshivas, and the subsequent Israeli crackdown in Hebron and surrounding areas, helped set off an escalation of violence that culminated in a seven-week battle between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

Well enough about the Middle East, drones, tomahawk missiles and air strikes.

As for me, I’m bone tired, but I appreciate everyone who has provided diaries to post here or stories via my email (stevendbt at yahoo dot com). You folks deserve plaudits and if I could remember what those things were, I’d send you some (yes, that’s my feeble attempt at humor). But seriously, I hope to have a few new stories up from you guys later today, after I go pick up my wife’s medications, which I must do shortly.

Regarding Booman, I am still awaiting updates from Cabin Girl on his status. With any luck, it will be good news. Sorry I don’t have more to tell you. But let’s end this on an up note shall we? So, hmmm. Let me think a bit.

Have a nice day?