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Take back, oh take back, oh take back my countree to mee-he-he

By Michael J. Smith on Tuesday June 13, 2006 03:23 PM

(This is a JSP/MJS collaboration -- Ed.)

Even as the Kos gig wrapped, the older Gutenberg set kicked off their own version, billed as "Take Back America 2006." Apparently they have one every year, which seems funny somehow. Come Back to Take Back. Should they get numbers, like Super Bowls? Take Back America XXXVII. The word "back" in this slogan is causing MJS to grit his teeth all over again, too.

The currently-running version has St Hill, the Kerry tree, Fly-back-fast Harry Reid, Robert Redford, Nancy Pelosi, Back-to-Barracks Obama, and many many more of that ilk -- all in all, a bigger better haul than Mickey Markos snared.

On the other hand, the Taker-Backers have the creak and crumble sound of a Glorious Leader statue ready to tumble -- it all seems very geriatric compared to Kos.

What is absolutely identical between the two is the windy, empty sloganeering of the pols and the progs:

  • John Kerry: "Our one biggest idea, the one that makes us Democrats, is not to stand for selfishness but to stand for the common good."
  • Nancy Pelosi: "...a new direction for all Americans, not just the privileged few."
  • Hillary Clinton: "We believe in a government that empowers people to live their own dreams."
  • Robert Redford: "...get back in touch with thinking big again."
  • Harry Reid: "It's time to lead."
  • Robert Borosage: "...the right has failed, because it is wrong."
Love the Borosage insight -- like that bit in the Chanson de Roland: Chrestiens ont droit, et paiens ont tort!

Comments (9)

js paine:

take back our
faith and hope :

"new vision
new ideas
new energy"

forget
one and two
who needs
better vision
to see who's not
playin life
by manhattan rules
who needs
any new ideas on how
to kill and control
backward brutish humans
humane-ly

i say
just shoot up all the
participants over 50
with some quality crank
so they at least get
number three
some serious new energy

---------------

hellfire


didya ever see that clown ron howard's movie
where the aliens joy jazz
some geriatricals ???


talk about gettin down ..

don ameche for god's sake
--- easily into three digits ----

by reel 6
he's
brake dancin like
a news boy
in double knitz
--------------------
well
i'd dearly love to see
a few of these
dime store
party mt rushmore types
fed that kinda
extraterrestrial mo jo

imagine st hill
and say
bobby redford
goin wild things .....

man oh manfred mann
like
the dark side
of woodstock
done
all over again
with wrinkles

EdThai:

Perfect.

The image of the oldest looking film star with a young guy's haircut, Bobby Redford, talking nostalgically about the good ol' big ol' days just about sums up the planet's most relevant, up to the minute, appealing to the young set political party.

God I wish I was 21 years old again so I could go out campaigning for the Democrats. Afire with anti war fervor, afire with my freshly acquired knowledge about the iniquities of capitalism, afire with my solidarity for world labor I could stick my big red X in the box knowing that Grandpa Bob and Hilary and good ol' campaignin' Rupert Murdoch (my old boss, no less) were sharing the dream with me.

Thanks MJS. You make me feel so young.

Patrick Meighan:

John Kerry: "Our one biggest idea, the one that makes us Democrats, is not to stand for selfishness but to stand for the common good."
Nancy Pelosi: "...a new direction for all Americans, not just the privileged few."

I wish I could still believe that.

The final straw pushing me out of the Democratic Party was when Clinton signed the welfare "reform" bill... ending the decades long guarantee that no child in America would be allowed to starve.

How, I wonder, did that bill stand for the common good? How did that bill indicate a party moving in the direction of all Americans, not just the privileged few?

I still believe that there are many good Dems (and where I find them--Marcy Winograd, for one--I work to help them). But, as an organization, I felt the Democratic Party leaving me that day (and, okay, the day Clinton signed DOMA, too).

That's when I joined the Green Party.

Patrick Meighan
Venice, CA

Aunty Ism:

I just found your blog. I felt a refreshing buzz emanating from my computer. Maybe I need to take a walk, but it's hard to log away from your site. Cheers.

Rowan:

There's something refreshingly reactionary about all the "take back" slogans. Take from what, return to what? We are returning to the halycon days of...what? LBJ's Great Society/Vietnam War? Well, with the War Democrats, we'd get that except without the Great Society.

The Republicans might have taken the language of liberals, too - their foreign policy is Wilsonian enough with the progressive march of freedom and all that.

We could just call everyone a (19th century) "liberal" and be done with it.

js paine:

rowan you've got it babe

its re actionary progress

the old chartists harked back to an age of free born englishmen
that never existed

my take:

there are those who
claim we had it and lost it
cause it builds confidence we can have it again

if its all just
a possible future
all just
what we might do ...if

pragmatic
day by day
sceptics get a gut wrench

"ahh thats all pie in the sky "

This late word just in: Code Pink protest harassed, suppressed at gathering of 'progressive' democrats:

Medea Benjamin writes in CounterPunch:
http://counterpunch.org/benjamin06132006.html

Gee, Medea went to all that trouble to monkeywrench the Greens in '04 for her democrat friends, and this is the thanks she gets. That's gratitude for ya!

Well, she claimed to be contrite a few months ago about throwing in her lot with Kerry. Let's see if that holds come '08...

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