Vote for me, or else

By Michael J. Smith on Thursday September 6, 2012 10:26 PM

Illustration from Mike Flugennock, of course.

For once, I don't agree with him. I don't detect any attempt from the Dems these days to re-sell any kind of hopey-changey thing. It would be a hard sell, since now we know what we're dealing with, and they do sorta understand marketing.

No: the case for the Democrats this year, from start to finish, is fear. The message is easily summed up: Yeah, we suck, you know it, we know it, we know you know we know it and so on, but as Alex the lion says in Madagascar, The penguins are psychotic!

Comments (40)

"the case for the Democrats this year, from start to finish, is fear. The message is easily summed up: Yeah, we suck, you know it, we know it, we know you know we know it and so on, but as Alex the lion says in Madagascar, The penguins are psychotic!"

Look who's calling who psychotic... takes one to know one?

The bag of psychoses carried by the average democratic party loyalist ain't nothing to sneeze at either.

op:

Judge smiff has this shot called perfectly

The claim is simple

They are silk hats
And pyschos

We are the peoples party

Choose

op:

That framing doesn't requiring
Buying into the second part very deeply
So long as the first ppart is bought in the picnic size box

op:

Perhaps the pyschos
Are best particularized

As angry white guys on a losers
Track toward homocide
Or some such tooning

Homocide ?

That is homocide
Once removed

Whether domestic
Racial or off shored

I've actually been somewhat surprised--and I don't think that I'm an easy person to surprise--at the extent to which vast numbers of liberals are still planning to vote for the Democrats rather than against the "psychotic" Republicans this year. For all the talk of progressive disillusionment, in the eyes of virtually every liberal I encounter Obama remains a kind of benevolent demi-god for whom their passionate religious devotion is exceeded only in intensity by the ensuing bursts of violent nausea that rack my stomach.

Merkin in Montreal:

Personally, I’m a firm believer of what the late comrade, Alex Cockburn used to say: having a Democrat in power is always worse for the leftist and progressive causes. Would Obie 2.0 be worse than Mitten 1.0? Probably. Given how useless voting has become, the only satisfaction we can get out of this meaningless exercise is revenge. I call it “revenge voting”. To that end, I would have even gone as far as organizing the comrades in the swing states to vote for Mitten had I still lived in the country. Imagine the impact of a “Leftists for Mitten” movement! Starting with the liberal dopes who would probably go apoplectic. They call us the “kooky left”? We’ll show you how kooky we can get motherfuckers!

op:

Merk certainly lays it on the line

Mitt will be better for left
Politics

In swing states
Left for mitt


Worse is not worse
But it is better

Putting Obama into the Offal Orifice in the first place was an act of evil genius... whoever did it is playing at a level we can barely see from where we stand in our really hip trenches.

I think it's time for the super-minority of Those Who See It All Too Clearly But Can Change Nothing Of What They See... to regroup. Perhaps organizing The Peoples' Think Tanks... to counter the evil brain trust of all those Ivy League recruits on the evil payroll? As it stands, resistance has been futile for quite some time. We need a new brand of Resistance as brilliantly-flummoxing to the Maginot Mind as the Obama curve-ball was. What would Brian Eno suggest...?

op:

If its a choice without a difference

Then its just sport

There is no real
Job class decision to make here

Personal preference rules


op:

A battle between meme factories steve ?

Perhaps we might
Set targets with maximum impact

I doubt we have new memes rior to new struggles

"If its a choice without a difference..."

There's always a difference but it's an unpredictable difference; the point of Duh-Mockracy should be that the differences are *predictable*. Voting booths are just vertical bumper cars for kids from 18 to 81 in the Simulocracy!

"A battle between meme factories steve ?"

Nah... They own all memes already.

First we need to find a charismatic, supremely rational, leader capable of unifying the masses, and who isn't afraid of dying very, very early in the effort...

anne shew:

" anne ",-brian eno

op:


Blow hard talk steve

U can try a little harder

Sorry, OP, I *thought* I was being sort of politely (if cynically) funny and not aiming even blunted barbs at *you*, in any case. How you can find offense in what I've written above is beyond me. But, worry not: I said what I wanted to say and will happily fuck the fuck off now, leaving you unmolested in your apparently private commenting space...

anne shew:

shh e puts on the neu ,swirl

anne shew:

seeland

op:

Why steve I was reacting to your intrinsic content

I saw no link to
Anythink substantive in earlier comments by anyone

the prediction line just struck me as half baked

Complete your thought

MJS:

Insisting on 'substance' in comments here is something neither Owen nor I should do. Glass houses and so on.

anne shew:

you have houses ?, said no shew

@Fadduh Smiff:
Actually, the cartoon wasn't so much about the Donkeycratic campaign itself as it was about all the media hacks' babbling about what the Donkeycrats need to do to "re-energize" their base (yeah, that's the word, alright) to where it was in '08 -- all that sitting around, stroking their metaphorical beards and acting as if it was some big mystery as to why Liberal/Pwogs' enthusiasm level was in the toilet this time.

If you go to the blog post linked in Fadduh Smiff's writeup, there's a link to a really excellent article in The Onion discussing the enthusiasm -- or lack of the same -- in the Progressive "base" (spit).

Laugh at me if you want, but for the past few weeks, any time I needed to catch up on party convention news, the first site I visited was The Onion, as their writers -- like any masterful satirists -- have a remarkable gift for "kidding on the square".

As far back as '92 (at least) the Donkeycrats' chief method of keeping their "base" in line was through fearmongering. Even in '08, when every goddamn' Pwog and Liberal in the country was crapping their drawers with unfounded starry-eyed optimism over The One™, the Donkeycratic campaign's foundation was a solid bedrock of fear -- fear of John McCain (my god, not that cranky old man!) and Sarah Palin (my god, she's so stupid!). The Pwogs and Liberals couldn't come up with a single positive achievement of Obama they could point to, nor a single reason to support him, but could go on interminably about how afraid they were of Cranky Old John McCain and That Stupid Over-The-Hill Beauty Queen Sarah Palin.

So, here I'm not knocking on the Obama campaign as much as on all the media clowns pretending to not know why Obama's support this time around is a mile wide and half an inch deep.

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

Merkin in Montreal sez on 09.07.12 @10:02:
Personally, I’m a firm believer of what the late comrade, Alex Cockburn used to say: having a Democrat in power is always worse for the leftist and progressive causes...

Well-lll... yes, and no. During the Bush Junior Years, as you recall, the streets were packed wall-to-wall with people wildly indignant with Junior's policies on civil liberties, the War On Terror™ and the war in Iraq; sadly, most of those people were flagrant tribalist partisans, called out by the likes of MoveOn, fronting for the Donkeycrats. Then, of course, when Obama won the White House, all the Donkeycratic partisan Liberals cleared out of the streets in record time; it was like watching the cockroaches scattering for cover when you turn on the lights in the kitchen.

This is why having Mittens in the White House wouldn't necessarily be good for the Left -- and when I say the Left, I don't mean Liberals, or Progressives, or the "left-leaning", I'm talking about real, actual, muthafuckin' Leftists. I'm talking about the people who kept turning out for demonstrations because they gave a shit about corporate dictatorship, the abuse of civil liberties at home and imperialism and murder abroad, no matter which party's finger was pulling the trigger. If Mittens wins this "election", you can bet the streets will magically fill with people who've suddenly remembered civil liberties abuses, corporate rule, and imperialist wars of aggression, and at least two-thirds of them will be opportunist Pwogs and Liberals who are just pissed off that El Presidente has an "R" after his name and who were bused in by the SEIU, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, UFPJ, and MoveOn.

Would Obie 2.0 be worse than Mitten 1.0? Probably. Given how useless voting has become, the only satisfaction we can get out of this meaningless exercise is revenge. I call it “revenge voting”. To that end, I would have even gone as far as organizing the comrades in the swing states to vote for Mitten had I still lived in the country. Imagine the impact of a “Leftists for Mitten” movement! Starting with the liberal dopes who would probably go apoplectic. They call us the “kooky left”? We’ll show you how kooky we can get motherfuckers!

During the 2004 "election" cycle, a town in Oregon (as I recall) had a howling right-wing crank running for mayor for the GOP; the opposition was a standard-issue boring-assed, mealy-mouthed Liberal Democrat who expected to win by exploiting the wave of mindless desperation which had recently become popular then (as you recall, the Donks sought to pick up the mindlessly desperate vote by nominating Massachusetts Senator A. B. Bush for President that year). In response, a bunch of anarchists started a group called "Anarchists For (Whatever The GOP Candidate's Name Was, I Forget)", registered and voted Republican on the premise that things had to get worse before they got better; a Democrat, they reasoned, would simply prolong the agony, whereas a Republican -- preferably the most rotten and nasty one the party could find -- would speed up the development of conditions ripe for fomenting revolution.

Hell, that sure works for me. I might actually vote if a movement large enough to snag some media attention was built of Leftists who see through the two-party bullshit, and who know that a Democrat would be just as bad, and who would be gladly willing to express that sentiment by voting Republican -- and who would actually welcome the comical public fuming of Liberal Democrats.

In fact, if you've been following my work at all for the past eight or ten years -- I understand that there are actually a few of you out there -- you'd notice that I spend far more time kicking the Donkeycrats' nuts than I do the GOP. I decided around '03 or '04 that the Donks were far more deserving as they continued to pander to the Left while still colluding with the GOP on globalization, the destruction of civil liberties, and war. I started getting really annoyed with clowns like Rachel Maddow and Kos ragging on the GOP while leaving the Donks untouched even as they gladly assisted the GOP with their crimes. It's why the self-righteous indignation of right-wingers doesn't please me anywhere nearly as much as the whimpering and squealing of Liberals when I call bullshit on them in a cartoon.

op:

I agree requiring substance would silence most of us

Me in particular

Steve bluster was noticed not censured

I'm hoping to chide more out of steve

I liked his notion that memes are owned
And momopolized

op:

Mike f


Ihave an acid test

Could I take some
Tendered position
Into a local tavern and get an ear not a fist for my witnessing

op:

Most anarchists

Exist in isolation
From white wage class amerika

That strikes me as idiotic
They might as well join a monastery
Or live at the top of a tree

MJS:

I just converted to Schumanism as regards nuisance comments, and man, it felt goood.

op:

Father
Remove the comment of mine that did the dirty deed

Poor steve he deserved more consideration
He isn't a blow hard

I was being frivolously impudent

Like my hero bill clinton

Err a poor shadow
That is

Merkin in Montreal:

Comrade Flugennock, as you yourself observed so succinctly, that was exactly my point. During the Bush years, we did have some rambling, albeit to no effect but still, there were some rambling. With Obama’s election, even that timid rambling has disappeared despite the fact that the manifestations of his policies are by far worse than the George W. Bush’s. Do you think that the liberal dopes would have kept their silence if GWB had a weekly review of his kill list on baseball cards and MS Powerpoint? Absolutely not!

The idea of a leftist movement that would advocate for voting for Mitten in swing states is exactly to create the much needed media attention on how bankrupt the Democrats are. Not to mention the much needed fear of Allah that these crooks and their liberal enablers deserve. As is, we have so little power over the outcome of any election in America. So here’s just an idea for a protest vote.

BTW, we did have our Quebec 2012 election and the outcome wasn’t spectacular but quite promising.

MJS:

It wasn't your comment I was thinking of, Owen. Our old pal Poikilonymous showed up again. The schtick has become tedious and I shit-canned it. Nothing like a little frivolous inconsistency to start the evening right, except for a Martini of course.

"They might as well join a monastery"

Is there something wrong with joining a monastery?

Op:

Joining a monastery suggests one is about communing with self selected spirits not
The Givens of class struggle

Fine Save yourself
cloister your soul

I suggest going to an island in the south pacific


But effectively it's fleeing in the face of the class enemy

Recall
One of the powerful legacies of the reformation
Destroy the monasteries

Today I submit the equivalent is destroy the universties

Rabelais drafted up a pretty fair prefiguration
Of the modern university

It was quite a delightful prospect in the mid 16th century
compared
to say a Calvinist enclave

anne shew:

michael j s , when i saw that d.p. wrote " Is there something wrong with joining a monastery?" .. my first thought was of something of your last comments on that post , why have you removed it ? , said gentle / " .. . and write a sonnet. I have my leisure now, after all, though I expect that learning the Brahms chorale preludes will be taking up quite a lot of my time. "

anne shew:

tenured ?, i grew up on and in .. . the street ,mid' ,north ,fe '

Anonymous:

No dissent allowed at SMBIVA. Just smug self congratulation.

MJS:

The monastery tempts me greatly. Or would do, if they hadn't vulgarized all the chant. How I loathe modernity.

Op:

Father S

Enemy of the flying butress

anne shew:

late morning, oh, the chapel'ing of my body has a flying buttress, said the daughter of an architect .. . ,out

MJS:

In my senescence I've gone all squishy-soft on the flying buttress; though Owen Of The Horribly Good Memory accurately recalls a time when I thought it was desperately decadent. If you're going to be skeptical about progress you have to start early -- in life, I mean, and in history.

diane:

Follow your 'heart' as much as you are able, Michael. Owen, being your dear friend -... your family ...and all other loved ones ....- will always love you, at the end of the day ...if you follow your heart (as long as you never lose your love for them, or look down on them), and where it takes you ... even if there is a disagreement with your choice at the time, or even later ...

Yon:

this is op's 'fault' for reminding me of Rabelais


''It’s inasmuch as you, my good disciples, and a few other unoccupied madmen, reading the merry titles of certain books of our creating, such as Gargantua, Pantagruel, Tosspint, On the dignity of codpieces, On peas with bacon cum commento, etc., too easily judge that inside there is nothing treated but mockeries, tomfooleries, and merry falsehoods, seeing that the outward sign (that is the title) is commonly received without further inquiry as derision and jest. But it is not fitting to assess the works of humans so lightly, for you say yourselves that the robe does not make the monk, and a man may wear a Spanish cape who in courage has no relation to Spain. That is why you must open the book and carefully consider what is expounded in it. Then you will recognize that the drug contained inside is of quite other value than the box promised, that is to say that the matters here treated are not so foolish as the title above claimed''

“romper l’os et sugcer la sustantificque mouelle”
(Boulenger)

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