Y’know, I’ve technoratied “Lionel” with “Air America”, to guage the scope of opinion on Air America’s new “Lionel” show, and the opinions are in…

I found a poitive review somewhere in there. Really, if you look and shift around, you’ll see one.

But other than that, the mood is set with atrios asking “Are the people who run Air America on crack?”
A shame. I didn’t hear it, and probably never will. I always thought he was better than average, which is — in terms of things to have on the radio in the background — what counts for Absolutely Brilliant. But for something like Air America, picking up Lionel makes sense as a move of desperation, which I suppose it is. Sam Sedar was easily dropped on stations in favor of, say, Stephanie Miller.  There’s an advertisement that has appeared in the pages of the Washington Monthly for a station — I guess in Washington.  Once upon a time it showed a picture of a handful of Air America hosts.  Perhaps at some point Ed Schultz edged into the picture.  For the past few months, the ad has showed their talent for 6 am to 3 pm EST: three Jones Network hosts — Bill Press, Stephanie Miller, and Ed Schultz.  That strikes me as significant for troubles with Air America.  So, needing to plug something that might work to expand perhaps a network situation and perhaps a syndication situation, Air America management looks around the radio landscape for proven talent that is if not liberal than sort of liberal-minded and all they can really see is goddamned Lionel.

This doesn’t affect the local station here in Portland — at least not much (I think changes of sorts are in store for what they air on the weekend, if anyone cares), but witness the diametrically opposed new directions that are showed with their reformatting. You have Lionel, who is completely separated from anything of a “movement”. And you have something called “The Air Americans”, which combines a bunch of hosts with a very concerted attempt at branding into “Movement Radio”. Neither direction looks particularly appealing, actually, and while I would like to hear Lionel it does strike me as jarring to go from Lionel to… what would be on after him? Thom Hartmann and goddamned Randi Rhodes? It’s jarring enough for the liberal bloggers to ask… “WTF?”

I imagine Lionel will have to shift to fit his new listener base in various ways. Not least amongst them justifying his existence.
Ah well. I will place my disclaimer that I am obliged to have when discussing Air America. Morning Sedition, starting roughly a year into its run, was the only thing that counted for “Appointment Radio”, and the only thing that was particularly Original and Innovative. And I like Rachel Maddow. Everything else is mixed at best.

Far be it for me to defend the Republican slate of presidential candidates, but I have noticed something bubble up into the surface that kind of bothers me.

It is a line.  A derogatory reference to “ten middle-aged white men.”  A quick google search and you find, right at the top, this.

Now, the Democrats have… um… five middle aged white men (unless you want to slide one or two into the “elder” camp),  a black man, a white woman, and a Hispanic.  This is the most diverse slate of candidates any party has ever spewed out at us, prodded up by the fact that the front-runners are, indeed, not a middle-aged white man.

Prior to that, all we can go on is the temporary existence of Elizabeth Dole in 2000 — who, to be fair, I believe dropped out later in 1999 than the hyper-early May we have right now.  (A bit more serious a contender than whatshername was in whatsthatyear.  Refresh my memory.  There was a female Republican presidential candidate in 1968.  Or 1972.  Kind of.  Sort of.)  We have a small mixture of black candidates never quite taken seriously as presidential contenders — the source of not taken seriously as a presidential contender Joseph Biden’s praise of Obama as “clean” and “articulate”.

And we have a whole lot of middle-class white candidates from the start of the Republic to today, of which every single elected president and vice-president has been culled from.

Hence the existence of anything other than a bunch of middle class white men as serious presidential contenders is a brand new phenomonem.

And it seems pointless to thump the Democrats’ chest for suddenly, in this election year of 2008 (actual calendar year 2007) to have something else.
……………..

Besides which, there are at least 11 middle aged white men:

John Cox has asked a federal court to stop next week’s G-O-P presidential debate unless he can take part. Cox claims in a lawsuit that the South Carolina G-O-P and Fox News Channel rigged their selection process to exclude him.Ten candidates have been invited to the debate next Tuesday in Columbia. It is sponsored by the South Carolina Republican Party and Fox  .At issue is a requirement the two organizations used to decide who could participate in the debate. The groups required a candidate to earn at least one percent of support in state and national polls.Cox’s lawsuit claims his name was –not– used in the lone state poll that was used to gauge voter support.

Well, to be fair, if Giuliani’s name was exluded from the list… actually he would probably receive more than one percent in “write-in” votes.  Sorry Cox.  You don’t have a leg to stand on.

Um. Heh.

Okay. Favorite part. “Check this out. Gore’s Hedge Fund Partner. His name is Blood.” “Too good to make up.” “Yeah, you can’t make that up.”
Cue the photo from the pamphlet — I don’t know “Gore’s Global Warming Hoax and the International Synarchist Implications of his Sexual Congress with the Beast – Men”, or something to that effect — and… an indescribable photograph found at minute 6:07.

I was tempted to very slightly defend this Larouchite, in the sense that it is common to have political conversation in line with more standard political spectrum — or less cult-induced people with the same outlandish realm of conspiracy theory — and it sometimes comes across as just as silly. But, um… no. Besides which, if I am to believe something posted at FACTNet, Larouche has issued an order for Larouchies to not reply to any web postings, so… ALL HANDS ON DECK and UNLOAD!!

“What do you think of the art school?”

“I think they’re kind of de-generates. They’re not trying to create a Renaissance.”

……………………………..

A shout-out to hey now, brownpau. While I don’t make it a point to link to any and all people who link here, I don’t make it a point not to link to anyone, and in this case I need to respond to and extrapulate on the excerpt he lifted. I did not coin the phrase “Me For Dictator”. That came from a book review for Lyn Marcus’s “Dialectical Economics”, the reviewer having no awareness of just who the author was came to the conclusion that “The author appears to be a ‘Me-for-Dictator’ type that I really wouldn’t trust handing over the economy to.” (I’ll get the exact quote if forced to.)

……………………………………

A word on how the Larouche pamphlets are written.  Although, to be frank, there’s only a smidgeon of insight I didn’t gather out of hand.:

His reading is basically done by looking at the cover, jackets a chapter and then , now this is important, a summary by the staff. In NYC we had a dozens of people who knew a lot of things and did research. A guy named Peter Rush did a prioject where he took as many papers done by members and indexed them in a library of sorts. What caem of that was an embarassment of sorts. it seemed that if you looked at any of Lyn’s writings you figure out the formula. You take a subject of current politcal value like Ted Kennedy. You then link him to what ever is the main fundraising issue such as a KGB/Russian takeover of the world. you now take one of those research papers and find the key thesis and link it to that. So the end is a centerfold article where about two paragraphs mention Kennedy, more pragraphs mention some historical situation adn then you fill it up with the standard 5000 years of conspiracy, throw in Aristotle and then some new tid bit the poor LCer found and declare it a magnum opus that needs to be put out in a pamphlet or book for the masses. Read enough of this and you too can write this stuff for the LC. The poor LCer who did the long hours of work in the library does not even get a footnote and ends up cooing for Lyn’s wink instead of yelling that his or her hard work was stolen by this charlatan. The standard MO for us is that the phone organiser would make some issue sound reasonable so he would not be hung up. Once you snet them some of our lit, forget it. We would try hard to NOT have Lyn do meetings with our contacts because of how they would end up with Lyn demanding that they bankroll him or some crazy statement about the Queen of England or such.

Wait.  Larouche doesn’t write his own material?  Dagnabit!

……………………………………….

I have finally read Dennis King’s book, in drips and drabs. I’m trying to figure out what is most pertinent to post for the mish – mash of imperatives I have in bopping up to Larouche. I think I’ll go with some items of concern from Chapter 10. So look for it… coming up… soon.

…………………………………

Ken Kronberg stuff:

I can go to almost any subject the LC and Lyn writes about and it will end up that way. Even with this, people in the FEF had some respect as they had degrees and did no talk like maniacs. they had a life where they could interview people, write articles and produce a magazine that did not look half bad.

For Lyn, it was real bad. It was bad because in a cult of personality, Lyn is the focus, nothing else. So in the early 1980s, Lyn issued a memo which made clear that unless your activity involved him, it was not allowed. The way it was worded was very clever in that it demanded that persuing the Larouche presidency was the only thing and every front group and publication had to support that.

You liked the Fidelio magazine. Ever wonder why it was not mailed out and promoted? Ken Kronberg created that and tried to make it something which was not crazy. There are reports of endless tirades by Lyn against Ken for trying to do that. The blood vessels would pop in Lyn’s head as he denounced Ken as a boomer over and over and then ended it with a demand for endless printing with out a single thought of how to pay for this. Oh, let me correct that. .There was a single thought , it was called have someone else run up a debt for supplies and have the members do it for nothing.

AND… a run-down of 1970s-era Larouche versus 2000s-era Larouche, from a 1970s-era Larouchie to the ambivalent Larouchie who I posted the words of a couple of Larouche-related posts ago:
Us Jimmy Carter worse than Hitler
You Al Gore Worse than Hitler.

Us Impeach Carter
You Impeach Cheney

Us Give money to stop KGB
You Give money to stop Synarchists

US Methadone pushed by Nuremburg Criminals
You Video games pushed by Nuremburg Criminal.

Us The world economy is going to crash.
You The world economy is going to crash.

US We are in a depression.
You We are in a depression of the physical economy.

Us Rockefeller runs the world
You British and the Jews run the world.
Most of us were in when the LC made the transformation from Rocky to the British and the Jews running the world. Most of us left.

Us 3 Mile Island was a hoax to eliminate people.
You Global warming is a hoax to eliminate people.

Us Chris White brainwashing done by Rock to stop the ICLC from taking power. Hoax by Lyn.
You Duggan death, hoax done by Cheney to stop LYM from taking power.

Us David Rockefeller and his family run the world and all that is evil.
You Cheney and his wife run the world and all that is is evil.

Us Leesburg Real Estate collapse will bankrupt the banks when people can not pay the notes.
You Lyn does not pay the notes on LC real estate to the banks and our people collapse.

Us Supporting Solar power is stupid and won’t work.
You Supporting solar power is evil and will kill off humanity

Dear Steve Novick,

I am already sick of that line about “a fighter with a good left hook.”  Actually I was sick of it, if possible, the first time I saw it in that introductory Willamette Week piece, for no other reason than the realization that I would be inundated with the line every time your name comes up and with every campaign appearance.
I can’t say that solving the problem of my antipathy toward your campaign slogan is worth the multitude benefits of the line, I being just one person floating out in the ether.  Perhaps I am a bit tired at the moment, and perhaps that is the only reason I can say that I can’t for the life of me think of what clever line Gordon Smith could use to combat the line.  I suppose he can just say he hooked you or something, but coming from him it’ll come across as just mean.  So you have the “fighter with a good left hook” angle cornered.

Just the same between you and I, if — say — Earl Blumenauer is running in the primary against you — or whoever — I’ll likely vote for him/her simply to avoid several additional months of “Fighter with a good left hook” line.

Sometimes I get email that I can’t tell what it is.  I understand that there is a type of spam that is a random series of phrases and words, hatched to see if you click to it.  But these emails come across as relatively coherent — if loopy, and thus… who knows?  Maybe somebody is reading my blog and thinks they have insight into something I care about.  Example, and if you clear out some clutter it is a coherent story I hear about from time to time, worth some activists’ attention:

Why? Why?? Why??? If pirates should be punished, how about Du Pont, the robber? Could you (intellectual property proprietors in U.S.A.) avoid shouldering loss for hoodlum Du Pont¡¯s shameful behaviors for profit? (If you log on , copy and paste the 8-Chinese character full name of Du Pont ¡°ÃÀ ¹ú¶Å°î»¯Ñ§¹«Ë¾¡±, you could see more than 10 published English or/and Chinese open letters by me on more than 10 pages from the first one.) All intellectual property proprietors in U.S., how are you? Your government sued Chinese government for ¡°not doing its best to fight against piracy¡± to WTO on April 9, 2007. Chinese government publicly reiterated its resolution to strictly crash piracy, and compensated related companies in your country with several billions USD for their loss. As a result, enterprises involved in piracy were devastatingly struck, but related company in your country still thought Chinese government was not in its best to crash piracy. If now your government still fails to convince or force Du Pont to fulfill its obligations in Agreement 1995, world public may have a series of doubt and concern below. Since Du Pont could 100% publicly possessed by power (exclusive possession) Mr. Huang¡¯s patent technology of effective and nontoxic agricultural pesticide, why venders in other countries were accused of violation of law for just selling some piratical disks, which is far from 100% publicly possessing by power the right of production and sales of the disks worldwide? Why could Du Pont distain and trample the law, but venders have to observe all laws? Why must laws be strictly enforced by other country¡¯s government? Although other country¡¯s government has the intention to strictly enforce the laws and take relevant actions, since Du Pont¡¯s behaviors-publicly possession of Mr. Huang¡¯s patent by force, refusing to fulfill its commitments in Agreement 1995 to pay patent fee and license fee to Mr. Huang for many years, slandering China ¡°a raffish country¡±, and Mr. Huang ¡°a rascal¡±, writing letter to threaten and intimidate Mr. Huang and bringing false charge against him before Chinese police-did not deserve what they should have, with the feeling of unfairness and negative mentality caused in the public worldwide, would that take the effect of ¡°strictly enforcing the laws¡± as expected? Whether it would instigate a minority of people to breach your intellectual property as revenge? Whether it will lead to a vicious circle of competitively violating the others¡¯ intellectual property? If these doubt and concerns unfortunately come true, would it be an absurd situation in which other intellectual property proprietors in your country should shoulder the loss for Du Pont¡¯s unashamed violation of agreement? Then why should trade intellectual property proprietors¡¯ legal benefits for illegal benefits of Du Pont and its accomplice? Why?Why??Why??? Is it necessary? Implementation of a law, regulation or agreement should rely on not only compulsory measures adopted by government, but also, or more important, on conscious abidance of related parties worldwide. To achieve that goal, related law-executing departments must bear ¡°all are equal before the law¡± in mind during execution process, but must not ignore open and brutal trample of laws, regulations and agreements of one certain member, who is with great power or has special interest relations with the executor. Otherwise, any agreement between governments will become blank before public without any sanction. Disputes between Mr. Huang and Du Pont comprise of adequate fact evidence and clear legal relations (rights and obligations), namely Du Pont has been fully entitled to the rights regulated in Agreement 1995, now simply carrying out the corresponding obligations will solve all problems. What we are waiting for now is just forced fulfillment of Du Pont of obligations in Agreement 1995 by law-executing departments in your country. Best wishes! Universal Agent: SXF

Mighty good news at that.

Alas… Sigh.

I heard parts of the new John Mellencamp album “Freedom’s Road” recently.  I won’t tell you what to do with it — which is to say I’m not going to tell anyone to stay away from it as if your life depended on it or to run run run to your nearest (soon to be antiquated as we fade into the download age) retailer of compact discs and get it immediately.  I have no strong opinion on it.

But I am bothered by something.  Emblematic is the song, sang with Joan Baez, “Jim Crow”.  Read the lyrics and riddle me this:

Okay, we understand that Jim Crow has ” Went and changed his name” and that “he’s still actin’ the same” and, as the second stanza says, skipping along joyfully undisturbed.  But really now, I’d like some specification of some sort or other.  Otherwise, as is the case, we just have a vague statement that racism exists out there… somewhere… somehow…

Which means it’s a stupid song with no meaning…  a lazy act of poetry.  A little ditty about Jack and Diane…