It is an election weekend — as that is defined, which means that this message gets to be trotted out.

In a nutshell the omnipresent question is “Why are you reading this?”  The answer is, I don’t know… it popped up in my bloglines blogroll.  Somewhere (where some) a whole mass of candidate volunteers are running around, or at a phone-bank, splitting out the differences between similar politicians and amping up one and amping down the other.

On a day where Barack Obama will hold sway with a massive rally at Waterfront Park, in the scorching heat, I find myself pondering Sam Adams.  At some point it was decreed he would be the next mayor of Portland, and that is just how it will turn out to be.  Now, I suppose the same thing happened with Jim Francesconi and that did not turn out so well, and the same thing was said with whoever Bud Clarke defeated and that did not turn out so well.  But, with all due respect to Sho Dozono, the disruption that saw the decreed mayorial result derailed was pretty evident with all signs pointing to “nay” by now in those two previous elections.  So, we prepare for the Totalitarian Regime of Sam Adams, whose only goal seems to punch all the great citizens of Portland into the ground with his Iron Hand.  Odd how that works.

Anyway… Why are you reading this?  Shouldn’t you be hanging up Nick Fish door hangers or something?  (Or, for you Republicans in and around District 5 — figuring out what to make of that Erickson / Mannix mess.  Jeez-uz Keerist!)

There was a letter in the Oregonian complaining that while racism is being discussed lately with regards to the Democratic primary, sexism is not. It is a fair point, except I had a basic problem with the letter as it swerved to not so much a support for Hillary Clinton as a support of Entitlement for Hillary Clinton — which was something that probably served to doom her campaign. Race has become front and central, stripped away of its spot in the land subtext, with Obama’s troubles in Appalachia. The sexism has always been remarkably and predictably casual, and Obama recently engaged in something his own by referring to a news reporter as “sweetie”.

One of these largely sexist comparisons I have heard a few times through this campaign season is one to the Reese Witherspoon character in the movie Election. Somebody at the blog “www.feministing.com” quipped that she wouldn’t like her as a friend, but gosh-darned if she wouldn’t make a good student president — which makes me remember what exactly a student president ever did and what powers s/he had to affect anything in my life in high school. (They planned the pep assemblies I never went to, I think.)

But the Election comparison was more apt to the 2000 election between Bush and Gore. Well, its a movie that plays off certain archtypes.

ANYWAY… We are currently stuck on various characters of the ex-girlfriend who lingers around, which propels me to the question of what less troublesome pop cultural comparisons are there that can be thrown out with the current situation in the campaign?

Discuss:
One thing I want to remark on is how utterly vulgar LaRouchism is.

If any of that is true, then revenire, of course, didn’t know Ken or Molly or any of these people just listed. Wouldn’t know them if they slapped him silly (there’s a thought….)

(rest of messages in the “comments”)

Reportedly the mood of the Republicans in Congress is getting gloomy and haunted indeed, in the wake of the three Democratic pick-ups in deeply Republican districts — the whiffs are of 1974, 1964… 1932.  (Soon to be added by a fourth in a slight Democratic district).  The National Republican Congressional Campaign Chairman, Representative Cole, responsible for coordinating campaign strategies has come down to the stripped down assessment “Everybody for Themselves!”, a message which sort of makes his job duty pointless.  The only saving grace line is to point out that these Republican districts have voted for more conservative Democrats, which is interesting as Obama actively stumped for one of the seats and the other seats saw them try to negatively associate them with Obama.

The good news for the Republican Party’s chances is that within these three elections, there is a not spoken about fourth district of an even safer Republican district which kept a Republican.  So, they go into the elections knowing that there is a limit to the envisioned nightmare… somewhere.  Also, they now know that some campaign strategies are failures.  For example, Dick Cheney was sent in to stump for the Mississippi seat.  The Republican never quite recovered from that set-back.

I have one niggling problem with the … echo chamber… bullet points regarding Bush’s John McCain campaign Knesset foray into historical discussion.  The other bullet points are dead on, and in addition I do have a “what was your problem with the Dixie Chicks in England?” question running through my head.  Everyone keeps pointing out that the Senator Bush is quoting about wishing he could go talk with Hitler, and this is actually by way of Truman, was a Republican.  This point simply has no bearing on this discussion, as fallacious as everything else about the matter might be.

The classic misuse of this historical fallacy is the canard about how the Civil Rights was passed with a greater Republican vote than Democratic vote, as though the donkey and elephant are set in stone.  We may compare the 1864 Democratic Party rallies which consisted of the anti-Republican anthem “N–ger Doodle Dandy” and compare it with what we will see in 2008 and see that… things change.

But there aren’t any true isolationists in the Congress of the pre-Pearl Harbor type.  There are isolation-ish arguments, and isolationist strawmen.  The isolation-ish arguments don’t add up to disengagement from the world tend to come in because in a sound-b yte world, it’s a good short circuit and getting bogged down is never good politically.  More honest than the Chamberlain analogy, which the gut feeling tends to come down to a thought along the lines of where one of Chris Matthews’ few great moments leads us.

…………………………..

Always interesting to note these things:

So…

I went to do some lunch-time shopping at Fred Meyers three straight days at what I believe was the … exact… same… time to the dot.

Day #1, the overhead background music was… Hootie and the Blowfish’s “Hold My Hand”.  I have the most negligibly positive opinion of that band, and I recognize that fact as the secret to their success in putting out the Best Selling Album of All Time with an album where all but a couple of tracks were cross-over radio singles — on virtually every format.  It was innocuous and agreeable, and not anything more.  (I… don’t particularly want to hear them, really, but I don’t hate them.  My dad was a big fan of them, oddly enough.) But this was also the downfall of the group and why their next album went nowhere: the burn rate killed them.  Except, of course, it didn’t:  The band is now huge on the Corporate Gig circuit, which makes perfect sense them being the epitome of “Corporate Rock”.  They’re… successfully making loads of money; you’re just not paying attention to that fact.

The next day I noticed, at the exact same time, the overhead playing… Hootie and the Blowfish’s  “Only Want to Be With You”.  I remember this had a video I found amusing, which everyone else seemed to think was “Goddamned Stupid!”  The inspiration for the video seemed to have come up solely with the line “Dolphins make me cry”.  I can’t say this is a terribly relevant memory, but there are worse memory sensory items.

This seemed a trend.  Which is why on the next day, exiting the Fred Meyers the reason for the niggling feeling I had that I wanted to pay attention to something but didn’t hit me:  I should have turned down my head-phones and seen if this programming was trended.

I will note that in this day and age, most commercial music radio stations are basically going to have the same effect of same artist or same song at the exact same time, and can think of a particularly notable example of flipping past one station every day at a particular time in the afternoon and catching… the exact same song.

In the public restroom at Waterfront Park there is a smidgeon of graffiti which reads: “Silly Obama.  It’s a White House, not a Black House.”

Curious item, that.  Such things are inevitable, and it is a bit difficult to figure out how to ascertain the effect in the nomination or the election.  I see some curious analysis from the — er– “politically correct” saying that complaints of “inexperience” skew toward the old standby of him being an “Affirmative Action pick”, when — really — he’s just not been in the Senate all that long.

Two competing effects came out of yesterday’s election.  First, he lost a primary election in his most hostile Democratic primary in the nation by a whopper of a percentage, which was to be expected, and off of some firm race baiting (and really tedious pandering) on the part of the Clinton campaign.  The win is, in Marvel Comics terminology, a “no prize” for Hillary Clinton and doesn’t much bring her anywhere.  The sheer numbers probably matters only slightly to Obama’s electoral chances — this is the most potent concentration of a specific “Appalachian” demographic which is diffused in other swing states.  (The border state of the “Solid South” where below it this vote has switched parties.)  Obama is not going to win West Virginia, and the only things you can say signs here speak of some trouble in other states.  While West Virginia is closing, other states are opening up.

Meanwhile, an anti-Obama and race themed campaign failed to keep a Republican House seat in Mississippi, which is a signifier to be sure.  It may be that the thrashed Republican brand will just end up dragging down McCain down enough and that’s about where it is going to end up.

I now present to you the most self-serving version of the old Lakota philosophy that decisions should be made with seven generations in mind, Lyndon Larouche talks about the importance of “grandfathers” to his “Youth”, and the generation which does not honor the grandfather.

No longer do they believe — in successive generations, no longer do they believe in immortality of the individual personality: that even after the individual is dead, their personality continues to live and have an effect on future generations. We used to be a society in which we thought grandfathers would give their lives to provide a better way of life for, not only their children, but especially their grandchildren. […]

That has been lost! We have now become, especially with the 68ers and that generation, which lost their morality almost at birth — actually, this was something done to them. Don’t blame them entirely for it; it was done to them, by their parents, and the consent of their parents, and done by teachers and so forth.

They lost that sense of immortality, they lost that sense of culture. They lost the sense of a continuity of culture. They lost a sense of what the meaning is of national cultures, of cultures of people, the importance of preserving and promoting these cultures, because that’s the way in which [… blah de freaking blah…]

Losing a sense of continuity of culture? Tibet? In the meantime, the “68”ers were either lost in terms of morality at their birth. Or done to them by teachers and with the consent of their parents. Which means we’re losing that generational schism already shown with the statements on how some things skip a generation. Or, actually… we’re supposed to blame Harry Truman, as with this quote:

You don’t like Baby Boomers? Blame Harry Truman!

And let it be done. DAMNED YE, HARRY TRUMAN!!!

Okay. But what about the current election. Well, Clinton is being brought down by the British in the form of Obama who will be brought down shortly thereafter (perhaps by assassination??? Have we learned anything from our dealing with the British back in the 60s visa vie Kennedy — Kennedy — King?) and… I don’t know how Bloomberg figures into these things anymore. But the problem with Clinton is, as discussed here…

Clinton’s continual pledge to represent the lower 80% of the U.S. population, and the unspoken fear that some of her policies seem to lean too far in the direction of the proposals put forward by Lyndon LaRouche

because

As it stands at this moment, unless Senator Hillary Clinton continues her campaign for the Democratic nomination, there is no presently visible chance that the U.S. will come out of the presently skyrocketing hyper-inflationary crisis in any form easily recognized as being, still, our constitutional republic.

This all goes back to Abraham Lincoln… (if it doesn’t go back to the Babylonians), when…

What we are facing in our nation, is what we have faced in this nation, since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and that is, a war for the survival of republican forces, uniquely, American forces, against those of the British Empire. And today, that war has come to its final stage.

Because

The post-Civil War conflict between Lincoln’s republican United States and the British Empire, which has defined world politics over the last 140 years, is coming immediately to a head in the course of the current United States presidential campaign. Can the United States and the planet, come out the winner?

But don’t fret. Yet. The Man Has The Plan.

Larouche, as head of LPAC, has committed himself to forming a new United States Presidency which will defeat this barbarism. As the most reliable long-term forecaster over recent decades, Larouche is uniquely situated to outlining the successful strategy to defeat the British.

So vote for Hillary Clinton. Or don’t, as stated:

The issue here is not the election results. The issue is not the president. Obama is not competent to be a president; he has none of the makings of competence. Many of his constituents are valuable people, who are tied to the interests of the lower 80 percent, and they should be encouraged and defended, and their rights defended.

Very nice of him to reference the Obama constituents as “valuable people”, and very civil libertarian of him to support the defense of their rights. Anyway, one more thing Larouche wants done:

In a statement released today, former Democratic Presidential candidate and the world’s leading economist declared that the Democratic Party should stop promoting former Vice-President Al Gore, now.

I don’t believe in Unilateral Withdrawal. I think the Democratic Party should be forced to quit promoting Al Gore until the Republican Party is forced to stop promoting Bob Dole. Anyway, Larouche remains magnanimous:

“Gore should be allowed to keep his party membership.”

Meanwhile, it worth noting, as posted by “realme” at factnet:

The list of delegates to the 10th Congressional District (Leesburg and environs) Democratic convention includes the following delegates and/or alternates pledged to Clinton: Nancy Spannaus, Anton Chaitkin, and Kathy Notley. I believe this local convention chooses delegates to next month’s state convention, which in turn chooses delegates to the national convention in Denver in August.

I may or may not have one further bit of news about that particular item which I will, if it is what I remembered, link to a later.

I quit shopping at Safeway a while ago, roughly because I resented having to swipe my purchases into a database of shopping knowledge in order to get a preferable price and roughly because I had moved to a location where two Fred Meyers were located closer to any Safeway.  For their part, Fred Meyers introduced their own piece of crock “Loyalty Card”, which “offers money back” for accumulated purchase, and I guess probably ends up just swallowing up money otherwise I would have “saved” if I had done what I generally do in clipping coupons.  It is, at the very least, less obnoxious than Safeway’s.  The terms of agreement of what the store demands for their “Loyalty Card”, and my desire not to have one, makes me loyal to Fred Meyers over Safeway.

But I had reason to shop at a Safeway this weekend.  I purchased some junk food item of ill health, quite frankly, which cost $1.39, $1.25 with the “Loyalty Card”.  I wait in line.  And the cashier cheerfully scans the object.

“Card?” she asks, as I lay out the buck and forty cents.
“No,” I said.
She looks at me confused.  “Do you… want to sign up for one?”
“No,” I said.
At which point she looks at me confused once again, and I smile weakly.  14 cents, into the ether.  I am confident that the cashier’s reaction can be extrapulated into some meaning for society in general, but I cannot quite articulate what that would be.