Fair Warning and Fin Fang Foom

[filkertom]

I really, really go off on the blog today. I fully expect to get a lot of shit, and to perhaps lose some friends. If you read it -- which, please, you do not have to, especially if you consider yourself a Republican -- you will very possibly get enraged at me, no matter what your political persuasion.

Tough noogies.

However, in a gesture of peace, friendship, and understanding, here is a completely non-political link to remind you how goofy our universe is, a throwback to the inspiration for Sis Boom Ba on the new album: Behold! The Power of FIN FANG FOOM!

Comments

[ericcoleman]

It all sounds pretty reasonable to me ...

[brother-che.livejournal.com]

If folks have a problem with it, they're likely getting their idea of news from Fox, since nothing you said isn't fact.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I consider myself a member of the extreme center, and certainly no friend of the current Democratic Party, and it still looked right on to me.

[scruffycritter.livejournal.com]

Your opinion. You write what you want.

The only problem I have with what you wrote is that it wasn't the conservatives who voted for the supreme court ruling today. JP Stephens wrote for the majority and was joined by Souter. Scalia and O'Connor were in the minority. I mean, it sure *sounds* like a big business driven decision, but you'd never know it from the vote.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Weirds me out, too. But it does follow with the enriching-already-rich-businesspeople motif. Apparently the law wasn't written very well, and frankly sometimes laws like this aren't written very well so that they can be struck down. It's a manipulative ploy, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

In general "eminent domain" has been the law in the USA since the very beginning; it is even mentioned in the Constitution. So the decision is a truly conservative one and changing the law in this area would lead to far reaching changes in policy. I don't know the scope of the issues here, but I am cynical of unlimited property rights, since they are so often the domain of the vastly wealthy and the authoritarian, and suspect that the way this decision has been presented conceals the issues involved.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

IANAL. However, from what I have seen (and the specific case in Connecticut is local enough that it was often in our local news, with additional cases in New Jersey that will be affected also profiled), the specific issue under debate here seems to be this: does eminent domain extend to the point where a local government can denote "tax revenues generated by a proposed private commercial development" as "in the public good" for the purpose of exercising the right? It's well established that projects like roads and schools fall within the end-use results of eminent domain; do malls and other privately owned expected-tax-revenue-generators, as well?

I think the Court has opened up a can of worms it's going to have to eat, at some point. Fried, by preference. But what's done is done, and we'll see what the next step is for people who want to defend against having their homes appropriated for the good of the p/o/l/i/t/i/c/i/a/n/s/'/ b/u/d/d/i/e/s/ public.

[janet-coburn.livejournal.com]

Amen. If you hadn't made the point about the limits of eminent domain, I was going to. But you said it so well I have nothing to add.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

This is not new law, as you can find if you read the Court's decision (http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-108.ZO.html), so people's homes are at no more risk than they were before the decision. Had the decision gone with Kelo et al., people would have protection against the very unusual situation of the plaintiffs, but no protection against the gummint taking their homes to build a freeway. It appears that the main result of a decision in favor of Kelo, would have been protection of slumlords against urban renewal. This appears likely to have been the goal of the right-wing Institute for Justice, which brought the case, and its repugnant sponsors, David and Charles Koch. Brrr. Brrr. Nor have we seen the end of this, I think. We may get sold new federal law on the subject, and then homeowners will wonder what difference it made, while the slumlords laugh all the way to the bank.

I would prefer to see rights inhering in personally dwelling in a place legislated, myself.

[cleverthylacine]

It's weird and I wonder what they were on.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Aside from the Major Media downplaying all of what you say (even while they acknowledge some amount of it, save Faux News), what's to argue?

Except maybe that we really, really need to hear from the same folks who thought a cigar was not just a stogie. Because treason is a MUCH more impeachable offense than, say, sex with a subordinate.

[omimouse.livejournal.com]

My Opa went through WWII in a slave labour camp for going underground rather than joining the German army. The e-mails I've been getting from him are getting increasingly worried in tone. He's scared for me, because what's going on is bringing back some very hellish memories for him. And all he can do is watch from across the ocean and hope that America gets over this, and be scared shitless for me, because he knows that I'm politically active.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Godwin's Law no longer applies when the discussion involves our current Administration. I wish like all Hell that it still did.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Tell that to Senator Durbin. They sure Godwinned his ass for telling the truth.

"Ready, aim, sing?"

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Senator Durbin probably backed down because a real threat of censure: stripping of committee memberships and seniority from the Senate leadership--he could have been made entirely powerless. It is this that underlies the "collegiality" of the Senate: any Senator who even slightly offends their colleagues will have much trouble getting any legislation passed; anyone who offends the majority sufficiently can be rendered powerless. The Senate, in other words, is remarkably like a working version of the House of Lords, save only the membership is not usually hereditary. I don't think we can really hold Durbin's apology against him, though I wish he hadn't made it; he'd have to have been ready to burn his career to stick to his guns. And--if all the Senate Democrats burn their careers, who is left to oppose the radical right Republican leadership?

It is utterly important to start thinking about the long term, now. We may or may not win short term battles; I am hopeful but not confident. But if the USA is to have any future worth having, it is utterly necessary to change the mind of the public and of our ruling elites.

Re: "Ready, aim, sing?"

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I agree with you, mostly, but I've been thinking about the long term since the first Nixon term (yes, I was political, even back then). And the Durbin episode, in particular, isn't a short-term battle; it's a symptom of our degredation from a great and noble nation to a totalitarian state that regards the people secondary, or worse. He told the truth, and was beaten down because the lying evil bastards he told it about didn't like how he said it. That became more important than what he said.

[realtegan.livejournal.com]

The Truth doesn't offend me. So I wasn't offended. I tend toward softer language myself, but frankly, with the folks we're up against softer language just doesn't work. So: Thank you, Tom. It's just the right statement. Please don't ever retract or apologize.

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

Thanks a lot for writing that. We need more of that kind of anger.

Questions: Does your blog have an RSS feed? And if so, is it syndicated on LJ? I'd like to read regularly, but I have trouble remembering to check other sites, so I consolidate everything to LJ.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Eeyup. tomdoespolitics.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Lemme get this straight, after DECADES of putting up with S**T from the likes of Savage, Coulter, Hannity and Limbaugh, who have made OUTRAGEOUS and often downright HATEFUL statements more often than some people have SNEEZED, including ACCUSATIONS of our political viewpoints being the result of MENTAL DISEASE and CALLS for us to be DEPORTED and/or EXECUTED EN MASSE....

Howard Dean and Senator Durbin... TWO guys... TWO F***IN' GUYS... Make observations that the Republican Party's majority is made up of white, Christian males and torture and unlawful detainment are often measures used by totalitarian regimes....

And suddenly WE'RE the EXTREMISTS?

Where in the F**K is this country's SENSE of PROPORTION?

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Well, in all fairness, Savage and Coulter and Hannity and Limbaugh are not official spokeshits for the Right. They're private entities. Dean and Durbin are not.

Now, if that weren't the case:
Dean commented that the Republican Party is predominantly white, Christian males. And this was taken as a fucking insult? Funny, I thought they prided themselves on being a Christian party. But, of course, anything from the mouth of a leftist is automatically wrong.

Durbin observed that the means we're using (at Guantanamo and elsewhere) have been used by some of the most notorious despots in history. Might even *gasp* be on par with what Saddam was "doing to his own people" (ah, what a lovely, justifying mantra that's become). But to suggest that WE might be doing ANYTHING wrong, well, that's just further evidence of how far gone the Left is, isn't it?

What I find most disturbing has been the reaction from yon aforementioned Rightwing ideologues about Durbin's comments: "He's painting all our servicemen with the Nazi brush."

Wrong, dickwads. He's painting the people IN CHARGE AT GITMO with that brush. YOU are applying his comments to EVERY FUCKING SERVICEMAN.

But then, subtle nuances like "some" vs. "every" have never been these folks' forte.
-------------------------------------
Obligatory comment on Fin Fang Foom:
The link took me, initially, to a full-screen ad for "The NEW Mt. Dew!", with its radiant greenness spreading over a pastorale. I find the juxtaposition...amusing.

Amen, Brother - testify!

[purplemoonwoman.livejournal.com]

You rock.

[cleverthylacine]

Hi Tom,

The thing is, I don't support that man, and I don't support those people, and: *gaspshock* I'm not mad at you, either.

However, if everyone like me leaves the party, then it will never, ever change. I'm in Log Cabin so I can vote for the few sane people we have left in the primaries, and vote against some of the batshit that no-one outside the party ever sees. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if some of the lukewarm 'centrist' Democrats, disaffected Independents and the Libertarians who used to be Republican accepted the two-party system as a for-now political reality and returned to the party and did likewise, we might have a small chance of beating some of these assholes back under the rocks they came from.

That's all I gots to say 'bout it. :D

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Well, I wish you luck, but I suspect you're in for a lot of years of being shocked, shocked at the kind of things your "fellow" Republicans say and do.

[cleverthylacine]

You say that like you think I'm not USED to it. Alas, none of the efforts to create a third party have worked, and the current situation is due to the flight of the sane socially tolerant, fiscal conservative types.

:D

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Allow me to give you some food for thought: Even in the past, the "Republicans are fiscally conservative" theme has been a sham, because of two things: [a] their willingness to spend (in the case of the current administration, literally) incalculable amounts of money to further their agenda, hang what it does to the rest of the economy and/or the country; [b] their unwillingness to play within the rules of basic accounting. You could make a case that [c] would be their tropism towards budgetary pork benefitting their own districts, but a counter case could rightly be made that both sides do that.

What the Repub leaders, and Libertarians, usually mean by "fiscally conservative" is actually "small government". And why do they want this? Because they believe [a] taxes are a bad thing and [b] the competitiveness of the free market will make government-style services cheaper and better. There are a few problems with this:

[a] Taxes are, effectively, your membership fee in civilization. Civilization is intended to provide you with things like military protection, diplomacy, roads and street signs, police and fire protection, public education, water and food and drug inspection, park maintenance, etc., etc., etc. -- things which are best done not for profit (and which, in many cases, have been attempted by the private sector and have almost uniformly failed).

[b] The competitiveness has not arisen. In everything from utilities to airlines, deregulation has resulted in things going to hell and being more expensive.

Another point. Democrats are much better for the general economy than the Republicans. I'm not joking -- check here (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-kinsley3apr03,0,6929691.column?coll=la-util-op-ed) and here (http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2005/05/larry_bartels_o.html). Growth better and more sustained, job numbers better, overall income better, deficit goes down.

Perhaps you're not in the right club yet. :)

Tax and spend liberals

[nezmaster.livejournal.com]

I always goff at the idea of being a "tax and spend liberal". I am I suppose, for increasing taxes in order to pay for what must be paid for. What gets me is the complete lack of realization of what the republican party is as an alternative. They in fact are not tax and spend. they are, "Don't tax, and spend it anyway" They spend MORE money than the democrats, all their budgets are LARGER, but they don't pay for it.
I suppose the libretarians are the party of don't tax and don't spend, but they are for the most part relatively clueless and certainly not likely to enter the white house. But as usual, the democrats rarely counter arguements against them.

By the way, a freind of mine agree..."I used to like howard dean, but lately, he's to soft spoken." The stuff he's saying is not only true, it's incredibly tame. Thank you for taking a stand Tom. Now if we can juse move you to some position of political authority. :)

[druidsfire.livejournal.com]

Tom, thank you.

You have hit on a great number of things in that post that has me very worried about this country and where it's going, things I can't talk about with many of my friends, because they've bought into the overall Republican viewpoint on many of those matters. I'm glad someone understands and agrees with 'my' side of the matter.

I have seen evil in my life. I don't want to see it again.

Hopefully with folks like you and me and anyone else who actually cares about this place... we can make it better.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I said this in Tom's blog after I followed the link, but I feel like saying it here too, for LJ readers who won't read that far down in the comments. I was replying to "Zander", who warned against the dangers of trying anything too radical to upset the current order because of the mess it would make.

To bring about "nationwide social and economic collapse? Widespread anarchy? Civil war?" does not require the violent overthrow of the current regime; all it requires is to sit back and let it continue its current policies unchallenged. Make no mistake, America is swirling around the drain of a complete economic collapse that will make the Great Depression look like a pleasant family vacation, and the Bush Administration is actively working to make it happen sooner rather than later. They actively seek to make the Federal government go bankrupt, lacking the imagination to see what would follow. The reason to prefer legitimate political means of effecting change is, really, that they have more of a chance of succeeding. Imbuing the electorate with a clue may be a faint hope, but it's imaginable; a revolution will only be possible after the government has already collapsed.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree. Sorry I hadn't checked back.

It will happen, I think, one way or another. I've been trying to tell myself I was being alarmist, but even if America manages to pull itself back from this one, the next one, or the one after that, will do it. It's just a question of when, and who wants to be the one who pulls out the important brick. And the same, sooner or later, over here.

Legitimate political means of effecting change only work if the mechanism is allowed to work untampered-with, or if both sides' tampering happens to balance out. It seems to have been accepted that the 2000 election was bought and sold, and despite that Bush still managed to get in again, so you don't have to be all that paranoid to conclude that the machinery is busted in several possible ways...

[louisadkins.livejournal.com]

Constitutional Convention, anyone?