430 shopping days until 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 3 K’ank’in.
Herbert Cain now leads the polls for the Republican nomination. I for one would find it very, very, very funny if all the teatard agitation and all the racially motivated opposition to that Kenyan-born Muslim Socialist resulted in two black men contesting for the presidency in the general election. If it weren’t for all the things to weep about. But just imagine a favorite Republican uncle or brother-in-law looking at the top of the ballot on Election Day and going, No, wait… I’ll laugh through the tears.
In my Twitter feed yesterday I noticed that many Obama supporters among the tweeple I follow were incensed that “white liberals” were retweeting and facebooking the link to the viddy above, and seemed to think that if a YouTube clip of Herman Cain singing “Imagine There’s No Pizza…” went viral, that it would somehow be a threat, or demeaning, to President Obama. Personally, I’m sorry that Herman Cain has stolen Rick Perry’s thunder (tho’ a punier Zeus I could not think of), because I was hoping against hope to see Obama destroy Perry in a debate or two, but I find it hard to see Cain as a threat to Obama in any way, except in that he’s possibly plumping Romney’s pillows for a soft landing into the Republican nomination. The fact that Cain is a clown doesn’t put even the least smudge on Obama’s adamantine gravitas. But, I’ve been warned: if Obama isn’t reelected, it’s all my fault.
Tho’ I hate to echo conventional wisdom, Romney (I want to call him “Willard of Mittgard,” but that would be silly) is the best chance the Republicans have among a very weak field to make a reconquista of the presidency. Willard Lies-A-Lot is now getting more Wall Street money than Obama, but Obama is currently out-fundraising the entire pack of GOPers by 20 million or so dollars. Don’t doubt the Wall Streeters will hedge their bets in spite of Obama hurting their delicate fee-fees with some ferociously mild criticism. Obama, in spite of the shit storm he is obliged to inhabit as the leader of our crumbing empire and cheerleader for our failing “free market” economy, with extra gravy as a non-white, non-Republican POTUS, is still a man who is going to be hard to beat in the next election. Never mind that I’ve bet the wrong horse in 8 out of 10 presidential elections in which I’ve cast a ballot. This is why:
I am one of the “white liberals” who had his delicate fee-fees hurt when Obama turned out exactly as I thought he would, in short, “the very model of a modern mainstream Democrat, which is to say, slightly to the right of Nixon on most issues.” Even the most determined pessimist (or, as I prefer “dark roast realist”) is occasionally susceptible to the sepsis of hope. As I wrote in a previous post, “I’m glad…the cohort of Dimbulbicans that have been pissing me off since the Nixon administration now have a president…they can hate as much as I hate what 8 years of Bush (did) to this country.” I still enjoy that.
But. Tho’ I will never vote for any “R”–Republicans have been vile in their obstruction and machinations to destroy what’s left of our democracy–I don’t think I can vote for a “D” who has out done Dubya in strengthening a national security state destructive of human rights while escalating illegal wars; who has allowed the set up of a bureaucratic Star Chamber in contravention of Habeus Corpus and the Constitution, and approved the assassination of American citizens (no matter how vile their alleged crimes). The fact that openly gay soldiers can now go to foreign countries and kill people without fear of official persecution for their sexual orientation does not compensate for the effective loss of the Bill of Rights, which was added to the Constitution precisely to prevent such state tyranny over the people. I have other disappointments with Obama’s tenure and policies (and there’ve been some positives of course), but presidential sanction of murder by remote control is enough to kill my inner Obamabot in so far as I had one.
OK, the logic is contorted, but it goes like this; as a contarian outlier, my deep disapproval of Obama on this issue probably indicates enough generic approval of Obama on the part of people voted for him last time to reelect him.
I don’t really know what I’m going to do when I face the ballot on the first Tuesday in November in 2012. I suspect it doesn’t matter; it certainly hasn’t mattered in most of the elections in which I’ve voted. There is that quote or pseudoquote attributed to Einstein defining insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I’m not sure this is true even if Einstein said it, but people all over the world rejecting doing the same thing and are now taking to the streets in search of a different result. Obama was not the different result, and he most likely won’t be different if he is reelected. The different result (to echo Nassim Taleb) may be like that on the same old day at the end of an exceeding sameness of days when the flock of turkeys goes to slaughter prior to Thanksgiving. Gobble, gobble.
Dr. Omed's Tent Show Revival 