Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Presidential Election

I've never really thought that Obama has been more than mildly challenged for achievement of a second term. Romney is an exceptionally weak candidate that the Republican base has never warmed up to and his rightward efforts to try and win them over have alienated large numbers of independents.

Obama is firmly in control on both coasts and the urban Midwest, where most of the urban population centers exist. He is polling ahead in most, if not all, of the traditional swing states, including some that more frequently go for Republicans over Democrats.

The Republicans are left with racist and evangelically Christian rich, deep South and some Southern satellite Midwestern States, a few Western mountain and plains States, controlled by agrarian and resource extraction coalitions and a few benighted spots like Missouri and West Virginia where ignorance, intolerance and xenophobia are as deeply rooted in the gene pool and culture as hookworms are in their brains.

Put simply, Romney needs Ohio, Virginia and Florida. These are all States that most frequently vote for Republican Presidents. No Republican Presidential candidate can realistically win without all three. It hasn't usually been a problem for them.  He is well behind in polling in all three of these States and trending lower, with Obama trending correspondingly higher. Chances are very low that things will change enough in the next month to turn things around in all three States.

In coming years, population shifts, generational change and increasingly sophisticated and empowered political organization on the part of racial and cultural minority factions are going to rob the Republicans of many more areas of political strength. The South will no longer be a stronghold for them. Texas and Arizona are demographic time bombs waiting to explode.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Highest Tradition of the Service

People seem to think that the Secret Service in this country has some kind of grand tradition. It was founded by a guy named Pinkerton. He was very proactive and used the same modus operandi for the entirety of his career.

First he would be appraised of by his employer  or identify for himself, person or persons perceived as a threat to those whom he is working in aid of. He would then confront these people, in person or by proxy, tell them to cease and desist and leave the area. In aid of this objective, he would burn their homes, crops and business enterprises, intimidate and brutalize their families, friends and associates. If any man stood up to his minions in protest, they were killed outright.

This man not only founded the Secret Service but built large private security and strike breaking forces for the major corporate entities and establishments of institutional wealth in America.

At present, the Secret Service appears to have been co opted by members of the spec op establishments of our various armed forces. These guys do dirty jobs, that nobody else wants to do, in violence ridden, pestilent shit holes all over the World. Guys like this, when not actually killing the denizens of whatever destination they are sent, are usually fucking the indigenous women.

You wanna hire guys like this, ya gotta take the whole package.

"It's Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy wipe your feet but it's savior of the country, when the drums begin to beat."

Bang, Bang... He Shot Me Down

Been a while since I posted anything here. No need really.

Here's an interesting thing to consider, though.

Over on the Wing Nut web, they are positively giddy about the fact that George Zimmerman is going to be exonerated for his killing of Trayvon Martin, a 17 year old boy who supposedly attacked him, armed only with a bag of Skittles and a canned soft drink, 70 feet from where his family members were sitting watching the NBA All Star game on TV.

They are right, of course. Given the law as it exists in the State of Florida, the lack of evidence, collection and documentation there of, by a police department sympathetic to Zimmerman. It is likely that Zimmerman will walk free. In fact, it is doubtful that the case will go to a jury at all. At some point, the defense is going to ask for and get the case dismissed and that is as it should be.

If Zimmerman were to be convicted of second degree murder or at least voluntary manslaughter, which is after all what he did, , it would be a positive indication that the criminal justice system in Florida is at least nominally fair and unbiased.

It will never happen. He'll go free as a bird.

And that may be the beginning of some actual change in the system.