A BATTLE OF VISIONS

If the 2008 Election is a Battle of Visions, the Democrats will win....because many important Republicans are economically tied to things staying the same, or getting worse. McCain cannot attack the polluters, Big Oil, and other natural supporters the way a Democrat can. A Democrat can appeal to universal and common interests such as clean air, water and land, peace, interdependence, and so on.

As Jim Hunt, North Carolina's visionary ex-governor said: "A campaign should be about where we want to go, what we want to do, who we want to be." In other words, it should be visionary, and progressive. Not merely maintaining the status quo...which by now is about as rotten as it can get.

The question should be:

Who is the better visionary? Now that John Edwards has left the race, I don't see a clear standard bearer of useful visions. Much of Obama and Hillary's vision was once John Edwards' vision. Where are their visions now?

I am a huge fan of George Lakoff. Have been since the early 80s, so there.
We progressive types have long had to suffer under the fact that the right had seized the term. Left has long connoted the sinister. (I am ambisinistrous.)

With the reverend Dr. Wright in the news, and with the Right ignivomating his name on a 24/7 basis...I believe it is possible to use their own vitriol to burn their own ass.

There is a way to make it go against their better interest to bring up the name. Before long, they will be yelling "move on!".

Rectum and Rectitude: An etymological truth.

Now that the Republican contender has tied his fate with George W. Bush, does this mean that Democrats may end Bush's long honeymoon, and challenge McCain by challenging Bush?

It is instructive to remember just how long Bush has been given a free ride, a seven year honeymoon. And while it is sometimes the case that a president's final year finds its share of cushions, it is more than clear that Bush has been cushioned all along.

McCain/Bush
Isn't Pain Fun!

But since Bush can't actually be on the ticket, due to a prior engagement with the bottle, and laws, it will therefore be either

McCain/Lieberman
Isn't Pain Fun!

or

McCain/Romney
21st Century Schizoid Honkies

I'm only saying...

The perverse and often baffling GOP raises new and troubling questions about the future of the party, when they let their loose cannons turn on each other, for sometimes they miss, thus threatening precious liberality. But that is neither here nor there, since the purpose of this waste of words is shoutout to Ira Glass, whose show today was most excellent...as was Peter Sagal's. So if you have yet to hear it, feel free to dial it in. Delightful and instructive.

Who will Inherit the Bush Recession?
"close ties may exist also among thieves"

"Close ties may exist also among thieves...but since it is not invincible, it does not bring good fortune... Where the community of interest ceases, the holding together ceases also, and the closest friendship often changes into hate. Only when the bond is based on what is right, on steadfastness, will it remain so firm that it triumphs over everything." - "Book of Changes"

In 2004, I wrote the following column:

Wealth & Inner Truth
Keys to Good Government
by HyperLincoln
http://hyperlincoln.blogspot.com/...

In the column, I explain why and how BushWorld was going to fall apart. It has everything to do with a lack of inner truth, and how thieves eventually turn on one another.

Well, Bush and Congress are at an all-time low, and Rush Limbaugh is pulling for Hillary Clinton. Everywhere you see one or more of the colluders in corruption, you see and hear anger, back-stabbing, desperate attempts at thinking, reaction against reaction against reaction. Perhaps Robert Fripp was correct, when he said: "Let the Power fall."

MORE BELOW...

Visions are long, life is short.
I think John Edwards understood this, and may be why he felt it important to pass his most passionate visions to Barack and Hillary. Whomever best embodies his visions will win my vote, if I don't for John.
I will "default to the vision".

To date, it seems that Barack is doing a better job of absorbing, and reflecting his visions, and so I am tending toward him. I wonder, though, if he would flinch when it came to learning all the truth about  the Bush Administration, and all their crimes and misanthropies. John would not flinch. Not so sure about Barack...or Hillary. She (and Bill) may well relish such action.

As I always said, with John you get better visions, but also better reality. If Barack and Hillary fail to understand the full reality of BushWorld, we all will be at a loss, because you cannot achieve your visions if you are not where you think you are. There has to be a ground of truth and reality...regardless of Bush and Cheney's ululating to the contrary.

We must ask the toughest of questions to all the candidates, and transcend the adolescent echo chamber proffered by the corpulent media.

A butterfly flaps his wings in New Orleans, and a hurricane of healing is unleashed upon the poor and downtrodden.
By receiving pledges that Obama and Hillary will make ending poverty central to their presidency, John Edwards is able to realize his personal vision of ending poverty, with just the use of a few well-chosen words.

It is widely known among visionaries that it is "manipulation" to include specific persons within your vision. The vision has apparently passed from Edwards into the hands of Hillary and Obama, and will soon pass into the hands and lives who most need the help.

If the next administration did only this, it would be a great success, particularly when compared with the current paralysis.

I hereby nominate John Edwards for the Nobel Prize in Grooviness for being the chief architect of the Democratic Renaissance.

I dare every South Carolinian, of all colors, to watch "To Kill a Mockingbird", and then ask themselves this question:

Who, among the candidates, is Atticus Finch?

My guess is that they would say that John Edwards is the closest thing to Gregory Peck's exemplary character...and they would be proud to know that he is one of their own brothers. As a fellow Carolinian, I know that most Carolinians want to distance themselves from the cruel bigotry of the old South, just as Atticus Finch distanced himself, at great cost to personal comfort and security.

Here is the wikipedia description of Atticus:
"Atticus is the book's most upright character, representing the moral ideal of both a lawyer and a human being: he is brutally honest, highly moral, a tireless crusader for good causes (even hopeless ones), a virtual pacifist and, for the most part, devoid of any of the racial or class prejudices afflicting the other citizens of Maycomb. He goes to great pains to instruct his children on the importance of being open-minded, judicious, generous neighbors and citizens. "

Go rent the movie tonight, before you vote, and then come back and share your thoughts. You could win up to one dollar!

[Originally a response to John Kerry, this post speaks to the MSM sins of omission, and the concomitant damage to democracy. Only a liar or an idiot would say "both" when there are three or more in the set. Which is it? Lying or Idiocy?]

In the Democratic primary, Obama and Hillary are Goliath and John Edwards is David, Seabiscuit, the oppressed candidate, by virtue of his doing the right thing regarding financing, but even more so by virtue of his marginalization by The Corpulent Media, who always seems to get it wrong...at least when it comes to the typical American citizen.
They helped shoehorn Bush into office.
They helped shoehorn America into a tragic, horrible, and far from over war.
They are pill pushers.

Even before the war, I knew this much: We might decide when it begins, but it is the enemy who will decide when it is over. And we found this out with "Mission Accomplished". The same sad truth holds true today...unless we are in touch with the highest of truths, and can create a win-win situation whereby their win is clearly more generous than our own...for it is we who created this proverbial "goose in a bottle" to begin with.

There! It is out!

THE HEAVY UPLIFTING
Now can we finally get to the heavy uplifting? (By uplifting, I do not mean tugging.)

"Never Compete. Every competition damages your reputation.
Our rivals seize occasion to obscure us so as to outshine us. Few wage honorable war. Rivalry discloses faults that courtesy would hide. Many have lived in good repute while they had no rivals. The heat of conflict revives and gives new life to dead scandals, digging up long-buried skeletons. Competition begins with belittling, and seeks aid anywhere it can, not only where it should. And when the weapons of abuse do not effect their purpose, as often or mostly happens, our opponents seek revenge and use them at least for beating away the dust of oblivion from anything that is our discredit. People of goodwill are always at peace, and those of good reputation and dignity are of goodwill. " - Balthasar Gracian, "The Art of Worldly Wisdom"

Who here feels edified by having our fine citizens, both Democratic and Republican, dig lower and lower into their beings to beat the other team (being addicted to sport) in this lifelong attempt to finally reach bottom?

Competition is not the only avalable option...

(More below the fold)

LET us vote then, you and I,
When the evening news is spreading lies
to the patients etherized upon a fable;

Let us go, through a certain half-deserted mind,
The muttering unkind
A mindless knight in one-night crack-ho tails
And cornpone restaurants with taco-shells:
Sheep that follow like a tedious dittohead
Of insidious portent
To feed you all a dose of healthy koolaid...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and drink this sh*t...

In the gloom, warmen come aglow
Talking of Guantanamo

The yellow blog that wipes its back upon our window pains,
The yellow news that rubs our nose in blue dress stains,
Licked its lips upon the money of the evening news,
Lingered upon the fools that stand to gain,
Let fall upon his face the pretzel that falls from skies,
Slipped by the congress, made of sullen lies,
And seeing that it was a soft September morn,
Turned around the plane, and fell to Sleep...

Bush critic to run for Congress

"I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened, by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency," Harry Taylor proceeded to tell the president. "And I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself." - Charlotte observer

Harry was the tipping point. He was the first person to publically question the authority of the president. He paved the way; took the risk; spoke the truth to power. Now he is running for congress and seeks your support.

Do the right thing. Give what you can. Dare to question.

http://www.actblue.com/...

Tom Tancredo is being hailed as a saint for his visionary mercy when he created the wall that spared the lives of millions of Mexicans from the fiery Katrina that is engulfing much of their northern neighbor.

When asked about his being compared to Mother Teresa and James Lee Witt, Mister Tancredo, ever the shy cosmopolite, whisked it away with a gentle flick of his polished hand. "It is nothing any other shy cosmopolite would do."

Hans W. Bush, a cousin of the Resident, has pulled a few strings, and it appears that the Nobel Peace Prize is now going to go to George W. Bush, kleptomaniac -- who now insists on being called "The Prince of Peace".

When asked what he was going to do with the prize, Mr. Bush said he would like to use it as a pretext to go to war with Iran, Syria, Turkey, Blogistan, Amsterdam, and Paris. Maybe Atlantis. "But first, i think I need to clear some tumbleweeds back in Crawford. Let my brain rest a bit. Peace is hard work. Hard." And when asked what the future might bring, Bush said that he was still hoping for Baseball Commissioner.

Back at CurrentTV headquarters, Al Gore is fending off rumours that he was trying to steal the coveted prize from Bush, and an ad hoc panel of impartial Floridians told Frank Luntz that Gore should just move on. "If Bush has the prize, it's obvious he won it!", said one of the pathetic fascists.

America is stuck in a ditch.
We need visionaries to get us out.
Blue Visionaries, like John Edwards.
Visionaries who are not content with merely keeping up with "competitors",
but who are actively creating the future.
The POSSIBLE America.

John Edwards is such a visionary.
But he needs our help.
He needs our support, and he could certainly use your donations.

John Edwards knows that America’s greatest inventions have been Social Innovations, like the Internet, transportations systems, advanced forms of peace...and is eager to foster the research and development of new and green ways of doing things, including tomorrow’s evolutionary technologies.
And he wants to include all people in the development of these new tools, lifestyles and environments.

Look at Cirque du Soleil or Disney World. did someone ask for all those wondrous worlds they created there? No! They were not satisfied with merely giving people what they said they wanted. They were visionary. Still are. They wanted to take it to the limits of possibility, and create the possible show. And they are constantly creating more and more wondrous worlds, manifesting remarkable visions. Blue visions.

With seven years of "experience" since the fateful election of 2000, it is informative to see how the main players have shaken out. Gore is winning Emmys and being nominated for the Nobel Prize, Joe Lieberman has, in my opinion, left the proverbial building, and is drooling over the possibility of a war with Iran. John Kerry seems to be in his best place, in the Senate, and John Edwards is the beneficiary of seven years of marinating his mind on what he would do, and not do, as president. And he seems to be at the top of his game.

I wonder if John Edwards is considering returning the favor to Mister Gore...
I suspect he is...since he said Gore was a hero. Obama would also be a good choice...but that sounds presumptuous.

I also wonder if Gore is thinking about endorsing John...now that he is even better than he was BACK THEN!

[MORE BELOW]

Social Networking sites are to typical internet sites what You are to I. They are an opportunity to find not just information, but living human beings -- repositors of information, and oftentimes, geese. By that I mean you find geese with golden eggs...not just golden eggs, which, of course, are fine, but I wouldn't want to eat one, at least not with my mouth, and since my mom always told me to keep my fingers out of my nostrils, I doubt a gold egg would fit there very comfortably either.

John proves his ability and willingness to reach out, every day, and his superiority on the social networking sites, blogging and such, proves that he is what we need leading us today.

When George W. Bush refuses to speak with Ahmedinajad (I'm guessing at the spelling)...he, according to Martin Buber, is rendering a potential "You" into a an "It". He and She equal It. You can't say You to a he or she or it.

By removing his enemy from the world of relationship, and keeping him in the world of experience, experienced as separate from...he can then kill him, bomb his people (by extension) and so on.

[There's more below the poll...)

Mister Bush ("Nonsense on Stilts") once again proved that there is no evolution, or, if there is, he is not privy to it, by, once again, uttering that most stupid of non-words, "nucular". These people just will not learn, and the sad thing is that their cheerleaders don't even care.

Anyway, he yabbed his typical puppetry tonight about Iraq. Bla bla bla. Hand the problem over to the Democrats (eight years too freaking late!) and let them fix it. Heck, we're stupid!

Anyway, John Edwards responded, and he did a far better job than Senator Reed, bless his heart. Why do they always put up the weakest Democrats, when you can have a dynamo like John Edwards?