THE CANCER KILLING PDCOM - Blow-by-Blow Coverage of Democratic Primary Race

[Cain]

Of course, you say that, but....

http://rigint.blogspot.com/2008/03/deep-ones-and-madness-of-crowds_27.html

When Obama wins, the only change will be that his supporters will be eaten first

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I'm fighting for Obama, of course. But in a general election I will probably either not cast a vote for president or vote for McCain, for two reasons: one, he has a history of going against the grain of political momentum even when it's unpopular, and two, HRC needs to be taught a lesson that she can't ride into the White House just because that's the way some shadow government has it planned.

McCain policies will wreak economic havoc domestically, but that doesn't mean I won't vote for him. I do have the ability to adapt to such bullshit, and I have in the past.

[Cain]

Of course, you say that, but....

http://rigint.blogspot.com/2008/03/deep-ones-and-madness-of-crowds_27.html

When Obama wins, the only change will be that his supporters will be eaten first

For the tl;dr crowd:


This, I think, is the deep context in which we should situate the perpetual travesty machine of American politics. Here too, restrained predation "doesn't quite kill or does kill only slowly." Here, rather, it "keeps hope alive."

All through the Bush years, scores of non-Republicans have anticipated the brutal full-flowering of traditional dictatorship with all the trappings: martial law, mass internment and the cancellation of elections. Through much of the Clinton years, many non-Democrats looked for the same. It didn't come (though some are still waiting). It's as if they've not only expected the worst, but sought it, to put them out of their misery. But the worst exceeds their expectations, and their misery is to be protracted indefinitely.

The Kennedys and King, the October Surprise and Mena, anthrax and Wellstone, Gore and Kerry, Florida and Ohio: you might think that would be enough to make most Democrats say You know what? This isn't working out. But elections are paced like the Olympics, and in another four years the Jamaican bobsledders may really have a shot. Hey, anything's possible. And so long as people believe that, and that anything means everything they want, the cycle repeats and self-perpetuates.

The great assassinations of the Sixties were decapitation strikes, never intended to kill the host or to extinguish hope. It's only the hopeless who are dangerous. Hope must be encouraged, because you don't need to do anything to have it, and it keeps the prey from becoming wise to its own nature and seeking extraction from the cycle. Hope makes it possible to write and believe such things as "Al Gore will save the planet but Barack Obama will save this country." Hope that the system works, even if it is just a digestive system.

Restrained predation upon the Democratic Party may be at an advanced stage of domestication, but it also mimics molecular endosymbiosis with the injection of alien organelles in the form of the Trojan horse DLC to which, of all the contenders, both Clinton and Obama are closest in tactics and ideology. Funny how that happened.

And how did that happen? I think there's an institutional instinct at work, in the Deep Context, that maintains the insectival social engine of power. Does Obama know his role? That may be irrelevant, because the volition and cognition of the individuals who form the living manifestation of the system may be grossly overstated. They have given themselves to the system, the system has groomed them and raised them above all others, and they instinctively know what the system requires.

Is it hopeless? Thank Christ, yes, so get used to it. There's a liberation to hopelessness, in knowing what can't be done (or more typically, politically, be done for you), which I personally find preferable to another four years of huffing one's own jenkem. There's no salvation within the political cycle of death and rebirth, consumption and excretion - jellies eat and shit through the same simple hole, which could also be a reasonably sophisticated media analysis - and to hope for such a savior is to be the doomed hero of Lovecraft's fiction.

Perhaps it's not be so far from the Deep Ones to Deep Politics. You could say it all comes out right in the end, but you know what comes out in the end.

[Jenne]

Well, that's a fucking downer.

But we have no real alternative at this point in time.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I don't agree. I think it's possible to effect actual change. Even if the political landscape is a dumb beast, it can be tamed at times.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I don't agree. I think it's possible to effect actual change. Even if the political landscape is a dumb beast, it can be tamed at times.

I dunno... maybe in theory, but I haven't seen much success in practice.

[AFK]

I saw some figure on Obama's campaign funds this morning.  He's had over a Million donations coming from various donors.  A quarter of these are first time donors.  The average donor was less than $100.  I can't say for sure, buy my guess is that the McCain and Clintion Campaigns can't boast these same sort of "grassroot" level donations. 

In effect, he really doesn't owe anyone anything, financially speaking. 

eta:  I saw these on Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough

[Jenne]

Lookit, I'm in the grassroots bidness, and so are you, RWHN, that's why it behooves us to IGNORE the motherfucking big picture.  Otherwise, we might as well look around for a new rope to hang ourselves with, if you catch my drift.

[AFK]

Troof.  Much troof. 

[Roo]

I do have the ability to adapt to such bullshit, and I have in the past.

So do we all, but why ask for it? Why buy it, if it's not what you want?

Just because they're selling the bullshit, doesn't mean you have to buy it. As long as you keep buying it, they'll keep selling it. All you're doing is maintaining the status quo.

Who are you serving?

[LMNO]

I said it a year ago, I'll say it again.

Anyone who has made it big enough to become a viable presidential candidate has made far too many compromises to be trusted.

[LMNO]

Also, I stole from the above to post this at TCC:

I said it a year ago, I'll say it again.

Anyone who has made it big enough to become a viable presidential candidate has made far too many compromises to be trusted.

It may sound cliche, but the Who was right.  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

http://rigint.blogspot.com/2008/03/deep-ones-and-madness-of-crowds_27.html

The politics of hope is the thing that is opressing masses the most.  Because if you have hope in the system, then you'll keep playing the game, in the HOPE that it will finally turn in your favor.

But the game has been rigged.  You will never get what you want.  You'll get a passable fascimile, that makes you uncomfortable, but you've forgotten that the last election made you feel that way, too.

So slowly, you give up all you wanted, yet there is still a candidate that give you HOPE that this time, it will be different.

It is only the hopeless that is a threat to the system.  And the system knows this.

[Cain]

They're going to shit themselves over at TCC if they read too much Rigint.

Satanism, cattle multiliation, gratuitous Lovecraft references, the occult in the military and corridors of power...from a Canadian socialist?

It'll send them into a meltdown of confusion.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Except that the hopeless are apathetic cockweevils who do nothing but shit on anyone who dares to dream big. The only thing hopelessness threatens is the will to achieve anything beyond the status quo.

And, if I may offer a less directly assaultive rebuttal to this nonsense about the "politics of hope oppressing people," it is not that the current "hope" guy is saying "let's do things by the book one more time and hope we get a better outcome." He's saying "this doesn't work and we need to change the mindset that's been keeping this country in the shitter for 50 years."

It isn't hope and faith in some candidate that drives my support for this mainstream guy, it's the recognition that literally millions of people are involved because of him that would otherwise be over their heads in apathy and distraction. It isn't like every one of them is ready to stand up and revolt, but it's better than it would be without them. It's not an expression of faith in the system, it's an expression of dissatisfaction with the system and a demand that it be changed to suit the will of the people.

It's all really idealistic and all that, and I know that optimism is a synonym of stupidity among some groups. And it all sounds like a bunch of people signing on for a campaign that's duped them into following the status quo by doing a good job of making empty rhetoric from 200 years ago sound like a viable modern political platform. And, maybe it will fail -- probably it will fail. But absent some widespread urge to start blowing shit up, this is the best there is.

So to the hopeless, I say when you do something real that goes beyond a bunch of Nihilist bullshit that has no place outside of a shitty independent film about the futility of trying, or when you prove that past 500 years' advances in human dignity and equality were going to happen anyway without anybody working for it, then I'll start to see hopelessness as a threat to the establishment.

Until then, all I see is a bunch of self-defeated quitters who choose the easy way out and claim the moral high ground with empty justifications.

[Jenne]

That's generally my feeling about those who refuse to vote, vex.  Part of that ol' "being part of the solution instead of part of the problem."