I'm still in shock a little. Is this real? It seems to be. I've been so used to not winning, I kind of forgot what winning feels like.
To say this is surreal is an understatement, but I feel vindicated. Not because I feel that 'haha, we showed you guys, we beat you!' But because, for once, people turned out and chose hope and dignity over cynicism and playing on people's fears. If there's one thing that sticks with me throughout this election – and indeed American politics for the last decade – is that there has been a push-and-pull between those who tell us we have to be afraid, that we need them to protect us, that we need to walk with God otherwise Satan's forces (in whatever form) will defeat us; and those who take our hands and say 'let's do this together, let's work to build a better future.'
I've always been an optimist. Angela reminded me that I wrote way back in 2004 that I thought Obama would one day be president. I'm glad it has come to pass because it represents the first triumph of the desire for change and hope over the rule of fear and exploitation that has been the hallmark of the neoconservative movement.
I don't think McCain necessarily represented this, but some of his supporters certainly did. There are some especially choice quotes floating around right-wing websites and forums this morning, many of which are simply not worth repeating, linking to or even acknowledging apart from being the reactionary rants of people who just lost an election (and hey, I've been guilty of that myself in the past.) I'll compose a post later about where I think McCain went wrong, because I have something to say about that.
But right now, I'm still stuck in surreal mode. I wanted to run down the Tube car this morning high-fiving everyone there (good way to stick out as the American!) I bought all the newspapers so I have headlines to remember this day when I'm old, because this is history. I want to remember. I want to remember what it feels like to be part of a movement against cynicism, a movement for hope, united if not in geography then in spirit with my fellow Americans and indeed the rest of the world who looks to America as a symbol of the best of all possibilities.
Moving abroad has taught me that the American dream is not dead, whether it means working to try to better your family, a black man becoming president thanks in part to the votes of the children of people who were slaves, or the symbol of freedom that America still represents to the rest of the world even after all these years and mistakes. People are ultimately good and want the best for themselves, their children and the human race as a whole: I firmly and wholeheartedly believe this.
That is why I feel vindicated. Because yes, we did.
I'm writing you to tell you something very important.
In the past, I have been called many things by you. A homosexual, or a 'queer lover' for supporting gay rights. I LIEberal, insinuating I am a liar because I'm a liberal. A DEMONcRAT, insinuating I'm a demon and a rat because I vote democrat. Among other things. My beliefs are based on a lifetime of experiences - my own life - and firmly held moral convictions about right and wrong and the value and sanctity of human life and dignity. You have slandered me because of my lack of firm belief in a specific Christian God, been called a coward and a pussy because I have argued for finding peaceful alternative solutions to problems other than fighting, and been made fun of for supporting the ACLU, an organization which ironically exists only to defend our First Amendment rights to call each other names (and have rational discourse.)
You know what? That's all OK. I've been discussing video games and politics on the Internet since I was dialing into Prodigy in 1990. That's a long time: longer than some of you calling me these things have been alive. I have a thick skin and frankly I believe that a plurality of opinions makes for good discourse and ultimately good compromise, which is the basis of American democracy in the first place. If we can't troll each other at least a little bit, what's the point?
But I will say this: you guys way overstepped the line with questioning our patriotism for opposing the Iraq war. You called us traitors to America for daring to oppose Bush and question whether the war was justified and whether we were being mislead by the administration into the way. That's right, you called us traitors. I realize that not all of you did this, and I realize that there was a certain fervency sweeping the nation at the time. But the whole 'if you're not with us, you're against us' thing hurt. Because the reason we questioned the war and questioned Bush was our patriotism and love of our country, and our support for our troops. We don't want America associated (any more than it already is) with unnecessarily meddling in foreign affairs, and we certainly don't want to see our friends who enlisted in good faith sent to fight wars for the wrong reasons.
We'll never see eye to eye on this, and believe me there's part of me that looks at the polls right now and thinks, well, it's pretty much going to be Obama. I'm not celebrating early, but I'm what you might call cautiously optimistic. And there's a part of me that is enjoying watching conservatives self-destruct and bicker and fight amongst themselves, and wildly accuse Obama of this and that (the latest bit about his not actually being born in the United States is pure Rove). The hand-wringing over how he's going to turn the US into something resembling Soviet Russia is pretty funny, the accusations of him being a radical Islamic sleeper agent are hilarious, and the racism that's being exposed among Republicans (not all of you, but the fringe is certainly coming out of the woodwork) is frankly a little freaky.
But there's another part of me that thinks this: turnabout is going to be fair play. But you know what? It isn't. And here's why. It's not going to be wrong to criticize Obama's tax plans. They should be questioned and inspected and not simply rubber-stamped. It won't be wrong to speak out against the President, against the Democratic majority in Congress, against the government in general. Because as Americans this is our right. This is (one of the reasons) why my ancestors left oppressive environments in Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire, this is why your ancestors came over, and when you talk about American soldiers protecting our freedoms, that is the freedom they are fighting to protect.
I'm not going to call you a traitor for questioning the President. I'm not going to question your patriotism for challenging him, for making him own up and be honest, and if you don't like his answers I won't call you names for voicing your discontent. That, my friends, is your right and it is a right I would fight and die for you to keep.
So call me names if you'd like, LIEberal or DEMONcRAT or coward or traitor. Knock yourselves out. And I'd fully expect, if we win on the 4th, for there to be a bit of celebrating on our side - we've had eight years of your guy, and frankly he's kind of run things into the ground. But you will not hear from me any name-calling or insinuations that you are anti-American because you are exercising your American rights should you question us, should we actually manage to win.
As I said, I'm only doing this once, and that's the closest I'll come to gloating.
Watching the 'economic crisis' in London has been a bit of a trip. On one hand, I feel strangely distant from what's happening in the US, but on the other hand we're feeling its effects along with the rest of the world. Yesterday, the entire nation of Iceland - considered one of the strongest economies in the world not six months ago - declared bankruptcy, taking £20 billion in UK assets with it. Today, the UK is using anti-terror laws to seize as many assets as it can so it's not a total economic loss.
It would be an error to state that this is 'all America's fault,' but seeing how all the world markets affect each other has been an eye-opening experience. News is reported differently here, and seeing the Asian markets affecting the EU's markets, and in turn the effect that the American market has on all of it is sobering to say the least. I'm no economist so I'll save my opinions about what this all means, whether a 'bail out' will work, and whether it will get better or worse for my own personal musings. I will however copy and paste this paragraph from the Wikipedia article on the Great Depression, which I feel is extremely relevant, especially considering the recent announcement that consumer goods purchasing is at its lowest levels since the early 1990s:
The Great Depression was not a sudden total collapse. The stock market turned upward in early 1930, returning to early 1929 levels by April, though still almost 30 percent below the peak of September 1929.[6] Together, government and business actually spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. But consumers, many of whom had suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut back their expenditures by ten percent, and a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the USA beginning in the northern summer of 1930. In early 1930, credit was ample and available at low rates, but people were reluctant to add new debt by borrowing.[citation needed] By May 1930, auto sales had declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices in general began to decline, but wages held steady in 1930, then began to drop in 1931. Conditions were worst in farming areas, where commodity prices plunged, and in mining and logging areas, where unemployment was high and there were few other jobs. The decline in the American economy was the factor that pulled down most other countries at first, then internal weaknesses or strengths in each country made conditions worse or better. Frantic attempts to shore up the economies of individual nations through protectionist policies, such as the 1930 U.S. Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries, exacerbated the collapse in global trade. By late in 1930, a steady decline set in which reached bottom by March 1933.
My point with all of this isn't necessarily a post about the economy, but the effect that American policies, be they economic, social or otherwise, has on the rest of the world. Many conservative Americans take a 'who the hell cares what Europe, Asia, or anyone else thinks' approach to politics (and I'm not really sure many American liberals are any better, to be fair.)
This attitude is not just inherently ignorant, it's downright dangerous in a world economy where so many things are linked, as I see played out day after day in the media and online. Simply put: we can no longer afford an ill-informed, ignorant and provincial view of the world. The last eight years under Bush have been, as Green Day rather un-poetically put it, a 'redneck agenda' signified by pandering to this exact kind of ignorance. It's the same agenda that leads to cowboy international relations ('you're either with us or against us!') and it's disastrous consequences in Iraq. It is the same agenda that gave the Bush administration and the Republican Congress of its first six years a blank check to get rich from a false economic 'bubble.' And it is the agenda that lead McCain to cynically choose a running mate thinking she'd syphon votes from former Clinton supporters simply because she was a woman despite the fact that most any woman who would vote for Hillary wouldn't vote for someone who is on record as saying dinosaurs and cavemen existed at the same time.
Don't misunderstand. I'm not saying that Americans should vote based on what the world will think, or how the rest of the world will respond. I believe firmly in Jeff's view that all politics is local. But the image of America as a flailing toddler woefully ignorant of the destruction it can cause as it flails its arms without regard to its surroundings is an apt one. It's not that they necessarily mean harm to their surroundings, but when you look at their motivations, they are as infantile as possible. Not mature. Underdeveloped. Child-like. Example:
The only way to reconcile these two things is that Americans (and the rest of the world) need to rethink policies at the local level with an awareness of how they might affect things at the national and global level. The simple fact of the matter is that nothing exists in a vacuum anymore - no town, no state, no county, no country, no matter how much people might like to pretend otherwise. I'm not even saying that Obama is the answer to this, or that McCain wouldn't be. I'm saying that something fundamental needs to change at the most basic of levels in order to avoid a potentially scary scenario should the world plunge into a major economic depression, which seems like more and more of a possibility with each passing day. As I typed this, the Beeb announced that Vienna's stock exchange has suspended trading. Things are literally happening by the minute now.
It is only if economy and policy are re-examined and more importantly redefined at the local and community levels - with full awareness of how policies affect those around us - that we can avoid the abyss now open before us. To cop a line from Clinton's campaign in 1992, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. The era of trickle-down Reaganomics, neoconservatism, ignorance of fact, unawareness, whatever you want to call it is over. It was tried, and it failed so spectacularly that it has dragged the world to the precipice and is continuing to do so as I punch the keys on my keyboard.
Something's gotta give, one way or another. Let's hope it's the good way.
Update: Another excellent proof point:
Update 2: I want to clarify that I do not necessarily believe that the majority of the American right are a bunch of ignorant, mouthbreathers. Nor do I believe that people who are religious should be in any way barred from holding office. (I do however have an issue with someone who ignores fundamental scientific principles controlling science budgets, and someone who cannot pronounce 'nuclear' with the ability to fire nuclear weapons - that should be a basic prerequisite.) I have the utmost respect for people of all faiths, and liberalism has a proud history of being associated with religion, be it the liberation theology of South America; The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's own pseudosocialist - yes - vision for a united America; or the Founding Fathers' own preservation of religious freedoms.
I do feel that the American right, specifically the majority of the religious right, has been summarily manipulated and cynically controlled by elements within the Republican party who have used religious principles to ensure their candidates are elected and can pass legislation that benefits no one but the elite that drafted it. In fact, I find it doubly abhorrent that Republicans have repeatedly abused the goodwill of the American religious right to gain votes and win elections.
Update 3: I just can't help myself, these videos are gold. I'm not sure what's more telling, that Obama is a terrorist himself and a Muslim according to these people, or the guy just yelling 'Commie faggots' at the Obama supporters.
Late Monday, John McCain aide Michael Goldfarb blogs negatively about Obama supporters, saying "[i]t may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement." Cue nerd rage as the (fairly liberal) D&D community screams 'no we're not! This is the same bullshit we've dealt with since high school when the Young Republicans made fun of us there!' (Full disclosure: many of my D&D playing friends in high school were, in fact, Republicans.) Much moaning, wailing and gnashing of teeth as real issues were ignored and one aide's flippant and Rove-esque logical fallacy takes center stage in the blogosphere.
Goldfarb later apologies (albeit on a third-party site.) He says:
If my comments caused any harm or hurt to the hard working Americans who play Dungeons & Dragons, I apologize. This campaign is committed to increasing the strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma scores of every American.
And in so doing, rolled a natural 20 for John McCain among the D&D crowd.
My mind was made up long ago, and nothing sort of Obama crawling out of his skin and claiming to be the Prince of Darkness himself would make me consider voting for a Republican. And as Seth slyly pointed out in his Google Reader notes: this is so irrelevant to actual issues facing Americans that it's almost a joke that it became a concern in the first place.
That being said, it's a hell of a case of knowing your audience and apologizing to them in their own language, and putting a human face on something that people tend to dehumanize. So credit where credit is due.
Note: never thought I'd use the 'Dungeons and Dragons' and '2008 Election' tags for the same post...
With Super Tuesday looming in a few hours for American Puppeteers, I thought it was high time this blog finally endorse a candidate for the American presidency. Therefore it is with great pride that I announce the Subversive Puppet Show fully endorses the candidacy of Andrew Ryan for President of the United States.
1. Andrew Ryan built an underwater city. Ryan is a businessman and motivator with a vision, and the wherewithal to execute that vision. Unlike other visionaries he is able to motivate his base to implement his dreams.
2. Andrew Ryan believes all men were created equal. As he is fond of saying, there are no Gods or Kings - only men. Each person can become anything he wants and his success or failure is no one's fault but his own.
3. Andrew Ryan is not afraid of bettering the species. Stem Cells? Try ADAM. It's not just curing disease, it's for making humans more beautiful, stronger and more intelligent.
4. Andrew Ryan likes golf. Name one bad president who liked golf. You can't. Most people forget the golf factor. Not us.
Ah, who am I kidding. I endorse Obama. Now get your asses out there, vote early and vote often!
It's cigarettes and coffee time following the Iowa primaries. So what happened?
Obama and Huckabee. Big upset for Clinton who came in 3rd (although she was within spitting distance of 2nd.) Ron Paul grabbed about 10% of the vote.
What does this have to do with what I discussed yesterday? Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins on Mashable has a good (albeit a little hyperbolic) summary of the evening's successes. Money quotes:
Patrick Ruffini’s Twitter efforts once again proved that using Twitter for major event coverage will give you a substantial lead over anything the mainstream news can do with their efforts, and for substantially less money invested...
Somehow, without even turning on any cable news networks, I was able to get minute by minute coverage of the caucus results from actual primary sources with a high degree of accuracy and interesting analysis. [Emphasis his]
While I don't agree with his overly-optimistic report of Ross Perot wannabe Ron Paul's less-than-impressive 10% turnout despite his fundraising record and the large volume of noise about him online. It seems there might be some snakes on Paul's plane after all.
But Obama's success is something else altogether. Obama has married an extremely diverse new media campaign with a traditional media campaign - and this seems to be the formula for success. Despite the heavy emphasis on new media by the Democrats in 2004 with efforts on Daily Kos, it was not enough to tackle the (then) dinosaur-like Republicans who relied almost exclusively on traditional media in that campaign. Contrast that with Paul, who has worked almost exclusively with new media in this campaign and reaped a surprisingly small reward for doing so.
While Mashable declared that traditional media was "on notice," clearly that's a little premature of a declaration to make. I wouldn't go as far as Drama 2.0 and say "so what?" but I will say that exclusive reliance on new media isn't going to win anything, at least not at the moment. Drama 2.0 makes a very good point:
But on the whole, [traditional media] usually does a more-than-adequate job of providing an accurate who, what, where, when, why and how for major events. For the vast majority of average Americans, that’s good enough.
I recognize that he's referring to Hopkins' remark about the success of Twitter, and I'm extrapolating a little to associate that with the overall success of the various kinds of media, but my point is that you simply cannot - yet - have an exclusively new media campaign and expect to "win." We're still in a time of change, and although we'd like to imagine that our work in the fishbowl is the most important work, we're as reliant on our traditional counterparts as they are on us.
I don't want to seem like I'm coming down on new media relations because I'm not. I'm simply trying to be practical in my approach to what I do. This relates primarily to expectations: Ron Paul supporters were expecting his record-breaking fundraising to translate to a from-behind major win at the polls. People expected the buzz around Snakes on a Plane and Serenity online to translate into major ticket sales. Clients expect to be able to throw a "viral" video, the definition of which no one can ever agree upon, onto YouTube and get a million hits (and sell a million units) just because it's there. They expect that a "viral" video game they created will be loved by the online gaming community despite a shitty concept executed in a farty manner.
That, if anything, is the lesson here. Obama has one hell of a campaign staff and my guess is that if they can keep this up, it will take him all the way to the White House. He also has a very optimistic message of hope, and that always helps - you have to make sure the product you're selling isn't awful.
The rest of the primary season will be very interesting indeed!
I've got some time and two computers - why not liveblog the Democratic debate? It's streaming on MSNBC, IE-only.
[UPDATE 1]: Hillary Clinton kind of kicks some ass. I'm a little worried about the focus on the military timetable for withdrawal though - I can guarantee that's going to be something that Rove will pick and pick at if it so much as partially appears to fail.
[UPDATE 2]: Man, Obama sounds green at first glance compared to the others. Poor Obama.
[UPDATE 3]: Hillary Clinton: "I take responsibility for my vote." I wonder how many time the Bush administration has use the term "I take responsibility" for anything.
[UPDATE 4]: I've now heard all of them speak. So far, Clinton sounds best, followed by Edwards and Obama. Clinton has definitely gotten over the "John Kerry talk-to-much" problem.
[UPDATE 5]: Wow, I take that back. I hadn't heard Dodd speak. He's awesome.
[UPDATE 6]: "This war was lost the day George Bush invaded Iraq on a fraudulent basis." Nice. Now he's actually taking the Democrats in Congress to task. He sounds like he ought to be on a streetcorner somewhere. I like this guy, unfortunately he sounds like he's about to keel over from poor health.
[UPDATE 7]: John Edwards is telling anecdotes. He sounds... Bushlike?
[UPDATE 8]: Hillary just said "regulate" in relationship to the "economy." Cue right-wingers crying "socialist commie red!"
[UPDATE 9]: Dodd looks like a character from a movie. An actor. I can't quite place where, though.
[UPDATE 10]: Kucinich: "This isn't American Idol." Nicely done, sir.
[UPDATE 11]: Although he's avoiding the question and instead indicating that "I'm sorry isn't enough." Boy, if there's something that'll come back to bite you in politics...
[UPDATE 12]: Ha, Biden made a funny joke. Except I'm not sure it's a joke. Hmm.
[UPDATE 13]: Holy shit a brick, this guy from Alaska is amazing.
[UPDATE 14]: Abortion! There's a fun topic.
[UPDATE 15]: Edwards' response was pretty weak, and Obama's doesn't necessarily sound any better. Transparency: I do not support "partial birth" abortions, unless it's a medical necessity. But as Obama says, that's less than 1% of all abortions.
[UPDATE 16]: Now Obama is talking about Democrats and Republicans coming together to reduce teen pregnancy, for example. Good on you, sir.
[UPDATE 17]: "Name a model Justice alive today." Bill Richardson just named a dead Supreme Court justice. D'oh.
[UPDATE 18]: Miss Clinton, would you please blame video games? Thanks.
[UPDATE 19]: Woah. She's fucking this question up (re: Virginia Tech.) What the heck? It's like she totally lost her tempo here. And she avoids video games completely, and focuses on the failure of background checks on Cho. Good.
[UPDATE 20]: Kucinich had a gun? I wonder what for?
[UPDATE 21]: Health Care is interesting. Obama certainly presents the best argument here. Edwards, not so much. Obama actually has specific recommendations, he's not just throwing out generalities.
[UPDATE 22]: Richardson: we shouldn't raise taxes, but everyone will pay in. Huh?
[UPDATE 23]: Obama: put the Confederate flag in a museum. Thank you for putting a ridiculous non-topic in perspective.
[UPDATE 24]: Senator Clinton admits she's made a lot of mistakes. Welp.
[UPDATE 25]: Sorry, I got distracted finishing up my work.
[UPDATE 26]: Obama does an excellent job of informing the moderator that the potentially-damaging quote was incomplete, and came out looking great. Brandon, you'd be interested in what he said re: Israel and Palestine, and the failures of the Palestinian leadership. I didn't catch it all unfortunately.
[UPDATE 27]: "It's time to start treating the rest of the world as equals." Very nice, Mr. Crazy Alaskan.
[UPDATE 28]: Unfortunately I have to take off. Interesting debate. It's good to see them all in action.
"It's true that Barack Obama is on the move," [Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger] Ailes said, deliberately confusing the Illinois senator's name with that of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. "I don't know if it's true President Bush called [Pakistan President Pervez] Musharraf and said, 'Why can't we catch this guy?'"
Thankfully, the Democrats decided that a debate to be co-hosted by Fox News simply wouldn't be appropriate when the "fair and balanced" network says things reminiscent of the "Martin Luther Coon" jokes made by conservative leaders on television during the Birmingham bus boycotts.
Yeah, conservatives really have evolved a lot since they were turning firehoses on blacks. Now, they just equate them with terrorist leaders.
Faux News' response to the Democrats canceling?
Fox News Vice President David Rhodes responded to the debate cancellation with a written statement saying MoveOn.org owns the Democratic Party.
A party (the Republicans) and movement (modern conservatism) this fucked up does not deserve to remain in power.
Via a coworker comes TechPresident.com, which lists, among other things, how many "friends" each candidate has on MySpace, and what the percentage of change was for that candidate's friends since last week.
Now mind you, just because Snakes on a Plane got a lot of Internet hype doesn't mean that it made any money, so be wary of any numbers on the Internet claiming any kind of victory. But it is interesting to note that Obama, with 44k friends, has more friends than any of the Republican candidates combined. I don't think that's because he necessarily will win, mind you, but it certainly goes to show that one thing the Democrats actually know how to do is use the Internet to mobilize people.
Now if only they can figure out some actual policy that isn't just "LOL NOT BU$H."
It's official: Barak Obama is running for President in 2008. And what better way to show you know how to appeal to and communicate with the online community than to start a social networking site - My.BarakObama.com? If you're interested, head on over - sign up for newsletters. Join discussion groups. Find people who are interested in the same issues you are. Even post your own blog. Why should candidates rely on third-party sites like DailyKos when they can have a networking site of their own?
And I'm sure the Grand Old Party will figure out how this devious series of tubes works one day. That, or they'll just label it the "loony liberal blogosphere" and ignore the issue yet again.
So I ask again: what have you done to get involved today? Here's something you can do without leaving the comfort of your computer: click some links. Let's change things for the better.
A couple of years ago, I saw a documentary on Karl Rove that explained how he began to hone his tactics in political discourse (a YouTube search has not yielded the clip). In this documentary, the biographers - many of them his friends - explained that Rove always thought he was right. That he was thoroughly convinced of his own position, and that he wouldn't take that position if he wasn't convinced.
Fair enough. I'd have to say that I feel the same way. If I'm not necessarily convinced of something, I'm not going to argue for or against it.
The show went on to explain that in his high school (or college, I can't recall) debate class, Rove would often use intimidation tactics on his opponents. If they showed up with a few index cards worth of notes, he would show up with a box of index cards. They would bring two boxes, he would bring four. Eventually he wheeled a dolly full of boxes of "notes" into a debate before someone put a stop to it - but Rove knew the value of psychological warfare, and it is something he has continued to refine since. As a marketing person myself, I have to admire him as a kind of mad genius. As a person who'd like to think that discourse doesn't have to sink to suck levels, he makes me ill.
Because that's the rub, isn't it? If you're really so convinced, why bring the boxes of cards? One could argue it's a tool in the overall debate, but wouldn't a true master of discourse be able to convince his opponents through - I don't know, logic and reason? Perhaps it was all that Greek philosophy I studied and the Platonic dialogues I read, but when I listen to an argument for or against something, I'm sure as fuck going to weed out the psychological warfare elements (doubly so since as a marketing schlub I recognize them) and cut to the actual reasoning behind the position. And if you can't explain that, what good are you?
Which brings me to the point of this post. What exactly is the threshold for being wrong? At what point can you throw away the psychological warfare and your smug self-satisfaction that you've used to belittle and denigrate your opponents, and admit "hey, maybe this isn't the way to go after all." After your "slam-dunk" WMDs aren't there? After you realize that labelling people who aren't on board with you destroying civil liberties as "traitors" isn't working? How about after the levees break, and the help that you promise doesn't come?
Most recently, it's been two attacks on the opposition that have raised my eyebrows. As the Democrats have already done more in the first month they've been in Congress than the Republicans did in the last six years of controlling the legislative and judicial branches of government by raising minimum wage, how do Republicans respond? With rational discourse? No. They accuse (falsely) Barack Obama of attending a radical Islamic school, and accuse Nancy Pelosi (also falsely) of trying to traipse around the country in a plane that it turns out was requested by Homeland Security?
What exactly is the threshold for being wrong? When does the psychological warfare end? How many "Barack HUSSIEN Obama LOL" jokes are we going to have to tolerate before enough is enough? When will people demand that the boxes of index cards be put away, and we finally return to civil discourse in this country?
I think a lot of people are getting tired of those boxes, and more and more people are seeing them for what they are. And that's really the sad part about warfare, psychological or otherwise: you need to keep providing bigger and bigger boxes. And when you can't anymore, it's time to sit down and settle things like civilized human beings - by talking it over.
I'm still in shock a little. Is this real? It seems to be. I've been so used to not winning, I kind of forgot what winning feels like.
