Eggheads and African-Americans!

Whatever happened to the “Big Tent” party?  It looks like Hillary Clinton, and her team, don’t consider the Democratic Party to be that anymore.  Wow.  Does that mean I have to turn in my Registered Democrat card . . . because, I’m not a working class white, without a college education?  I’m not a female either (remember, I’m your Uncle Rave) – her other target demographic.

What does that say about her?  What does that say about the people who have voted for her?

For me, to answer the first, it’s further proof that she’s perfectly comfortable playing the “race card”.  For obvious reasons, she denies this, but it’s becoming more and more evident.  The Jesse Jackson comparisons, the “If Obama weren’t Black . . .” comments,  the playing up the Rev. Wright issue, etc.  And now, she claims that Obama is weak with “hard working white Americans”.  Hmmm!  What’s next for this disturbing and divisive campaign?  Will Terry McAuliffe, or Paul Begala (or Bill) next refer to Obama as Barack HUSSEIN Obama?  Anything seems to go with this camp.  Desperation is never pretty.

As to the second, other than the “feminists”, who seem to be wearing blinders, who is actually voting for Hillary then?  Are these “hard working white Americans” just under-educated?  Or, is this a symptom of a persistent and pervasive racism, that still exists in this country?  There are numerous levels of racism.  It doesn’t have to be a matter of pure hatred.  Sometimes it’s more a matter of fear.  Sometimes it’s just that strange idea of superiority, or in some cases . . . inferiority (afraid of losing their perceived standing in society).  It could be any one, or any combination, of these things.  A lot of it is handed down from their parents, but all of it is based on a kind of ignorance.  I just find it strange that some professed Democrats would be comfortable with all of this.  How will people like this vote in November, if it’s Obama vs. McCain?

Fortunately, it may not be as bad as it might appear.  Some of Hillary’s apparent strong showing among this sector could be due to Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos”.  This is where Rush has asked his (Republican) listeners to vote for Hillary Clinton, either through disenguously registering as Democrats, or where registered voters could participate in either party’s primary – as in Indiana.  Rush has a keen interest in seeing Barack bloodied, and prolonging this primary process.  The longer this goes on the less John McCain has to do.  Let the Democrats beat each other up!  Rush and his conservative ilk are fully behind  this divide and conquer strategy.

Why Doesn’t Hillary see this?  Vanity?  Pride?  Or, does she see it . . . and it’s more a matter of spite?  An Obama loss in November could make her the favorite for 2012.  Just supposition!  All I know is that since I’m not African-American . . . I must be an egghead.

Your Uncle Rave

Help STOP big media consolidation

Courtesy of CREDO

Dear Friend,

Last year the Federal Communications Commission pushed through new rules that gutted the local “cross-ownership” prohibition. This would mean MORE big conglomerates gobbling up our local papers and TV stations — which is bad for media diversity and bad for our democracy.

However, the Senate has introduced a resolution that will reverse the FCC’s new rules. I’ve just signed a petition to Majority Leader Reid and my senators in support of this resolution, and I hope you will too.

In this very important election year, are we willing to let a handful of companies continue to control what we see, hear and read every day?

I hope you’ll have a look and take action.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/stop_big_media/?r_by=211-858329-tJmxCr&rc=paste

Thanks!

Your Uncle Rave . . . says sign it!

Tim Russert Calls It!

FINALLY!!!(?)  I was a little surprised that Tim Russert was one of the first to say that Hillary is done.  “We now know who the Democratic nominee’s going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it.”  After all the fawning he had done over her, even up until Tuesday morning, he has finally regained his objectivity.  (If any of you truly bought into the media bias for Barack Obama I’d be more than happy to show you a lovely little bridge that connects Manhattan Island to Brooklyn, NY.  And, just because I like your face, I’m going to give you my very special sucker’s discount!)

There are two versions of this YouTube video from MSNBC.  This is the shorter one.  You can access the longer one very easily at YouTube.com

Your Uncle Rave

http://www.youtube.com/user/eli933x 

Indiana Wants Me, but I’m Going To Carolina In My Mind

Are you READY to be MANIPULATED?!?!  Good people of Indiana and North Carolina, the Queen (And Still Champeen) of Pandering is trying to sell you a bill of goods!  I certainly hope you’re not buying her loads and loads of manure.  Because, that’s all it is.  Pure horse hockey! 

She wants you to think she’s just folk.  Showing up to a rally in the back of a pickup truck.  Doing shots and beers at a neighborhood bar.  Talking about how her daddy took her out behind the cottage and taught her how to shoot.  All while trying to convince you that Obama is an elitist . . . but she knows how you feel!  Riii-ight!  I’m just surprised she hasn’t borrowed Bill’s famous “I feel your pain” line.  You have to be able to bite your lower lip, and look sincere to deliver that line.  That’s like asking her to walk and tell the truth at the same time.  She can’t do it.

Heck, she’s not even a convincing Democrat, anymore.  She appeared on FOX News, on the Bill O’Reilly Report no less!  And, did you here what her campaign chairman said following the Pennsylvania primary?  Terry McAuliffe said “Let me congratulate FOX, because you were the first ones to call [the Pennsylvania primary] for Hillary Clinton.”  She even joked that she thought Rush Limbaugh had a crush on her!  She’s playing up to Republicans as she’s trying to convince Democrats to vote for her.  She shouldn’t be lending any credibility to that network.  McAuliffe even called FOX News by their motto: “Fair and Balanced”.  I trust most of you good people know better than that.

She is trying to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, and she seriously thinks you – middle/working class America – are gullible enough to buy it!  I doubt very much that she has ever walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, because she is NOT even close to being a New Yorker.  She is a carpetbagger.  Some North Carolinians might remember what that is like.  She’s a blatant opportunist, who had much of this planned, from the very day that she announced she was running for senator from New York.  She has long thought that the Democratic party owes her something (everything?) . . . most importantly, the nomination to run as the Democratic presidential candidate.

She thought it would be a cake-walk.  She envisioned a kind of coronation.  Surely, no one would seriously challenge her!  That’s why early on, before the Iowa caucuses, she ran a clean and civil campaign.  Soon after, and in ever increasing intensity, she has gone dark and negative.  And, worse than that (if there can be a worse) she has sunk to the level of pandering for your votes.  She’s playing on your weaknesses and fears.  Her latest is trying to sell you a gas tax break . . . that ALL the experts and economists say won’t work . . . and that she is virtually powerless to deliver!  She thinks that this will both; get your attention (and support), and prove to you that she’s for the common, hard working middle class . . . and against the big, bad oil companies.  Uh-huh!  Sure!

Well, you have the ability – the power – to tell her: Oh, So Sorry!!!  No Sale!  Because you are on to her pathetic, manipulative game . . . and, you’re WAY too smart to buy what she’s selling.  Your vote today can send her packing – her old carpetbag, that is – right back to Chappaqua, New York.  I trust you’ll do what’s right.

Your Uncle Rave. 

Pennsyltucky Stands True to Form

Well folks . . . Pennsylvania let the country down.  It’s really not all that surprising.  Once you get outside of the Philadelphia, Scranton and Harrisburg areas you might as well be in Kentucky.  Pittsburgh is semi-cosmopolitan, but it’s still heavily blue-collared, white, and on the older side.  A friend of mine,  and one-time roommate, who grew up about a half hour from Pittsburgh – in the heart of Appalachia – turned me on to the nickname Pennsyltucky.  No offense to the good people of Kentucky, but it’s a very apropos nickname.  After graduating college, my friend could not wait to hotfoot it out of good ol’ PA!  He’s a country boy at heart, but far too liberal for rural PA.

I have plenty of friends who currently/still reside in Pennsylvania.  Most of them are in the Philadelphia and Harrisburg areas, but a few still call the Pittsburgh area home. 

I’d say the demographics of Pennsylavia tell the tale of yesterday’s primary.  Those with just high school (or less) education went for Hillary 64% to Barack’s 34%.  Barack won the college graduate and advanced degree voters by 55% to Hillary’s 45%.  A majority of White working class, women, Catholic, and older voters went for Hillary.  The newer (young) voters, professionals, and Protestant voters sided more with Barack.

Hillary started out a month or so ago with a +20% lead.  Barack had cut that lead – in the polls, at least – down to near 6%.  Hillary (allegedly?) ended up winning by roughly 9.4%.  She likes to call it a *double digit victory* because she’s very liberal when it comes to rounding numbers . . . in her favor. 

The main reason Barack was not able to pull off the upset was due to Hillary’s negative ads.  Like it or not, there’s a very good reason some candidates are willing to go negative.  IT WORKS!  The people who don’t go any deeper than the 30 second spots are much more likely to buy into the fear and negativity.  They don’t stop to think about: what was taken out of context, or that they’re (the candidates) playing on old (handed down) prejudices, and that they’re being shamelessly manipulated.

Despite all the Hillary-hoopla (calling it a *decisive victory*) and the media-hoopla (You’d have thought that Tim Russert just became a new father, he was so giddy!) she only picked up a handful of delegates.  Obama still has a commanding delegate lead.  And, if you are a rational person and don’t count Florida and Michigan – where he was on the ballot, but did not campaign, because he knew those primaries wouldn’t be counted – he still leads in the popular vote.  We can let her revel in the illusion that she is actually leading in the popular vote.   It’s not like she has much else going for her!

But onward and upward!  A day or two of that *mean and biased* media fawning over their real, true darling (Hillary Clinton) and then they’ll be forced into covering the real, true people’s choice . . . Barack Obama.

Your Uncle Rave

My Favorite “Loose Cannon”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWr5Wl-mev0

If you’ve ever read my “What it is!” section you’d know that besides being a proud LIBERAL, I also have some Libertarian leanings.  In no small part, this is due to THE gentleman from Texas, named Ron Paul.  Unless you’re one of those C-SPAN junkies, you likely missed this this week.  It’s NOT the kind of thing that the mainstream (corporate) media gave ANY attention to.

On April the 9th, at the Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq by General Commander David H Petraeus, Representative Paul did not mince words, in making his statement, that contained some of the best thought out questions and observations that could possibly have been made, on the subject at hand.  Ron Paul knew that he would not really get any answers to his questions, but he just wanted them to be part of the record.  General Petraeus looked a combination of stunned and peeved, and he said that he couldn’t answer the (main) question.  And, Ambassador Ryan Crocker did his best impression of Porky Pig, in parroting General Petraeus’s non-response.

Enjoy!

Your Uncle Rave

 

The Defunct Soda – AKA: The Surge

How soon before G.W. changes the name of this offensive to the Vault???  Your uncle has been ranting and raving about the so-called security gains of this . . . this Surge for a few weeks now.  Why?  Because, I don’t like it when they piss on us, and try to tell us that it’s raining!  And, that’s exactly what our corporate media has been doing to us.  They just parrot all the BS that the Bush (remember; you can’t spell Bush without BS) administration spin/spews at us.  Edward R. Murrow, Howard K. Smith, Harry Reasoner, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, and Peter Jennings are all dead.  And so, apparently, are journalistic objectivity and integrity in the vast majority of our television, radio, and print medias.  What we’re left with is this embarrassing, pathetic cheerleading squad, that tries to pass itself off as news.  Rii-ight!  All the news that’s fit to flush!  They don’t DARE question anything that this administration says.  The current crop (yes, as in vegetable) of anchors and reporters are scared to death of losing their jobs and being black-balled.  It’s the same mentality as potential whistle-blowers in the FBI, NSA, CIA (whathaveyou): We’ll risk our lives, but we won’t risk our jobs!  It’s sad for them, but even sadder for us.  We, ultimately, are the victims, because we’ve been conditioned, for a very long time, to trust these people.  Well, it’s time we wake up.  It’s time we take the blinders off.  It’s time we get back to critical thinking.

A while back I cited the al Sadr ceasefire as having more to do with the perceived gains than The Surge.  For the sake of brevity, I left out that we were also paying some of the Sunni militias to fight al-Qaida, and in some instances our troops were avoiding certain hot-zones, at certain times.  If you don’t engage the enemy, the enemy can’t kill you.  Yes, our military leaders were playing probability games.  All so the Bush Machine can pound their chest and point their finger and say: See, the surge is working!  This is finally coming to light, as an AP article recently declared: “Report: U.S. no closer to goals in Iraq than it was a year ago”.  Of course, in many newspapers this article is buried among the back pages.  Your uncle is willing to bet that many of you didn’t see it.

Well, to further illustrate the situation I submit to you the following teaser, and link to a story, in today’s The Nation.  It’s written by Tom Engelhardt.  Don’t enjoy, because this isn’t pleasurable.  But, DO read it.

“Don’t Betray Us, General:
Admit That Iraq Keeps Getting Worse,
And That The Surge Failed

By Tom Engelhardt,
TheNation.com April 8, 2008
 
They came, they saw, they deserted.
 
That, in short form, is the story of the recent Iraqi government “offensive” in Basra (and Baghdad). It took a few days, but the headlines on stories out of Iraq (“Can Iraq’s Soldiers Fight?”) now tell a grim tale and the information in them is worse yet. Stephen Farrell and James Glanz of the New York Times estimate that at least 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen, or more than 4% of the force sent into Basra, “abandoned their posts” during the fighting, including “dozens of officers” and “at least two senior field commanders.”
 
Other pieces offer even more devastating numbers. For instance, Sudarsan Raghavan and Ernesto Londoo of the Washington Post suggest that 30% of government troops had “abandoned the fight before a cease-fire was reached.” Tina Susman of the Los Angeles Times offers 50% as an estimate for police desertions in the midst of battle in Baghdad’s vast Sadr City slum, a stronghold of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.
 
In other words, after years of intensive training by American advisors and an investment of $22 billion dollars, US military spokesmen are once again left trying to put the best face on a strategic disaster (from which they were rescued thanks to negotiations between Muqtada al-Sadr . . . “

More at:

http://www.alternet.org/story/81572/

Don’t allow them to fool us any longer.  We deserve the truth . . . even when it hurts.

Your Uncle Rave

“The Hillary Waltz” Response

Yesterday, in The New York Times, the esteemed Maureen Dowd penned a clever little article about how Hillary’s hanging on has been good for Barack.  I actually enjoy her work, but felt that this piece required some kind of response.  Read as much of her article as you like at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/opinion/02dowd.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Here’s what your uncle thinks:

There’s a lot of truth to it.  Surviving everything that the Clintons have thrown at him (kitchen sink strategy) has probably made Obama tougher for it.  But, I can only agree with the piece up to a point.  First, Ahmadinejad is a big-mouthed figurehead, with limited credibility and clout.  The corporate media has made him out to being the second coming of Hitler, but there are plenty more intimidating characters than him.  Having to stare down John McCain alone, is a tougher proposition than facing the man who denies – with a straight face – that there are any “homosexuals” in his country.  The second thing is that when she says that “Hillary’s work is done when she is done” comes off – more than a little – like: Hillary does what she wants!  Like it, or lump it!  Not exactly constructive, or mature for that matter.  And lastly, the whole piece sounds a little like it’s coming from someone who’s desperately hoping that lightning can strike . . . again . . . one more time, and their chosen candidate could still prevail.
 
I think Hillary’s value added has peaked, and from here on out we’re facing the law of diminishing return.
 
Thanks for the dance lessons, Hillary!  We’ll take it from here.  On to the ball!

Your Uncle Rave

P.S. Look for Hillary on the next season of “Dancing With The Stars”.

Spitzkrieg Slop

(All apologies to Tommy Ramone)

Spitzkrieg Slop 

Hey, ho!  Let go!  Hey, ho!  Let go!
Hey, ho!  Let go!  Hey, ho!  Let go!

They found out I am Client 9
I stepped upon a land mine
Matt Lauer’s losing his mind
The Spitzkrieg Slop

They found out I paid 4 grand
Joe Bruno told me: Pound sand
I’ll soon be using my hand
The Spitzkrieg Slop

Hey, ho!  Let go. Shoot me in the crotch now
What they want, for me to go
They smelled blood, what a show

They’re foaming at the mouth now
And Silda’s having a cow
My girls’ll hear it, and how
The Spitzkrieg Slop

They’re piling on in Wall Street
Because they know I’m dead meat
They’re kicking me in the seat
The Spitzkrieg Slop

Hey, ho!  Let go. Shoot me in the crotch now
What they want, for me to go
They smelled blood, what a show

I cheated on my haus frau
She’s gonna make me say: Ow
She’ll take away my kids now
The Spitzkrieg Slop

They’ve gotten up my behind
So now I’ve got to resign
The poontang wasn’t THAT fine
The Spitzkrieg Slop

Hey, ho!  Let go!  Hey, ho!  Let go!
Hey, ho!  Let go!  Hey, ho!  I’LL GO!!!

Who luvs ya, babies?  Your Uncle Rave does.

der Spitzkrieg!!!

Hokey smokes, Bullwinkle!  Have you EVER heard a story like this get THIS much media coverage???  In such a short span of time?  Eyewitness News should change their tagline to: “All Eliot, all the time!”  It’s like the death of Princess Di, or JFK Jr.  It’s the Shock and Awe of semi-important tawdry behavior.  I find the amount of coverage – can you say overkill – just as, if not more so, unseemly as the actual transgression.

The sanctimonious nodding of the news anchors’ heads, all with that gleam in their eyes, just reinforces my opinion of America’s corporate media.  They spew their WMD (Weapons of Mass Distraction) to please their corporate masters, at the expense of keeping the public informed on issues of real importance.

Eliot Spitzer got his hand caught in the nookie jar!  Oooh, a sex scandal!  Puh-lease!  Sure, there is some importance to it.  He betrayed the public’s trust – blah, blah, blah.  There’s the element of hypocrisy – yada, yada, yada.  Oh, his poor wife and kids!  Wah, wah, waaa-aaaaah!  Is this life or death?  Is this more important than ‘Eight U.S. Soldiers Die in Iraq Attacks’?  My paper only reported on the five who died from the suicide bomber.  What of the other three?  Don’t they matter?  It was the deadliest day for U.S. troops in over two months.  And, where was this story displayed?  It was buried on page 5 . . . of the B section.  Typical.

They get away with this kind of reporting because we allow them to.  We should be shouting out the window, and from the roof tops, like that guy from “Network”: “I’m mad as Hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”  But, we don’t.  Half of us are too cowed to rock the boat, and the other half are too lazy and apathetic.  Real news requires real thinking and introspection.  Maybe we don’t want to look inside ourselves because we know we won’t like what we see.  Hmmmm.

But, I digress.  Let’s all take off our judgmental caps for a while.  Let’s get past the sensationalism.  And, let’s try to regain a little perspective.

Your Uncle Rave