Democracy Haters

Millions mobilized over three weeks' time, check. Standing ground without provoking those with guns, check. Effective use of flag to avoid charges of foreign interference, check. Decentralized collective actions in Suez and Alexandria, check. No violence (except for Mubarak's thugs), check. Appointment of a military council to appease the clucking of imperial overlords, check. Wow, something for everybody! Even Charles Krauthammer had to sputter a new position during a Friday afternoon panel on Fox News. This is one victory that everyone, left to right, can celebrate.

Not so fast. Rush Limbaugh called the Cairo crowds a "rent-a-mob of leftists", while Glenn Beck is sure that Obama was engaged with a secret socialist cabal that managed to bring down Mubarak even after the buzzard's Feb. 10 midnight hysterics. Something tells me this might be too much even for Roger Ailes. After all, Fox wants to preserve the illusion that its faux-populists are grassroots libertarians. The mask is slipping. Critics have known all along that Limbaugh, Malkin, Beck, Hannity, et al., take their cues, not from the populist right, but from the proto-fascist movements like SA Brownshirts and Patria y Libertad. These little observations from the Egypt days of struggle show where our friends really come down on the line - not with conservative or liberal protesters, but with forces of oppression.

Meanwhile, I'll leave you with Dr. Amir Fassad's warning of the task still ahead in the Maghreb:

Clown Time is Over

"Clown time is over.
It's time to take over."
-- Elvis Costello

Since the statute of limitations has long since expired, I feel safe in freely admitting to being an accessory to a crime on April 21, 1981 in Tucson, Ariz. I provided support for throwing a pie in the face of William F. Buckley. (The New York Times report was way off base in blaming the Oddfather Gang - the assault was the work of the Church of the Subgenius.) Unlike the University of Arizona Young Republicans who were ready for blood, Buckley was as gracious as could be, and allowed as how he kinda liked lemon meringue. In fact, he wrote a column a week later saying that SDSU students had baked him three apple pies, and hence "I now have a counterforce capability." (Unfortunately, I could not find this column on line.)

This all came to mind as I realized how much I missed William F. Buckley. The Republicans simply have no members with brains any more, having chased away thinking fellers in a brutal post-election purge. This little fact is often forgotten as Karl Rove and Lou Dobbs ponder why the White House would bother assigning Rahm Emanuel and a secret plumbers' team to challenge the daily wisdom of Rush Limbaugh and other loud-mouthed morons of the talk-radio and cable-TV circuit. (Lou, whose March 4 tirade is not online, was the most paranoid in rejecting any idea that the playground-shouters hollering "Socialism" may have started this mess.)

Karl is sure that (1) Obama wants to use this as a diversionary tactic to avoid talk of the stimulus and bailout; and (2) he wants to associate Limbaugh with the leadership of the Republican Party. Well, Karl, we don't need Emanuel for Task 2. Dobbs himself calls Limbaugh the intellectual leader of the party, and Michael Steele was forced to kiss the Rush Ring and genuflect five times after questioning the wisdom of dittoheads. Obama is responding to the fact that the Limbaugh-Hannity-Coulter-O'Reilly-Savage-Malkin wing cannot argue intelligent terms of debate, but simply scream meaningless terms in louder and louder decibels. The White House is looking for a Buckley equivalent to supply principled debate, rather than the millions of dittoheads saying they want the president to fail.

Luckily, a solution may be on the horizon. Colorado Springs' local conservative folk-music sage, Joe Uveges, gave a wonderful citizens' report on KRCC March 5, praising the value of working together across political divides. Can we nominate Uveges as the new conservative intellectual leader? I have a great slice of pumpkin-butterscotch-ice-cream pie in waiting. As for the dittohead kittens who have lost their mittens, they shall have no pie. We don't listen to clowns any more.

A Run on Stupid Pills

Trying to get through the morning news this AM is an exercise in "duh"-factor avoidance. Maybe it's the Ahmadinejad halo effect. First, post-launch for the Halo 3 video game. Lines in LA and New York looked as bad as iPhone cult queues, and the front of the line was dominated by people in their 20s and 30s. I've resigned myself to this being the new, "mature" gaming market -- after all, the only sector of my own company doing well is the sector serving the gaming community. But standing in line all night for the privilege of buying a VIDEO GAME??!! And I thought Apple had turned people into mindless consumer robots. All hail X Box, PS3, Wii, the sole determinants of the new American economy! Feh.

Now it's on to those pesky illegal aliens. The New York Times gave us a front-page story about how the town of Riverside, N.J. set ordinance after ordinance to limit employers hiring those of questionable status, only to see two-thirds of the businesses downtown get shuttered. Gee whiz. Do you think it's actually possible illegals might have an overall positive effect on the economy? Is it possible Lou Dobbs, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh were actually feeding people a load of crap? Nah, it's like Riverside's former mayor Charles Hilton said, the ones that closed were just the bad businesses. Too bad they were sustaining the town.

Listen to me, I'm starting to sound like that grumpy crone Joni Mitchell on her new album Shine. Pay no attention, I'll grab some Prozac to counteract the stupid pills.