Dogged Blog

Rut-roh

No comment.

Huh. How'd he do that?

I was down at my mom's, and Obama's press conference came on. It was clear from the first sentence that he was going to disavow Rev. Wright.

I almost cried. "Oh no," I said to my mom. "Tell me he isn't going to do this. No, no, no."

And then he did, and then he kept speaking, and about five minutes in, I was nodding.

I'm not going to say it worked on the media or America. I have no idea. I don't know if he fixed a problem that wasn't a problem to me in the first place because hello I DON'T CARE ABOUT WRIGHT AND DON'T MIND WHAT HE SAID even though I don't agree with some of it.

But I understood Obama's problem. I felt he was genuinely hurt and angered. He reminded me what his campaign is about. He addressed the issues and not the man, and he did it in a principled way.

And I started out thinking he shouldn't do it at all.

Go figure.

In other news: Obama can fly. Who knew?

Feeling a little bitter, are we?

I still don't understand why the media people are angry or upset at what Rev. Wright said in any sermon or speech he ever gave. Do I agree with every single word he uttered? No, but I've been known to argue with myself about stuff; is there anyone alive I agree with on everything? Absolutely not.

It's been suggested (that's what journalists say when we heard it somewhere but can't remember where) that white people Americans feel hurt and attacked by some of his comments on race. Well, welcome to my world.

For my entire fucking adult life I've been listening to religious leaders condemning me to the fiery pits of hell for being a lesbian. I've heard nationally prominent pastors with TV shows and the ear of presidents bluntly state AIDS is "God's punishment on homosexuals" (note to right wing Christians: most people with AIDS are and were heterosexual. Your "god" has bad aim).

John McCain has courted, received, and bragged about the endorsement of virulent homophobe John Hagee, who said Hurricane Katrina was god's punishment on the City of New Orleans for planning a gay pride parade (see note above about aim, kthnx). He also doesn't like Catholics, Muslims, or the nation of Iran. And not so fond of women, either; in his book "What Every Man Wants in a Woman," he said, "Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist."

So, I'm sitting around listening to this guy, this pastor of a Texas mega-church who has endorsed a grateful John McCain, this powerful and influential man, say:

"It [Gay marriage] will open the door to incest, to polygamy, and every conceivable marriage arrangement demented minds can possibly conceive. If God does not then punish America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah."

And this:

"It is impossible to call yourself a Christian and defend homosexuality. There is no justification or acceptance of homosexuality.... Homosexuality means the death of society because homosexuals can recruit, but they cannot reproduce."

And this:

"The military will have difficultly recruiting healthy and strong heterosexuals for combat purposes. Why? Fighting in combat with a man in your fox hole that has AIDS or is HIV positive is double jeopardy."

Then there's another McCain endorser and a man he has called a "spiritual advisor," Rev. Rod Parsley. His enlightened view of the gays:

"Gay sexuality inevitably involves brutal physical abusiveness and the unnatural imposition of alien substances into internal organs, orally and anally, that inevitably suppress the immune system and heighten susceptibility to disease."

So, now the media everyone is all upset that Rev. Wright was mean to the poor widdle white people?

Boo fucking hoo.

Oh well if you're going to put it like THAT...

"The media has become like a six-year-old boy who, when you're sitting discussing something serious with other people, keeps interrupting to say 'Look! Poop!'" -- SensibleShoes

Apparently I have more to say about the sky falling

I was driving my mom home from a doctor's appointment, and she asked how things were going on Daily Kos while she was having her procedure done.  (Yes, my 72-year-old mother was having DKos withdrawal symptoms.)

So I started telling her how the sky was falling because  Obama had gone over to the Dark Side of the Force on Fox News, and first I said more or less what I said in the post immediately before this one, and then I said something like this:

If you're talking about the pundits on Fox, the "hosts," and Fox News as a corporate entity, then there's no argument to be made. Obama did legitimate them by going on the show, and he did get shit on his shoes. There's no question.

But this isn't about Fox News the corporation or the braying jackass hosts on Fox. It's about the people who watch Fox News.

Let me tell you how brilliant it would be for Obama to have "gone after" Fox and called them on being a right wing propaganda/smear machine. It would have been Bittergate times ten thousand. Because he'd have basically been saying that all you people are too stooopid to realize what Fox is. Too stooopid to know when you're being played. Too stooopid to know that your favorite trusted network is lying to you.

Oh yeah, that would have been great.

/rant

Obama on Fox: Sky falls, news at 11

Do I live in a different universe than the rest of the progressive blogosphere, or am I just old?

Let me begin by saying I hate Fox News and I don't watch it. I didn't watch the interview they did with Obama the other day. I consider them illegitimate as a news source, and I pity -- yes, there goes any chance I'll ever be elected to public office -- the people who get their news from Fox, and resent living in a nation and world where those people have the right to vote (although I would never take that right away -- if I had a political magic wand, I'd use it to show them what "fair and balanced news" really is).

The reason I'm feeling like an alien in Blogistan is that I'm really shocked at the number of its citizens who have completely and utterly lost their shit at Obama going on Fox News. They say things like this, or  like this:

Obama showed weakness by caving to right-wing bullying taunts (thrilling our political foes), disrespected his base, gave Fox a propaganda victory, exposed his campaign as a bunch of liars who promised something their candidate was clearly incapable of delivering, and defended the Democratic spinelessness that gave us the most ridiculous Supreme Court in generations.

I won't pretend to guess whether this helps him in Indiana or not. It may or it may not. And since I've never put Obama on a pedestal, this doesn't knock him down. What this does demonstrate, and quite clearly so, is that Obama is quite willing to score cheap political points at the expense of his base, regardless how much it might embolden the very same people that are working to demonize him to the American people.

Now, maybe Kos is just acting all outraged so the right thinks Obama really is willing to stand up to the progressive blogs even if we get pissed off; honestly, I have no idea. I don't know him, but it smells to me like he really believes this analysis.

I don't, though. I mean, hello, Obama said he was willing to talk to Ahmadinejad; you think he wouldn't talk to Fox News?

But more to the point, I don't care. I don't care because I'm sick and tired of this bullshit paradigm where all people exist on a linear continuum from left to right, and anyone who tries to make common cause with a person with whom they traditionally don't see eye to eye is viewed as a traitor, and all attempts to create unity on the basis of our shared goals are seen as  cynical moves toward the center.

Did progressives really believe that "What's the Matter with Kansas" was that it wasn't left enough? No, what's the matter with Kansas is that people were voting against their own self-interest because they had been beaten down and propagandized. Giving them a different frame for understanding how the Republican Party has been treating them isn't going to turn conservatives into liberals,  folks -- I can't believe you thought it would. It's just going to let them make decisions more consistent with their self-interest, primarily their economic self-interest.

My goal isn't to force people to think like me, it's to elevate the discourse in this country so it's less full of lies and bullshit. It's to obliterate the left-to-right continuum, not by "watering down" progressive values or disenfranchising cultural conservatives but by replacing it with a different paradigm.

That's why I supported Obama in the first place, because since 2004, that's what he's been saying he wanted to do.

I'm not stupid. I do agree that Fox News has done as much, if not more, to damage honest political discourse as anyone else in the media. They are not a legitimate news source, they're a right wing propaganda machine. Like I said, I can't even turn them on. (Although to be fair, I can't watch CNN or MSNBC, either.)

But to act like millions of Americans who do not know that Fox is not legitimate aren't watching Fox is idiotic. This isn't the right wing equivalent of  Socialist Worker, folks. This is one of the major sources of news for millions of citizens of the United States, and Obama is running to be their president, not just yours and mine.

Can a Democrat appear on Fox with impunity? No, they can't. It does legitimate them. It does make them think yay, we won! We bullied Barack Obama into coming on our show! We win! He loses!

But it doesn't matter what they think. What matters is what impact it really has. And I completely disagree that the impact of this interview is that the movement towards a new politics in America was harmed.

I don't know who originally said this, and Google was no help to me, but I learned it from watching Xena: Warrior Princess:

The highest form of martial arts is turning an enemy into a friend.

Maybe going on Fox isn't morally or ethically benign. It's certainly risky.  But, sticking with the popular culture metaphors,  I think Obama just told the right wing spin machine, "These are not the 'droids you're looking for," and they believed it.

I kind of like that.

Quote of the Day

"If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence." -- Bertrand Russell

United Airlines continues to be teh stooopid

So, you might remember my original and then my follow-up rants about United Airlines and how it wanted me to give my credit card billing information to a friend for whom I was buying a plane ticket or they wouldn't let her check in.

She ended up having to cancel her flight, leaving us with a credit with United to use up, so last night we made a reservation. This time we:

• Made a three-way call to United reservations instead of using the website;
• called from my home billing number;
• paid with my United Airlines Mileage Plus Visa card;
• gave them my and her United Mileage Plus numbers

Did the guy who made the reservation tell us that there would be a problem with me paying for the ticket? He did not. No, only after the email came with the confirmation number in it did they tell me, in big red letters, that she'd have to have the credit card at the time of check in.

We were still on the phone with him at the time, so I pointed this out to him and told him he should have warned me of this, and asked what I was supposed to do, since the credit card and my friend live in different cities -- hence the trip,  yo.

Don't worry, he rushed to assure me; in fact, even if she had the credit card in her hand, and all my billing information, they wouldn't allow her to check in. No, I simply had to go to the "nearest airport" and present my card at any United counter prior to her departure and it would be fine.

Now, since I live less than half an hour from San Francisco's airport, this isn't the end of the world. I can only imagine, however, if this had happened when I still lived up in Sonoma County, three hours in each direction from the nearest airport. But I digress.

I complained, firmly but politely, that this was the most ridiculous policy on earth. I was supposed to spend an hour on the road, pay for  parking, and stand in line at one of the nation's busiest airports, just to hand over my credit card to a human being?

It was certainly safer, albeit less convenient, than the earlier policy, now not  available at all, of having to give your billing information to someone, such as your deadbeat drug-addicted teenager that you're flying home after he was released from a Mexican prison, but on the other hand, the bait-and-switch of not letting me know about this minor little detail prior to finalizing the ticket purchase, plus the excuse that this is to protect me from fraud, is too much.

Hello United Airlines, do you think I'm stupid? I'm already protected from fraudulent use of my credit card by what few remaining consumer protection laws still exist. This regulation is to protect you from claims by your customers that they didn't, in fact, purchase a plane ticket for someone else after the fact. It's not like you can repossess a flight that's already been taken.

The thing is, plenty of companies have to deal with purchases that can't be repossessed. I've spent more money on a single meal at an expensive restaurant than this flight cost. I've spent more on shoes, including shoes I've sent to other addresses than mine as gifts. And I've bought many, many plane tickets over the years, including from United, without anything like this. The reality of the world we live in now is that people buy things online and over the phone, and we use credit cards. When your own regular customers can no longer do that, they will also no longer use your company. It's that simple.

There is no other option, he said, to verify my card. It doesn't matter that we have nearly a month before the flight, that I was calling from the billing address and phone number on the credit card, that I was using my United Mileage Plus Visa card, the billing information for which lists that phone number, that both of us had United frequent flyer memberships, nothing.

Because we wanted to use the credit from the canceled ticket, we went ahead with the reservation; I don't even know if we could have canceled it at that point or not. But I'll tell you this: I will never, ever fly on United Airlines again. I suggest you not fly with them, either, because if they have one idiotic customer service policy, they surely have a hundred.

The only silver lining to this whole  saga is that someone told me about gethuman.com, a website that tells you how to bypass pretty much every corporate automated phone system on the planet, and get to a real person. I used it to make this reservation, and thus, my blood pressure started out considerably lower than it normally does.

So, the takeaway message is this: GetHuman.com yes, United Airlines? Never again.

Just Politics

I blogged on Club Kingsnake about some of the songs on the  "Just Politics" playlist on my iPod -- I included only a few, and found video clips for each of them, too.

Here's the complete list. My musical taste doesn't include some genres that have a lot more political music than this, and I frequently snagged just a single song from an artist who has a huge political catalog. So I won't say these are the best, or even all my favorite, political songs. It's also a bit heavily weighted towards The Nightwatchman because he's new for me after SXSW this year. But yo, he's worth some heavy weight.

Just Politics:

Biko - Peter Gabriel
I wrote about this a lot of Club Kingsnake so I won't go into the whole thing here again, other than to say this may be the greatest political song of all time, and seeing it live is a religious experience.

In The Ghetto  - Joe Simon
Love, love, love love this version -- although the Elvis Presley one is, of course, much better known. It just always sound a little too over-polished to my ear -- although not remotely as much as the version by the song's writer, Mac Davis, which hurts me to listen to. But there are several   versions of this: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Dolly Parton (no, I'm not kidding), Natalie Merchant, the Cranberries... I'm sure there are several others I'm not thinking of. Great, great song.

Flesh Shapes The Day - The Nightwatchman
This is a profoundly poetic song about race and war. It gave me chills when I heard it live in Austin.

The Road I Must Travel - The Nightwatchman
I suppose this one might come off the playlist after I OD on Morello... maybe in ten years or so. This song evokes some of the feeling of old folk/populist songs with a dark, post-911 sensibility and a touch of WTF. Brilliant.

What's Up? - 4 Non Blondes
One of the least overtly political songs on here, but it always makes me want to change the world when I hear it. Plus you gotta love the words:

And I try, oh my God do I try
I try all the time
In this institution
And I pray, oh my God do I pray
I pray every single day
For a revolution

P!nk has never recorded this, but she performs it live... like here.

Democracy - Leonard Cohen
I love Leonard Cohen, and this is one of my favorite songs of his. It's idealistic, realistic, full of hope, aching with sadness... and despite the fact that he can't sing anymore, extremely beautiful.

It's coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of God in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding - Elvis Costello & The Attractions
I did, indeed, grow up in San Francisco in the 60s, but I was just a little girl and not a flower child. And you'd never know it from the crazy huge love I have for this song.

I Hope - Dixie Chicks
I heard this when they played it on a televised Hurricane Katrina benefit. It was the first time I ever heard the Dixie Chicks and it was instant love.

Sunday morning, I heard the preacher say
Thou shall not kill
I don't wanna, hear nothin' else, about killin'
And that it's God's will
Cuz our children are watching us
They put their trust in us
They're gonna be like us
So let's learn from our history
And do it differently

How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live - Bruce Springsteen
Another Katrina benefit number that blew the top of my head off. View it here.

Streets of Sorrow / Birmingham Six - The Pogues
The Pogues have no shortage of songs that could have been on this list, but although it's about war, this one always reminded me of the early years of the AIDS epidemic:

Oh farewell you streets of sorrow
And farewell you streets of pain
I'll not return to feel more sorrow
Nor to see more young men slain
Through the last six years Ive lived through terror
And in the darkened streets the pain
Oh how I long to find some solace
In my mind I curse the strain

Which Side Are You On - Billy Bragg
I first heard this song in 1984 during the British miners' strike, when Bragg and other progressive British musicians toured the country raising money for their cause. Old-fashioned politics with a punk edge. I loved it then. I love it, and him, now.

Holiday In Cambodia - Dead Kennedys
I remember when the Dead Kennedys were just one of many local punk bands. I can't count the number of times I saw them play, and the band I managed opened for them a couple of times. And even given the embarrassment of riches that was the punk scene in San Francisco in the early 80s, the DKs are still one of the best things to ever come out of it.

Not Ready To Make Nice - Dixie Chicks
If "I Hope" hadn't already done it, this would have. Their non-apology for pointing out that Bush was wrong, wrong, wrong about the war in Iraq. You go, Chicks.

I Love A Man In A Uniform - Gang Of Four
More of my 80s self coming out. We used to dance to this one and changed the lyrics to, "I love a man in a Maidenform." Ah, the days when I thought this was dance music. But hey, it has a beat!

House Gone Up In Flames  - The Nightwatchman
Another one I suspect will stand the test of time with me. The incredible poetry -- I don't know what other word to use -- of Morello's lyrics, combined with the spare, hard delivery, just get me every time. If I quoted you every word, it would be hard to say why this is such a political song, but listening to it, and even more, seeing him perform it live, leaves you with absolutely no doubt.

Marvin Gaye - What's Goin' On?
Completely iconic anti-war song that I actually like more than, say, Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," which always hit me as just a little too sweet. I also love Cyndi Lauper's 80s cover, here.

He Thinks He'll Keep Her - Mary Chapin Carpenter
I'm sort of in an anti-war political mode these days (wonder why), but I'm a feminist nonetheless, and I love this song.

Stupid Girls - Pink
Feminism you can dance to. Play it for every little girl you know.

Anthem - Leonard Cohen
Apparently I'm a complete sucker for that place where politics and poetry intersect.

I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me. 

Dear Mr. President (Featuring Indigo Girls) - P!nk
This one needs absolutely no explanation. Video here (without the Indigo Girls, but great anyway.)

Jesus Walks - Kanye West
Another Katrina benefit song. I freely admit I don't listen to rap or hip hop. I am old; what can I say? But he performed this at the same benefit where I heard "I Hope," with some custom lyrics for the floods, and I was just staggered by it.

The Captain - Leonard Cohen
An oldie, from when Cohen could still sing. "There is no decent place to stand in a massacre."

Suffragette City - David Bowie
I really don't care what he meant by this song. It'll always be a feminist anthem for me. "Don't lean on me, man, cuz you can't afford the ticket."

Whine and Grine / Stand Down Margaret - The Beat
I imagine a lot of people reading this don't remember Margaret Thatcher, but I do. And seeing the Beat do this live in London when she was in her heyday? Nothing like it.

I see no joy
I see only sorrow
I see no chance of your bright new tomorrow
So stand down Margaret, stand down please
I said stand down Margaret

This Is Radio Clash - The Clash
I continue to be susceptible to the idea music can change the world. I know it can't, but still....

Pride (In The Name Of Love) - U2
Martin Luther King, Jr: Rest in Peace.

Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride

Straight to Hell - The Clash
Talk about bitter.

Absolutely Not (Hex Hector/Mac Quayle Chanel Mix) - Deborah Cox
More feminism with a beat!

Should I wear my hair in a ponytail?
Should I dress myself up in chanel?
Do I measure me by what you think?
Absolutely not, absolutely not
If I go to work in a mini-skirt
Am I givin' you the right to flirt?
I won't compromise my point of view
Absolutely not, absolutely not

Silent Legacy - Melissa Etheridge
Breaks my heart every time. About growing up gay. Her "Nowhere to Go" does, too.

You are digging for the answers
Until your fingers bleed
To satisfy the hunger
To satiate the need
They feed you on the guilt
To keep you humble keep you low
Some man and myth they made up
A thousand years ago

And as you pray in your darkness
For wings to set you free
You are bound to your silent legacy

Mothers tell your children
Be quick you must be strong
Life is full of wonder
Love is never wrong
Remember how they taught you
How much of it was fear
Refuse to hand it down
The legacy stops here

Help Save the Youth of America - Billy Bragg

The cities of Europe have burned before
And they may yet burn again
But if they do I hope you understand
That Washington will burn with them
Omaha will burn with them
Los Alamos will burn with them

What's the Matter Here? - 10,000 Maniacs
I'm not a huge fan of this band, but this song, about child abuse, is incredible.

One Man Revolution - The Nightwatchman
Tired of him yet? I think this is the last one.

There Is Power In a Union - Billy Bragg
Do you know I have never, ever crossed a picket line? It's just how I was raised.

Money Can't Buy It - Annie Lennox
I'm not absolutely sure this is political, but it feels that way to me.

London Calling - The Clash
More of my 80s youth.

Free Nelson Mandela - The Specials & The Special A.K.A.
When I was young, Nelson Mandela was still in a South African jail.

Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards - Billy Bragg
This one always makes me happy, even if the lyrics are a bit rough. "You can be active with the activists or sleep in with the sleepers while you're waiting for the great leap forward." Also, "If no one out there understands, start your own revolution and cut out the middle man." You gotta love it.

Glad to Be Gay - Tom Robinson Band
This one's from the 70s, actually -- I have the single version on my iPod, but the live version from 1979's "Secret Policeman's Ball" to benefit Amnesty International is better and it's here.

Enola Gay -- Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Again, you can take the 80s out of the girl etc. A song about the bombing of Hiroshima from the dawn of the synthesizer age.

Man In Black - Johnny Cash
I love this song by Cash, which is about the Viet Nam war. And he took huge heat in the day for recording it, too. But if someone could find me an mp3 of Marc Almond's version, done on an 80s AIDS benefit album called "Man in Black," all of covers of Cash's songs, I'd love you forever. I own it on vinyl but I don't even have a record player anymore.

I love Obama more than I love shoes

I never thought it could happen. I was about to buy these sandals and I stopped, and donated the money to Obama instead.

I love him more than shoes. This is pig-flying territory, folks. Cold hell.

May Zappos.com forgive me.