Losing Our Religion

Barack Obama, Wednesday night:

“The single biggest threat to our success is not the other party,” the president said at the Roosevelt Hotel. “It’s us. It’s complacency. It’s apathy. It’s indifference. It’s people feeling like, well, we only got 80 percent of what we want, we didn’t get the other 20, so we’re just going to sit on our hands. We’re not going to go out there. It turns out bringing about change is hard. I thought it was going to be easy. I liked the cute poster of the Obama campaign. I enjoyed the inauguration. It was great when Beyonce and Bono was singing. I didn’t know that we were actually going to have to grind it out, that sometimes we’d have setbacks.”

Dear Mr. President,

We first became aware of your candidacy about three years ago, when you were a guest on the Daily Show. We were impressed: Impressed with your grasp of the issues, impressed with your seriousness, impressed with your lack of cant. You reminded us of what we like about Bill Clinton’s Daily Show appearances, when he’s in policy-wonk mode. We’re not a Bubba fan, but we really respect that about him.

Nor are we an in-the-trenches politico, so we pretty much ignored the race until the night of the Iowa caucus. That evening, two historic things happened:

You won.

And we gave money to a political campaign.

While historians inexplicably find the details of our life uninteresting, we can assure you that both developments were equally unlikely.

For more than three decades, starting with Watergate, we had been following politics from the same perspective that we follow entertainment-industry news: as an amused observer, never a participant. (Yes, we vote; we also watch movies.) But that night, we saw not change, but chance: a chance that the politics that had blighted our nation since 1980 — all of our adult life, and yours — might finally be coming to an end.

We didn’t see that chance with John Edwards, who was all pseudo-populist pandering. Nor did we see that chance with Hillary Clinton, who was all triangulation and carpetbagging. We saw that chance with an inspiring, practical-minded candidate who just happened to be about our age, for the first time in a presidential campaign. We saw an opportunity for a generational shift in politics, away from demagoguery and towards practicality.

(Granted, we would be disabused about the generational fantasy that September, but spring was near, and hope was in the air.)

So, for the first time ever, we had some skin in the game. And since skin was part of the game, we were quite aware that we were playing for high stakes, with no guarantee of success. But that spring, Mr. President, we didn’t hear a false note from you. You were quite clear that change requires work, that progress cannot be taken for granted. You said as much, time and again. We liked that about you. We know what it’s like being a practical idealist: You can dream, but you still have to pay the rent.

No, the false notes began that summer.

That’s when, the nomination secure, you started tacking right. (Offshore drilling? Really?) We understood the politics of it — He Who Owns the Middle, Owns the Election — and while it certainly dampened our enthusiasm (Goodbye, “Unicorn”), it didn’t dampen our support. Any candidate we fully agreed with would be manifestly unelectable, after all. There’s Left and Right. We’re somewhere Above or Below. Or maybe Next Door.

But just so you understand, Mr. President, we weren’t mindless about it — and quite honestly, we’re somewhat surprised to see you and your minions indulging in caricature directed at your own (current and erstwhile) supporters. Because, to skip ahead a few more months, we frankly didn’t enjoy the Inauguration. Something about inviting an outspoken bigot to read a prayer, because Bigots Are Americans, Too.

What were we expecting? Well, Mr. President, we weren’t expecting you to sell out healthcare reform before it got started, and then let it twist in the wind for months before stepping up your game. We weren’t expecting you to embrace and extend the unconstitutional national-security policies of your predecessor. We weren’t expecting you to summarily dismiss investigations into war crimes on the grounds that you have a neck cramp, and can’t look that way.

Mr. President, we weren’t expecting you to be the setback.

Yes, Mr. President, change is hard. It’s harder when your leaders won’t lead. It’s even harder when they welcome criticism one day, then ridicule those who offer it the next. We may be the people we’ve been waiting for, but with each passing day, each passing craven decision by you and your party, we’re finding it increasingly difficult to count you among us.

52 Comments

I kinda wished Barry would act like the one described in the foaming at the mouth “the Sheriff is nearer” RW books.

In weirder news, Canada City’s gun registry was saved when the Libruls and NDP and Bloc Quebecceurs defeated the Con bill to dismantle it as women’s groups and non-gun types lobbied hard to keep it. Try that in US America… yeah, I know.

Stupid stupid shit I do on Friday mornings…

Replying to a troll’s reply on a I made about Koch blocking at Brand W. The only reason I’m reposting is that I was fairly polite (except at the end) and suddenly it went from “I’m ROFL” To FUCK YOU rage in two replies and 20 minutes. Need better trolls.

Bruce Major
· 1 hour ago
I think you boys and girls are obsessed with the Kochs because you wonder if you would be forced to toss their salads the way Soros and the Podestas make you when pay day rolls around.

Or if at least they douche and wax. That breath you all have comes from somewhere.

ManchuCandidate 83p · 53 minutes ago
I dunno you seem to be projecting here. The Kochs are doing what you guys are accusing of Soros is doing.

They funded the Teabaggers along with others, but the records show they’re the largest single donors.

Nice try, Koch PR fluky.

BruceMajor 57p · 30 minutes ago
Accusing? Rofl. Does Cass Sunstein pay you to post this tripe you silly little bim?

ManchuCandidate 83p · 21 minutes ago
Nah. If I were paid, I’d probably do a much better job.

It’s all the 527 records, but what do I know?

BruceMajor 57p · 10 minutes ago
So you are too dumb to even get a job like Jennifer Palmieri, David Brock and the other hos? Wow. That Soros and Podesta and other old farts who have been selling black kids to educrat unions for campaign dollars in the modern slave trade for years fund all the totalitarian groups that program bots like you is indeed in the 527s.

Meanwhile, your flop eared fascist is releasing any tax records of people like the Kochs who oppose him. And a quisling like you will be there with your tongue deep up his GI tract every step of the way until there are camps for political opponents etc. Slime that you are.

ManchuCandidate 83p · 6 minutes ago
If I could had your grammar and spelling then I’d get tons of jobs but alas I do better working somewhere else.

Awww… it only took two replies to get you to lose your shit? I expected better from you.

@ManchuCandidate: And Alberta loses its shit right about now.

@rptrcub:
I heard the sound of gunfire from the west…

The gun registry came from the mess of the Montreal Massacre when some deranged loon shot down six female engineering students in 1989 because he blamed females for all his failures. This sparked an anti-violence against women campaign and this is part of the outcome from that.

I’ll spare you the boring personal story of the time.

The problem with the registry is that it cost a lot of money so the Cons used the mishmash cost and gun type paranoia to gain the gun vote (a small but vocal minority) for support against the Libs. This has worked till Harper started pissing off the female vote.

Gun types are loathe to let the gubbiment know what they own (we have our paranoid nuts here, too.)

The gun registry has strong support everywhere but Alberta and rural parts of Canada City.

@ManchuCandidate:
re guns
there is a total ban on guns on this island. the police don’t carry them.
but guess who does. everyone else. and there is no party calling for change in the upcoming election.
so, everyday there is a story about a shooting. this just happened less than a week ago, and it’s my favorite:
armed evil doer goes into a convenience store (the one i frequent almost daily) shoots the place up and escapes to the parking lot to hijack a car.
the driver of the car pulls out his own heat and shoots the gunman dead.
instant karma in action. what’s not to love about this story?

@baked:
No gun ban here. Just a registry and some pretty strict gun laws. I’m not of the naive view that gun control or bans would make this a bullet free peaceful place. There is always going to be a criminal element regardless.

It’s also a cultural thing. Canada City was never viewed as the Wild West or had a gun culture that is common in the Caribbean.

If anyone wanted automatic weapons or high mag capacity Glocks (I was offered one once by a guy who said it “fell off a truck” for $200 CDN) they can get them from US America easy. Which also annoys Canada City Cops a lot.

If I had a gun, I’d register it. But that’s just stupid old me.

Jumping back a bit to the “Colbert to testify in character” post, I give you:

The Heathen Chinee

According to teh Wikipedias, this was a poem deliberately written to satirize anti-Chinese racism of the period. In an early example of Poe’s Law, it was picked up by the H8rs as an anthem…

Thank you, Nojo.

Yup, I gave Barry (we need a new name for him — he doesn’t deserve a cutesy nickname anymore) $25, my first campaign contribution ever. Then, when they asked, I gave another $25. Relatively speaking, that was a shitton of money for me.

I’m not sure if I was acting on emotion or rational thought or some combination of the two, but I felt inspired to do something that in the short-term negatively affected my cash flow, but in the long-term, well, it might positively affect many’s lives, here and abroad. ADD: all based on that chance you mentioned, Nojo. Not a certainty, but a chance. Yes,

a chance that the politics that had blighted our nation since 1980 — all of our adult life, and yours — might finally be coming to an end.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

He is another brick in the motherfucking wall.

And just when you’d think that Obama’s and Holder’s lies and double-talk couldn’t be any more loathsome, there’s this:

The Obama administration is objecting to a request for an immediate halt to the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy after a federal court ruled that the policy barring gays from serving openly is unconstitutional…

The government also states that an immediate termination of the 17-year-old policy may pose a threat to the military.

Obama, Holder, and Gibbs are compulsive liars who’ve totally lost all credibility. Screw these sumbitches.

@ManchuCandidate: It’s up to Canada City now to maintain some semblance of reason and sanity, since your crack-headed Southern neighbor is goin’ down Titantic-style. No pressure or anything.

Just for the fun of continuing this lazy and stupid metaphor, we’re at the part in the movie where the ship splits in two.

@ManchuCandidate: I heart my Glock. It’s a semi-auto Glock 19 in 9 mm with a 15 round (evil) high cap mag. It is the best shooting of all my handguns except for the Ruger 22/45 semi-auto .22 cal. , which is the type of pistol I used when I outshot a former Army Ranger and firearms instructor. I shoot better with either of them than with my .38/.357 revolvers.

/swoon

I still believe that our spineless assholes from the Brave Sir Robin school of governance (“Run away!”) are still way fucking better than the evil bad guys on the other side.

Just got a call from my gubernatorial candidate’s daughter looking for voter protection counsel back in the ancestral homeland. Referred her to a friend.

@¡Andrew!: I don’t know what to think about DADT legal defenses. There’s something to the argument that an administration is obligated to defend the laws of the land. (Although California’s governor and attorney general clearly take a different view.)

But there’s the other argument that Obama can issue a stop-loss order and legally suspend DADT for the duration. I don’t quite grasp that argument yet, probably because I haven’t really looked into it.

To the general point: Yes, there’s a disconnect between words and actions. Which is part of the problem.

@redmanlaw: Full agreement that the alternative remains unthinkable. But it’s hard to muster enthusiasm for a Defensive Vote. Demrats want us to get excited that they’re not ogres.

@ManchuCandidate: Plus I saw on CBC that Debbie Travis is back with a new special, which is a relief, since it appeared that Candice Olson’s goons (Hunky Carpenter Paul and Edmund the Seamster) bumped her off for honing in on Candice’s HGTV ratings. So yay!

@nojo: I’m no lawyer, but I did watch the first seven seasons of Law & Order: Original Flavor, which means that I’m at least qualified to practice in the Southern states, and while I suppose I get the points that they’re trying to make at least hypothetically by increasing the perception of legitimacy of the DADT repeal by having it go through Congress, it’s still an incredibly deceitful, backhanded and shitty thing to do, much like their support of DOMA in court. My patience for their mind games is Gone Daddy Gone.

@nojo: I should add that goes double for Bammerz’s bullshit about DICKtatorial executive power and the openly unlawful, immoral, and unethical interogation, imprisonment, and military tactics he’s embraced. The man simply has no real values, much like CLIN-ton.

Don’t blame me–I voted for Kodos!

@¡Andrew!: Well, since DADT was originally a congressional act — an attachment to the military budget, wouldn’t you know — legal repeal has to go through Congress as well.

That leaves open the question of what options an engaged administration has to not enforce the law. It also says nothing about violations of the law by the military, which seems to be Asking more than soldiers are Not Telling.

The deceitful part? Asking the military if dropping the law will offend their delicate sense of bigotry. But silly me, I thought civilian command meant something.

@nojo: You’re right of course about the repeal going through Congress, I should’ve phrased that better. I meant that the method for at least ceasing enforcement of DADT would appear to have more legitimacy by Congressional repeal rather than a court order, at least possibly by Daddy O’s persnickety political calculations.

But really, who knows WTF is going through his head these days. Guess we’ll find out next year at his impeachment trial for Extreme Kenyanism.

@¡Andrew!: And there’s the other disconnect. The nice libtard bloggers who fret that we’re not giving Obama enough credit for denuded healthcare reform, denuded financial reform, denuded Supreme Court nominees, and so on, never mention the wonderful things still being done in our name outside (and inside) our borders. If I didn’t include Greenwald on my daily rounds, I’d hardly be aware of them.

A practical case can be made that denuded reforms are better than no reforms at all. But if you’re going to argue that we’re not enthusiastic enough, please at least recognize that some of us are including a few more data points in our judgment, and not just whining that we don’t have Single Payer.

@¡Andrew!: Guess we’ll find out next year at his impeachment trial for Extreme Kenyanism.

Which congressional Demrats will approve, for fear they don’t look tough enough on thoughtcrime.

Oh, and all this talk about shutting down the government next year? Won’t happen. Demrats will cave before it reaches that point. I remain deeply conflicted about Bubba (hello, “welfare reform”!), but dude knew how to rub Newt’s face in it on occasion.

You know, I was going to say something like this. And I may still.

But here’s the thing: given the alternative, my hand may be forced into total commitment to the Dems.

More later. This will take some deep explanation.

@chicago bureau: Back in the Dark Ages — I learned this from reading Mad — the TV networks practiced the concept of Least Objectionable Programming.

It worked like this: They knew you were going to watch something. So they just had to program something less awful than your other choice or two. (Living in a two-network town, I grew up deprived.)

This worked, so long as you planned to watch television, and you couldn’t put anything else on your screen.

It stopped working with the rise of cable, and VHS, and video games, and eventually the Internet. The ratings of a top network show today pale in comparison to a top network show thirty years ago.

But we still live in two-network politics, and unlike television, there are good reasons for keeping it that way. So we’re left with the Least Objectionable Party. I’ll vote for the Blue Network, because the Red Network is simply unwatchable. The Blue Network is barely watchable, but that doesn’t mean I’m buying their lunchpails.

@chicago bureau:
@nojo:

As I said before, the Demoncraps/Demrats could go with a slogan of “We’re the The Least Worst Choice”

But I think they’d object to truth in advertising.

I was hoping Nojo was parodying Obama. If he really said this he was completely out of his mind and completely without useful counsel. Given the provenance of the psychocon cult he defeated (to say nothing of the Clinton collaborators) he should have assumed he was facing the same threats as Salvador Allende because it is the same crowd and the default strategy of this crowd was explicitly covert action oriented, especially with the ascendance of Bush I, former DCI and, more potently, with a huge collaborative cohort in Wall Street ready and hungry to dismember this administration. Fucking idiots.

>It turns out bringing about change is hard. I thought it was going to be
>easy. I liked the cute poster of the Obama campaign. I enjoyed the
>inauguration. It was great when Beyonce and Bono was singing. I didn’t
> know that we were actually going to have to grind it out, that sometimes
>we’d have setbacks.”

@FlyingChainSaw: Plugz said something similar to Rachel last week, which you’ll recall also set me off. But I would have had to transcribe it, and I found something easier to rant about the next morning.

So it’s not just an offhand remark, but a considered campaign theme being rolled out. I thought Axelrod had better judgment than that, but “You’re Obligated to Support Us” seems to be this year’s bumper sticker.

@nojo: The recession is over!! The oil is gone from the Gulf!! Two more years!!

@nojo: Right. The scolding tone. As if we’re somehow ungrateful for all that’s been done.

All the WH insiders are convinced that they’ve done a fantastic job, and they seem confused as to why everyone at both ends of the political spectrum are pissed as hell at them, hippie punching and all. Maybe it’s an act, who knows? There’s an interview with Axelrod making the rounds today that’s just utterly delusional.

I’ve said it a thousand times, Gore Vidal was right–we don’t have two political parties offering contrasting governing philosophies. We have two factions of the same right-wing, pro-war, corporate supremacist party controlled by the super-rich that offer us the illusion of choice. We’re effectively living under one party rule, and the only way to succeed is to treat both alleged parties like the enemy.

@¡Andrew!: I enjoyed the hippie-punching headline so much, I didn’t bother to pull out the telling quote:

“You play a great role in informing people about the stakes of elections,” Axelrod told the bloggers. “One of the reasons I was eager to expend time was to enlist you.”

Not “convince” — enlist.

Oh, and I have better things to do with my time, so consider yourselves lucky I’m even deigning to talk down to you.

i never had hopey illusions, some conspiracies are not theories.
that’s why i wrote in Flying Chain Saw.
@OA

@Tommmcatt Thinks Masturbation Can Also Involve The Mainstream Media: Come to Woodstock. Town is crawling with them. Oh and plus all the hot Asian guys working real estate.

@Tommmcatt Thinks Masturbation Can Also Involve The Mainstream Media: I used to play trumpet in the Fighting Instruments of Karma Marching Band/Orchestra, the house band for the Flying Karamazov Brothers at the Oregon Country Fair. Hippies, hippies everywhere, and I lacked the balls to do God’s Will.

@nojo: On behalf of hippies everywhere, I thank you.

@Walking Still: And really, the night we dropped acid and kept the hippies awake until dawn singing Gilligan’s Island and shouting Ride the Snake was punishment enough.

@nojo: Uh huh, Cartman.

W/r/t DADT — Obama is the Commander in Chief.

Article Two of the US Const., Section 2, Clause 1:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

All he can’t do is “declare” war. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Congress holds the purse strings, but he’s the head of the military. As the head of the military, why can’t he decide who serves?

If FDR can issue Executive Order 9066, if Shrub can issue Executive Order 13440 (and too many more to mention) why can’t Obama issue an executive order ending DADT?

The Geneva Conventions are fucking TREATIES. Treaties require a supermajority of the fucking Senate. Shrub threw the Conventions under the bus by EO, and Obama can’t tell Congress to go fuck itself and repeal DADT? Pfft.

@JNOV: At this point I don’t understand how any sane US ‘Merikan, ghey or str8, wants to go shed blood for this country unless they’re doing it to get automatic citizenship. I really can’t get worked up about DADT when I don’t want anyone to go serve.

I’m more concerned about adoption by teh gheyz – why is it so difficult.

And if anyone hasn’t seen this yet – OMFG Dan Savage and his “it gets better” campaign directed at LGBT kids is so awesome:

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/09/23/it-gets-better

@SanFranLefty: I’ve been trying to talk two people out of enlisting. People don’t realize that recruiters lie, they have quotas, the military needs warm bodies, AND The Needs of the [Branch] supersede ANY AND ALL PROMISES that branch made before you got on that plane to bootcamp. I’m like, “Can ya just wait until we’re out of these wars? WARS! Plural. WARS!” Jesus.

When I joined, Vietnam was a distant memory for most of us new enlistees. The first gulf war was a shock and a half. We were like, “Whoa. I’m just here cuz I’m broke or want the GI Bill or want out of my ‘hood/hick town or the judge said ‘military or jail.’ I wasn’t planning on fighting any.”

The Marine Corps was the worst. The military isn’t supposed to deploy married active duty members at the same time. Well, the Marines said, “Fuck THAT” and sent husbands and wives out simultaneously, and if they had kids, well, those kids went into foster care until someone could come get them. If someone could afford to come get them. Fucking mess.

@JNOV: If Obama / his administration were to observe treaties and, OFSM, the rule of law, he would be prosecuting war crimes from the previous administration and his own.

I don’t fucking remotely expect his administration to do anything for the gheys that doesn’t advance a purely political (I mean, tribal — as in, Democrat) agenda.

I still care much more that this Constitutional Law Professor / Philosopher King has aggressively done much to decay civil rights than the fact he’s done anything to “increase government in our lives” or some such bullshit-vague meme, that he, and the Demrat party seem to believe they need to counter in the political wars.

I don’t give a fuck about the parties. Give me some good policy, I don’t care where it comes from.

@JNOV: Take them to a VA hospital and take show them people who’ve been blown in half. That should it. Actually, it should be a requirement before enlistment.

@SanFranLefty: I heart Dan Savage.

I, too, don’t have much vested in the DADT thing. But fuck, it’s just a matter of civil rights. Which should be a no-brainer for every US American.

@PedonatorUSA: Yeah, but when you’re undocumented or have no job options, the military is the best/only option these kids have.

And Pee to the Fucking Ess, where have you been? I’ve missed you, and I missed seeing you when I was drinking w/ Nojo at Stinque Global HQ in June.

@FlyingChainSaw: You say that in half-jest but I think it should be mandatory.

@SanFranLefty: I had to step away for a while. I may still need to, but that’s another matter.

SFL, talk me down. I’m seriously thinking about just not voting this year. At this point, I half-think that the people get what they deserve. I’m so over it.

Like, yeah, it’s just so totally inconvenient to exercise my voice when it’s drowned out by so many proudly willfully ignorant voices. The only things I want to vote for this year are against P23 and for P19. I fucking hate the initiative abomination that gave us P8, but what’s a sadsucker Californicator to do?

NONE of the candidates from D, R, or T are even worthy of consideration.

(Well, ok, maybe I’ll scratch a mark for Governor Moonbeam: I’d hate to think about Governor E-Bay , but Jerry’s sorely disappointed me in his enthusiasm to get an execution under his belt before the election.)

@PedonatorUSA: The Enthusiasm Gap at Work: I’m going to vote as usual, but I’m not gonna stage an intervention if you don’t.

@PedonatorUSA: Do I have to go to Cali and slap some heads? Don’t make me go out there. Lefty, hep me out.

My people fought for 56 years for the return of sacred lands. You pissed after 2? My kiva leaders would throw their hands up and turn away over your attitude. History is on our side, ese. Just give us your vote as 1/1000 of a drop in a bucket. We’ll find some blood and tears to mix with it and things will swing our way, maybe when my 14 year old son is 35.

Just show up and help out with a vote. Take a couple of friends who are willing to take the long view. Don’t you get time off work?

/Yellow Fucking Dog Democrat

@nojo: My intervention tactics are unstoppable. Ha ha ha!

Srsly, if I vote I will vote for the underdogs, the numerous third parties that are not Tea. The “Peace and Freedom” party, or if there is some “Green” party, anything except the status quo.

Knowing that by doing so I will welcome the rage that came from the votes for Ralph Nader in the ’00 election. Yes, I voted for him. Yes, I know he’s an asshole, probably, but I’d still rather have that asshole exercising the Executive Powers than the one we have now. Since we’ve seen how the Unicorn executive power has been exercised to promote state secrets, etc.

There is never a good time to promote a new party, and there is no party in particular I want to promote, but the D-R stranglehold is not worth continuing.

Fuck the Democrats! Fuck the Republicans! Fuck the Tea Party!

@redmanlaw: I’m willing to show up and vote. I’m not willing to show up to vote a Demrat ticket.

Based on recent history, what vote for a Democrat serves (y)our people?

I’m just fucking sick and tired of it, and I’m not gonna take it any more.

I’m willing to vote for third-party candidates when they advocate policies I believe in. The Democrats no longer meet that criterion.

@redmanlaw: I’m not pissed after 2 years. Take a longer view, I’m pissed at the fact that the word “liberal” has been turned into a pejorative after 30+ years of relentless push to the “right”(?).

The relentless push rightward of the parameters of discourse over the last several decades has assured that what may have once been considered “moderate” is now considered “fringe leftist”.

I don’t think left-right conservative-liberal labels mean anything anymore, when a substantial portion of the US American sheeple can be convinced that Obama is some kind of “socialist” while he stacks his cabinet with fugitives from Citicorp and Goldman-Sachs.

I find the notion that we are a fascist state, in the classic meaning of the fusion of corporate interests and governance, a fact, not a question.

Obama has done nothing to Change that, rather, he has reinforced it. And the enablers from both the Demrat and Repug parties have demonstrated their utter corruption over the last many decades in serving their party interests above the interests of the commons.

In fact both parties have made the very idea of “the commons” something to be afraid of, to trash willfully, to utterly disregard in the service of economic growth.

The very word community seems to reek of unsavory scents, like some quaint notion that is best hidden in the lowest drawer with the cum-rags and soiled undergarments that attest to inauspicious couplings.

@PedonatorUSA: One of my partners went to the Dems’ rollout of their Native American platform this past week here in New Mexico, which basically supports everything we’re doing on a number of fronts. The GOP has been unresponsive on our inquiries, which is no surprise since their candidate for lt gov expressly came out against the tribal position on issues such as taxation and jurisdictional issues.

For us here in New Mexico, the difference is like night and day. Under a Democratic land commissioner, for example, I did a 12,000 acre land exchange for a tribal client to acquire lands of profoundly significant cultural value with the State and the BLM while we could barely get a meeting with the GOP land commissioner, who was a fucking redneck pro-mining and ranching asshole. We wrote him off two weeks into his term eight years ago. To be fair, the land exchange was given the highest priority by Secretary Norton, and Richard Nixon was the best president Indian country ever saw and class clown/fmr Gov Gary Johnson signed Indian gaming compacts because he did not give a fuck about what the Dem legislature or the (anti-Indian) Hispanic Democrat AG said and fought off Cliton’s US Attorney in a couple of lawsuits, but overall the Dems help Indians out more than the GOP does, although holdover bureaucrats sometimes have a hard time getting with the program under a new boss.

We’re trapped in an era of incremental change and some backsliding on our side, and only the bad guys want to make the bold moves. Having seen the Green Party here in New Mexico come and go whe they were revealed as people with no appeal or political acumen, my best bet to protect my interests are with the Democrats.

Full disclosure: RML was the vice char and acting chair of the New Mexico Democratic Party in 2001-2002 until he was replaced by then gubernatorial candidate Bill Rchardson, after which he returned to his plow. Mr. RML also voted for Nader in 1996 once the polls showed Clinto to be way ahead because Clinton was a sleaze. He was instrumental in the Dean campaign in New Mexico and found a home in his building for the budding Obama campaign for the 2008 primaries. RML loves politics the way some people like football and sometimes really misses the game.

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