Odd Man Outing

No doubt, this was an 'awkward moment for the both of them, but what is striking is the transparent attempt at civility..actually really really strained would be a better term. No grace, 'not a mindful' gentleman.

Odd Behavior [aka churlish and rude].. insecurities showing?:

At the dedication of the Clinton library last week in Little Rock, Karl Rove and President Bush received separate tours of the dramatic building....

...Then, when the presidents were announced, Bush tried to push his way past Clinton at the library door to be first in line, against the already accepted protocol for the event, as though the walk to the platform was a contest for alpha male...

Odd comments [clinical?]:

Offstage, beforehand, Rove and Bush had had their library tours. According to two eyewitnesses..

You're not such a scary guy [to Rove]," joked his guide. "Yes, I am," Rove replied. Walking away, he muttered deliberately and loudly: "I change constitutions, I put churches in schools ..." Thus he identified himself as more than the ruthless campaign tactician; he was also the invisible hand of power, pervasive and expansive, designing to alter the fundamental American compact...

Bush appeared distracted, and glanced repeatedly at his watch. When he stopped to gaze at the river, where secret service agents were stationed in boats, the guide said: "Usually, you might see some bass fishermen out there." Bush replied: "A submarine could take this place out."
Was the president warning of an al-Qaida submarine, sneaking undetected up the Mississippi, through the locks and dams of the Arkansas river, surfacing under the bridge to the 21st century to dispatch the Clinton library? Is that where Osama bin Laden is hiding?

Or was this a wishful paranoid fantasy of ubiquitous terrorism destroying Clinton's legacy with one blow? Or a projection of menace and messianism, with only Bush grasping the true danger, standing between submerged threat and civilisation? Perhaps it was simply his way of saying he wouldn't build his library near water...

More odd behavior [Rude or low impulse control?]

... Upon entering the tent, Bush, according to an eyewitness, told an aide: "One gulp and we're out of here." He had informed the Clintons he would stay through the lunch, but by the time Peres arose with wine glass in hand the president was gone...

As someone who just got re elected, one would expect a little strength and grace under pressure. ... strange, I just got a flash image of the visigoths touring the roman senate building... and so it goes...

One gulp, and Bush was gone

A Different Proposal

No appeasement here..the radicals as bullies and abusers.

Hear the cacophony of voices, crying out, "Why did they beat me?"

And then ask anyone who has ever worked in a domestic violence shelter if they have heard this before...

The answer is quite simple. They beat us because they are abusers [because they can rings true]. We can call it hate. We can call it fear. We can say it is unfair. But we are looped into the cycle of violence, and we need to start calling the dominating side what they are: abusive...

As victims we can't stop asking ourselves what we did wrong. We can't seem to grasp that they will keep hitting us and beating us as long as we keep sticking around and asking ourselves what we are doing to deserve the beating....

Watch us descend into a world of crazy-making [Ref: Virginia Satir, Claudia Black, Bully On Line UK , Other ] where logic does not work and the other side tells us we are nuts when we rely on facts. A world where, worst of all, we begin to believe we are crazy...

How to break free? Again, the answer is quite simple.

First, you must admit you are a victim.

Then, you must declare the state of affairs unacceptable.

Next, you must promise to protect yourself and everyone around you that is being victimized.

You don't do this by responding to their demands, or becoming more like them, or engaging in logical conversation, or trying to persuade them that you are right. You also don't do this by going catatonic and resigned, by closing up your ears and eyes and covering your head and submitting to the blows, figuring its over faster and hurts less is you don't resist and fight back.

Instead, you walk away. You find other folks like yourself, 56 million of them, who are hurting, broken, and beating themselves up. You tell them what you've learned, and that you aren't going to take it anymore. {Network: the film that is}

You stand tall, with 56 million people at your side and behind you, and you look right into the eyes of the abuser and you tell him to go to hell. Then you walk out the door, taking the kids and gays and minorities with you, and you start a new life. The new life is hard. But it's better than the abuse.

We have a mandate to be as radical and liberal and steadfast as we need to be. The progressive beliefs and social justice we stand for, our core, must not be altered....

Politics of Victimization

A Modest Apology

[satire]

At the moment, though, one side of the great divide is being called upon for something closer to abjection than mere reconciliation.

So, yes, okay, fine. I'm a terrible person -- barely a person at all, really, and certainly not a real American -- because I voted for the losing candidate on Tuesday. If you insist -- and you do -- I will rethink my fundamental beliefs from scratch because they are shared by only 47 percent of the electorate.

And please let me, or any other liberal, know if there is anything else we can do to abase ourselves. Abandon our core values? Pander to yours? Not a problem. Happy to do it. Anything, anything at all, to stop this shower of helpful advice...

There's just one little request I have. If it's not too much trouble, of course. Call me profoundly misguided if you want. Call me immoral if you must. But could you please stop calling me arrogant and elitist?...

We on my side of the great divide don't, for the most part, believe that our values are direct orders from God. We don't claim that they are immutable and beyond argument. We are, if anything, crippled by reason and open-mindedness, by a desire to persuade rather than insist. Which philosophy is more elitist? Which is more contemptuous of people who disagree?...

But be fair! (A liberal whine, I know. Sorry.) Don't assert the prerogatives of victory and then claim the compensations of defeat as well. You can't oppress us and simultaneously complain that we are oppressing you...

[/satire]

[snark]Post Traumatic Stress?, Battered Spouse reaction?, Identification with the aggressor?, Reality Based Reality Dysfunction?.
We report, you decide..
[/snark]

Am I Blue?

Post Election Reactions [Blessedly Brief]

Entry #324
Well, that sucked.

Biomes

Kerry concedes
F==k. F==kity f==k f==k f==k.

Sorry--that's all I've really got for you right now.

Tom Tomorrow

Sorry, George.

No honeymoon.

No mandate.

No surrender.

Peter Lee

Cranky Guru

Zen Meditation on election day

Oh leaves,
Ask the wind which of you
Will be the first to fall.

Soseki (1867-1916)

Daily Zen Meditation

Does a blade of grass
care which cow eats it?

Sun Yet Sin

Myth Buster

A 'jaw drop' moment: I didn't know this...not that it will effect anyone's belief system. This data will be great for disrupting political discussions..Just drop it in and flee.[y'all think those 'chats' will be less after today, NBL. Regardless of the outcome, hold on to the bar thrill seekers..but I digress].

This article gives the numbers. I know that most of you go into delta wave consciousness when presented with charts and rows of numbers, so here is the 'Executive Summary:

These statistics show that the popular Democratic slogan, "If you want to live like a Republican, vote for the Democrats," is true--even for the rich.

The story with a little more detail:

Republicans Aren’t Even Good for the Rich
By Robert S. McElvaine Tuesday, November 02, 2004

"The Republicans only help the rich." We hear it all the time, and there is rarely disagreement over any word in the sentence other than "only." Almost everyone accepts it as axiomatic that Republican administrations and their policies are beneficial to the rich...

The startling bottom line is that over the last three-plus decades the income of the richest Americans has risen at a rate four times faster under Democrats than under Republicans.

Above that bottom line are other findings that should be sobering to wealthy Americans intoxicated by the ideology and tax cuts preached and practiced by Republicans. A few examples:

[]All of the comparatively small cumulative gain in income by the rich under Republicans came during the Reagan years. Under the other four Republican administrations since 1969, the richest five percent of households lost an average of $444 per year.

[]In nine of the last 34 years, the income of the richest five percent declined. Eight of those nine years of loss for the rich came when a Republican was in the White House. The only year under a Democrat in which the richest Americans did not gain was the last year of Jimmy Carter's presidency, 1980.

[]In the eight years under Clinton, the richest five percent gained an annual average of $10,241; in the six years so far calculated under the Bushes, the rich lost an annual average of $1999. It is true that the rich fared well during the Reagan years: an average annual gain of 3.6 percent with his huge tax cuts and massive deficits. Yet under Clinton, with his tax increase on upper income people (which Republicans insisted would cause economic ruin and against which every Republican in Congress voted) and ultimate balancing of the budget, the mean income of the rich increased at the significantly faster annual rate of 4.9 percent.

A similar story emerges from a look at the stock market, usually seen as another benchmark of how the rich are faring. During the same administrations, from Nixon to the second Bush, the Dow has gained an annual average of 7.1 percent under Republican administrations and 11.1 percent under Democrats....

For more charts and numbers go read the fairly short article
Republicans Aren’t Even Good for the Rich

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