Stump Lane
in the dirt since history began

DID the American Dream ever exist? We are subjects to a bloodthirsty and heedless security state that seems to become more and more paranoid each day. The craven power seekers who control the reigns of government most faithfully represent interests at odds with even the most basic needs of the people. And while most people seem to recognize and abhor this situation, for the most part they divide into fanatical mobs and turn their ire on each other.

Did the American Dream ever exist, or was it always just a nostalgic figment of our shared experience in The Spectacle? The divisions, the rationalizations, the willful compromises of the power seekers at the expense of the people they ostensibly represent seem to have always been thus. The same false rationalizations that endure today, our very founding principles.

Ahhh, well. Perhaps there is hope yet in Hillary. Or Sarah.

This is the February edition of Carnival of the Liberals.

Here again are the links and credits:

• Red Queen presents About those boot straps posted at Elizabitchez
• Charles Davis presents ‘If only I’d authorized torture instead of jaywalking’ posted at false dichotomy by charles davis
• BDR presents To a Place Beneath the Chin I Wish I Could Sing Of posted at BLCKDGRD
• LarryE presents Turn your head and cough posted at Lotus – Surviving a Dark Time
• Chuck Dupree presents Bad Attitudes: State Farm Is There Until You Need Them posted at Bad Attitudes
• Mel presents Collaborating Across the Divide posted at BroadSnark
• J.R. Boyd presents Introducing the spectacular Sarah Palin posted at ladypoverty
• David Waldstreicher presents The Return of Staughton Lynd posted at History News Network, (nominated for the carnival by Leo Lincourt.)
• Luke Geraghty presents Why Hillary Would Make An Excellent President posted at Luke Geraghty.com
• Madeleine Begun Kane presents Sarah Palin’s Runny, Run-On Sentences Finally Explained posted at Mad Kane’s Political Madness

Visit the Carnival of the Liberals site to sign up to host, and use the form to submit a post for the next carnival.

Continue reading for a list of the remaining submissions. (more…)

THE FEBRUARY edition of Carnival of the Liberals will be here at The Stump end of next week. We are desperately seeking submissions that do not originate from spam-type blogs.

Information about the carnival can be found here: Carnival of the Liberals
Submissions can be made using the web form here: Blog Carnival

Traditionally blog authors have submitted their own work for the carnival, but as host of this edition, I would be willing to look the other way if blog readers were to use the form to nominate a post for inclusion. Hint: please do this and overwhelm us with quality posts. KTHX.

MY ELEVEN YEAR OLD daughter’s ten year old friend died this week. We found out today. It was not a sudden or unexpected death. She had been struggling with brain cancer for the last couple of years. We used to be neighbors with the girl’s family and our kids were growing up together. My daughter marked the girl among her Best Friends.

I feel nothing.

Nothing on my own account anyway. Sure there is a slight twinge at the thought of the now empty place that quiet, carefully polite young person once occupied. But the only real sort of emotional reaction I have seems to come from other people. The sadness that sprang up at seeing my spouse’s eyes shot through with red and wet from crying, the anguish that gripped me in the gut upon seeing my daughter so distraught she couldn’t speak but only reach out for a hug, the choke of empathy brought on by reading the obituary at the realization of how much the person who authored it must have loved the girl.

These are borrowed emotions.

Perhaps it is a stoicism inherited from my grandmother on my father’s side. Perhaps it is a product of not being directly related to the deceased as in this case. But I prefer to think of it as the product of having contemplated death and made my own peace with it. Of having let go the fear of it. Having let go the idea of death as tragedy.

Death is just a normal thing that happens.

Surely there are no groundbreaking ideas on death here, but I haven’t read the scholarly work on the subject so I come by them honestly. Like a lot of people I used to fear and loathe death. Imagined I would cling desperately to life for as long as possible. I would resist the inevitable with all of my might when the time came. Would have tolerated the miracle machines and the tubes and sensors and monitors and medicines. Anything for just a few more minutes of sweet life. A medical miracle.

I’d bankrupt my loved ones lingering on like that!

It was watching my beloved grandmother Mimi as she neared the void that altered my attitudes about death. I wanted to hold on to her as long as possible. Despaired by the thought of her forever leaving. But Mimi was fearless. Ready. A life of pain had become an annoying practical joke, death the most fitting revenge prank. She was ready, said her goodbyes and left this world on her own terms. It was a well executed demise. With Mimi, my own fear of death died.

Years later, I still feel the occasional pang of Mimi’s absence when I realize she’s no longer around for me to visit. But that’s just it, the death itself wasn’t tragic. The tragedy is for the living. Hence my imperfect dispassion toward the mourners for my daughter’s friend and their sense of loss. At least I’m going to cling to this notion that I am not an unfeeling monster.

In any case it’s been a somber evening at our house.

[Titular coinage coined by BDR to the best of our knowledge.]

YOU MAY, you few who venture here, have noticed that the legitimate posting has been thin here at The Stump lately. We’ve got a dozen starts and stops in the blog post drafts folder, and feeling more and more apathetic about all topics every day.

We cut our teeth as a political blog of sorts, following our rulers daily crimes, rationalizations and nonsensical rhetoric. We started out opposing war and torture and discovered along the way that we also oppose imperialism and our amoral mixed-economy “capitalist” system. Where does that leave us when it comes to politics blogging?

If politics in America has come down to stylistic hair splitting between parties that equally serve the economic interests of entrenched power, if the various conflicts and stalemates among our ruling class are meaningless. If in the political media…

…contentless tactical “analysis” and the responding think piece regretting the absence of substance have become the political equivalent of the call-and-response liturgy, the undramatic dialogue at the center of the discourse of political journalism… [IOZ]

…what is to be said of blogs that comment on this type of thing? Is there any meaning in repeatedly remarking upon meaninglessness?

Who knows what will become of this blog? Changes of some sort are surely coming. In the meantime we’re posting things of a somewhat different nature on this new Tumblr thing the kids are all talking about at Stump Lane The Lesser please look in on us over there.

In the meantime here’s a mini post:

Toyota: meh.

EVERY auto company is sitting on known safety issues with their vehicles. Recalls are based on economic decisions, not safety concerns. This is a witch hunt. The media makes the public out to be such fucking ninnys afraid of everything and demanding complete safety. If it’s true everything they say about you, Public, well, BUCK UP. Driving is unsafe. At least in that it will never be perfectly safe. If you want a post about this whole thing read this one. Just replace “Toyota” for the TSA and “sticking accelerator pedals” for terrorism. And be sure at least to watch the video over at that post.

IT DOESN’T MATTER what kind or size of majority you have in congress, the result is the same. Consider:

• Patriot Act
• No Child Left Behind
• Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq

were passed in an evenly divided senate.

• Partial birth abortion ban
• Medicare Prescription Drug Modernization
• Unborn Victims of Violence Act

were passed in a senate with 51 republicans.

• Bankruptcy reform
• Military Commissions Act
• Secure Fence Act

were passed in a senate with 55 republicans.

I didn’t look up all of the votes, but at least one of the above passed, unfilibustered, with less than 60 votes, but many of them passed with significant to total democrat support. Yeah, yeah, it’s that the republicans will be obstructionist and won’t play fair, etc. But all of the above happened when mathematically the democrats could have done the same thing. If they won’t dig in their heels and filibuster the fucking Military Commissions and Sweeping Torture and Human Rights Violations Under the Carpet Act, then what the hell do they represent?

But they’re going to pass health insurance! They haz 2!

One cannot even imagine anything more horrible than the end of the Democratic majority. Therefore, passing a terrible bill that everyone knows is only being enacted as a political ploy to keep the Democrats in power is the best, in fact only, move, because it keeps the Democrats in power.

Witness Massachusetts.

And I just have to point out one more time, there is no health care in this bill. It mandates the purchase of insurance, but does not mandate that insurance companies pay for whatever care you need. Who’s gonna come out ahead in such a transaction? [Chuck Dupree]

PROGRESSIVES, we can say this because we used to be one, are bracing today for the potential loss of Ted Kennedy’s senate seat in a nuclear republican attack on the democrat’s super-majority that could result in the revocation of democrat carte blanche to save the world, the loss of which will usher in a new era of republican obstructionism and the collapse of civilization.

Progressives, and we can say this because we used to be one, are nothing if not prepared: What if Scott Brown wins today in Massachusetts?

Image: Make

[Idea credit: Frederick UPDATE! Frederick provides the appropriate visual aid.]

SENTIMENTAL NOTIONS ABOUT “DEMOCRACY” aside, the system is a sham, says Digby. But we should keep on voting. Or something:

It’s indisputably true that the political system is run by wealthy plutocrats and much of what passes for democracy is kabuki. Same as it ever was, I’m afraid. But that’s not exactly the point. It’s still worth participating, doing what you can, containing the damage, stopping the bleeding, fighting the fight — for its own sake. [Digby]

What about living well? Now there’s a fight that’s worth the effort.

If you don’t think [participating is] worth anything, however, you do have a choice. The obvious alternative, as PinNC wrote in TBOGG’s comments, is this:

• If you really think that the political system is broken beyond repair, you have a blueprint from the 1770s to help you out.

Pick up your muskets, kids, or STFU. [Digby]

If you choose, (instead of strapping on a suicide belt and testing your fate against the naked power of the state security apparatus,) to live life eschewing the politics of the day and simply taking joy in the moments of freedom you can eke out under such a system, then, Digby instructs, you should “shut the fuck up” about it.

Oh, please dear! I’ve got news for you: the Supreme Court has roundly rejected prior restraint!

See also: IOZ
More on alienation/abstention in our own Simulacrum of Democracy category.

Question Everything

• Pay attention in class… unless you’ve already mastered the material.
• Don’t distract others… unless you are creating a diversion.
• Don’t make fun of people… unless they are an asshole.
• Don’t do anything to hurt others… unless they are trying to hurt you.
• Be respectful to your teacher… unless they’re full of shit.
• Take your turn in class or play… unless you don’t want to.

[Via: this isn't happiness.]