Special Rejoinder:
In Sufferance of the Permanence of Hell
It has been pointed out to me by several readers that attempts to repeal the 22nd Amendment have been made in the recent and not-so-recent past, and all have failed. I shall not be faint in my warning about the here and now. Below is the synthesis of responses I have and will set forth to the earnest suggestions that history mitigates the present.
That previous attempts have been made to repeal the 22nd Amendment is not in dispute. This is precisely the point.
The Democrats of the 109th Congress seem to believe that all things are as they have been in times past, in Congresses of yesteryear, and in manner of progress to a more open society. They hold to old lines of authentic rhetoric, mechanistic proceduralism, and statesmanly patience, all of which might in their day have worked to great and noble ends. The Democrats sail confidently yet perilously close to shallow waters, awaiting the returning tide to lift them from the jagged meanness of their Republican colleagues.
And in this route, they have come to wreckage.
More importantly, the Republic in its growth as a liberal democracy has not been temporarily slowed; it has, instead, been ended. The Republicans set forth action in proposed laws, move forward in aggression, and leave nothing behind for the Democrats to negotiate. Worse, the nation will not, as it has in other eras of excessive conservatism, recover—certainly not for decades, anyway, and perhaps not ever.
The Republicans maneuver outrage into law with the finesse in foreplay of Don Juan followed by the copulatory sensitivity of a Roman Legion battering ram. The Democrats cry as violated victims incapable of vengeance because they want not to lower themselves to the beasts who have taken their dignity.
The Democrats stand flat-footed, as if it is the duty of some ill-define "The People" to avenge their honor; and so they suffer the irresistible and false hope that the pounding of their stolen heart is the hoofbeats of a rescuing knight.
John Conyers is relegated to the outdoors to hold a phony "hearing," Harry Reid pulls a Senate closed-session desperation play, and Howard Dean energizes the masses of the disaffected with hot language that repairs nothing.
Nothing.
The descent into the abyss continues.
Abortions will become practically impossible to obtain within a decade, military siege will be the instrument of America's belated and amateurish engagement of a world it cannot perfectly control, evangelical Christianity will speak through both law and regulation, and political thought will run through a filter of wariness and fear of consequences from both private and public thugs.
Yes, it is different this time: Medievalism in the Age of Enlightenment is no longer Medievalism; it is, instead, neo-conservatism; and it wields an iron fist.
Until the Democrats understand this, they will grasp not how to respond in the beginnings of battles; and until they know how to strike at the subtle whispers in the preambles, they will have no hope of saving this Republic...
...if this Republic is worth saving, that is.
The Dark Wraith has spoken.
Published 2/21/2006 05:01:00 PM
<< 34 Comments Total
I'm trying not to be very depressed. I deleted my own pessimism post earlier today.
Still of two minds about that. We're fighting a conglomeration of monomaniacal philosophical and economic defectives who have decided that cheaters win.
It's really, really hard not to argue for a Ghandian campaign of economic warfare.
Until the Democrats understand this, they will grasp not how to respond in the beginnings of battles...
They probably already lost that part of the battle here. Our (un)opposing party faithful probably have not and will not vigorously fight because:
1. Being afraid of being labeled partisan and obstructionist by the pukes.
2. Day dreaming of the day when the shoe is on the other foot, even though the shoe is currently kicking their ass (even after stepping in dog shit on a regular basis).
3. Believing that disproval of bushco is sufficient to cause individual state votes not to acheive the necessary majority.
4. They really are as pathetic as they seem and truly don't get it.
Democratic leadership; today's oxymoron.
Hi Dark Wraith,
I posted your article on my blog yesterday in regards to the 22nd amendment.
In my discussions with people, most still don't seem to get it or even care for that matter.
I talked to one person who felt confident that it would NEVER happen. Congress would NEVER repeal the 22nd amendment.
How can anyone be so confident in our Congress in light of all that has happened over the past five years?
There was a time when people said the United States would never torture, that the government would never spy on its own citizens again without a warrant,that we would never invade a country or start a war based on false intelligence....
There was a time when people believed the President would never violate the Constitution, let alone brag about it on national TV.
Now we are poised to sell our ports to the U.A.E. which will also handle shipping military supplies to Iraq from Texas.
Even some Republicans are troubled by this including Bill Frist.
What did King Bush do today? He threatened to veto any legislation that blocked this sale to the Dubai Ports Co. controlled by the U.A.E.
When the Republicans started entertaining the idea of invesitgating the domestic spying program, Karl Rove ran down to Capital Hill and strong armed all the Republicans into dropping the matter.
And yet despite all of this, people still believe that Congress would never repeal the 22nd amendment...
I have a sinking feeling in my stomach that Bush will be swearing his oath to office again in Jan 2009 (if they have not done away with the oath to protect the Constitution and uphold the laws of the land by then...).
...if this Republic is worth saving, that is.
As long as we all live in it, it's worth saving. I've often thought that the Dems will have to lower themselves to the level of their opponents to get anywhere. They need to start... now.
Perhaps, they can hire Rove away from his current employment:) I really don't mean that, but they will need to start breaking out the crap and spew it all over the media. It seems as though the biggest share of the TV viewers eat up that spiteful stuff right along with their dinner.
If they don't have a hard time swallowing what the Reps shovel, they shouldn't have a hard time with what the Dems might find to serve.
Bush Says He Will Veto Any Bill to Stop UAE Port Deal
*Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185479,00.html
Good evening, Luther.
What frightens me more than this damnable deal is the fact that Bush, in the presence of headwinds of hard opposition, is proceeding not merely insensitively, but downright aggressively.
This is the arrogance of a man who has become something other than a President, and I would submit to you that this began long ago, long before he even became the President. We are just now beginning to see the point of a spear that will not be turned away by any resource a civil society could deploy through a sensible political system.
And to think there are people who believe this investigation or that inquiry will stop any of this Administration's venal activities.
The Dark Wraith sees far more in Mr. Bush's defiance than mere will of a strong man.
Good evening, PoliShifter.
You are speaking directly to my thesis: far too many people—good Americans of both political parties, I would be so bold as to say—hold that this is just some "politics as usual" era.
It is not.
I wonder how much more it will take before it finally dawns not just on the majority of Americans, but also on the mainstream media, that something terribly wrong is happening to this nation right now.
I wonder how long it will take the Democratic leadership to grasp that it leads nothing in a republic that has become something other than a pluralistic society embodied in a representative democracy.
The Dark Wraith wonders.
Good evening, Mr. Goat.
I do like the metaphor about the Democrats fantasizing about the day when the shoe is on the other foot as they are getting kicked with the jackboot of extremist Republicanism.
Even if they ever did wrest that boot from its current owner, I doubt if they'd be in any shape to sit down long enough to tie the laces of it.
The Dark Wraith sees the party of the donkey as having already become the party of the whupped ass.
Good evening, Stealth Badger.
I honestly don't believe that Ghandi's methods of civil disobedience would work today.
Imagine that scene with those hundreds of people trying to walk to the sea to get their salt. At the time, the British could do nothing but beat their brains out with truncheons.
Now, picture that same scene today with federal troops and mercenaries simply dispersing the crowd with area denial acoustics weaponry.
No dignity in blood, no great scenes of defiance for reporters to write about; just a whole lot of people running away holding their ears and vomiting.
Not much heroism to be garnered in such ignobility of dispersal.
The Dark Wraith is on a terribly cynical tear tonight.
Good evening, Old White Lady.
A fear I have in my own writing is that I will one day return to the cruelty with which I engaged people on the Internet in another time and under other handles. My fear has several parts, not the least of which was that I was extraordinarily effective, so much so that I brought forth an unimaginably fierce beast in a tiny group. Although my perception was keen of their capacity for cruelty, unfairness, and unspeakable vengeance, that perception was inordinately less than what it should have been. For that chasm between what I thought they could do and what they would really do, I nearly lost everything. (And I do mean everything.)
If it be the awful clothing of hate, venality, mendaciousness, and utter wickedness that must be worn to dislodge the neo-conservatives, then so be it; but make no mistake: the price could very well be dear beyond treasure.
To dismiss this warning as the rant of a fool is to walk unprepared onto a battlefield where the enemies of freedom have even less use for us than they do for our liberty.
This is the assessment of the Dark Wraith, fool though he may be.
I see a simultaneous subjugation process taking place not just in America but all over the earth. And the friends and acquaintances who have fled to France, Canada, Venezuela, Australia are merely delaying the inevitable. Much as I did when I fled Chicago in 1966 for a small town in north central Illinois.
Police-state tactics in brutal repression of political dissent go back a long way in America but my earliest personal memory is the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Readers are invited to study "Rights on Conflict--"the Chicago Police Riot" by Daniel Walker as well as Norman Mailer's "Miami and the Siege of Chicago". The Kent State killings of 1970 is another interesting study topic.
And I have noticed something else lately. Suicides. Murder-suicides. Mass killings. Whole families.
We are not only warring with others. We are warring with our own people.
And with ourselves. We are literally destroying ourselves. Earth is a planet that is eating its own young.
Now, the heads of government can either see, or not see, what is happening. In either case, they do not seem to care. Which appears to me to be a form of "madness".
We can sit here and speak until doomsday about the SYMPTOMS of this "madness": war, famine, pestilence, death, etc. but what are the CAUSES of this "madness"? And, why do a pitiful few of us appear to be immune? Well, I have a few ideas about the first question, which were formulated from reading some material on "The Quantum Future Group Sites Master Index" available at http://tinyurl.com/sy7p3. Some of it is spooky. All of it is rational.
Another way to phrase my "CAUSES" question is, "Who's controlling the controllers"?
Hello from North of the Border Dark Wraith,
I've been watching the US slide slowly into the abyss and when I start talking politics up here I nearly begin to sound like and Old Testament prophet.
The thing that spooks me out the most in the websites I read and the news I keep up with is this...
That the tinfoil hat blogs and the blogs like DailyKos are starting to coalese and converge in the topics they are talking about. It isn't 100% yet by any means but the are both saying the same thing from different directions. Which in the big systems of things is down right spooky.
I think the US has really crossed on over to the other side. The month of March is going to be crucial to see if we invade Iran or if anything crazy in the head happens because it's looking like that's the month it will happen.
From north of the border,
-Gary A
Worth saving,yes. But the earth will rid itself of us like a flea collar.
Good Afternoon Dark Wraith,
...And here I was trying to cure my depression and "outrage fatigue", and you just pile more on... ;)
I'm leaning more toward the StealthBadger Global Economic Strike. They may be able to disperse us, but they may find it harder to force us to work.
My personal preference would be to retire to a farm somewhere way out where they don't care about anyone, and grow my own veggies.
What? you say there is nowhere on earth that they don't call "theirs" and we can all just go die, for all they care?
Fuck them...
Good afternoon, SB Gypsy.
Remember that the patented gene in corn has now migrated to non-GMO corn, and the good corporation with the patent is still probing the idea of claiming that any corn containing the porprietary genetics is subject to claim by that company.
That means other GMOs whose genes are dispersing could theoretically infect "organic," harvestable crops, thereby making them subject to claim (as well subject to whatever undersirable side effects the modifications are doing).
Sort of a good example of the old saying that you can run, but you can't hide.
Certainly it would appear that hiding in an agrarian refuge isn't going to do much good, anyway.
The Dark Wraith doesn't even eat corn these days.
[It used to give me the wind something wicked, anyway.]
UH OH,.....here come the methane jokes!
Not on this blog.
Nope.
Never.
Not a chance.
The Dark Wraith will not open the door for untoward venting of emotions.
good morrow, wraithly one....
not to worry. massive ecological collapse due to over population, exacerbated by the vagaries of global warming, will soon make most politics moot. that and the new flu. oh yeah, and aids. untreatable bacterial infections too.
starvation will conquer obesity when fuel prices go so high that food costs too much to produce and ship.
monsanto won't be such a threat when law enforcement breaks down totally.
the siver lining of the apocalypse.
Depressing afternoon, Dark Wraith,
New Zealand is looking better and better to me.
Yours Truly
Lizzy
Good evening, BlondeSense Liz.
Be careful about New Zealand. From what I've heard, there's an emergent Right-wing, nearly fascist political/social movement starting to get its wings there. I do not know the extent of its influence, but this extremism from the Right is on the march across many parts of the globe.
Acting as a counterbalance, of course, is resurgent Maoism beginning to turn ugly in southern Asia. The followers are called "Naxalites," and they are far more dangerous than the Maoists of Shining Path were in South America.
My recommendation? Antarctica. The temperatures aren't all that great, but I understand that the scenery is quite impressive. And the neo-cons won't be going down there.
Neo-cons are much more acclimated to the temperatures of their native land: Hell.
The Dark Wraith reaches for his parka.
Good evening, Dread Pirate Roberts.
Lord knows, I've done my part to provide a happy place. I offered the new, sunnier color scheme, and I even did a graphic with a white background.
Sheesh. How much more silver lining can a guy deliver?
The Dark Wraith could install the soundtrack from Army of Darkness.
the only problem with Antarctica (aside from sovereignty questions and the temp. and the lack of food or fuel) is the ozone hole.
Make sure you wear protection against ultra-violet light....
- oddjob
On the upside, OddJob, it would make for some very cool effects on blacklight posters.
The Dark Wraith would certainly want lots of interesting wall décor considering how much time would be spent indoors.
Could get better maybe you will win the lottery
Eight Meat Plant Workers Claim Lotto Jackpot
Good morning, Dark Wraith.
Not much heroism to be garnered in such ignobility of dispersal.
Except that salt isn't the issue... clothing and other ostensibly-durable-goods from China are, along with petrochemicals, computer parts, and a billion other things. The companies (and their owners, both large and small) that are by-and-large funneling that money either outside the country, investing it in (to my limited understanding) socially deleterious ways, or hoarding it so as to die with the biggest number attached to the bank account are also part of the problem.
Yes, this is an oversimplification, but money talks; the question becomes "what should it say?"
The consequences of a large (and I mean on a macroeconomic scale) number of people saving $50 a month, especially if it went under the mattress (so to speak) is an idea that appeals, but organizing it (as always) is the first question, and the likely consequences is the second.
Would the U.S. government simply increase the derivative of M3 vs. time? Who knows.
Still, it seems to me that reducing that cash flow would at least get some attention, and it seems that framing the activism as "keep $5, $10, $50 of your money a month, and pretend that someone convincing you to take it is trying to take away for anything other than medical expenses or paying down your debt is threatening your first-born child/handgun/cross/Record of Lodoss War DVD collection" would be much more effective than the "buy nothing day" campaigns.
It would also do us some personal good.
It would take personal discipline, but people learn responsibility exactly as fast as we have to. We are fast approaching that very point.
By the way, what happened to your front page???
Good morning, Stealth Badger.
What?!! What are you seeing that doesn't look right?
For God's sake, man, talk to me!
The Dark Wraith doesn't see anything out of the ordinary!
I can't speak for the Badge, but over the last couple of weeks the problem of the white background with black text (cascading sheets not loading right, or some such thing if I recall correctly) has become more frequent. Sometimes it changes right away, but other times requires a page refresh.
Thought you might enjoy this toon; it goes with my comment above about the shoe being on the other foot.
Good afternoon, Mr. Goat.
Ah, I am vaguely familiar with problems of that sort. It's an unsuccessful call to the cascading style sheet.
It's a server-level problem. The best solution from my experience is to kick the snot out of the server. That, I'll do.
Rather more subtle is to work out some kind of verification policy at the server level: essentially, a routine that confirms successful response to client pulls. I've never actually done something like that, so it's going to be one of those things about which I'll become obsessed as I fail repeatedly to get the policy written and implemented properly. It might be beyond the capabilities of the host, but I'll have to see. I can't afford to have that kind of nonsense going on.
Tell me this: did the problem ever show up before the style sheet switcher was installed? I suspect it did, but the switcher would have exacerbated the problem somewhat since there would be both a first and a second style sheet call. (That's why the switch between the style sheets can happen so quickly.)
You are, of course, correct: simply hitting the "Refresh" button on a browser will almost always bring everything up properly since about the only thing that would have to be called from scratch in the refresh would be the failed-load style sheets.
Well, all of this is just more evidence of my claim that life was easier in the Paleolithic era. Style sheets were much simpler back then. They generally consisted of deer skin, which could be cut into a sheet appropriate for covering almost any cave wall. And the javascripts were much more straightforward, too: usually, you had a call to the hunt, a call to the dinner, a call to nature, and an occasional call to some butt.
About the only time the Webpage got messed up was when a saber-tooth tiger came into the living room and ate someone; but even then, once the animal was gone, there was more food to go around for the survivors.
Yep, life was way easier back then.
The Dark Wraith reminisces.
Tell me this: did the problem ever show up before the style sheet switcher was installed?
Yes, but only a few times that I observed. First time was maybe a month(ish) ago??, but I really can't remember more specifically. If specifics matter, we had an exchange about it if you can search the posts.
And when I said more frequent, I didn't mean several times a day; more like three times this past week.
*e-mails details/correction and apology for not doing so immediately*
As far as stylesheet glitches - holding down shift and hitting "reload" or "refresh" will usually do the trick client-side.
There is no reliable way server side to force a stylesheet reload, with the exception of "touching" the stylesheet to advance the file creation date each time the stylesheet is read, or just plain dynamically generating it - both very inadvisable things to do, especially as since this assumes that the caching settings on the clients browser are only one of three or four possible settings, which just ain't so.
Shift-reload. Go with that.
Ah, my good badger, but there is a way: force an automatic reload from a script. That can be done with using a number of criteria, from a simple, every last load gets a reload to something more sophisticated like detection of something late in the primary load that, if not found, causes the entire index to start over again.
In fact, I strongly suspect that some blog architecture is doing something along these lines anyway because of the apparent double loads that happen every time I visit.
In one way, it's terrible architecture; but on the other hand, it assures that the visitor will actually see what he or she came to see.
I'm sure that, if I think about it, I can come up with something quite creative that will be completely awful in implementation.
They don't call him the Dork Wraith for nothing.
[Stupid vowel substitution protocol.]
Meh. From having supported too many websites I didn't build, I hate client-side scripted solutions because every time a new IE bug comes out and people disable scripting, I got a flood of e-mails saying "Your site is borked!" Or some such.
I know now why I had put that solution out of my mind.
What gets me is that it's actually a common but minor flaw in the hypertext transfer protocol (the little "http" you see in front of the urls) somewhere in between the client-to-server communication and the rendering implementation (the lines are blurry). The tag the stylesheet is loaded from is a single point of failure, but there's no real check by the browser to make sure it gets what it was supposed to get, and not even a curt nod to the idea of failing gracefully. So when it dies, it's usually for the entire site - and since MLs are heavily geared towards content transmission, and only secondarily towards scripting and presentation, the fact that it works 99% of the time (thanks to TCP/IP being such a robust protocol, and that 1% being when people try to stretch the capabilities of the language and make it perform as advertised on only-mostly-reliable networks) means there is little incentive to go mucking around with the internals of how HTTP handles internal dependencies.
*can't wait for the advil to kick in so he can go back to sleep*