My own little "torture memos"

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This weekend I'll be writing some torture memos of my own to Senators Durbin and Burris, as well as Rep. Tim Johnson and the President. My point is going to be, of course, that it's a false choice to have politicians declare we need to decide whether we're going to look backward or forward. We have to do both, all the time, and everybody knows it. The "look forward" meme is simply code for "informally pardon powerful white people for their crimes". According to this phony logic, Pat Fitzgerald should tear up his indictments of Rod Blagojevich and let him prance off to the jungles of Costa Rica to become a TV star.

I'll post my memo in case you, the highly esteemed reader, wish to repurpose my text and send it to your elected representatives and executives. But there's no reason why you can't just compose and send your own.

Potentially scary situation [updated]

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I have fears that these Palin/McCain experiments with inciting mobs to violence could be the prelude to something unspeakably ugly. Consider what might happen if, in the next 2 weeks or so, that dark-skinned thugs appeared at Republican rallies and started scuffling with GOP nutbags in order to "defend" Obama. Those thugs would certainly be what the French call "agents provocateurs", and they would somehow, indirectly as hell, be on the payroll of some very, very bad people who have a very keen interest in making sure that Obama never sets foot in the White House.

It would create a public atmosphere ripe for backlash against Obama, not to mention much more sordid or violent potential impacts. The corporate media would be the enablers. I'm not saying it would even work. But think about how heinously effective such an idea could seem to desperate, criminal white men.

Update: in acknowledgment of anon in my comments section, here's a shot of actual paranoia ripped from the comments section of this Politico post:

Between 8:45 PM and 9:15 PM tonight (Oct 8) on Intrade, someone just bet a LOT of money against Obama winning the presidency. And I mean a LOT. His stock, which has been over 70 for a couple of days now and at 76 most of the time today dipped down to 64 or so in those 20 minutes under heavy betting before recovering immediately after 9:15 to 73... Very strange.. is there something someone knows?? What is the news tomorrow, JMart?" Posted By: intrade | October 08, 2008 at 11:54 PM

If you need me tomorrow, I'll be in the bunker with my 50 bottles of wine.

Things I did not know about England

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Dan Solomon, an expatriate American blogger living in the U.K., offers us this fascinating report about the ubiquity and characteristics of propaganda posters in England. Most of his examples read like something from the backgrounds in "V", but I found the poster reproduced at upper left to be especially... something or other. Click through and check it out; Dan notifies us that there is at least one "western democracy," as we still call them, that is even better than our very own Republicans at fearmongering to promote social control. The general message of British propaganda seems to be: We see what you're doing. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?