Pinko Magazine Hedonism + Activism

Okay. I really want to write about something other than Sarah Palin but I’m just obsessed. Everyone is. What will we learn next!? Did she really call Barack Obama “sambo?” Is there more news about the trooper? What books did she try to ban!? Is Todd really the father of the down syndrome baby? For the love of god can we get ONE bad facebook photo of Bristol-Baby-Daddy-Levi shirtless? He fine, even if he is about to enter another Palin sister maybe? an ill-advised, loveless marriage destined to end in divorce.

That week in St. Paul dodging Republicans and sucking down tear gas residue is a lot for a boy, but nothing raises the spirits more than a good wholesome Gay Marry It … or Abort It? Time to Gay Marry the things we love and Abort the things we don’t. To the list! 

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Today McCain supporters distributed 12,000 mini American flags at a rally in Colorado Springs. They claimed they “rescued” the flags from Obama’s acceptance speech in Denver were they found them in the trash. What?! They were just going to throw away flags! That’s not change you can believe in!

Shortly after the news broke, the DNC put out a statement. I’m paraphrasing here but the basic gist was “You motherfuckers! We’ve been looking for those flags! We didn’t throw away shit! We need those flags!!”

Isn’t it enough that they have the entire world believing that Barack Obama is an infant killing terrorist who tried to blow up the capitol building when he was 8? Now McCain’s people have to go and steal a gaggle of flags from Invesco Field just to shove the “Obama isn’t patriotic enough” talking point down our fucking throats one more time?!

Either that, or McCain’s campaign is so flat busted that they can’t afford their own mini flags.

They might have a “pit bull with lipstick” but we have a pit bull with laser eyes and killer bees instead of teeth. Let’s go to the tape.

John McCain’s speech last night had two central themes. The first was designed to highlight the fact that he was a prisoner of war who was imprisoned during a time of war while he was also, incidentally, a POW. The second was a broadside against the Republican party designed to convince moderates and independents that the best way to bring change to Washington is to keep the Republican party, which controlled every branch of government for the last 6 out of 8 years, in the White House.

Unfortunately, McCain’s speech had all the electricity of a wood burning stove. If anything, it only served to snuff the fire lit by Sarah Palin on Wednesday. Palin rallied the bases, both Democrat and Republican. Old Stumbly McTumbledry just put everyone to sleep, literally! Delegates were so moved by the speech that some of them actually fell asleep. I’ve seen people get more fired up watching a goldfish take a shit.

So what does this mean for the election? It means that the fate of the Republican ticket now rests on Palin, a scandal plagued radical with unpopular positions (or no position) on almost every key issue. Hardcore Republicans may have been electrified by her speech, but Independants and moderates in both parties were turned off. In a year that’s already trending strongly Democratic, thats pretty good news.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll just go and take a nap.

[Updated.] McCain’s whale turd of a speech brought in 38.9 million viewers. That’s 500,000 more than Obama’s speech last week. So… um, Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I’m a little lost.

If you’re watching this horror show in St. Paul, drink every time there is a reference to John McCain as a POW or his son going to Iraq, both topics he said he would never use for political gain. It’s 9:50 now; you’ll be trashed by 10:05.[BREAKING: John McCain was a POW.} 

Every year, thousands of young people sign on for low-paying, backbreaking work as community organizers. These are Democrats and Republicans, partisan jobs and issue-based jobs, secular jobs and often positions filled by churches, social service organizations and charities. The term “community organizer” can be a little vague, but basically it’s a role in which you try to get a bunch of people in a specific neighborhood behind a particular cause or issue, usually addressing a major crisis or need in that community. 

For a year and a half I was a grassroots organizer, working in parts of Washington DC to encourage poorer communities to rally behind better transit options, and against several potential polluters. 

Last night in her speech, Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Karl Rove Sarah Palin ridiculed community organizing, saying that Barack Obama had no real responsibilities as an organizer and degrading the time he spent doing important work in South Chicago. Certainly in those years Obama wasn’t doing anything as important as being a sportscaster, which is what Palin was doing. And clearly Obama’s experience doesn’t give him more perspective than Palin on urban issues and urban policy, and he wouldn’t need that anyway because only 79% of the country lives in urban areas so Palin’s experience as Mayor of Wasilia, Alaska should qualify her just fine to manage the needs of Urban America when if John McCain chokes on a pretzel. Arrgh. The idea of an elected official ridiculing these jobs, held by people who are being paid shit because they want to help other people and make communities better and who burn themselves out doing it is so outrageous I don’t even know where to begin. 

In short: Fuck her. Seriously. Community organizing is good work; hard work; and whether I agree with this or not lots of people are doing it because it’s the lords work. Barack Obama holding that position for three years is about three times longer than most people last; while Sarah Palin was reporting on dogsled races, Obama was trying to organize residents to keep lead out of their drinking water. Fuck her. 

If you want to know more, Chris Hayes has this great roundtable discussion of several organizers about what it means to them that Obama could be President, and how his experience is relevant. Also there is a website up already to demand an apology … which may never happen. That site has a good discussion of what organizing is, exactly, if you’re trying to explain it to your Republican uncle who may have been swayed by the speech last night. 

Also Stirling pulled together this little list of some of our community organizer faves: 

Jane Addams
Saul Alinsky
César Chávez
Ernesto Cortes
John W. Gardner
Samuel Gompers 
Jesse Jackson
Mother Jones
Martin Luther King, Jr.
John Lewis
Paul Wellstone

Total losers, I know!

There are a ton more here although some of them are like crazy socialist songwriters. But still. Fuck her. Community organizers are fighting the good fight, and learning a lot more about how the country works than John McCain learned in the Senate.  

[UPDATE: Credo Mobile has a really great petition up, "Stand Up For Community Organizing" where you can tell Governor Palin what you think RIGHT NOW if you click.] 

It’s Wednesday and Ashton Kutcher has yet to emerge from my closet with a camera crew. It would appear that I am not, in fact, being Punk’d. Sarah Palin really is the Republican’s choice for Vice President of America!

Tonight Governor Palin will take the stage in what will undoubtedly be the most important speech of her career. Tens of millions of people will tune in to see if she lives up to her hype as the new Queen of the GOP, or if she will fall hopelessly short. Mostly though, people will tune in to try and figure out just who in the hell is Sarah Palin.

Luckily, we’ve started a facebook group to try and answer that question. In the last several days we’ve been giving Governor Palin the thorough vetting the McCain camp never gave her. Some of the things we’ve found are pretty shocking. And no, I’m not talking about Bristol’s baby daddy.

Here is a list of everything about 1/18th of the things you really need to know about the good Governor. (more…)

Of all the junkets, parties and press rooms I’ve been to in the last 11 days this is the first one to have good old fashioned sandwich meats. Frankly this may be the first event with any meat at all. I’m not sure what that means about Ron Paul and his agenda, but you can bet your ass this meat isn’t regulated by any cumbersome federal safeguards. Like the pioneers, I will eat my roast beef and swiss on rye and pray for the best. 

Well I haven’t found any gay Republicans yet; then again I haven’t really looked. Also I went to the bathroom before I left the hotel which lowers the odds dramatically. The main story from yesterday (besides Juno Palin) were the protests, and the extreme (and unnecessary) force of the Minneapolis-St. Paul police.

In 2000 I was in Philadelphia for the Republican National Convention as a protester. There was a lot to protest that year at both conventions; Nader’s pitch still had some resonance, and in the wake of the “Battle in Seattle” in 1999 activists were attuned to issues like fair/free trade, globalisation, and corporate dominance. It was pre-war and pre-9/11, and both Democrats and Republicans had a lot of blood on their hands over the shifting global economy, 

Those protests in 2000 are still remembered for their intensity and violence. They rounded up everyone from puppeteers (puppeteers!) to seniors (seniors!) and pepper sprayed everyone they could. The more purposeful protesters were co-mingled with the silly anarchists and it was chaos: everyone running down Market Street trying not to get tear-gassed. It was the only protest or march where I was ever scared … until yesterday.

Over the weekend the St. Paul police raided houses all over the region, rounding up protesters in advance and confiscating household items they claimed could be used for violence. (letter openers and in one case a wrench) Maybe law enforcement sees this as a deterrent; what it really does (like most “tough on crime” tactics) is make things worse: before the raids everyone thought that maybe there would be violence; after the raids everyone was sure. As my colleague Ari Berman wrote, “Cops in Denver were ready for protests. Cops in St. Paul were ready for the apocalypse, with downtown St. Paul turning into a scene from Children of Men.”

In a word, it was a complete clusterfuck. Obama supporters and polite anti-war suburbanites off for Labor Day found themselves next to a contingent of activists with the phrase “guerilla warfare” tattooed (tattooed! forever!) on their chests; SEIU workers and gray panthers (those poor seniors again) wound up marching next to teenagers with “no more presidents, no more wars!” signs. The police circled around everyone, and the pepper spraying started early — before a real crowd had even gathered. They arrested Democracy Now. 

In the end the protests were far more violent than they needed to be. Entire intersections were blocked by National Guard troops with shields, while rubber bullets flew and 250 police waited by the side of the river for the “Stop Torture” boat to dock. (I know, I know what a fun cruise that would be, but still. 250 cops? It was a small boat.) The violence was extreme and for the bulk of the protesters — civic-minded people who were opposed to the war and the Republican agenda, not to the “system” etc. —  the violence was so unfortunate, drowning out an important message just as the police hoped it would. 

By the end Ari and I retreated to a Starbucks (I know, I know) where a polite barista encouraged us to move away from the window. “They might throw rocks.” I found myself in a bathroom with 6 riot cops (rawr! yikes) who spoke disdainfully of all the protesters … not just the silly anarchists but the families who thought the war was wrong and McCain meant more of it. Since I wasn’t wearing a bandana over my mouth I guess they thought they could talk freely. 

As for those anarchists, I just don’t get it. There is a real point to be made at both of these conventions; although I support Obama, you could make a very cogent argument that the Democrats are pro-war in their own ways, that corporate money is still flowing, that trade (the whole point of every main protest of the late 90’s/pre-9-11 00’s) remains a critical issue. Instead we get “Drive Out the Bush Regime” posters that don’t even make sense (he’s going …) and chants helpfully suggesting the abolishment of the Presidency. 

What the police expect is that they can escalate violence to a point where no real message gets out; and every four years the most extreme of the protesters come ready to oblige, throwing rocks and raising fists and giving the overzealous police exactly what they need to shut the whole thing down. 

In any case it was scary. Tonight I’m back to more pedestrian pursuits, checking out the Ron Paul Revolution at a rally and possibly going to a gathering of lithe Christian youth with my friend Bob. For more on the protests this piece and this one represent two sides of the coin. Also Democracy Now is reporting about how they were all in jail, unless they are still in jail in which case there are two hours of dead air on Pacifica which means a serious ape-shit Board meeting next Fall. 

Editors Note: I didn’t take that photo; The New York Times did. If I can find an electronics store in Minnesota I’ll get some photos up.