The world is forever changed. The implications are such that we can never see reality the same way again. It's 9/11 - only good!
Or better, at least... Well, it's certainly not worse!
MSNBC featured its stable of white feel-doers, and every time one of the heads peeped, it had to bequeath unto us, with pronounced elaboration, their waxing thoughtful about the greatness of a coming threshold - even as they prevaricated with their eager conclusions long enough to make sure that they were able to savor the moment that they would go on to try to define and describe for the rest of the evening.
None of this would've been so outrageous, really, except that every single time Crucifer Mathball went to the Black guy, he got interrupted by some "breaking event".
Now I wouldn't refer to Eugene Robinson as a token, except that THAT is what he was relegated to on this panel; which is an odd counterpoint to the white-heads gooing all over themselves with their love of Blackness in the act of overcoming servitude "once and for all!"
Why couldn't they wait another minute before proclaiming the call of Ohio?
Or gossiping about Oprah's rumored arrival in Grant Park?
I wanna hear Gene speak goddammit! Let him finish his thoughts! I don't care if he's gonna talk more slowly and maybe even stammer a bit. I'm sure this means more to him than the other guys. He's earned the fucking right to take his time. He's the Black guy!
Too bad that's still true. For these particular segments they were treating him like the retired running back.
If you're gonna have your moment during which you cream forth your grasp of history, you could at least extend a little better appreciation for the needs of all of your brothers and sisters to express how "powerful" this experience is for them as well.
While it did get a little bit better later (somebody must have said something during the break), it didn't get any less annoying and embarrassing. But what was I gonna do, try and stream Fair on Xenophobia? Nuh', I don't think so. This, sadly, was as good as it would get.
Look, I really like Olberman. He's seemed to have arrived at just the right time. But tonight he took his gift for shredding the opposition everybody loves to loath and applied it towards the following sequence, which itself followed Eugene Robinson having been abruptly shushed by the Ohio call:
K.O.lberman: "This is so much history that it takes someone like me to put it into the most unique and appropriately meaningful context: Grant Park, Chicago. Then - nineteen-hundred, eight and sixty years into the White Roman calendar - as now, historic events being visited upon her, this most recent of which, however, brings unquestionable closure to our unparalleled conflict with race relations in these, our United States.
"To truly appreciate what I am now in the act of appreciating as well as anyone, you'd have to have borne witness to the years of struggle on the front lines of the civil rights movement. You'd have to have been there to understand..."
G. Robinson: "Oh, I was th--"
KO: "...the sheer monstrous magnitude, and yes - POWERFUL MAGIC, SIR - of this, the most incredibly momentous shift in the universe, THE most monumental moment in THIS, our nation's history, and I daresay, INDEED the world's!"
KO's thoughts: "I am so gonna be the White House Press Buttboy! Or should that be house buttboy who just happens to be white?"
He was, I suppose, at least indirectly extending his own servitude to the man.
Soon, Mathball stated with uninhibited pride and assured certainty that the rest of the world is once again in awe of this great nation!
Un--bee--fahh--ricken--lievable.
Then, Dat BooKlan'n came on to remind us that it won't be so bad, in that da Rama is going to have to play the center because this game is eight years, and he's only got whatever measly percentage of the actual White guys "on board".
Well he's got the rest of this panel, that's for sure. First on Xenophobia fans would've had their last remaining morsel of wits scared out of them by what I witnessed tonight (this morning).
Mathball went on to reiterate his profound declaration that the whole bionical fantastitudes and everything that we have ever believed has changed, and what results is that America is once again the great wonder of the world!
Jeesus.
I'm sure as hell not going to dispute that this enthusiasm knows no national boundaries, but that doesn't negate the fact that this is a love fest that America is drunk on quite uniquely (if one will please forgive the intensified quantifier); the rest of the world is en masse more relieved than regaled.
Don't be fooled by their love of selling newspapers with the exact same photos and headlines, and be aware that the buying and selling of personalities for personal consumption is a global phenomenon. And be forewarned: to consume is to masticate.
Fresh on the heels of one of the White guys "making the call" (see job description), Robinson was interrupted (yet again, mid sentence) so that the other White guy could ejaculate that Virginia had just gone for the newly elected president.
Gene had just begun to explain how he couldn't be bothered trying to fathom "how the world felt" - as he was still coming to grips with it himself.
You'd think one could have FIRST let him finish that thought - and THEN cried out the name of the state with a sexy-sounding woman's name. That would have even served the cause of the presentation in that the punctuation of throwing Virginia onto the heap would have been much more dramatic had it followed a complete sentence from the quite visibly moved Eugene Robinson.
Well, at least they let him pick up from where he left off that time.
But K.O. still managed to jab his way into the "conversation" because he'd just thought of something: "THIS IS 'MAN ON THE MOON!'" (emphasis his)
I kid you not. I wouldn't fuck around with a quote like that!
Rachel Maddow actually gave a measured assessment of "the meaning" succinctly: Basically we're a house of cards that built itself on slavery, which cost the lives - and the blood and the toil and the sweat and yet more lives - of Africans, brought here against their will for that sole purpose. And now we just managed to elect someone of like pigmentation.
Then McBain was up! He began with an conciliatory tone, which he maintained effectively throughout, but earned his only two breakout cheers from the natives, first, by affirming that "we are the greatest nation on Earth!" and then when he said, "No association has ever meant more to me than that," referring to his being an American.
Man, clearly this guy had practiced this concession for a while! The delivery was pretty smooov from Mac Grandaddy. The idea that he would study the hardest for his defeat is at once revealing and puzzling.
Then it was time for The Man to do his thang.
Of all the places to lay it down, the scene of the crime of one Bobby Seale, whose offense (it was said at the time) was conspiracy to incite violence at the DNC in '68.
Maybe it's not too late for McBain to take back his concession and draw a connection between the fresh Prez-elect and
"Bobby Seale: Scary Black Panther!"
At the beginning, all eight Chicago Conspiracy Trial defendants were tried as a group, but Seale was eventually bound and gagged in the courtroom because he kept insisting that he be allowed to represent himself without council; Judge Hoffman had refused to postpone the trial when his attorney became ill. Seale was eventually removed from the courtroom.
What with all of this unfathomable nexus between "then and now", we can be pleased that the DNCers were better at locking-down that pesky antiwar element this time around.
Why is it that some people just can't compromise on war? Don't they realize that we got an Army to feed?
The keynote speaker didn't waste any time hitting the theme of the new dawn, declaring that "all things are possible" in America!
What am I doing here? I can go to America and be disabled, gay AND unmarried, and biracial and other stuff! Or not disabled!
Uhhm...do I get to be disabled because I'm gonna be one of those brave men or women "keeping us safe" ?
Maybe the mistake in Vietnam was the fact that we didn't have a parallel war featuring a relatively higher pile of dead bodies, and with a country dubiously linked to Communism.
(Maybe if you DON'T grease up the statues on the Lakefront, people won't wanna climb 'em so much.)
You gotta hand it to Dem faithful: They are one fuck of a lot more gracious to their opponent - at least in victory as compared to their counterpart in defeat.
That is something.
I thought McBain's crowd was gonna start lighting torches. But he nipped that in the bud (barely), making it vaguely clear that all sides are gonna have fightin' John to deal with. "Such an heroic speech!"
Was Jesse shouting, "Sam I am" ? He seemed pretty moved, but distrustful of the cameras earlier on. Probably thinking, "What the fuck are those assholes saying about me now?"
Honestly, though, as the Chicago crowd was still waiting for the big arrival, RevJackson had a look on his face that seemed to betray a belief that we had not earned this moment. Maybe I'm just projecting.
Anyway, his tears got more out of me. HE wasn't projecting, though - at least not beyond his memory of the dead who wouldn't be making it to the park to join him.
I'm afraid that the musical score at the speech's conclusion, on the other hand, wore me down and made me too weary to listen to (or write) any more blather.
Nevertheless, before I'd finished this thing off, I was privy to Jonathan Alter making HIS direct comparison between the Democratic National Convention in 1968, and this current celebration.
Never mind that the Democrats represented the incumbent war party that year, and that the mood outside of the DNC in Denver this past summer would have been a more logical equivalency exam.
Fortunately for this organization, the Minnesota group trumped the DNC by thumping just a few MORE heads, resulting in a collective concussion. Not that anybody cares.
So Alter went on to paint the picture of the barricades, then and now: "We're all on the same side of the barricades this time!"
Classic. [meaning I feel vomit near my esophagus]
I'd love to be able to congratulate all the winners for the evening, and in the spirit of the moment to remind everyone that there are no losers. But to do that would be dishonest, to ignore the herd of elephants in the room, which consists of more than just Republicans.
But some truths are unfortunately (apparently) not self-evident, much as I would that they were.
This is without a doubt historic - which in America means efficient. But TV made it cheaper. As far as the speech goes, I felt dirty for having lost my composure as soon as I heard the phrase, "Never again."
"Sorry, Mr. Jones. While I might empathize with your dilemma - your having run out of unemployment benefits and all - your problem comes from a pre-Obama frame of reference. In this post-Obama world, 'we' can accomplish anything. Never let otherwise be said anywhere in this, the once again and once-and-for-all greatest nation on the face of God's already great Earth. Let this ring forth... all the way from our hallowed institutions... to soar right over - to our other institutions. Now get out. And God bless the United States of America!"
Or better, at least... Well, it's certainly not worse!
___
MSNBC featured its stable of white feel-doers, and every time one of the heads peeped, it had to bequeath unto us, with pronounced elaboration, their waxing thoughtful about the greatness of a coming threshold - even as they prevaricated with their eager conclusions long enough to make sure that they were able to savor the moment that they would go on to try to define and describe for the rest of the evening.
None of this would've been so outrageous, really, except that every single time Crucifer Mathball went to the Black guy, he got interrupted by some "breaking event".
Now I wouldn't refer to Eugene Robinson as a token, except that THAT is what he was relegated to on this panel; which is an odd counterpoint to the white-heads gooing all over themselves with their love of Blackness in the act of overcoming servitude "once and for all!"
Why couldn't they wait another minute before proclaiming the call of Ohio?
Or gossiping about Oprah's rumored arrival in Grant Park?
I wanna hear Gene speak goddammit! Let him finish his thoughts! I don't care if he's gonna talk more slowly and maybe even stammer a bit. I'm sure this means more to him than the other guys. He's earned the fucking right to take his time. He's the Black guy!
Too bad that's still true. For these particular segments they were treating him like the retired running back.
If you're gonna have your moment during which you cream forth your grasp of history, you could at least extend a little better appreciation for the needs of all of your brothers and sisters to express how "powerful" this experience is for them as well.
While it did get a little bit better later (somebody must have said something during the break), it didn't get any less annoying and embarrassing. But what was I gonna do, try and stream Fair on Xenophobia? Nuh', I don't think so. This, sadly, was as good as it would get.
____
Look, I really like Olberman. He's seemed to have arrived at just the right time. But tonight he took his gift for shredding the opposition everybody loves to loath and applied it towards the following sequence, which itself followed Eugene Robinson having been abruptly shushed by the Ohio call:
K.O.lberman: "This is so much history that it takes someone like me to put it into the most unique and appropriately meaningful context: Grant Park, Chicago. Then - nineteen-hundred, eight and sixty years into the White Roman calendar - as now, historic events being visited upon her, this most recent of which, however, brings unquestionable closure to our unparalleled conflict with race relations in these, our United States.
"To truly appreciate what I am now in the act of appreciating as well as anyone, you'd have to have borne witness to the years of struggle on the front lines of the civil rights movement. You'd have to have been there to understand..."
G. Robinson: "Oh, I was th--"
KO: "...the sheer monstrous magnitude, and yes - POWERFUL MAGIC, SIR - of this, the most incredibly momentous shift in the universe, THE most monumental moment in THIS, our nation's history, and I daresay, INDEED the world's!"
KO's thoughts: "I am so gonna be the White House Press Buttboy! Or should that be house buttboy who just happens to be white?"
___________
He was, I suppose, at least indirectly extending his own servitude to the man.
Soon, Mathball stated with uninhibited pride and assured certainty that the rest of the world is once again in awe of this great nation!
Un--bee--fahh--ricken--lievable.
Then, Dat BooKlan'n came on to remind us that it won't be so bad, in that da Rama is going to have to play the center because this game is eight years, and he's only got whatever measly percentage of the actual White guys "on board".
Well he's got the rest of this panel, that's for sure. First on Xenophobia fans would've had their last remaining morsel of wits scared out of them by what I witnessed tonight (this morning).
____________
Mathball went on to reiterate his profound declaration that the whole bionical fantastitudes and everything that we have ever believed has changed, and what results is that America is once again the great wonder of the world!
Jeesus.
I'm sure as hell not going to dispute that this enthusiasm knows no national boundaries, but that doesn't negate the fact that this is a love fest that America is drunk on quite uniquely (if one will please forgive the intensified quantifier); the rest of the world is en masse more relieved than regaled.
Don't be fooled by their love of selling newspapers with the exact same photos and headlines, and be aware that the buying and selling of personalities for personal consumption is a global phenomenon. And be forewarned: to consume is to masticate.
________
Fresh on the heels of one of the White guys "making the call" (see job description), Robinson was interrupted (yet again, mid sentence) so that the other White guy could ejaculate that Virginia had just gone for the newly elected president.
Gene had just begun to explain how he couldn't be bothered trying to fathom "how the world felt" - as he was still coming to grips with it himself.
You'd think one could have FIRST let him finish that thought - and THEN cried out the name of the state with a sexy-sounding woman's name. That would have even served the cause of the presentation in that the punctuation of throwing Virginia onto the heap would have been much more dramatic had it followed a complete sentence from the quite visibly moved Eugene Robinson.
Well, at least they let him pick up from where he left off that time.
But K.O. still managed to jab his way into the "conversation" because he'd just thought of something: "THIS IS 'MAN ON THE MOON!'" (emphasis his)
I kid you not. I wouldn't fuck around with a quote like that!
Rachel Maddow actually gave a measured assessment of "the meaning" succinctly: Basically we're a house of cards that built itself on slavery, which cost the lives - and the blood and the toil and the sweat and yet more lives - of Africans, brought here against their will for that sole purpose. And now we just managed to elect someone of like pigmentation.
_______
Then McBain was up! He began with an conciliatory tone, which he maintained effectively throughout, but earned his only two breakout cheers from the natives, first, by affirming that "we are the greatest nation on Earth!" and then when he said, "No association has ever meant more to me than that," referring to his being an American.
Man, clearly this guy had practiced this concession for a while! The delivery was pretty smooov from Mac Grandaddy. The idea that he would study the hardest for his defeat is at once revealing and puzzling.
______
Then it was time for The Man to do his thang.
Of all the places to lay it down, the scene of the crime of one Bobby Seale, whose offense (it was said at the time) was conspiracy to incite violence at the DNC in '68.
Maybe it's not too late for McBain to take back his concession and draw a connection between the fresh Prez-elect and
"Bobby Seale: Scary Black Panther!"
At the beginning, all eight Chicago Conspiracy Trial defendants were tried as a group, but Seale was eventually bound and gagged in the courtroom because he kept insisting that he be allowed to represent himself without council; Judge Hoffman had refused to postpone the trial when his attorney became ill. Seale was eventually removed from the courtroom.
What with all of this unfathomable nexus between "then and now", we can be pleased that the DNCers were better at locking-down that pesky antiwar element this time around.
Why is it that some people just can't compromise on war? Don't they realize that we got an Army to feed?
________
The keynote speaker didn't waste any time hitting the theme of the new dawn, declaring that "all things are possible" in America!
What am I doing here? I can go to America and be disabled, gay AND unmarried, and biracial and other stuff! Or not disabled!
Uhhm...do I get to be disabled because I'm gonna be one of those brave men or women "keeping us safe" ?
Maybe the mistake in Vietnam was the fact that we didn't have a parallel war featuring a relatively higher pile of dead bodies, and with a country dubiously linked to Communism.
(Maybe if you DON'T grease up the statues on the Lakefront, people won't wanna climb 'em so much.)
You gotta hand it to Dem faithful: They are one fuck of a lot more gracious to their opponent - at least in victory as compared to their counterpart in defeat.
That is something.
I thought McBain's crowd was gonna start lighting torches. But he nipped that in the bud (barely), making it vaguely clear that all sides are gonna have fightin' John to deal with. "Such an heroic speech!"
____
Better speech from the new guy, though. I can't say for sure if it was his best - what with the intensity of the moment and all - but he did get me, and had me; for a while; before he lost me somewhere around the time where I remembered how I'd cried during all the "special" last episodes of every TV show I'd ever seen.Was Jesse shouting, "Sam I am" ? He seemed pretty moved, but distrustful of the cameras earlier on. Probably thinking, "What the fuck are those assholes saying about me now?"
Honestly, though, as the Chicago crowd was still waiting for the big arrival, RevJackson had a look on his face that seemed to betray a belief that we had not earned this moment. Maybe I'm just projecting.
Anyway, his tears got more out of me. HE wasn't projecting, though - at least not beyond his memory of the dead who wouldn't be making it to the park to join him.
I'm afraid that the musical score at the speech's conclusion, on the other hand, wore me down and made me too weary to listen to (or write) any more blather.
Nevertheless, before I'd finished this thing off, I was privy to Jonathan Alter making HIS direct comparison between the Democratic National Convention in 1968, and this current celebration.
Never mind that the Democrats represented the incumbent war party that year, and that the mood outside of the DNC in Denver this past summer would have been a more logical equivalency exam.
Fortunately for this organization, the Minnesota group trumped the DNC by thumping just a few MORE heads, resulting in a collective concussion. Not that anybody cares.
So Alter went on to paint the picture of the barricades, then and now: "We're all on the same side of the barricades this time!"
Classic. [meaning I feel vomit near my esophagus]
I'd love to be able to congratulate all the winners for the evening, and in the spirit of the moment to remind everyone that there are no losers. But to do that would be dishonest, to ignore the herd of elephants in the room, which consists of more than just Republicans.
But some truths are unfortunately (apparently) not self-evident, much as I would that they were.
This is without a doubt historic - which in America means efficient. But TV made it cheaper. As far as the speech goes, I felt dirty for having lost my composure as soon as I heard the phrase, "Never again."
"Sorry, Mr. Jones. While I might empathize with your dilemma - your having run out of unemployment benefits and all - your problem comes from a pre-Obama frame of reference. In this post-Obama world, 'we' can accomplish anything. Never let otherwise be said anywhere in this, the once again and once-and-for-all greatest nation on the face of God's already great Earth. Let this ring forth... all the way from our hallowed institutions... to soar right over - to our other institutions. Now get out. And God bless the United States of America!"
