July
28, 2016
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/28/night-of-the-hollow-men-notes-from-the-democratic-convention/
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Since my co-editor Joshua
Frank prefers to go surfing rather than do his reportorial duty and watch
the DNC Convention from gavel-to-gavel, he’s telling me that I have to write another
account of tonight’s proceedings. I’m not sure I’m up to it ‘frankly.’ What
would Hunter Thompson do? Oh, yes, he would get his body and mind in fighting
form by having breakfast. I guess I’ll follow the good Doctor’s example: “Four
Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crêpes, a half-pound of
either sausage, bacon, or corned-beef hash with diced chilies, a Spanish
omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random
seasoning, and something like a slice of key lime pie, two margaritas and six
lines of the best cocaine for dessert.” All to be consumed while naked. Snarf! Sniff!
Belch! ALRIGHT! I’m primed. Bring on Biden!
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Margie Kidder was one of Hunter Thompson’s best friends. I asked her if this
menu remotely resembled his real appetites. Margie told me that she and Hunter
were together during the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco, where his
main obsession was in scoring some cocaine to get him juiced for covering the
tedium of the convention.
“Here’s
what Hunter would do,” Margie told me. “He believed firmly in getting your
cocaine first, which at that convention involved spending a lot of time with a
gay friend of mine he referred to in his writing as “the bowl of fruit”. Then
you got your drinks lined up and we would sit and watch the TV in the press
room. I kept insisting in going out onto the floor to interview what often
turned out to be ex-lovers of mine, who I couldn’t really quote for obvious
reasons. He was disgusted with me. At one point, back at the St Francis hotel,
Hunter screamed down the hall at me “You are a political neophyte! You are a
dangerous woman!” Then he went off to a party at Ann Getty’s house or apartment
and called her a fascist dyke and punched a hole in her living room wall and
Pat Caddell (the Democratiic pollster) and I had to race over with my trans
driver Greta and our 1960s Cadillac convertible loaned to me by the gay
community and rescue Hunter from the well-dressed and horrified Democrats. Sen
Patrick Leahy thought he was funny. Few other Democrats did. But then Leahy
often rode around with us in that Cadillac.”
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Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton’s former BFF (second now to Elizabeth Warren),
mentor to Tim Kaine in the art of political grifting and current governor of
Virginia, has an ego the size of Trump Tower. McAuliffe knows all of the
Clintons secrets. He knows what they think and how they deal. McAuliffe gave an
early morning interview to Politico, where he confided to the reporter that
Hillary was only pretending to oppose the TPP to neuter one of Bernie Sanders’s
main campaign themes. The governor assured the reporter that after the election
Hillary would once again support the job-killing trade pact with a few cosmetic
adjustments. The McAuliffe Leak exposed the worst kept secret in Washington.
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Bill O’Reilly did his best last night to calm a perplexed nation, still reeling
from Michelle Obama’s allegation, which had not been vetted by the Texas School
Book Commission, that slaves had built the White House. Yes, it’s true,
O’Reilly told his anxious viewers, but relax the slave construction workers
were, in fact, “well-fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government.”
With these ameliorating words from a professional historian, Fox Nation slept
soundly.
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A few days ago, Michael Moore hauled himself like a stranded walrus onto the
set of the Bill Maher Show, where he predicted that Trump was going to win in
the fall. Those of us who know Michael Moore knew that this was a con, a scare
tactic to drive potential Greens, Libertarians or stay-at-home anarchists to
vote for HRC. Michael Moore does this every general election. Flirts with a
Third Party candidate, then folds. He has previously confessed his obsession
with Hillary, an obsession that borders on the sexual.
In
his book, Downsize This!, Moore confessed his “forbidden love” for Hillary. He
described her as “one hot shitkickin’ feminist babe.”
Now
into my inbox lands a message from Moore under the subject heading: “Add Your
Name?” How quaint, I thought, I didn’t think we’d been on speaking terms since
his deplorable betrayal of Nader in 2004. I was crushed to discover that this
was actually a fundraising letter for MoveOn.org,
imploring me to join with Moore and Lena “friggin‘” Dunham to “do everything we
can to stop Trump.” Sicko, indeed.
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Trump is a carnival barker of bullshit. This morning at his press
conference in Scranton he tweaked Clinton by calling on the Russian hackers to
release her emails. The reaction was seismic. Trump is inviting a foreign
nation to spy on the US! Trump is calling for an enemy of the US to interfere
in the American election! Lions, tigers and bears, oh my!
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The Democrats reacted with predictable hysterics, calling Trump’s remarks
“treasonous,” which is ridiculous. What Trump actually said was that “if”
Russia did in fact hack into Hillary’s email account then they should release
the emails, especially the 30,000 emails that her lawyers deleted AFTER they
were subpoenaed.
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Shortly after offending all of the foreign policy elites in both parties with
his remarks on Russia, Trump broke with Republican orthodoxy again by
announcing that he would support a $10 an hour minimum wage. Mike Pence, who
opposing any minimum wage, must be having a hard time keeping up with the new
talking points. The liberals, of course, reflexively denounced Trump’s plan as
“incoherent.” But it is one more sign that Trump is trying to outflank Hilary
on a range of issues. Fortunately for him, he doesn’t have to veer his Rolls
that far to get to the left of Clinton.
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The US is shocked! Shocked, I tell you!! That any government might want to
interfere in US elections. It is morally wrong. It violates international law. It’s
the kind of action that violates every sacred principle of Democratic
governments. (See Bill
Blum, see Zoltan
Grossman.)
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In their quest to ensure a fully-informed American electorate, the Russian
hackers should also release Trump’s tax returns and the text of Hillary’s
Goldman Sach speeches.
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The neoliberal ticket is now consecrated. The nomination of the
unapologetically pro-fast track, pro-TPP Tim Kaine approved without objection.
Change (of positions) you can believe in. “At least he’s not Putin,” Jelle
Versieren told me. “Nominating Putin would definitely be worse.”
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Hillary’s new BFF, Elizabeth Warren, refused to say whether Tim Kaine was the
“right pick” for the Democratic Party. Instead Warren mumbled that Kaine “is a
good man, he has a good heart, and he has a lot of experiences. I think he is
going to be a valuable member of the team for Secretary Clinton and a valuable
member of the team when she is president of the United States.”
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New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio is now on stage. Wonder if he’ll do a reprise of
his “Colored Person Time” routine as a way to win back some of those Trump voters
in western Pennsylvania?
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Bernie Sanders hasn’t left the building with the Sandernistas. He gave a speech
this morning to the Texas delegation, where he called Trump the “worst
candidate in modern history.” If that’s true, what are they scared of? The
election should be a cakewalk.
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Almost every speaker on stage today has repeated the phrase “scary Donald
Trump.” They are working overtime to scrub away the image of Madeleine Albright
from last night, which caused so many Democratic children to have a sleepless
night.
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Jesse Jackson is a hollow shell of his former self. Once one of the most
electrifying speakers of our time, he now is thoroughly pacified and house
trained. He can’t really believe what he is saying about the woman who called
black teenagers “super-predators”? What does he really mean when he says that
you can “trust” the woman who pushed for the destruction of welfare that
further impoverished the lives of poor black mothers and their children?
“Hillary Time? Hope Time?” Jackson couldn’t even look at the camera when he
wrenched out those tortured phrases. If Jackson wasn’t embarrassed for that
speech, I was on his behalf. Once he was a rebel against the System. Now he is
a hired gun for the elites.
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Who is up for a drinking game during Tim Kaine’s speech!? One shot of mezcal
for every formerly long-held position that Kaine’s reverses himself on tonight.
If you don’t pass out, then congratulations, you are probably one of Hunter
Thompson’s illegitimate children…
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The Clinton campaign is saturating the airwaves with a commercial featuring a
montage of some of Trump’s most offensive remarks with shocked children looking
on. In fact, most children probably watched few if any of Trump’s heresies
before they saw all of them at once in Hillary’s commercial. Is it really about
protecting the kids, Hillary?
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Harry Reid and his wife just shuffled on stage wearing sunglasses they must
have picked up at the House of Blues in Vegas. This is probably the last time
we’ll see Harry Reid at one of these things. I like Harry Reid. I don’t know
why. If I thought hard about it, I probably wouldn’t. But I do. He’s a former
boxer and is still a fighter, even if he is so often punching the wrong
targets. Alex and I interviewed him about 10 years ago. He was totally
unpolished and unvarnished. We could have been talking to somebody in a bar. In
fact, we were talking to somebody in a bar. Reid stood up to the nuclear lobby
and won. He single-handedly kept nuclear waste out of Yucca mountain. You won’t
see his kind in the future Democratic Party of pre-packaged Westworld-like
clones.
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The ambitious Lt. Gov. of California Gavin Newsom just praised the “sunny
optimism” of Ronald Reagan, specifically referencing the Gipper’s “tear down
that Wall” speech, one of the most rabid rants of the Cold War era.
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The Boho Gov. of California Jerry Brown, proponent of fracking and oil
drilling, is who the DNC picks to speak about climate change? Is Bill McKibben
committing seppuku? One fracker endorsing the environmental bona fides of a
ticket of two frackers. Give them points for consistency. Is Brown auditioning
for Secretary of Interior or the board of Exxon. Is there a difference?
Why
did the Democrats feel as if they could send out Jerry Brown to talk about
global warming? Because Gang Green is already “all in” for Hillary and the DNC
thought they could stick it right in their face with impunity (they’d be
right).
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This gun violence sequence is unfolding like a flashback to Death Night at the
Republican convention.
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There’s Chief Charles Ramsey, the former police commission for Washington, DC.,
talking about gun violence and the “war on cops.” You remember Ramsey don’t
you? He’s the man who instituted traffic checkpoints in largely black sections
of DC where information on detained motorists who were committing crimes was
entered into a mass police database. Ramsey also ordered the illegal mass
arrests of more than 400 protesters (perhaps even one of you) in Pershing Park
during the World Bank and IMF protests in 2002. The city of DC was ordered to
pay nearly $2 million in fines as compensation for this trampling of civil
rights. So much for the Constitution. Perhaps Hillary is auditioning Ramsey for
the next Secretary of Homeland Security. Do you feel more secure?
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Cpt. Mark Kelly, Space Cowboy, just praised the “awesome extent of American
power and capability” that engineered the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The
Democrats are doubling down on the Iraq War.
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Naturally, Commander Kelly’s homily to the Iraq War is followed by a group sing
of ‘What the World Needs Now’ as a statement against gun violence! Maybe Yoko
denied them the rights to ‘Give Peace a Chance?’ No matter which way you turn
people are living in an Alt Reality.
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In a strange cinematic interlude, the big screen behind the stage just aired a
surreal film warning that Trump couldn’t be trusted with the “nuclear button”,
which was partially narrated by … the nuclear bomber himself, Harry Truman!
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Leon Panetta, the CIA’s master of drones, is being shouted down with “No war,
No drone” chants, most of them coming from the Oregon and Washington state
delegations. Play on, Sandernistas!
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Leon Panetta sniveling about Russian hacking is the best laugh of the night.
Didn’t his own hackers, working with their cohorts in Mossad, unleash the
malicious Stuxnet worm on Iran?
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The floor managers are in crisis mode. They have given all of the delegates on
the floor “Stronger America” placards which they are waving with patriotic
vigor and have them shouting “USA! USA!” to drown out the anti-war protesters.
Did they import these people from the Trump rally in Scranton? They cut the
lights to the anti-war protesters section and they responded with their
Flashlight apps on their cellphones. Be prepared people!
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Are they arresting and waterboarding the protesters in the Oregon and
Washington delegations now before Biden and Obama speak? Please text home!
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Right on cue, Rachel Maddow denounced what another MS-DNC hack called the
Lunatic Left for heckling Leon Panetta, director of the CIA’s remote control
killing program. “It made no sense,” she said. Which means it must have been
impeccably timed.
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And now an important message on decency, justice and morality by Joe Biden, the
man who betrayed Anita Hill and wrote the Clinton Crime Bill.
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Did they run the Biden speech through the plagiarism software? They should make
sure to use the UK edition.
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For the Democrats the only man on Earth scarier than Donald Trump is Vladimir
Putin, who Biden seems to believe is the Dr. Moriarty of Moscow.
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Introducing Michael Bloomberg to present the Bililionaire Seal of Approval to
Ms. Hillary Clinton!
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Bloomberg: “We don’t need a bomb thrower as president.” Apparently, we need
another drone launcher, instead!
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Leave it to Bloomberg to give the most coherent indictment of Trump. There’s no
hate quite as pure as that between rival billionaires.
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Re: Lenny Kravatz: They seem to be alternating the Love Songs with the War
Speeches.
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Get the mezcal out, here comes Citizen Kaine. Will he embrace his inner
neoliberal? Or make a false confession about his sudden epiphanies on trade,
bank regulation, the death penalty, abortion, and collective bargaining rights?
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Tim Kaine is off to a halting start. Perhaps they should have had Kaine on at 3
pm? He has a goofy quality that would be endearing in a TV weather personality.
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If Hillary and Kaine are elected, will Toni Morrison dub Kaine the first
Hispanic VP because he spoke some snatches of Spanish tonight?
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Tim,Kaine, the Jesuit Missionary, talked about witnessing the horrors of the
Honduran dictatorship without mentioning that it and its death squads were
entirely supported by the US government and that the same generals were put
back into power in a coup supported by Hillary Clinton!
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Tim Kaine looks like he honed his rhetorical chops by watching home videos of
Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. Did the Clintons ever see him give a speech or did
they just take Terry McAuliffe’s word for it? Nothing against the great Fred
Rogers, of course.
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Kaine, the Wall Street bag man, quoting John McCain’s economic advisor for the
2008 campaign as an expert witness is probably not the most compelling
testimonial against Trump.
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Obama enters to the banal mewling of Bono! How apt. At least he didn’t profane James
Brown or Smokey Robinson.
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Obama may have been impotent to stop the killing of the kids at Newtown or the
church members in Charleston. But he had complete authority to stop the killing
of children, doctors, nurses, and wedding parties in Yemen, Syria, Iraq,
Pakistan and Afghanistan killed by his drone strikes.
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Optimism is the word from the O Man, which means things must be much worse than
we think.
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With a smile on his face, Obama claims “gay marriage” as a victory on his
resume, even though he opposed it.
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Obama: “There are pockets of the country that never recovered from factory
closings.” Pockets? Those pockets are big enough to shoplift the Great Lakes.
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Now Obama is quoting Reagan. Truman and Reagan have been quoted more frequently
than any other figures at this convention. In fact, Obama’s speech is played in
the key of Reagan. He has said that he sees himself as a “transitional figure”
like, yes, Reagan. He has exceeded beyond his expectations.
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Obama just said Hillary has been caricatured by some on the Left. I assume he’s
referring to the jacket cover of Doug Henwood’s
deliciously vicious book, My
Turn.
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Obama could sell Trump Steaks to a vegan.
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Obama swears that Hillary is the “most qualified person ever to run for
president.” Perhaps. But she’s qualified in all the wrong directions.
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Exit to Stevie Wonder. When Hillary surprised Obama on stage, she had the look
of love in her eyes, as if she had just jilted Bill for Barack. But then
wouldn’t you after Bubba’s creepy stalker speech last night?
This
was a night dominated by the hollow men of the Democratic Party: Panetta,
Kaine, Biden and Obama. Men who knew better, but did worse. The theme was
liberal virility, strength, and managerial efficiency. Missing was any empathy
for the homeless and the hungry, the poor and the downtrodden. It was a frontal
embrace of the neoliberal order, a demonstration that the Democrats have
the competency and toughness to manage the imperial order in a time of severe
internal and external stress.
The
last three hours weren’t a full-throated repudiation of Sanderism, so much as a
casual dismissal, as if the core concerns Bernie’s movement gave voice to
regarding the ravages of economic inequality didn’t even merit their
attention. And Bernie sat passively in the imperial box seats with Jane
squirming at his side, watching it all unfold.
Barack
Obama possesses so many scintillating skills, perhaps more skills than any
other political figure of the modern era. Yet he put those magical gifts
to such meagre, timid and often brutal uses. What a waste.
His
is the tragedy of a squandered presidency.
Jeffrey
St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His new book is Killing
Trayvons: an Anthology of American Violence (with JoAnn Wypijewski and
Kevin Alexander Gray). He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net.
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