Condi won, the left lost.
If you missed it, Condi Rice has cancelled her Rutgers speech. The protests are the reason why.
And that's win-win.
People at the university -- faculty and students -- made their voices heard. That's part of the democratic process. They made plans to protest her appearing at the commencement and also protested Rutgers president Robert Barchi.
Patrick Jonsson (Christian Science Monitor) quotes Condi, "Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates
and their families. Rutgers’
invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university
community at this very special time." Jonsson applies the term "gracious" and I'd agree with that. Condi was gracious in her remarks.
So it's win-win.
We see the power of protest and we see Condi act in a gracious manner.
But it quickly becomes lose-win with we on the left losing.
Condi's remarks are gracious and I'm not going to imply "if she means them!" She made them, I'm not in her head, I'll accept them as reflective of what she wanted to say and what she felt.
So she's been gracious and put the students and their families ahead of everything else. Who could ask for more than that?
Corey Kane (Tico Times) reports on CodeStink and the latest foul odor emitting from Medea's ass:
Benjamin contended that though the school has changed its name, its
practices remain. Benjamin was critical of U.S. President Barack Obama,
but contended that the next administration could return to more
interventionist ways in Latin America.
“There’s probably going to be a stronger look at Latin America,”
Benjamin said. “The next president, [Hillary] Clinton or a Republican
could have a harder line in the region.”
And that's why Condi wins and we on the left lost.
It went from win-win to big loser.
The way it works is, on any issue, you basically have 30% willing to fight for it (at least lip service) and 30% willing to fight against it. You've got 10% that's never going to care. That leaves 30% up for grabs -- up for grabs but not always grabbable.
The numbers change a little but this is the premise for those who've made elections about nothing other than wooing the swing voter.
Condi wins because most people will find her statement gracious. In the equal camps of left and right, there may or may not be honesty about the remarks. But in that undecided middle which can go either way?
They saw Condi be gracious and they saw CodeStink pull it's usual crap. Medea's idiot message is, "Be aware because I can only breast feed Barack for two more years and then something's ugly is coming!"
Ugly is Medea Benjamin. Ugly in the face, ugly in the ass, ugly in spirit.
I don't think Hugo Chavez felt Barack was kind and gentle. I
don't think most of Latin America did.
But there's the last standing coward on the left extolling her baby Barack. She will wipe him, she will burp him and she will never, ever criticize her baby boy.
She'll write an embarrassing book about The Drone War without ever having the guts to call out Barack.
If you're opposed to The Drone War, you're opposed to Barack. There's no give and take there. He has commanded The Drone War since 2009 and he has killed more people than Bully Boy Bush ever did. He has also brought The Drone War home, drones are coming to all fifty states.
But Medea can't call him out.
So grasp what happened in this news cycle to people who aren't vested strongly in the left or the right: Condi showed common sense and grace and Medea continued to excuse and minimize Barack's actions.
To the non-invested, Medea's a hypocrite who has a set of ethics which she'll apply to Republicans and Hillary Clinton but she won't apply to Barack.
She stains all of us on the left.
She plays partisan and she's unethical.
Barack has been in the White House for one full term and nearly half of a second.
Cindy Sheehan can
call him "Obomber" but Medea can't call out her little baby. She's the sad Mommy showing photos of him at the park and bursting into tears when one of the other parents points out that Barack has "jug ears."
The notion that her little man isn't perfect is just too much for Medea. He is perfect, he is wonderful, he is the smartest and the brightest . . .
Medea needs to retire from public life. She has nothing to offer. She is corrupt and unethical and the left doesn't need that.
She goes after Hillary like someone with latent sexual urges. Does Hillary turn Medea on because that's what Medea's obsession sounds like?
Or maybe it's just more woman hatred from someone who's never done a thing for women?
Barack gets into office and Medea's even justifying his continuation of the Afghanistan War.
She's done nothing to defend Iraqi women or raise awareness of them.
She was a vocal supporter Bradley Manning but she lost interest around the time Manning announced publicly that she was Chelsea Manning.
What woman does Medea defend?
She's been in public life for over a decade.
What has she done for women?
Let's see, in a country where women and girls suffer from eating disorders at an alarming rate, Medea decided women could show 'strength' by 'fasting' 'for peace.'
No.
That's stupid beyond stupid. It's stupid considering the eating disorders.
But it's even more stupid to tell women and girls that the way to show commitment and 'strength' is to make yourself weak (from hunger) and passive.
Medea Benjamin is not a feminist.
She works with women only because her attempts to work with men failed (see Global Exchange).
She doesn't even work with women, she orders them around.
No one picked this unattractive woman to be their leader.
She orders women around (or tries to -- that's part of the reason CodeStink has lost so many members) and tries to be the token female in a man's world instead of breaking down the door and allowing other women to enter.
I'm not voting for Hillary, I don't think she'd make a good president.
I also don't believe she would be worse than Barack. (Had she gotten the nomination in 2008, I believe she would have been a strong president and I do believe the American people would have jobs and employment.)
In Medea's world, everyone's either her beloved Barack or they're the evil Red Queen Hillary.
Diane Wilson's someone I have little respect for. I've written this before. She is the typical CodePink image, that photo of her with paint -- red paint for blood -- on her hands as she shoves them in Condi's face as Condi's sitting before a Congressional committee.
That doesn't look brave.
It looks bitchy but not brave.
It's strange, isn't it, how CodeStink rips apart women but offers these weak ass protests against men?
When did Diane or CodeStink ever go after men like they did Condi or Hillary?
Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense. If your issue is war, if that's what you're against (I am), I would assume Rumsfeld would warrant greater protest than the Secretary of State. But CodeStink offered no red painted hands shoved in his face.
Time and again, CodeStink and its cohorts attack and smear women.
They're not doing the work of feminism. They're doing sexist work.
Men can't attack Hillary the way CodeStink repeatedly does and repeatedly has. Doing so would get a man called out for sexism.
So CodeStink does it instead. They're campaigns against women always are rooted in some notion that the woman in question is a freak and a gender mutant.
That's not feminism.
Again, I'm not voting for Hillary if she runs.
And I can explain why (and have here before).
It has nothing to do with her being a woman or being the 'wrong kind' of a woman.
I don't want to make this about Hillary but I'll restate my main points in case anyone's late to the party.
1) I think she betrayed her supporters by taking a position in the administration.
This isn't minor. This isn't 'sour grapes.'
The woman that so many are now pushing as the next nominee? She and her supporters were falsely labeled racists throughout 2008. This was a campaign strategy on the part of the Obama campaign (and Barack's responsible for his campaign). It was divisive and it was hurtful.
She stabbed her supporters in the back by making nice with a man who campaigned in a divisive and insulting manner. She can get over the wounds, I'm not talking about her. I'm talking about her supporters. And when they weren't being called racist, they were being called stupid or poor -- yeah, that was really a 'positive' move by the Obama campaign -- or uneducated or this or that.
She'd already 'taken one for the party' by campaigning for him in 2008.
To go to work for his administration? That betrayed her supporters.
2) Her supporters then had to put up with four years of Hillary bashing. Throughout Barack's first term, when it was time for any heated criticism from the left, it was aimed at Hillary. Barack hid behind her skirt. That was offensive to her supporters.
3) His policies are not Democratic Party policies. Gutting the safety net is not a core principle of the party. It is of "New Democrats" -- formerly the DLC. Barac was DLC and has noted he is a "New Democrat." Hillary wasn't a part of the DLC. Bill was. Hillary might have wanted to be but the DLC was deeply sexist. Her policies, had she been elected president in November 2008, wouldn't have been hugely left. They would have gone to core principles of the party, however.
By serving in the administration and not calling it out -- even to this day -- she now has Barack's image. She was a loyal soldier. Loyal foot soldiers don't make for leader of the free world. Not good ones.
4) Benghazi. Whatever happened there, we still don't know. What we do know? I stood for Cindy Sheehan's right to ask Bully Boy Bush questions about why her son died. I'd be a damn hypocrite if I didn't also support Pat Smith on this same issue. (Pat Smith's son Sean Smith died in Benghazi September 11, 2012 -- along with Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty and Chris Stevens.) I don't appreciate that Hillary lied to Pat. I remain appalled by Hillary's outburst in January 2013 -- which was both insulting as well as demonstrating huge political stupidity. She's never apologized for that which goes to even greater stupidity. Bill would have.
None of the above has anything to do with her gender. None of the above is to imply that's she's some gender aberration -- nor does it.
Sadly, CodeStink can't say the same about the way they call out women or the way they target women.
In 2007 and 2008, Hillary was their supreme target. There were other candidates for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party and there were candidates for the GOP presidential nomination. All but Hillary? They were men. And strangely, they weren't targeted as obsessively as CodeStink targeted Hillary.
It's wasn't about the war. If it was, they would have targeted Barack who repeatedly voted to continue the illegal war. It wasn't about her 2002 vote for the war or they would have targeted John Edwards, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, etc (they voted for the Iraq War).
They targeted Hillary. They are useless and they are sexists.
They did the work that others were afraid to do.
(They're also liars because Medea's gal-pal Jodie was already a bundler for Barack's campaign -- a fact CodeStink didn't think they needed to disclose and a fact that Jodie was still denying long after the 2008 election.)
To the casual observer today, the right won because Condi was gracious while the left lost because we yet again highlighted our hypocrisies and our whorish ways.
Barack's bypassed Bully Boy Bush in deportations -- this effects Latin America and South America although it is not limited to them.
And if we can expand to South America, and why wouldn't we, we're left with what was done to Morales.
I'm sorry, Medea, what plane did Bully Boy Bush (or devious Hillary) have re-routed?
I seem to remember in July of last year, Evo Morales, elected president of Bolivia, attempting to fly home but having to land in Spain to refuel after being denied the right to fly over Italy, Portugal and France (and Spain originally). This disrespect was orchestrated by the White House (who was convinced NSA whistle-blower Ed Snowden was on the flight).
But Medea thinks Barack's been kind and gentle to the Americas.
Things are even worse in Columbia than under Bully Boy Bush but Medea won't recognize that fact either.
She's a deeply deceptive person and her problems and her issues harm the left.
It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on
The Ballet's
Mattachine!)
The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning]
4489.
The e-mail address for this site is
common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq
i hate the war
the ballet