Bathing Shadow Spawn

Counterpunch's Alex Cockburn deems the presidential campaign a snooze so far, and he's right. McCain's an utter twit to watch, that nasal, petulant whine issuing from those tense, waxen lips. Obama's trying oh-so very hard to Look Presidential, affecting serious poses and expressions throughout the Middle and Near East, droning about our hallowed mission in that part of the world. Well, you get what you pay for, or in this case, what the owners finance, so get used to it. Or not. Either way, it won't matter much.

I am looking forward to the Fall, however, when libs and reactionaries pull off their flesh masks to reveal their rotting, reptilian features. Oh, I can hear the rhetoric now, noxious emissions blowing dead leaves across the spectrum. As Mencken observed, if nothing else, American politics provides cheap entertainment. I'll be near the main stage mixing cocktails if you wish to drop by. Should be a good one this year.

I love it when liberals gush about voting drives, that sexy elixir which conjures up images of Selma and outrunning Klan cops on southern back roads. Of course, that was a long time ago, and even then it had mixed results. I mean, LBJ, Humphrey, and a boatload of other Dems sent African-Americans to kill and die in Southeast Asia when their political and social status at home was decidedly weak. Johnson is still praised for signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as if that was courageous and unprecedented. In fact, it was inevitable and smart.

LBJ was a Texas populist and a first-rate control freak. Blacks were a potentially loyal voting base for the Dems, and Johnson knew it, which is why he signed that bill. He may have said that by doing so, he was writing off the white racist south, but Johnson's hubris was so vast that he probably felt he could hold on to the segregationist wing as well, thus making the Dems an unstoppable electoral force. After all, most southern racists, like George Wallace, were Democrats. Where were they going to go -- to the Republican Party of rich, white easterners like the Rockefellers? At the time, Barry Goldwater was seen as an aberration. The GOP was for elite whites, not disgruntled working class peasants who bristled at sharing water fountains with coloreds. Nixon played both sides of the fence and won a healthy slice of the cracker demographic. But it wasn't until Reagan that the GOP formalized this rancid migration, the results of which are still very much with us, as you may have noticed.

Today's voting drives are essentially sheep herding for the corporate ranchers, with starry-eyed liberals insisting that this is how freedom is won. Well, "freedom" is a relativist concept, so who am I to say? Yet given how disinterested in voter theft and fraud Dem elites have been in recent times, you'll excuse me if I don't take all this talk about "empowerment" too seriously.

But this is a historic phase, as we're being told ad nauseum, so get in line and punch, touch, tap, or scribble your way into it. Unless McCain wins. If that happens, I wonder who the libs will blame for the next four years?

Thanks to Daniel Davies for the nice review of "Savage Mules" at Crooked Timber. Additional thanks to Louis Proyect, who seemed to enjoy "Mules" as well. If you haven't read either, please do so. And if you haven't yet purchased a copy of "Mules," you know what to do.