The Exile’s Palette is a brand new book out on Marc Chagall if anybody is interested.

Sepharad, Folktruther is just being his same old same old with respect to Zionism.  You will get nowhere, believe it or not. You ought to spend your time on more promising endeavors or I promise you you will go crazy.  He is pathological about it and every thread usually falls into the Folktruther Zionist Trap.  I just call it for short the FZT effect.

Sabagio, I for one am sorry you got chased away.  I hope I wasn’t part of the ugliness.  If so, my apologies and would like to know what it was I said.  I find your posts bright lights amid the dimness.  You view demagogues and bullies much as I do.  Did you know there was a Decatur in Texass?  It is small and without much distinction, for me, that is like a lot of this mindless state.

Pogo? OK, I must have not been around when he was quoted in the correct context. Same message?  Winston Churchill’s “blood, et.al. quote had been misquoted since the git go, so I guess that’s the way all history plays out.

“We’ve met the enemy and Weeee ..got em!” “Don’t give up the boat.” “Hey, guys, I’m not so sure about giving up my one life for my country.” “Don’t shoot ‘til you see their bloodshot eyeballs.” “I never met a man I did trust.” ” Hope springs every 3 minutes.” ” A watched pot always boils, eventually, so long as the fire don’t go out, cause if it does,then it doesn’t, or if it does when there’s no heat in the kitchen or fire in the belly of the beast below, then it’s a miracle, or cold fusion’s been discovered.

And J.Edgar and Joe Mc? Demagogues and bullies all look alike to me. Right now Malarkey and Judge Scalia could be twins. I got introduced to the Pogo quote during Viet Nam 1964-1973, so brain twisters military press briefings and Agent Orange did and do get in the way, especially when the Watergate Watershed of American history was added to the mix and Bernadette Devlin and Ian Paisley were reinventing the IRA and its 300 year-old campaign of reunification. My apologies to all whom I’ve offended. I’m leaving this site. You won’t have Sabagio Mauraeno of DeKalb County Georgia to kick around any more.

Goodby for ever, maybe,

Sabagio Mauraeno, home along in Decatur, Georgia, waiting for a ride to my next ECT.

PS

Tis still true, white males’ dumbnest is still a fact as evidenced by their contiued allegiance to the words and wisdom of John Wayne, Ronald Reagan and Elizabeth Hasselback, and their belief that football in general and the NFL in particular are god-given testaments of what the American Way of Life is all about. SM
————————< /p> Report this

As a long-time fan of Pogo, who grew up on it, I can tell you that no quote from Pogo has been so mis-quoted and mis-interpreted as “We have met the enemy, and he is us!”

While Walt Kelly was a big believer in cartoons as weapons (Simple J. Malarkey looked and sounded a lot like a junior senator from Wisconsin) and didn’t mind a pun, originally, the quote is simply Pogo rendering the classic quote into Okeefenokee-ese.  But, of course, it’s a Kellan pun, too.

I think Kelly had more fun with Nixon and Agnew and Mitchell than he had a right to!  Agnew as a giant groundhog-like critter in a those funny WH uniforms Nixon adopted (that were subsequently dropped). Mitchell was a vulture…

My personal fav was “A nuclear reaction ain’t so new and ain’t so clear”

Sabagio,  It has been a long time since I’ve read Am. Hist.  I believe you that it is a wonderful read and I will pull out my books (they are old but except for the last 30 years they contain the same old information).  Of course there are always a rethinking of history and hence revisions.  Your description though of full of marvelous rationalizations, concessions and accommodations reminds me of the melodrama of the vatican shenanigans, oh, isn’t that funny, it sounds poetic, vatican shenanigans, I love that kind of serendipity, but to go on.  I was just struck by remembering all the intrigues I read about in Italian history too.  I forget most of it and only retain that sense of scheming and plotting, which I am sure also went on in American founding history and continues to this day.  It is part of the political game whether found in churches or governmental buildings.

Speaking of the 10 commandments, did you know the Mormons in Utah has a case before the Supreme Court to force a city to display the 10 Commandments?  They are claiming it is related to the right to free speech.  And are you aware that the Saudi Arabians are trying to get a resolution passed to ban free speech at the United Nations so that criticism of their treachery in the name of Allah will go uncensured!

We all have Pogo’s mirror.

Shenonymous. American history is a wonderful read. It’s an on-going narrative full of marvelous rationalizations, concessions and accommodations that essentially acknowledges the evil humans can and would do if the rule of law and its institutions did not act as ever-present constraints.  The spokespersons for the status quo in our country insist that the Constitution says that we are a Christian Nation, ergo our view of an omnipotent god and his instructions has to prevail to the exclusions of all others. That’s what Moses, the 10 commandments and Cecil B. DeMille call for. Also in the body of the Constitution’s text is the statement that declares that for purposes of the census, and tax law, slaves as property would count as 2/3’s of a man, for perpetuity, with no escape clauses. Push forward the timeline and several amendments and “inter-racial” sexual congresses later (the act of sexual procreation between a man and a woman; the man’s penis is inserted into the woman’s vagina and excited until orgasm and ejaculation occur) there still lingers a belief among many of our brethren that “once a slave, regardless of how polluted his DNA has become, always a slave, or in terms of the politically correct euphemisms of the day, black, n….r, and or “African American.”

  Even though Senator/President Elect Obama is not a descendent of the slave-holding culture of our recent past, he is the product of sexual congress between a Caucasian female and a negro/Kenyan male.  Ergo, in the American English dictionary, an African American.  Not half white/half black. All African American.  And at face value, 57% of American white males can’t be wrong, can they?  As for Euros looking in the mirror, they see what Pogo saw when he looked at his reflection in the murky waters of the Okefenokee Swamp: “We have met the Enemy and dey is US.”  This being said,  Pogo, along with the other denizens of the swamp, the alligators, snapping turtles and raccoons, owls, and the badger with the face of J. Edgar Hoover, turned away and went about their daily activities.

There is a famous scene in the movie, To Kill a Mockingbird, where Atticus Finch, at the end of the trial where his client, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman is found guilty by an all-white jury, is asked by his children why   did they convict a man so obviously innocent.  Atticus replied: “They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it, seems that only children weep”

Now the All-White Male Jury is no more, and the long awaited verdict that finally came in was:

      Barack Obama, President-elect.

Sepharad, I am most appreciative you took the time to write your post.  It is truly kind of you.  The reality is there is no one where I live which is some many miles from Ft. Worth who has been open to acquaintanceship or friendship.  I’ve been here three years.  House was on the market but live too far out in a small but developing town for it to sell for what it is worth.  Since I don’t have to move for any financial or occupational reason, I’ve been advised by the best real estate broker, my brother, to sit tight and the market will open up.  I intend to move soon as selling happens.  I am isolated.  I also have a 3-acre property and a wonderful old and large house.  I love the place but not the location.  It is not healthy for my soul.  How I came to even be here is a long story and not worth the TD space to explain it.

I have a few friends that live thousands of miles away, you and some others here on TD who are my only commiseraters.  No live bodies ‘round here.  At school there are no voices at all who are sympathetic to the non-rednecks.  Every and all of those I’ve met are right-wing.  Even the hairdresser I found, which was not easy, said she would still trim my hair when I had admitted to being a Democrat!  She agreed that I might be the only one in town.  Oh boy. 

I may not even have the sub job having “come out” as a voter of Democrats!  I will be able to see if I am not called again.  I have been a very popular sub and had made quite a few student friends in spite of not finding adults with whom I could even strike up an acquaintance.  I know what it is like to be an outsider.  I am an artist as well as scholar and I have many things to do and think about so it is not so bad to wait out the seige.  I call it my purgatory.  And there is always a good cup of coffee that makes a worthy life.

I would love to meet more open minded Texans.  But there are no suitable ‘social’ avenues to do that.  I am not religious and will not go to a church to meet people as has been suggested.  There are no book clubs, no dancing groups, no political groups in the area as I have searched.  It is too far to travel to Ft. Worth area (the closest big city) to make that kind of connection.  I am not much of a “mixer” and find shallow friendships repugnant.  I don’t want to have any one as a renter in my house as I like my private space too much.  I actually use all my space.  That part of moving here is the best part.  I have two fantastic art studios, a library, and other wonderful space.  Occasionally my kids will come for a visit.  I have a cousin in Houston, a lovely soul, who would like me to join a church too.  That cannot happen.  So thank you for your concern.  I will weather the political climate of Texas just as I weather its tornadoes and move away when it is possible.  I shall look forward to e-conversations with you and others, and keep a healthy perspective on life.

Pout pout..booty hoo I feel discriminated against, Sabagio.
A few more questions, how could anybody have just one drop of African blood?  And even if that was possible, how would anybody know?  And what about all that other blood?  I know I know, that was just a rhetorical question.  Just thinking how silly it all was.  Maybe someday humans will all be gray.

Now Obama is a bit closer to being white than having an ancestor.  His mother was a white woman.  I don’t care what the custom is, I claim him as half white!  But I think it is cool he is half African American too. 

Who shall we root for there in Georgia in that December runoff?  Say isn’t Georgia usually a red state?  So a run off means a Democrat has made strides.  Yayyyyy!

To be half white and Half Black in the US of A is to be All African   American.  That’s just the way it is. Witness Vanessa Williams and Hallie Berry, beautiful gorgeous women, by any standard, with whites as ancestors on their family tree. Franco Harris and Roy Campanella, great athletes and fan favorites of their day, had mothers who were native Italians who married black soldiers after WWII. On the record as well as recorded by the US Census they fall in the category of “Black.” Not white, not Italian.  Black! When Senator Obama was growing up in Hawaii, he thought of himself as Hawaiian. When he came to school in the US of A, he found out that he was black, and has been so ever since. I think it’s great that he won’t be following in the tradition of Dumb White Males. Tis a new beginning with no racial labeling and baggage.
It’s not been too long ago in states like Louisiana, where to have just one “drop” of African blood in one’s ancestry, you were legally considered “black”  and your social status and value as a human being was changed, legally.  Now that’s all changed, right?

Sabagio Mauraeno, here in Georgia and waiting to see how the Senate runoff election between Jim Martin and Saxby Chammbliss turns out in December.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, Sabagio, Obama is half white!  Does that make him liable to be a half dumb white male?  Let’s get a grip.

WHITE MALES, DUMB AND DUMBER

WHITE MALES, DUMB AND DUMBER. AND NOT GETTING ANY SMARTER. THE MAJOR ATROCITIES COMMITTED DURING THE LAST 1000 YEARS WERE COMMITTED BY WHITE MALES. IN THE LAST 200 YEARS, WARS OF SUBJUGATION OF AFRICAN, ASIAN AND WESTERN HEMISPHERE INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS AND WORLD WARS KILLED MILLIONS OF INNOCENT NON-COMBATANTS. IN RECENT YEARS, AMERICAN POLITICS OF MISDIRECTION, MISINFORMATION, MISPERCEPTIONS BY DESIGN, ALL OFFERED AS “TRUTHS” IN ADVERTISING, WERE BEGOTTEN BY THE NIXON DIRTY TRICKSTERS, ADOPTED BY THE REAGONITES OF THE WELFARE CADILLAC DENIGRATIONS, REFINED BY BUSH I AND HIS PIT-BULL PROMOTER, LEE ATTWATER AND THE IMAGE OFWILIE HORTON AND REVOLVING DOOR PRISONS, AND POLISHED BY BUSH II’S MOUTHPIECE IN HIDING, CARL ROVE, FRONTED BY DICK CHENEY AND FOX BROADCASTING. THE HISTORICAL REFERENCE POINT FOR POST WAR REPUBICAN POLITICAL STRATEGIES AND TACTICS?  MIEN KAMPF, A. HITLER AND J. GOBBELS.  CHECK IT OUT.

SABAGIO MAURAENO, HOME ALONE IN DECATUR GEORGIA AND PACKING UP IN ANTICIPATION OF GETTING A TICKET TO THE PRESIDENTIAL INAUGERATION BALL AT THE WHITE HOUSE, COME JANUARY, 2009.

=============

P.S.: OBAMA OVERCAME, BEAT THE SYSTEM AND IS NOW PRESIDENT ELECT, IN PART BECAUSE HE AIN’T A DUMB WHITE MALE AND THEREFORE WAS IMMUNE TO ALL THAT CRAP THAT DEFINED THAT PALE GENDER. SM

WHITE MALES, DUMB AND DUMBER

WHITE MALES, DUMB AND DUMBER. AND NOT GETTING ANY SMARTER. THE MAJOR ATROCITIES COMMITTED DURING THE LAST 1000 YEARS WERE COMMITTED BY WHITE MALES. IN THE LAST 200 YEARS, WARS OF SUBJUGATION OF AFRICAN, ASIAN AND WESTERN HEMISPHERE INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS AND WORLD WARS KILLED MILLIONS OF INNOCENT NON-COMBATANTS. IN RECENT YEARS, AMERICAN POLITICS OF MISDIRECTION, MISINFORMATION, MISPERCEPTIONS BY DESIGN, ALL OFFERED AS “TRUTHS” IN ADVERTISING, WERE BEGOTTEN BY THE NIXON DIRTY TRICKSTERS, ADOPTED BY THE REAGONITES OF THE WELFARE CADILLAC DENIGRATIONS, REFINED BY BUSH I AND HIS PIT-BULL PROMOTER, LEE ATTWATER AND THE IMAGE OFWILIE HORTON AND REVOLVING DOOR PRISONS, AND POLISHED BY BUSH II’S MOUTHPIECE IN HIDING, CARL ROVE, FRONTED BY DICK CHENEY AND FOX BROADCASTING. THE HISTORICAL REFERENCE POINT FOR POST WAR REPUBICAN POLITICAL STRATEGIES AND TACTICS?  MIEN KAMPF, A. HITLER AND J. GOBBELS.  CHECK IT OUT.

SABAGIO MAURAENO, HOME ALONE IN DECATUR GEORGIA AND PACKING UP IN ANTICIPATION OF GETTING A TICKET TO THE PRESIDENTIAL INAUGERATION BALL AT THE WHITE HOUSE, COME JANUARY, 2009.

=============

P.S.: OBAMA OVERCAME, BEAT THE SYSTEM AND IS NOW PRESIDENT ELECT, IN PART BECAUSE HE AIN’T A DUMB WHITE MALE AND THEREFORE WAS IMMUNE TO ALL THAT CRAP THAT DEFINED THAT PALE GENDER. SM

Shenonymous, November 7 at 9:13 pm #

ITW, you have just scared me good.  These kids are ideologues and blinded by indoctrination.  Is there any danger there?  I don’t really know, but most likely not.  The sting of the election will ease away in a few days as the country gets back on its feet.
****************************************

Sorry, She, I didn’t want to completely weird you out, but I have troubles NOT making the connection between a kid bragging about an uncle with a bullet with Obama’s name on it—and James Byrd’s murder over in East Texas.  Kids who are proud (???) of being racist AND claim to be dedicated Christians…talk about time warp!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Be careful out there!”—role call sergeant on Hill Street Blues.

ITW, you have just scared me good.  These kids are ideologues and blinded by indoctrination.  Is there any danger there?  I don’t really know, but most likely not.  The sting of the election will ease away in a few days as the country gets back on its feet.

Shenonymous, November 7 at 11:44 am #

Yes Folktruther, I did call them on the racism.  One of the boys replied that he was a racist and was proud of it.  I asked him if he was a Christian and he said he was.  I told him he ought to then as a Christian rethink his thoughts on racism.  It would have become ugly if I persisted so I changed the subject entirely and went on to have the class read Thomas Paine.  Except that was a passionate speech trying to whip the public into a war.  A justifiable war?  War nonetheless.
******************************************

“Segregation Today! Segregation Tomorrow! Segregation Forever!”—by Gov. George Wallace, charlatan and opportunist.  He actually NEVER gave a damn about segregation and wasn’t (for a Southern White man of the era) much of a racist. He was simply on a cynical path to power.

Yet these kids seem stuck back in those early days of the ‘60’s.  Too many people think the Civil Rights Movement was pretty much “I Have A Dream” and Brown vs Board.  It was far, far more than that.  It was a struggle that began with Frederick Douglass when slavery was still in force (at least Douglass is a convenient starting point as the first Black intellectual who was well-known for his ideas).  It continued with the battles of Booker T. Washington, and his intellectual adversary, W.E.B. DuBois.  It continued through the THOUSANDS of unpunished murders due to lynchings…Some people have learned or their children have. But there are still hard-core psychopathic bigots out there….

And the last lynching was right there in Jasper, Texas on June 7, 1998.  Two of the murderers are on death row, the third is serving a life sentence. They have shown NO REMORSE for this particularly vicious murder.  And Shenonymous is teaching their ideological kin in her classroom everyday.  How scary is THAT?????

Yes Folktruther, I did call them on the racism.  One of the boys replied that he was a racist and was proud of it.  I asked him if he was a Christian and he said he was.  I told him he ought to then as a Christian rethink his thoughts on racism.  It would have become ugly if I persisted so I changed the subject entirely and went on to have the class read Thomas Paine.  Except that was a passionate speech trying to whip the public into a war.  A justifiable war?  War nonetheless.

Unfortunately, Inherit, those highschool kids ARE American; that is largely the American worldview of a large fraction of the country.  It is to those people that Palin appealed to by stating repeatedly that Obama palled aound with Terrorists.  the feeling, if not the roudiness, is exhibited in the Elite school that my daughter goes to.

And the schools foster it, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, like this coach.  When you are isolated, as Shenonymous is, there isn’t much you can do.  I wouldn’t get into the election, She, but I would call them on the racism. It is not only safer, it is more effective to attack the presuppositions.  And this can be done simply by a class discussion of them.

I hope it is more than a moment of truce.  It made my heart swell ITW to learn we can be so blatantly outspoken about somethings yet be civilized with each other and compassionate at the same time. Please know this I think you are a mighty warrior and fiercely defend your positions and sense of self. I especially appreciated your post of 2:06pm.  I couldn’t agree with you more, or Paracelsus sentiments in the 2:29pm post.  Will most likely post more later.  Right now Obama is about to give his first press conference. I’ve tuned in to MSNBC.  It should be enlightening.

@ Shenonymous

They continued to talk amongst themselves and were very unhappy McCain lost saying that the country was now going to be in the worst condition ever because there is a black man who will be president and he will single handedly ruin the country.  At that point, I challenged one of the students as to why he thought that.  “Well,” he said, “Obama is a Muslim.” I asked him where he got that idea since it wasn’t true, but even if it were, why would that be a problem?  He argued vehemently that it was true and that the Muslims are evil and want only to kill Americans.  Other students chimed in and I could see there was no defusing their misguided anger.

That’s awful. There’s every indication that Obama is a Christian. But I would not disqualify a good candidate if he/she was a Moslem. In general I appalled at criminal government. No one should ask you your choice of candidate. It appears that a great deal of brain washing has gone on. I suppose the US will always have ready enemies for the next war. I don’t care much for any of the dessert religions as they seem so warlike. Tribalism will always be useful for the shadow government. If Obama ever needs to go to war in Iran, Sudan or Pakistan he will have a deep well of anti-muslim feeling to draw upon.

She:
A moment of truce…I feel for you in that school. That’s truly scary—these people have NO idea that their thinking is completely un-American.  But they are also indicative as to why American primary and secondary education is far inferior to what kids overseas are getting.  Teach ‘em all that religious and racist claptrap, that “evolution is just a theory” and what do you get?  Future nazis. Future klansmen.  Having lived in the South I’ve met guys like the one with a bullet with President-Elect Obama’s name on it.  One law I believe in: Those who threaten the President or President-Elect with violence are criminals—felons, who deserve imprisonment for many, many years.

On the Fox Noise website those same jugheads post that “that (n-word) will NEVER be MY president!”  A radical right-wing nut-case in our sister company came in Wednesday dressed black (mourning, not race)—and that’s not Texas but New Jersey. Me? I came in wearing the bluest blue shirt I could find!

Obama’s not a Muslim, but if he was I would still have voted for him. Why not, unless he was promoting a very different agenda? He’s not an Arab, but if he was I’d still have voted for him—unless he had a different agenda.  I voted for the man, I voted for the policies, I voted for the party, and I voted to end the 8 year long national nightmare.

She, my moral support and any other kind of support I can conjure up. 

You know when I was in the service, I always thought Texans acted like and were real ass holes, seems they still are, the Mexican Americans I met in the service seemed just like the Mexican American folks in California good people.  Now Texas has black Muslims living there, Bush’s Katina refugees from New Orleans. She, the coach sounds like Pailin with testes.

Texans and the Talaban have a lot in common, ignorance wanting to rule forcing their morality on others, using hate of differences as their foundations. 

There must be some more honest thinking people in Texas, because the votes showed many voted for Obama?

The ignorance sponsered by racists, needs to be appriciated by the third party clowns complaining about Obama.  McCain/Palin even Hillary to some extent, stoked the racist fires, and the bigots showed up to celebrate.

I’m sorry this has to be in two parts.
I was moved by Sepharad’s story of her experience in Georgia.  Moved enough to describe my day at high school on Wednesday.  Teaching English classes all day, we were reading, listening to a cd of a dramatic theatrical reading, and then thinking about and analytically writing about Thomas Paine’s speech “The Crisis: the Promise of America.”  Seemed quite appropriate for the latest national social activity.  Naturally, the teenagers were chatting and were grumbling about the election.  This is north Texas and I expected to hear some, if not a lot, of grumbling. 

Then the question to me came, “Who did you vote for?” Thinking it was not appropriate for a teacher to offer subjective sentiments about politics, I declined to say giving my reason that it was not appropriate for me to say.  They continued to talk amongst themselves and were very unhappy McCain lost saying that the country was now going to be in the worst condition ever because there is a black man who will be president and he will single handedly ruin the country.  At that point, I challenged one of the students as to why he thought that.  “Well,” he said, “Obama is a Muslim.”  I asked him where he got that idea since it wasn’t true, but even if it were, why would that be a problem?  He argued vehemently that it was true and that the Muslims are evil and want only to kill Americans.  Other students chimed in and I could see there was no defusing their misguided anger. 

This happened in the next classes.  When in 4th period, a very similar conversation took place.  Only this time another teacher, a coach, who co-teaches the class came in and more or less took over the class, I would describe as a most patronizing way.  The question was put to him and instantaneously he said he voted for McCain, which raised a lot of applause, and camaraderie comments, and my eyebrows.  Not that he said what he said but that he said it.  He is certainly entitle to vote for whomever he thinks is best.  He was a popular coach, obviously.  Then they asked me who I voted for.  I admit I was not a happy camper that the coach involved them in a free-for-all disparaging of Obama and adoration of McCain. So I loudly and clearly said, “I voted for Barack Obama, and what is more, I voted a straight Democratic ticket.”  Oh my, the boos I got.  The boys were having a field day.  But not all students, a handful of Hispanics and about five girls gave hi signs and yeas and seemed happy that at last they got to say who they preferred.  So the boys who were for McCain started talking about sedition and hanging Obama saying he would not last even two years.  One said a neighbor of his showed him a bullet on which was written Barack Obama’s name.  The coach, seemingly enjoying the seething going on did say that the boy should probably report the neighbor.  Needless to say there was more conversation and the murderous attitude was not quelled by the coach! I am still reeling in my head over it.  They also tried to engage me in more than one class as to what religion I practiced, and did I believe in Jesus Christ.  I refused to play that game and told them that talk of religion is not appropriate for this class.  I would be happy to discuss these things at the end of the day in the class room if they wanted to come back.

Part 2
I feel this scene was not a unique happening in the schools in most of Texas.  It is obvious from my conversations with the kids that they have been utterly indoctrinated to hate Muslims, blacks, and non-republicans.  They are interested in harming these people and feel they are the only ones with a right to live in America.  When questioned they become hostile and berate anyone who has a contrary view.  I made it a point to shake the hand of the right-wing teacher and introduce myself mainly to show the students that two people can have different views yet not be complete enemies.  At the end of the day, I was not too encouraged that these people were being taught critical thinking skills but were given dogma about the limited number of who has a right to live.  The emotion of the 50s and 60s is still among us and we as a country overcame the hugest hurdle of racism ever.  That says a lot about America’s enlightenment about humankind.  There are still horrid elements that need to be rooted out and it has to start with education in the public schools.  You won’t get it in most private schools.  But then the middle class and the poor don’t normally go to private schools. And that is where most people are located on the social scale.

Sephard and ITW thanks for the very interesting enlightening posts on Chagall.

Sephard; Great story.  When I was stationed in Tennessee back in 1967, I always remember one time, being downtown in Memphis with several buddies,  we were waiting at a stop light on a busy street, a little old black lady with a candy-striped cane was standing next to us muttering to herself, we thought she might be both blind and mad.  All of a sudden when the signal changed,  traffic stopped and the old lady like a cat leaped off the curb, instead of going straight she walked right up to a bright new car in the first lane and started banging, taping and hitting the headlights, the grill and bumper of the car with her cane,  it made quite a racket, and sounded like a hale storm.  Instead of going across the street, she made a sharp left turn and continued down the side of the car banging and muttering all the way,  Seemed as if time had stopped,  we must have been behind her when the light changed.  It seemed such a long light she was moving so very slow except for the movement of that jack hammer candy cane pounding away, it sounded dreadful.  The male white driver of the car stuck his head out the window, after she got past his window she was barely moving down the side of his car, sticking he yelled at us. “get that lady away from my car”.  One of my buddies yelled back “She’s not my grandmother”.  To this day I remember the look on the drivers face and I suspect the old black lady with the jackhammer candy cane knew what she was doing, 

Raised in San Francisco, I had never really seen any racism until after I was stationed in Tennessee, I saw several glimpses of it while stationed there. In Memphis, even one of my fellow marines had been discriminated against, though at the time I did not know what it was.  He was a Mexican American from Texas,  Seems, things have not changed much in Memphis considering how Tennessee voted on the fourth of November.

Today is Chagall Day - It is a good day and in spite of the financial pigsty the world is in, is one that is more optimistic than it has been in a very long time for Americans.

Like many other famous artists, Marc Chagall is known by his last name.  One need only to say it in the company of others who know art and they know immediately his works in lithographs, etchings, oils and his stained glass works are considered by many the finest ever made.  He was a deeply religious man whose works often portrayed Jewish life.  He painted in the Expressionist style but beyond that is considered a leader of Fantastic Art and is often included among the Surrealists, using the most brilliant color and delightful fantastic imagery and adopting the fragmented forms of Cubism.  Although he himself did not consider his paintings literature, Chagall’s artworks are considered by many to be poems.  Arthur Joseph Kushner wrote a poem about Chagall’s poem paintings:

      Marc Chagall’s Poems
      Marc Chagall’s poems are better than his paintings.
      Even his paintings are better poems than they are paintings;
      more pictographic/poetic to look at—
      His own face half cow; martyrs of his village nailed to steeples.
      When he visited Yad Vashem and wrote,
      “I have been to the new temple,”
      he ended my search for the red heifer’s ashes.
      Now I’ll let the ashes in the basement
      settle on the altar, show the fingerprints,
      swirl into the breath of the sanctuary.

Art and society are often in a state of war and it is occasionally declared by particular artists, Daumier, Grosz, and Goya’s subversive and biting art, for example, that commemorated the Spanish people’s resistance to Napoleon’s army portraying their execution and the horrors of real war.  Picasso did this in his dramatic depiction of the grotesque bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War where terror got its most vivid illustration.

Chagall, as do many artists, also wrote poetry.  It is noted in many biographies but there are no examples of his poems available to the public.  Because of his unique use of color and dreamy quality of the imagery, his paintings are always called poem paintings.  Not escaping discrimination as a member of a despised minority, he was forced to resign his directorship of an art school in Russia and lived in exile for more than 50 years.  In spite of the miseries of Anti-Semitism, his artworks express love, joy, and exuberance and are said to represent a reconciliation between art and society. 

There is a somewhat dull but extended description of Chagall at the following website but it does show some bright examples of his beautiful works. 
http://www.rollins.edu/Foreign_Lang/Russian/chagall.html

He painted in various sizes as well as his printworks.  Some were 20x24 inches, others 36x48inches (The Flying Horse).  The self-portrait is large 50 1/8x42 1/8, oil on canvas.  A litho, The house in my village, is 12.75x9.84 inches.  The Blue Pirouette, a litho 14.37x10.63 inches may be purchased for a mere $18,000.  He also painted large scenery murals for the theater.  This fact might interest ITW.

By Leefeller, November 6 at 7:12 am #

Inspiration needs refreshment. Thanks for the art talk.
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Chagall painted in all sizes, from small lithos to large, vast areas.  He even worked in stained glass, replacing damaged windows in cathedrals in Metz, Mainz and Reims.  I’ve seen the Metz glass and they are wondrous.

Small, unsigned Chagall lithos can be had for a few thousand dollars—if you want one and look for it.  Signed ones start at about 3x as much.

I do enjoy Chagall..not everything he did (just most of it), but that’s true of anyone.

His grave in Saint-Paul de Vence is not at all flashy, and at least two family members are buried with him. People place pebbles on his tomb as a mark of remembrance.

Stupidity is a bottomless hole, genius has its limits.

There are scientists who cannot change the sparkplugs on their car and mechanics who cannot write a letter.  Teachers who after 6 years of college cannot teach and diplomats who only know war.

It’s shameful the amount of our national debt is held by foreigners, however, China and the rest of the world should spent those dollar denominated reserves before inflation devalues them.

@ Folktruther

http://www.yorkblog.com/yorktownsquare/102504-sub-w ar-ration-book.jpg

http://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/classic-car-images/r ation.jpg

http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question28144.html

We might see such lunacy as ration books. Britain was not fully off rationing goods until 1954. As for Obama, I see the elites extending police states measures for the national emergency. We’ll see such slogans as “Happiness…We are all in this together.” We’ll hear terrorism is a show of bad sportsmanship. Rahm Emmanuel will pronounce the failure of the 9 year War on Terror as beginner’s luck. My apologies to Terry Gilliam.

And the worst of it is, Paracelus, that their isn’t any solution under bi-partisan military imperialism.  the debt just keeps continuing until, as Chalmers Johnson says, the US will become effectively bankrupt.  As Britain did during WW2.

In which case anti-imperialist progressives must develop collapse preparedness.  this is the same type of strategy that the right wing used after shocks were administered to daze the population.  Except of course the population themselves must shake off the daze and pursue their own polices.

It is therefore necessary to develop and keep alive a narrative hisstorically until the political impossible becomes the politically inevitable.

What has held the USD up and why that’s going to change

http://www.kitco.com/ind/Laird/nov062008.html

The primary reason the USD has held up so well in the last decades, in spite of ever worsening US trade and budget deficits that add to over $1 trillion a year combined, is that the US was an export economy’s dream customer. Because the US was such a good customer to the world, they bought our US Treasury bonds, and lent trillions in other ways to the US consumer. As long as the US consumer could carry that process out, our trade partners could make bank on the US and USD.

However, once the US consumer is tapped out, and cannot effectively make a return on investment of our trade partners, the rationale for the continuation of the USD goes away. All that remains after that is a budget busted US Federal government. At that point, why would our trade partners continue to buy all the US treasury bonds and such, and debase their currencies, if the US cannot be such a good customer anymore? At that point, the USD will rapidly fall into a devaluation crisis.

None of us in the US has ever dealt with the twin threats coming our way in the next few years. The first is a real economic depression. The second will be the demise of the US dollar, or at the very least, its severe devaluation like 70% or more (at first).

I would like to point out that in the last great depression in the US in the 1930’s, we did not have a combination of a currency crisis with the economic crisis. The USD, although it fell compared to gold, held up well. Deflation increased the value of anything called cash, including gold.

This time, the outcome will be different. This time, the US faces an economic depression AND a currency crisis soon after. How far off is this?

Well, first, we are already well into the beginning of the economic depression. The damage done to the world credit and financial markets has been stunning since August 07. Over $35 trillion of value has been lost in the world financial markets. That has spilled over into the real economy now, and we will start to see bigger and bigger layoff notices. Economic demand will decline and we won’t see any mere one year recession, like all the pundits say ‘we foresee 5 quarters of economic decline in the US…’

This time we are talking on the scale of 5 years of economic decline and unemployment getting over 20%. The Great Depression lasted ten years, and the US had well over 25% unemployment. US economic production was halved!

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Please read the full article by Chris Laird. He has been very accurate about the economic crisis from the beginning.

Never seen Marc Chagall’s work up close and real, his intense use of color is fascinating. Are his works large?  Cannot find any information on the size in feet or inches.  Guess I need to learn how to convert metric or Russian to inches? 

Only seen his older works, pictures within pictures, must be a freedom and controlled feeling at the same time.  Seems a most extraordinary freedom of expression, Chagall certainly painted as he wanted expressing what he was seeing. One get’s tired of the sos.

Inspiration needs refreshment. Thanks for the art talk.

What precious stories Sepharad!  Thank you and I appreciated them. That was the best explanation of the Chagall I’ve ever heard!  I love the Marc Chagalls and even had an authentic litho in a gallery I managed once in California.  I’ve studied his works a bit.  His post impressionist style is soooo dreamy and surreal.  He is also known as Marc Shagall and Mark Zakharovich Shagal.  I remember seeing the Chagalls as a young woman and beginning to understand the Jewish people a little better.  I don’t know why I think that but I loved his works.  Maybe because they are so whimsical, dancing and Hassidic people, donkeys, cows, and goats flying in the air and he filled the image space with powerful iconic figures and used such vibrant colors.  I do love them.

I shall have to try to get to the St. Louis Museum.  Just to see what you saw.  The Spanish exhibition precautions is a sign of the hysteria that exists in the entire world.  Once, in 1972, in St. Peter’s Basilica, the Michelangelo La Pieta statue was vandalized by a mentally deranged geologist named Lazlo Toth who used a hammer and smashed at it ruining the nose and chipping it in a couple of places.to sustain certain damage on the features of the Virgin Mary. There was a huge controversy between the restorers and other museum dignitaries about whether to fix it or not.  Both sides had good points.  It was in the Italian papers for days.  After the sculpture, which was carved from one slab of marble, was painstakingly restored it was returned to its location and protected with a bullet-proof acrylic glass panel to prevent further damage from vandals.  The M-16 is a bit over the edge.  Funny story.  Loved your reply.

Well speaking of that kind of thing. one time on a visit to LACMA there was a Van Gogh exhibit that I was so mesmerized by that I admit to having put a fingerprint on one of the large farm field paintings.  I couldn’t help myself and am now very contrite and the guard said very loudly, DO NOT TOUCH THE ARTWORK!  Oh my gawd, I was mortified.  Both for the painting’s sake and for myself that I was unable to control myself.  Course now there are always barriers up to protect against mindless visitors like me!

I, for one am very pleased with the Democratic Congress and Democratic President and look forward to some real changes that now will be able to be made. It is going to be a very interesting new era.  We will see what happens.  At least there is some hope for a better world when there was none on November 3. 

And cyrena, your devotion to real causes is appreciated by many including me.  And let me know where to send that black shirt. I’ll get one for myself too!  P is sooo dramatic.  But then you are too, but I love it.  TD is realism theatre.  Go girl!

@ cyrena

Yep…and a shrink would have you locked up as a pervert Paracelsus. Even I’ve figured out that you are, and I’m not a shrink. All it takes is reading your posts over an extended period of time.

You’re a pretty scary dude…Hope the women in your community carry stun guns or know martial arts.

I think most people if they knew how you could lie and defame the way you do, would be scared witless over your behavior. There is nothing in my posting that would show any perversion. You use bald face accusations as convictions in your own mind. Your defamatory actions would make you at home with Cotton Mather or the Soviet system of show trials. It is your fanatic devotion to false causes that reminds me of an inquisitor of the old church. I suppose you could accuse me of many things like drinking the blood of small children. The accusation is so shocking at an emotional level that weak minded sorts could well believe you. You have that way of libeling people that reminds me of a leader of a pogrom. At heart Cyrena you have the passion of a street level black shirt thug. You have no shame or principle when it comes to defeating your enemies. It is frightening to me that anyone would could give you any credibility as an innocent human being could be bloodied by your unthinking rage.

”..I could get lost in the high-flying idealism of huge throngs of women emoting their gratitude that the nation’s salvation has arrived. I would probably be dating a lot young women if I attended the Obama meetups….”

~~~

Yep…and a shrink would have you locked up as a pervert Paracelsus. Even I’ve figured out that you are, and I’m not a shrink. All it takes is reading your posts over an extended period of time.

You’re a pretty scary dude…Hope the women in your community carry stun guns or know martial arts.

no,no Shenonymous, the vote proportions, even though the details are not finalized, are not irrelevant.  After the long night of Bush, and the chance of voting for Obama’s talent or against his skin color, the NYTimes estimated that the vote proportion would be slightly less than in 2004.  And the third party candidates got very few votes.  In San Francisco, Sheehan only got 20% of the vote against Pelosi.

This is an indication that Americans have withdrawn from the power process.  We suffered what political scientists call a loss of ‘effacy.’  People feel they have not ability to control the policies of the American government.  This is not good.

And it is difficult to know what institutions can be developed to increase the population’s power, since the unions have been destroyed by the bipartisan policies of globalization.  Which is not finished yet.  The increase of class inequality leaves people feeling powerless.  The Dem-Gop bloc have been successful in intimidating and atomizing the population.  While the fake left exults in promoting oppressive policies.

This election has been a disaster for the American people.

Wrong. Folktruther.  This art major was a math major before that and having earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy.  An all around student, I was a music major for quite a long time as well.  All that notwithstanding, you will be sorry to learn Leefeller that you don’t belong to the DWMs or SWMs (just to be sure we are still on topic, DWMs means Dumb White Males and SWMs means Stupid White Males, the distinction is negligible). 

And seems like Folktruther never learned how to prioritize either. Sigh, sometimes he makes sense and other times he just doesn’t.  Duh.  See Missouri and North Carolina votes have not yet been finalized, however they do list the number cast for each candidate on a separate page that still have to be added in with the totals already summed up for the rest of the country, which has not yet been done.  While all the write ins also have yet to be counted, the mail ins will need to be as well,

Of course you don’t have to believe in the truth fairy either and you don’t have to leave any truths under your pillow, cause it is iffy that any money will be left for any truths that fall out of your mouth.  But know this Leefeller, you are an elegant truth speaker.

130 million plus are expected in the final count, and hence the proportion of Americans who voted will go up as well.  Why not just let time tell the trooth, uh, truth.  But, see, it is really moot, because not only did Obama win by unprecedented numbers, he won, period, and that seems to be the only worthwhile point.  My wise old mamma used to say, miss it by an inch, miss it by a mile.  Discussing proportions is in reality, trivial.  It looks like sour grapes are on the menu.

Inherit, you poor boob, not all of Paracelus’s predictions need come true to undeerstand, as he does, that this election has been a disaster for the American people.  It consolidates the political counterrevolution of the Bushites.

Thank you, Folktruther. I could praise the turn of fortune that has change the birdcage liner for a fresh replacement. I could let myself go into the high toned speeches of Obama. It is very easy. I have emotions and sensibilities that are easily seduced by the Obama’s skillful stage craft. On the surface the man has charisma. I could get lost in the high-flying idealism of huge throngs of women emoting their gratitude that the nation’s salvation has arrived. I would probably be dating a lot young women if I attended the Obama meetups.
I would join with them in the facile condemnations of GW Bush. It would be so easy to ignore the misprisions and felonies of my own party, the Democrats. I would be well liked. On this forum on Truthdig, even Cyrena would think me a bright and wonderful guy if I would sing Obama’s praises. I have several black neighbors who would tell me to “Have a wonderful day in the Lord”, if only I would put Obama campaign stickers on my door. As it is I don’t voice any opinions on this election around my neighborhood. I must be crazy to be so dedicated to my own integrity.

Your right, Shenonymous, the Times figures did not include write- in ballots.  However the important point, which I don’t expect you to get since you are an art major, is not the total numbers but the proportion of votes in the totalnumber of possible votes.  And this is expected to be less in the 2008 election than in the 2004 election.

A lesser percentage of possible voters is expected to have voted in 2008 than in 2004.  Contrary to th