Connecting the Dots
by Glynn Wilson

As I woke up and smelled the coffee this morning and consulted the wires, the polls and Krystal Ball, it became obvious already what’s going to happen in the Presidential election of 2008.

So you may as well go ahead and place your bets now at PaddyPower.Com, or take us up on the Yuengling odds.

Krystall Ball has been a tad fuzzy on ‘08 so far, since it’s WAY too early to be talking about a presidential election that is more than a year and a half in the future.

But now, with Tennessee actor Fred Thompson’s announcement that he is “testing the waters” and will jump into the race by July 4, it is fairly obvious how this whole thing is going to play out.

Thompson Moves To White House Run

It’s Sen. Fred Thompson vs. Oscar winner Al Gore in ‘08.

What’s Krystall Ball’s reasoning?

Up to now, the Christian Right really hasn’t had anyone in the race to vote for.

Rudy Giuliani of New York, with his pro-abortion and gay rights record, would never have cut it in the conservative Republican primary.

And Sen. John McCain’s numbers have been way down in part due to his push for more troops in Iraq and in spite of his foray to the Falwell mountaintop.

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney could never carry the day, because the polls show the Christian Right will never vote for a Mormon. Sad but true. That’s the problem with this religious voting issue in the U.S.

Watch for the Karl Rove political machine, with the Bushes out of the way, to start painting Thompson as the next Ronald Reagan. He is a well-known Southerner from his days of playing the president in movies and a lawyer on TV and he has amassed a solidly conservative voting record in the U.S. Senate.

Hillary might have been able to beat Giuliani or even John McCain. But she hasn’t a prayer against Thompson. Sorry Bill.

As for why Al Gore will run, Krystal Ball says she doesn’t believe Gore when he says he is not running. He may not be in the race yet.

But when it becomes obvious from the polls that Hillary or Obama or even Edwards won’t be able to out-celebrity Thompson, the liberal bloggers will draft Gore and the Democratic Party hierarchy will have to go along or face losing in ‘08 - which could bring back talk of the party’s demise at the hands of Karl Rove.

Another interesting question is: Who will get the nod for Veep on the Democratic side?

Krystal Ball says it will most likely be Barack Obama, the popular black senator for Illinois, since chances are, Hillary would not be interested in being the first woman vice president without having Bill living in the White House as first hubby. Obama is young enough and new enough in American politics to take the Veep slot to position himself to run for president in the future.

But don’t place your Yuengling bet or Irish political bet on this one just yet. Krystall Ball needs to wait and see how everyone reacts to Thompson’s announcement around Independence Day.

The one other calculation is: Who will win in ‘08? Krystall Ball says the Democrats will still pull it out in a squeaker. It won’t come down to hanging chads in Florida this time or a few thousand stolen votes in Ohio. It will all come down to Louisiana, which will go Democrat no matter what due to the Bush administration’s handling of Katrina.

Bet against us if you dare. But the Thompson v. Gore match-up is a one Yuengling bet right now. It should be up to a six pack by the Fourth of July, when Thompson formally makes his announcement.

And that’s the word from Locust Forkland, where the river runs cold and true, the great blue herons dance like Elvis and the people like to shoot the breeze (and they are usually right).

The annual cleanup of Bankhead Lake will be held Saturday, June 2, from 8 a.m - noon at Buddy Vines Camp on the Locust Fork. There will be a free hot dog lunch served after cleanup.

What to bring:
- clothes you don’t mind getting dirty
- shoes you don’t mind getting wet
- sunglasses, hat, sunscreen, insect repellent
- work gloves
- dip nets

Directions from Birmingham:

Take I-59/20 West towards Tuscaloosa. Take exit #120 “Ensley Avenue 20th Street”.
Bear right at the bottom of the ramp. You are now on highway 269 and the mile markers start from “0″.
Follow this road straight for 15 miles to the 15 mile marker.
Just past the marker is an intersection with a BP gas station.
Turn left onto Short Creek Rd. Follow to dead end.
Turn left onto Alliance Rd. Go 1.2 miles to top of third hill and take a hard right onto “Buddy Vines Camp Rd”.
Follow main road 2.7 miles to camp.
Phone: 436-3430

For more information, contact Kellie Johnston (205) 264-8461 or Mark Meador (205) 553-9373.

America… just a nation of two hundred million (now 300 million) used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.
-Hunter S. Thompson

Cindy Sheehan, the soldier’s mother who galvanized an anti-war movement with her monthlong protest outside President Bush’s ranch, said Tuesday she’s done being the public face of the movement.

AP: Sheehan ‘Resigns’ As Protest Leader

Cindy Sheehan and Buddy Spell

Buddy Spell, a New Orleans lawyer, got to know Ms. Sheehan in 2004. We got to know him through the Internet at the same time. He has this story to tell about her departure from the protest stage.

At the time, in 2004, several Louisiana activists had established a resistance beach head in the Greater New Orleans Area to confront the war advocates regardless of whoever won the sham election in the coming November. Cindy contacted me seeking our endorsement of a new group she had organized called Gold Star Families for Peace.

I instantly sensed her strength, sincerity and passion. We became immediate friends.

About a year later, in June ‘05, Cindy came to Covington to visit following the Summer SOULstice action in New Orleans. At the time, we were organizing a Peace Train to DC for the mass protest set for September. Cindy was assisting us and would join the Louisiana Activist Network’s journey to the White House. Of course, two events, back to back, would change everything. At least for me….

Around August 3, 2005, she contacted me and told me that she would attempt to confront Bush at his pretend cowboy ranch in Crawford, Texas. She asked me to join her as legal counsel. The days and weeks which followed were some of the most rewarding of a fairly long and very exciting life. At Camp Casey, we stomped on the terra. It was brilliant. No regrets. Pure patriotic rebellion. The best.

Then came Katrina. She made landfall on the very day Camp Casey closed down. I came home immediately to begin to rebuild and the movement moved on…..

As things got stabilized at home and the war drug on, I signed on as legal counsel to Troops Out Now for the week of last spring’s March on the Pentagon. I came home bruised and disappointed…and tired of the uphill battle intrinsic to holding a mirror up to a society blind to its flaws. Without fanfare, I determined to take a sabbatical from the movement.

Glynn Wilson

Peace advocate Cindy Sheehan fires up a group of protesters at the intersection of U.S. Highways 11 and 90 as they are about to march toward New Orleans on March 18, 2006.

Thank God for Cindy Sheehan and the summer of ‘05. From those heady days of rebellion comes the strength to dust off and move onward. Her tour of duty is done … well done. She has suffered for the movement and has earned the right to slip away.

I could have never put up with the abuse she sustained from the pompous, disengenuous apologists and lock-steppers on the Right for as long as she did. They picked at every flaw, real and contrived, and attacked her with an unchristian ferocity which has been staggering. And she continued onward through it all.

Now, as she elegantly exits stage left, the pigs take one last, unnecessary shot. Well, as their Dear Leader has said in the halls of the Senate, they can go fuck themselves. Cindy Sheehan has, with all of her flaws, more humanity in an eyelash than these punks could ever garnish.

More power to her.

More power to us.

Cindy and I disagreed on tactics and political stuff all of the time. Constantly. We only agreed on that which was of primary importance…a yearning for a peaceful and just homeland. She remains my friend and fellow warrior. And, dare I say, a hero.

My rest is about over and preparations for the next “Big One” now begin.

See you at the DNC in Denver next summer. The Democrats have bitten the hand which fed them. Let’s bite back.

Oh, and I’ll bet Cindy will be there too.

No doubt about it….

ONWARD!

Buddy Spell

The Alabama Department of Homeland Security has finally caved in to pressure from civil liberties activists and taken down a Web site that included environmentalists, animal rights advocates, abortion opponents, libertarians, gay rights activists, anti-war organizations and even those who oppose gun control and a strong federal governmentin in a list of groups that “could” or “might” include or spawn dreaded domestic “terrorists.”

We reported this story on May 10, well before the Associated Press got around to telling people about it - after it was taken down: http://www.homelandsecurity.alabama.gov/tap/home.htm.

We’ve also been saying that this would happen for years, and posted a column on it almost two years ago on June 5, 2005 under the headline: Everyone Who Opposes Bush Is A Terrorist?.

See? You can beat City Hall - or even an Imperial President’s loyal minions in a fucked up state like Alabama where the masses mostly accept this abuse of their rights now in the name of the God of security.

Is the Roman goddess of security, Securitas, turning over in her grave?

Connecting the Dots
by Glynn Wilson

TUSCALOOSA, Ala., May 27 - If it is too hot to paint here on the verge of what promises to be a classic global warming summer of heat waves, droughts and forest fires, imagine how it must feel in the deserts of Iraq trying to fight an unpopular, unwinnable war.

And think of how hot it must feel in Washington, D.C. for those trying to find a way out of the war and get Americans to pay attention to the news on global warming and stop driving gas guzzling SUVs everywhere they go.

A recent study showed that only when gas prices reach $4.48 a gallon will a change take place in the U.S. car culture.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans do not pay much attention to politicians or the media. And you almost can’t blame them, considering the double-sided bullshit that passes for knowledgeable information pumped out by PR men everyday.

Rather than paying attention to serious news, many Americans do seem to pay attention to TV shows like “Family Guy” on Fox, a show that makes fun of their nuclear family lives.

“Family Guy” is an Emmy award winning animated television series about a family in the suburbs of Quahog, Rhode Island, created by Seth MacFarlane in 1999.

It holds the distinction of being the first cancelled show to be resurrected based on DVD sales in 2005 after it was canceled in 2002.

Most episode titles of the show are parodies of movies, popular slogans and television shows, and for the first half of the first season, the writers tried to work the words “murder” or “death” into the title of every episode to make the titles resemble those of old-fashioned radio mystery shows. They quit when it became too hard to keep up with the limited range of titles.

TV critics panned the show, and for good reasons, Not the usual family-values based reasons of too much gratuitous violence, sex or profanity.

Entertainment Weekly seems to have an ongoing war with the show, leading to an episode in which the main character and dysfunctional dad Peter wiped his ass with a copy of the magazine when he ran out of toilet paper.

In another recent episode, a big, fat woman flirts with Peter at a party and says, I kid you not, “Do you like my ass? Would you eat cake off my ass?”

We know President George W. Bush doesn’t watch TV news, but if he had time to watch TV at all, I bet he would laugh at that joke and maybe think to himself or tell Condi, “Hey, that’s a great line. Think I’ll use it. Let them eat cake off my ass. Ha. Ha.”

The show has also been panned using premises and humor very similar to “The Simpsons,” where the writers have taken their own jabs at “Family Guy” on the same network. The show was mocked in a two-part episode of South Park. The cast called “Family Guy’s” jokes interchangeable and said their frequent “cutaway gags” had no place in the storyline.

The show is at its best when it makes fun of politicians, the media and even the Fox network.

In a recent show, a character resembling George Bush falls off the wagon, gets drunk and runs around naked on a putt putt golf course. In the season finale, the character Death tells Peter he has had a busy day: “Dick Cheney, the president of Haliburton, shot Justice Scalia in a hunting accident and the bullet went through him and killed Scooter Libby and Tucker Carlson.”

In the 400th episode of “The Simpsons,” little Lisa tried to get people to understand the contradiction between the conservative Fox News and the often irreverent Fox TV.

“They just don’t match,” she said.

Which is much like a lot of real family life in the U.S. It is sometimes hard to understand the disconnect between people’s “beliefs” and “actions.”

But maybe that’s why it seems too easy for the mass public to be manipulated by lying politicians, who toy with the line between belief and action all the time, and crass commercial capitalists, who make billions fooling some of the people enough of the time.

Beliefs don’t mean shit. It’s what we know that matters.

It’s just that you can’t get away with saying it on the stump or in the news. Sometimes you can only find the truth in satirical animated TV shows - or maybe on blogs these days.

But there are some things you can’t even get away with on a blog. Does anyone doubt that the Bush-Gonzales Justice Department would spring into action if one were to suggest that Cheney AND Scalia should be shot?

Just kidding Alice. When I say shot, I mean with a camera, not a gun.