I was around 16 or 17 qnd he impressed me as one hell of a good guy.

He spoke extensively of the "shit-in" and the "fart-in". His point was that the threat of an action was frequently all that was needed to get the other side to cave.

For the "shit in, he was going to send about 5,000 people to O'Hare airport in Chicago. He knew that 5,000 people marching there would barely be noticed. What he did was get 1 woman for each stall in the ladies' rooms and 1 man for each stall in the mens's rooms and about 6 guys for each urinal. The people in the stalls would bring books and magazines and just stay there. Each man would stand at the urinal for 15 to 20 minutes and go to another rest room and get in line there. According to him, Mayor Daley started negotiating after just hearing of this.

For the "fart-in", it was to get Eastman Kodak to the negotiating table. The mere threat of the "fart-in" did so.

The interviewer related how Saul ended every evening by saying "We're really gonna fuck 'em tomorrow" as a way of getting people to stay psyched up.

One of the stories was how a city council, upon hearing that he may come to town, passed a resolution and sent him a length of rope suggesting that he hang himself. He sent them a box of diapers.

It IS typical of the rethugs to make a dead person their target. Saul Alinsky has been gone for nearly 40 years. Of course, someone that very few people are aware of is MUCH easier to demonize!

Of course, the rightists indignation fits perfectly into my general rule of thumb stateing that if someone pisses off all of the right people, they've got to be good!

I hope that this gives a little bit of info. I'm sorry that I have so little to share.

PEACE!

Apparently some of those "expert" pundits are relaying that many in the republican establishment are now considering President Obama as very hard to beat after the SOTU last night.

I'm so glad that they are giving us the benefit of their 2.1 broadcast school GPA experience to state the obvious.

I believe that the republican establishment may soon start seeing advantages to gingrich taking a whalloping over bain romney getting HIS ass handed to him.

1. It isn't unusual for a party that knows that losing an election is inevitable to let an older person with no political future take the loss and save someone WITH a future FOR the future. Think bob dole in 1996.

2. It would be very satisfying personally for the many republicans who detest gingrich to see him get clobbered by the black guy they hate. It would also certainly prove to the racist base that he can't "keep them in their place".

3. They could purge the teabaggers. Certainly the establishment is starting to see that this was a marriage made in hell that they're starting to sincerely regret. Since it's well known that bain romney doesn't like the baggers, his loss wouldn't accomplish that. There is precedent for this. It happened with the republicans after the 1964 election and to us after the 1972 election. Party establishment will frequently use a humiliating loss to clean house of the perceived extremists. The republican establishment knows that they MUST move closer to the center if they want to see the inside of the White House again from any angle other waiting to shake the President's hand in a reception line.

Let me add here that I was a McGovernite in 1972. On the one hand, The centrist/moderate Democratic leaders were very unfair in their judgements of George McGovern. On the other hand we WERE obnoxious.

Anyway, that's my perspective. I've run it up the flagpole. Maybe some of you will salute, maybe some of you will pee on the pole.

PEACE!

Let's review. bain romney has never been able to catch fire with the republican teabagger base. Every 4 minutes it seems, there emerges another "non-romney" alternative. While that alternative usually flames out fairly quickly (or in the case of little ricky santorum, leaks out), they always seem to be there. Certainly this would indicate a desire for someone other than willard to take up the bagger banner and get his ass resoundingly thumped in November.

If we take a look at the most politically successful or popular with the far right base republicans in recent elections, you see a pattern. They were freaking mean.

Remember the constant smear campaign against Michael Dukakis in 1988? Remember all of the george w moron crap pulled against both Al Gore and John Kerry? Remember the mcsame/palin(comparison) rallies?

bain romney, who is saturated with smarm and complacency, does attempt to affect an air of sincerity and attempts (badly) to come off as a regular guy. little ricky santorum always acts like the jack off kid in high school who instigates fights and them stands on the sidelines giggling while the other kids punch the daylights out of each other.

"tiffany's" gingrich is just one plain old MEAN AND NASTY CRACKER JERK.

He not only accepts this about himself, he REVELS in it with glory, and the republican/bagger base loves him for it.

This is the man who served his first wife divorce papers while she was in the ICU recovering from cancer. This is the man who served his first mistress/second wife with divorce papers after she was diagnosed with MS. This is the man who started his fortunately brief tenure as Speaker of the House with 2 separate Government shut downs due to his sheer petulance over being required to exit Air Force One from the back exit when he rode to a state funeral with President Clinton. He believed it was his right to leave the President's plane side by side as an equal. This is the man who was all for the impeachment of President Clinton over lying about a BJ as he was lying about geting BJs from the second mistress/third wife/unlikely first lady and GOD knows who else.

Can ANYBODY here remember ANY sincerely nice thing to come out of "tiffany's" gingrich's mouth in the last 30 years that didn't have at least the underlying meanness to it? I certainly can't!

The far right republican/bagger base not only doesn't care about him being a mean bastard and a lying hypocrite, they LOVE him for it.

Why not?

These are the same people who screamed "kill him" about President Obama at the mcsame/palin(comparison) rallies in 2008. They screamed "they should die" about women who got pregnant from a rape as an alternative to abortion. They cheered the execution of a likely innocent man in Texas. They cheered the notion of allowing an uninsured American to die. They boo'd a gay soldier who was serving in a war that THEY fully supported but considered their lives too valuable to serve in that war themselves.

These are the same people who've called people like me, who opposed the Vietnam war, communists, traitors, "long haired hippies" and too many names to mention since (in my personsl experience) 1967 when I was just short of 12. Of course, let's remember that they considered their lives to be too valuable for that war, too. These are the children and grandchildren of the far rightits who hated Charlie Chaplin for being too hard on HITLER in "The Great Dictator".

These are the same people who, after the 1992, 1996 and 2008 elections, believed that they lost because their candidates weren't far enough to the right.

They are clueless and they are stupid and they are racist homophobes and THEY ARE MEAN! They will be only too happy to back a clueless, stupid, racist homophobic and mean candidate. gingrich IS that man. I don't think that they can conceive of the notion that their clueless, stupid, racist homophobic and mean candidate losing because their views are so completely out of touch with mainstream American values to be electable.

That's what happens when you get all of your information from faux news, hannity, coulter, limbaugh, beck and their odious ilk.

Bastard that he is, bain romney is simply not mean enough. little ricky santorum will stick to romney's and gingrich's butts until he gets wiped out (or, more likely, wiped off). Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think I am.

THAT is scary.

PEACE!

I think that he knew EXACTLY what he was going to get by opening the debate with that question. I think that he fully intended to throw that soft ball SPECIFICALLY to get the bagger base on their feet.

I don't care about the line of crap that the political "experts" on cable tv dispense to us based on their stellar 2.1 broadcast school GPAs and their almost total lack of knowledge of political/electoral history. They know that this is shaping up to be a very one sided general election. They want this republican circus to go on as long as possible. Now that bain romney is starting to make rick perry look like a silver toned orator and President Obama is showing signs that he is going to be fully in his stride, the last thing the media wants is a general election campaign that begins in January.

John King, IMHO, fully intended for newtie to launch his verbal missles. He, as well as the rest of the media, wants this to go on. They were given a gift by Iowa. They are starting to downplay bain romney's NH win ("after all, it WAS in his backyard". A gingrich win in SC would be the gravy they crave. They'll be only too happy to say that it's "historic", having 3 winners of the first 3 contests.

As we've seen with the media in recent years, they don't want to report the story, they want to either make the story or be the story.

King's question last night reminded me of the 1988 debate where Michael Dukakis was asked about his opinion of the death penalty if Kitty were raped and murdered. THAT question was designed to humiliate. King's question was designed to give the open marriage/family values candidate the wide opening that it apparently did.

How do I, as a Democrat, feel about this prolonged death march of republican candidates? I say BRAVO! The old axiom is that when your opponent is trying to hang himself, let him have as mush rope as possible and make sure that the springs on the trap door are well oiled!

I'll be happy to supply as much help as needed for these teabagger party candidates and their followers to do all the self hanging they can.

Nooses anyone?

PEACE!

...that willard's coronation will never hapen and we'll be able to contribute to newt "open marriage" gingrich taking the thumping that he so richly deserves.

bain romney has never been a darling to the rethug base. He has also been going out of his way to figuratively shoot himself in the foot with every stupid statement that comes out of his mouth. He simply has an air of smarm that simply can't be washed off because it is just TOO ingrained.

I know that the "experts" keep singing the "bain romney is inevitable" song. The "experts" don't know their collective ass from a whole in the ground.

"Experts" told us that Nelson Rockefeller was inevitable in 1964. They said that Ed Muskie was inevitable in 1972. They forecast a tight battle between Scoop Jackson {Ugh} and Birch Bayh in 1976. John Glenn was the heavy early favorite in 1984. bush senior was heavily favored to win a second term in 1992.

Remember when Bill Bradley was going to give Al Gore a hard way to go in 2000? Remember how the Hillary vs. rudy was the predetermined matchup {with rudy's inevitable victory} in 2007?

I was a volunteer in George McGovern's campaign in 1972. I am sensing the same mood in the air as then. The only difference is that Ed Muskie was at least 10,000 times the man that bain romney is or ever will be.

I may be wrong. I probably am wrong. It won't be the "experts" that convince me that I am, though.

This election is going to be a masive self-inflicted disaster for the republican party. If there were any such creatures as republican moderates, I'd believe that they want the baggers to get a thumping so they can purge them from the party. However, since they've so fully embraced the bagger movement (which, IMHO, is just an extension of the mcsame/palin{comparison} rallies but on steroids), I don't really know where they'll go from here.

I don't really care. For the time from here to Election day my focus is to get President Obama a second term. Hopefully with the Congressional majorities that the "experts" now say is impossible.

PEACE!

Today, January 14, 2012 is 22 years that I've been in recovery from the disease of alcoholism.

Today, January 14, 2012 is 14 years since my wonderful and beautiful wife last smoked a cigarette. She timed it deliberately to coincide with the anniversary of my sobriety.

When we were married on August 15, 1998, we were both alcohol and tobacco free. My wife has the occasional beer, wine or mixed drink but that's ok. She isn't an alcoholic. I am. I've always considered it my responsibility to not drink, not others' responsibility to refrain in front of me.

My joke to others is that I stopped because I got tired of trying to take my pants off over my head. The reality is that I had friends who would occasionally tell me that my drinking was a severe problem. I would tell them to perform anatomically impossible acts of procreation on themselves. My hit bottom was that one night, while passed out on my living room floor, I woke up momentarily to the sight of a rat about a foot away from my nose munching on a Burger King wrapper that I'd just dropped at my ass.

My house was a total mess. My life was a total mess. Professionally I was OK, because I was what I refer to as a Daryl Porter alcoholic. Porter was a very good catcher for the Kansas City Royals and the Saint Louis Cardinals who was an alcoholic . His teammates supposedly had NO IDEA he was an addict. I worked with Drug and Alcohol counselors who had NO IDEA that I was a drunk.

The scary thing was that I had NO IDEA that the life I was leading was ANY DIFFERENT than anyone else's. A rat chewing on a Burger King wrapper a foot away from your nose can change you perspective REALLY FAST.

Sometimes, but not very often, I think that a beer would be nice. I won't gamble my sobriety and recovery on it though. I believe that my wife would forgive ONE setback. She has confirmed that much. My goal is to not put that to the test. One secret to an active addiction (at least mine) is that it leads to a lot of other negative behaviors. In my case the primary consequences were massive overeating and very excessive pornography.

I met the woman who became my wife when I was sober for 7+ years. At one time the primary thing keeping me from picking up again was my fear (not fear, TERROR) of going back to that life style again. Now my primary reason for not picking up again is the woman who loves me so much that she , unbeknownst to me, decided to stop smoking on my recovery's anniversary. My primary reason for not picking up again is a young man who will be 12 in March who looks up to me as an example of what a man should be. A few beers or shots would NEVER make the loss of my wonderful family even remotely worth it.

Thank you for letting me share. Thank you for reading. Hosts, if this is in the wrong forum, please feel free to move. I won't be upset or angry. I'm simply grateful for the opportunity to share in a forum of like minded people.

PEACE!

When I look at bain romney and see that reptilian look of smug complaisance I have a reaction that I never expected to have.

I miss george w moron's smirk.

When I look at bain romney's smarmy affect of the smooth talking swindler I have a reaction that I never expected to have.

I believe that I'm looking at someone who makes richard m nixon look seem a man of integrity.

Now, before some of the more strident members of this community rear up in their indignity and start screaming that I'm a closet republican, let me establish some of my bona fides. The first political campaign I worked in was stuffing envelopes for Robert Kennedy's presidential run in 1968. I was 12 (almost 13) when Bobby was murdered. One of many painfully hard days in my life has been the day I went in to help shut down the office after the shooting. I campaigned for George McGovern in five primary state at 16/17 in 1972, busting my ass canvassing and calling during the general election in 1972 long after it was clearly a hopeless case. I campaigned for Mondale/Ferraro in 1984, Dukakis in 88, Clinton in 92 & 96, Gore in 00, Kerry in 04 and Obama in 08. Add to this several Senate, House and Gubernatorial candidates, the most recent bring Libby Mitchell here in Maine in 2010. the honor of that one was that my 10 year old son campaigned with me.

I am NOT a closet rightist.

The irony I see is that with passing time, each rethug candidate actually gets worse! Each rethug candidate reaches a low that I can't fathom being surpassed, and then 4 years (or in the unfortunate case of a rethug victory, 8 years) later it happens.

Look at a brief history of republican presidents in my lifetime. I won't count IKE because I was 5 when he left office and he was of an entirely different species than the more contemporary crop. Also Ford was simply a better person than most of his party.

nixon was a total thief who was surpassed by reagan's almost total senility. reagan's senility was surpassed by bush senior's efforts to erase the fact of his being a total cypher by starting 2 wars, one of which was during the transition period after getting his ass kicked out of office. I thought that the total slime and sleaze of the cheney/bush "administration" was the nadir, but how wrong I was.

We are now confronted with the likelyhood of a rethug nominee who has a manner about him that would have the fathers of the girls he dated as a teen on high alert. He acts like the used car salesman that makes you want to run to the next dealership with your hand on your wallet. He acts like the con artist who endears himself to your family and then disappears with the content of all your savings accounts. He's the shitty boss who knows that you know he's lying and feels entitled to your trust and loyalty anyway.

He acts like a job destroying venture capitalist who gets indignant after he's caught in his life long web of lies and deceit.

If he is their nominee, I want him to lose VERY BADLY! I want him to lose very badly partly because we have a president who heartily deserves re-election and partly because bain romney deserves a MASSIVE repudiation.

He deserves it for his horrid policies, but he also deserves it for his aforementioned smarmy look of smugness and self-entitlement.

PEACE!

...and quite possibly overpriced at that!

IMHO, last night little ricky santorum did to bain romney what George McGovern did to Ed Muskie in New Hampshire in 1972.

Back then, Muskie was the annointed front runner and definite establishment choice. In a matter of a few weeks, McGovern went from being an asterisk to a contender for a "strong finish" to a narrow defeat that stole all of the headlines from Muskie's victory. At one point Muskie was favored to win by 30+% and McGovern came within about 7%.

Now I don't expect that little ricky will be able to actually pull out the nomination (frothy or not), but after New Hampshire 1972, nobody expected that of McGovern either. The party establshment certainly did all it could do to prevent his nomination. They sure as hell didn't support him in the General Election either.

One thing that last night clearly shows is that bain romney is a very weak frontrunner.

If, by some miracle, little ricky IS their nominee, I only hope that he, who is one of the truest little shits I've ever seen in politics, gets the same beating that George McGovern (one of the most decent and honorable men I'v ever met in public life) took. McGovern didn't deserve to be electorally humiliated the way he was. little ricky destrves it to a "T".

Of course, one consolation to McGovern is that, given the aftermath for both he and tricky dickie, we learned that there are worse things that can happen in life than losing an election. Of the 2 men, whose post election life would YOU have rather had?

PEACE!