Saturday Blonde, Etc.

By Quasistatic, subject to a creative commons license.

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There are two kinds of posts on Visions. First, there are my serious comments. Thoughtful, usually utterly brilliant, these little gems of prose elucidate some aspect of Flickr, photography or our frenetic culture. Nobody reads these posts, but I enjoy writing them.

Second, there are my pathetic attempts to goose VISIONS  hit count. These post offer little text but a healthy dose of Flickr  pulchritude or links to Flickr  images sure to satisfy the prurient interests of juvenile men and boys (think the various Big Tits posts). These posts garner a greater number if hits, but aren’t as satisfying to create.

So, today I  offer both. Two Flickr CC photos of comely women AND a rambling pontification on the state of American culture. Aren’t you thrilled?

As your typical bleeding heart, secular-humanist, elitist, lefty liberal, I am of course wildly disappointed with President Obama. What stirred my heart in 2008 and rekindled my hope government could once again become a source of public beneficence  rather than merely a tool of corporate culture has proved false. How’s that for a pompous sentence!??

While the list of Obama’s sins seems to grow longer every day, one of the worst is his continuation of the erosion of  of our Constitutional liberties. First, and by far the most important, has been his utter failure to deal with Bush’s torture apparatus. By not investigating and prosecuting the architects and practitioners of America’s gross violations of law (both domestic and international), Obama has institutionalized enhance interrogation. While he claims we no longer torture (but how do we know?), he has left the door wide open for future presidents to resume or even extend the Bush policies. After all, the future apologists for torture we claim, it must be legal since no one was prosecuted for the Bush administration’s waterboarding and other acts of torture.

Equally disappointing as his failure to fully repudiate the crimes of the past is Obama’s embrace and even extension of Bush’s terrorist policies. Your government now claims the right to intercept your mail, monitor your internet activity and even invade your home – all without a warrant or even probable cause, Your government now takes the position that should you be out of the country and it believes you are a terrorist it can kill you. No trial, no judicial review, just extermination based solely on the President’s say. Frankly, it seems a very easy stretch to justify the same policy for domestic terrorists. If the government can assassinate you in Canada then why not in Kansas?

Domestically, the President’s failure to stand up for Democratic values and his near  constant retreat in the face of Republican intransigence is more than depressing. By failing to promote progressive health care policy in the beginning of the debate (medicare for all), he ended up with an arcane, nearly incomprehensible, health care bill that despite some good features, was largely a giveaway to private insurance companies.  Indeed, his plan was largely the same as policies promoted by Republicans during the Clinton healthcare debacle. His capitulation in the face of Republican demands  of the Bush tax cuts for millionaires was maddening.  His abandonment of any further serious attempt at economic stimulus and embrace of Republican demands for dramatic budget cuts is an abandonment of what I thought would be his role as a defender of the  middle and lower classes. With the greatest economic downtown in nearly eighty years, with high unemployment, Obama has now doomed American workers to higher level of economic distress for years to come in his turn away from any progressive attempts to use the government to kick start the economy or soften the hammer blows raining down on ordinary working people.

I could go on, but I won’t. This post is too long as it is. The saddest part of all this is there is literally nowhere to turn. Whatever may be true about Obama, the Republicans are infinitely worse. Given the truly insane condition of the Grand Old Party, I genuinely shudder to think of America refashioned by Tea Party zeal.

Oh well…. Here’s another sexy photo to take your mind off our woes, foreign and domestic:

Image by  Chepe Nicoli, subject to a creative commons license.

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FLICKR group: Sexy in the Kitchen

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