I’ve been asked if I watched the DNC Convention. I tried to watch some of it, but life and family took priority, and when I did manage to tune in, I had to change the channel after a few minutes. All the speeches are transcripted on the Internet, and I heard all the choice sound bytes later, on the radio. I have to ask, what country are these people living in? They obviously don’t live in the United States I was born and raised in, and which I would give my life to defend.

First, be sure that anywhere that appears the word “invest”, substitute “spend your tax dollars” (I found seven instances, between Hillary, Obama and Joe Biden).

I did see parts of it and saw Ward Churchill and his thugs shove around a Fox News Reporter, and then as I’ve heard the words come from the different speakers, I was struck by a clear (to me) parallel that I may not successfully explain. One of Stephen King’s early works was a novel called The Stand, first published in 1978, and finally made into a movie in 1994 starring conservative Gary “Lieutenant Dan” Sinise as Stu Redman.

It’s a pre and post-apocryphal novel where a biological warfare flu bug gets out of the research lab and wipes out most of mankind. There are scant thousands left who are inexplicably immune to the flu. These folks divide up into two camps, based on dreams of two characters. One is an evil character, not the devil himself, but perhaps a demon, named Randall Flagg, “the devil’s imp”. The other is a 100+ year-old black woman in Nebraska, named “Mother Abigail”.

A bit of King’s background is that he is a Democrat, and a recovering alcoholic. King’s stories are often populated with evil government intelligence, scientific, and research organizations (think black helicopters), and soldiers who are basically mindless thugs who won’t hesitate to brutalize civilians. I have a suspicion that King was sexually abused as a child, but I’ve never seen any overt admission by him. We write what we know, and he writes about a boy being molested by a pedophile posing as a “poleethman”.

A number of things combined at once to inspire King to write The Stand. There was a story about a Chemical/Biological Warfare (CBW) leak that had killed a bunch of sheep. There were SLA photos in which the then still at large Patty Hearst participated, featuring an apparently faceless Donald DeFreeze, and there was something he heard on the radio and had written down:

Once in every generation the plague will fall among them.

Flagg’s people migrated to Las Vegas, and Mother Abigail’s people migrated to Boulder Colorado. Flagg claimed that their society was superior because they had no homosexuals, no drug abusers, no adulterers… His band of goons wearing law officer badges crucified them all.

Well, that’s all very informative, but what’s the point? Just that Ward Churchill, surrounded by his black-shirted goons reminded me very much of Randall Flagg and his goons. Or for that matter, Hitler and his brown shirted goons. There were the repeating words of Dennis Kucinich, “Wake up America”! Surely Dennis Kucinich knows that “Wake up Germany” was a Nazi brown shirt slogan in 1936!

I am awestruck by the single breath contradictions, as I heard story after story of this person or that person who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and how Obama’s is the great American story—and in the same breath, America is racist, xenophobic, sexist, ageist, specist, controlled by the oil companies and the pharmaceutical companies, we have the worst economy since the great Depression, and no one can get ahead… and of course, it’s all George Bush’s fault! [YAWN!] It has nothing to do with the Democrats in Congress refusing to allow drilling for more oil, or with Bill Clinton having vetoed it when Congress did pass it. It has nothing to do with forcing mortgage lenders to practice “Affirmative Lending” by pointing out that there were more loans made to white people than to black people, and claiming that this directly correlated to racial discrimination by lenders.

When Hillary was talking about the Underground Railroad and said “When you see the torches in the forest, keep going!” can ANYONE tell me what the hell she was talking about, and what relevance it has to today? And they say the Republicans are stuck in the past?!?!?!?

I can never listen to Michelle Obama; she just makes my ears bleed. I cannot STAND her whining about how hard it is to be a mother and a housewife on $4.2 Million a year, or even on her Hospital Administrator salary of $260K a year. $260K isn’t a huge amount somewhere like SoCal, but in Illinois? But what did me in on her was the “For the first time in my adult life I’m proud of my country”, meaning there was never anything about this country to be proud of before Barack ran for President. And then Barack has the gall to say that we cannot criticize her after she bad-mouths this country.

Bill Clinton I expected to talk about the failed policies of the last eight years, blah, blah, blah party line, blah, blah, blah... He didn’t disappoint.

There was Dennis “The menace” Kucinich. What country do you live in Congressman? Up with this, up with that… I pride myself on keeping this “Family friendly”, but basically Congressman, up yours! Good God, get a clue about the country you live in and which you claim to represent!

Joe Biden I expected to take the party line as well, but to take it even further to the left than Bill/Hillary. He also did not disappoint. “When I got knocked down by guys bigger than me, she sent me back out and demanded that I bloody their nose so I could walk down that street the next day.” Apparently Senator Biden, you did not learn the lesson!

“We will hold Russia accountable for its actions, and we’ll help the people of Georgia rebuild.” How will you do that Senator Biden? The same way the UN held Saddam accountable?

The same way Madeline Halfbright and Jimmy Carter held North Korea accountable?

The same way the UN holds Sudan, Rwanda, Somalia, and Zimbabwe accountable?

The same way the vaunted “International Community” held Slobodan Miloševic accountable? (who would still be making a mockery of his years long trial if someone had not finally taken justice into their own hands (I suspect), and helped him to reach room temperature before we all died of old age).

By asking both sides to “show restraint” again?

By going to the UN and ask the Security Council (on which Russia has a veto vote by the way!), to pass 17 resolutions, each asking Russia to leave, each time saying “Pretty please? With sugar on top? Please get of out of Georgia!” and then “Alright Vladimir, we really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, REALLY mean it this time!”

“And I am here for everyone I grew up with in Scranton and Wilmington. I am here for the cops and firefighters, the teachers and assembly line workers—the folks whose lives are the very measure of whether the American dream endures.”

No Senator, you’re there for their union goons, and for those of their members foolish and naïve enough to believe the unions truly care about them!

And finally, Senator Obama, the messiah himself! Many are saying that it’s a great speech. Fine. Precious few are saying “It’s a great speech, but it’s a bunch of crap!” As usual, the Senator is short on specifics, but long on emotion, rhetoric and platitudes, and with some glaring omissions—like that he plans to dramatically raise taxes on higher income families and on corporations.

So you’re going to give 95% of all working families a tax cut. How are you going to do that Senator? Many of them don’t PAY taxes! Many of them get a US Treasury check each year between January and April for thousands of dollars above and beyond anything they might have paid in. Either you don’t know that and you’re a fool, or you do know it, and you’re making them an empty promise to get their votes. What are you going to do? Give them a BIGGER check?!?!?!?

He found it wasn’t received well when he said “And did I mention he’s black?” So he has new language "I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree". This is just code for “And did I mention he’s black?” The sad truth Senator, the only people who care are you, and all the rest of the genuine racists in this country, and they are a very small sliver these days.

“And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle-management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman.” But again, it’s the Republicans who are always accused of being stuck in the past.

To claim that McCain would not go after bin Laden if we knew what cave he is in, but that he, the messiah, Obama would magically accomplish everything that Bush has failed to do for eight years. Some words come to mind: hype, hyperbole, dishonest, exploit, uninformed, naïve, hubris…

I’m done with this. I sincerely hope that once Stanley Kurtz completes going through the seventy feet of file cabinets full of documents about Bill Ayers, and Barack Obama and the Weather Underground domestic antiwar and terrorist organization, Obama will be finished as a national politician. These people holler and whine about civil liberties and wiretapping, even as they themselves are trying to silence legitimate questions into Obama’s past and his associations with these confessed criminals and terrorists.