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You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Readership Capture / If I don’t do it, somebody else will

If I don’t do it, somebody else will

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Two guilty pleasures:

(1) You can read Matt Stoller’s latest anti-Obama polemic here. My two cents: Stoller would be more convincing if he had less personal animus against Obama. Elsewhere, he’s done a lot of “Obama is a jerk” type stuff that undermines his professed status as a principled Burkean progressive. I get a little bit of a Hitchens-in-training vibe. Next stop: Vanity Fair and Slate. There’s always room for anti-Democratic apostates there.

(2) What are the best disaster songs? Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Galveston, Louisiana 1927. What else? Does When the Levee Breaks count?

Reader Interactions

240Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    My two cents: Stoller would be more convincing if he had less personal animus against Obama.

    But exactly how much of a racist is he?

  3. 3.

    Joey Maloney

    Does When the Levee Breaks count?

    How could it not – the only question is, Mississippi John Hurt, or Zep?

    It’s The End of the World As We Know It. Too obvious?

  5. 5.

    Baud

    What are the best disaster songs?

    The forthcoming Gangnam style parody that someone will make with Hurricane Sandy video.

  6. 6.

    piratedan

    Bee Gees – NY Mining Disaster comes to mind…. also too, The Doors – Riders on the Storm seems strangely appropriate now…

  9. 9.

    Raven

    I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel
    I was staring in my empty coffee cup
    I was thinking that the gypsy wasn’t lyin’
    All the salty margaritas in Los Angeles
    I’m gonna drink ’em up

    And if California slides into the ocean
    Like the mystics and statistics say it will
    I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill

  10. 10.

    RedKitten

    I can’t make light this with music, especially with “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” The HMS Bounty sank today, and the captain is missing, along with one of the crew members. I can’t even imagine what their families are going through right now.

  12. 12.

    Hill Dweller

    Obama’s reasoning for canceling his scheduled campaign trips is obvious, but why did Willard and Eddie Munster cancel their campaign stops? They have no responsibilities in terms of managing the response. Is it just optics?

  14. 14.

    canuckistani

    High Water Everywhere, by Charley Patton.
    Delta Blues is an appropriate musical response to disaster.

  16. 16.

    Citizen_X

    a principled Burkean progressive

    Heh. Nicely done.

    And yeah, I think When the Levee Breaks wins by a mile. But I’ll give second to Howlin’ Wolf, The Natchez Burnin’. Gotta love a song about a whorehouse burning down.

  18. 18.

    vestigial

    @Joey Maloney: Where in the northeast do we have levees? I’m honestly not familiar with any, probably because everything’s above sea level and/or I am ignorant on many matters.

  19. 19.

    Summer

    And maybe Stephin Merrit’s “Plague Songs” is itself a contender, but individually I’d propose “Blood,” “Lice,” AND “Glittering Cloud.”

  21. 21.

    ...now I try to be amused

    Man, Obama must have kicked Stoller’s cornflakes, fucked his dog, and pissed on his SO.

  23. 23.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @Hill Dweller:

    Obama’s reasoning for canceling his scheduled campaign trips is obvious, but why did Willard and Eddie Munster cancel their campaign stops? They have no responsibilities in terms of managing the response. Is it just optics?

    Because the boys who want to get rid of FEMA want to look oh so concerned.

  25. 25.

    Michael

    Yes, liberals and progressives ought to be taking advice on effecting long term political change from this guy:

    Open Is Done, by Matt Stoller, Sept 12, 2007

    To win in 2008, you have to find a base of support that is bigger than the other person’s base of support. Barack Obama has not done that, and will probably not do that. The Clinton campaign has down up establishment support, but has not locked down progressives. Only a strategy that brings progressives, African-Americans, and young people can block a Clinton nomination, and that requires a real withdrawal strategy on Iraq and some real leadership. Obama, with his recent speech and his Oprah obsession, has now made it quite clear that his strategy is targeted at elites and that he will not pull this coalition together.

  29. 29.

    YellowJournalism

    I know CCR “Bad Moon Rising” is obvious, but some of the lyrics really hit the mark in this context.

  33. 33.

    pillsy

    I’ve always had a soft spot for Tool’s “Aenema”:

    Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA
    The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
    Any fucking time. Any fucking day.
    Learn to swim, I’ll see you down in Arizona bay.

    Some say a comet will fall from the sky.
    Followed by meteor showers and tidal waves.
    Followed by faultlines that cannot sit still.
    Followed by millions of dumbfounded dipshits.

  34. 34.

    burnspbesq

    “Down in the Flood,” which I think is on The Basement Tapes. There is a good cover version on the first Blood Sweat & Tears album after David Clayton-Thomas left the band.

  35. 35.

    Election Follower

    With only EIGHT DAYS LEFT until President-Elect Romney, there is a new poll in Ohio showing Romney AHEAD FOR THE FIRST TIME hot on the heels of another gold-standard in-state poll from Cincinnati showing the election all tied up.

    AND THE FIX has now moved Minnesota from Solid to ONLY LEANS Obama.

    Pennsylvania is also coming into play!

    Looking like the last week of the 1980 Election out there, folks…

  36. 36.

    trollhattan

    @Hill Dweller:
    Optics. They’re bent on looking presidential. I expect lots of furrowed manly brows and the donning of the rubber boots and the handing out of the bottled water, somewhere with a nice backdrop.

  38. 38.

    vestigial

    DougJ: What do you mean by “Hitchens-in-training”? You mean by turning on your former political allies (a la Iraq) or biting prose? Definitely possible on the former, very rare on the latter. Will we see a book on “Why Herbert Hoover Matters”?

  40. 40.

    Will

    Look I’m no Obot or a firebagger, Hilary & Obama are far too “centrist” for me. I honestly wish the President was half the socialist his enemies think he is. We needed and still need a FDR not an Eisenhower on Valium. Whoever believes Romney is going to go soft on pot smokers and lay off the drones is fat too stupid to breathe let alone vote.
    So I’ll probably vote for Obama unless my finger twitches and vote for Jill Stein

  41. 41.

    trollhattan

    @Election Follower:

    From watching the World Series, I understand Taco Bell has a Doritos Taco(r) special. Can you elucidate? I would also, too, subscribe to your newsletter please like.

  43. 43.

    ? Martin

    Might be my least favorite Green Day song, but “Wake Me Up When September Ends” should count.

  45. 45.

    different-church-lady

    What’s the one where they’re trapped in a mine and eat one of the guys and then the record company tried to say it was really a Mule they ate?

  46. 46.

    Beatrice

    I will just note that none of the prominent purity advocates appears to have a functioning uterus.

  49. 49.

    jl

    I’m getting the age where I can see Happy Birthday as a short sweet little disaster song. No there yet, but best to think long term ahead in these parlous times. And prepare.

  52. 52.

    jibeaux

    @RedKitten: Such a terrible story. Off the coast of Hatteras, which while I wouldn’t want to be there, I would’ve thought that would be outside the really dangerous areas to be, in a boat as big as that. Very unfortunate.

  55. 55.

    The Red Pen

    Dandy Warhol’s “Wreck” (Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald) is really, really good. Ten minutes long, also too.

  56. 56.

    red dog

    I agree; Johnny Cash’s “How high’s the water Mama?Five feet high and Risin” seems to fit this storm.

  58. 58.

    Hill Dweller

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    Because the boys who want to get rid of FEMA want to look oh so concerned.

    Obama isn’t doing any campaigning because he actually has responsibilities, but the VP and his surrogates are still making campaign stops.

    Willard and Eddie Munster have no responsibilities. Their campaign is still going full tilt on TV. Why stop doing campaign stops? What are they actually accomplishing?

  62. 62.

    Democrat Partisan Asshole

    Next stop: Vanity Fair and Slate.

    I get the feeling he’s headed straight to Fox. There’s a little too much rage, or whatever, for him to land at a respectable news outlet.

  63. 63.

    Brachiator

    You can read Matt Stoller’s latest anti-Obama polemic here

    So, who is the candidate that progressives are supposed to vote for?

    But then again, American progressives are even more irrelevant than being a Lib Dem in the UK, or a Tory in Scotland.

  64. 64.

    Chris

    My two cents: Stoller would be more convincing if he had less personal animus against Obama.

    I’m blanking on who Stoller is and if I’ve ever read him before right now, but for my money, a lot of conservatives and “Burkean Moderates” would be more convincing if they weren’t that personally outraged at Obama. When every other rant is about how they feel personally violated by the fact that Obama doesn’t show them the proper deference and respect, it’s hard to think they’re not just projecting a lifetime’s worth of daddy issues onto the President.

    (Our side complains about Romney as a person too, of course, but usually supplements it with a lot of criticism of his actual policies. They don’t tend to do that except in vague terms about his being a “socialist” or a “Muslim apologist” or other things that again, are more personal attacks than actual policy disagreements).

  65. 65.

    The Dangerman

    @RedKitten:

    I can’t even imagine what their families are going through right now.

    To make it even worse (if that’s possible), one of the two missing, Claudene Christian, had an atypical goodbye for her parents “just in case something happened”.

  67. 67.

    Baud

    What are the best disaster songs?

    That one with Meat Loaf and Romney the other day was pretty apocalyptic.

  68. 68.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate: Because the boys who want to get rid of FEMA want to look oh so concerned.

    Also, too, you don’t even want footage of a reporter shouting “Do you still want to eliminate FEMA and privatize disaster recovery?” Halliburton? The only thing worse than trying to answer that question is walking away from it.

  69. 69.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate: Because the boys who want to get rid of FEMA want to look oh so concerned.

    Also, too, you don’t even want footage of a reporter shouting “Do you still want to eliminate FEMA and privatize disaster recovery?” Halliburton? The only thing worse than trying to answer that question is walking away from it.

  73. 73.

    ? Martin

    @Will: Obama is going to be as liberal as Congress will permit. There’s two schools of thought here – that you can drag the country in your direction through rhetoric, or that you can drag the country in your direction through achievement. Liberalism is about the former, progressivism is about the latter. Obama is in the latter camp. It’s not that they aren’t moving in the same direction, but Obama wants to actually get legislation passed so voters see the effect, and move left as a result.

    IMO, that’s always been the most effective solution. Nobody remembers FDRs speeches. They remember the legislation he got passed.

  76. 76.

    NonyNony

    @Brachiator:

    So, who is the candidate that progressives are supposed to vote for?

    Stoller’s one of those idiots who thinks that progressives can win by losing. That if you keep your votes pure eventually the country will get so lousy that people will start taking progressives of his stripe seriously and fix things.

    Nevermind that this has never happened in the entire history of the world – Left-Wing American Exceptionalism is a hell of a drug.

  80. 80.

    Barry

    @…now I try to be amused: “Man, Obama must have kicked Stoller’s cornflakes, fucked his dog, and pissed on his SO.”

    I support the theory that’s he’s the sort of sanctimonious twit who really doesn’t like winning, when he could act all pure over losing. Of course, it’s not like losing will f*ck him over, in the short run, at least.

  81. 81.

    Napoleon

    Well the weather radar shows WV getting wacked by snow the last several hours. Where is Cole?

  84. 84.

    Ceremet

    Make the song about NJ – the hurricane has strengthened a great deal! Winds are over 90 mph (were 74 mph)and it is now heading for the NJ coast, fast (picking up speed.) MD coast has suffered – eleven foot surge and they are on the ‘low side’ of the surge! (any Del reports?) But the worst may be over for the MD coast. However, as it leaves the Gulf Stream (and normally start to lose energy), the damn thing will pick up strength due to artic air fueling it(reverse energy … now that is why this storm is special; when is the last time a hurricane feed off f’ing artic air!?)

  85. 85.

    ? Martin

    @Hill Dweller:

    Obama’s reasoning for canceling his scheduled campaign trips is obvious, but why did Willard and Eddie Munster cancel their campaign stops? They have no responsibilities in terms of managing the response. Is it just optics?

    Tradition. Something of a gentleman’s agreement that if one campaign needs to stop for unavoidable reasons, the other will as well. It’s part optics, part actual courtesy.

  88. 88.

    Barry

    @vestigial: “DougJ: What do you mean by “Hitchens-in-training”? You mean by turning on your former political allies (a la Iraq) or biting prose? Definitely possible on the former, very rare on the latter. Will we see a book on “Why Herbert Hoover Matters”?”

    Becoming a right-wing wh*re, patting oneself on the back for bravery, and enjoying the perks of being a ‘former liberal who saw the light’.

  91. 91.

    Metrosexual Manichean Monster DougJ

    @Barry:

    Becoming a right-wing wh*re, patting oneself on the back for bravery, and enjoying the perks of being a ‘former liberal who saw the light’.

    Yes, that is what I mean.

  93. 93.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    @trollhattan: I expect lots of furrowed manly brows and the donning of the rubber boots and the handing out of the bottled water, somewhere with a nice backdrop.

    And, true to Ryan’s dishwashing form, well after any actual victims are cleared away.

  95. 95.

    vestigial

    @Will: My Ron Paulite friend claims Obama’s justice department is coming down harder on medical marijuana than Bush did. Grain of salt.

  101. 101.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Chris: (Our side complains about Romney as a person too, of course, but usually supplements it with a lot of criticism of his actual policies.

    Romney’s personality– specifically his born-on-third-base sense of entitlement and Messiah/MOTU delusions– are inseparable from his policies.

    As to Stoller, when I read that one of the keys to his argument is that it doesn’t matter if Romney is elected, at least for the Supreme Court, because Romney has said he has no abortion agenda, and Kagan and Sotomayor are really conservatives, so that’s a draw. I didn’t feel the need to dig much deeper. He’ll never be the New Hitchens because he doesn’t have the accent, the Oxbridge pedigree, and what the Beltway viewed as boozy rogue charisma.

  102. 102.

    Spatula

    @Corner Stone:

    But exactly how much of a racist is he?

    Though DougJ likes to weigh in on everyone’s racism, I think the precise level of inherent racism is best judged by our BJ racism expert/accuser, Dennis G.

    I leave ABL out of this mix because she is in a category all her own when it comes to loose accusations of racism as an underlying cause of any position less than one hundred per cent pro-O.

  103. 103.

    burnspbesq

    @Napoleon:

    Well the weather radar shows WV getting wacked by snow the last several hours. Where is Cole?

    If he’s got a lick of sense, he’s out playing with the dogs.

  104. 104.

    Wally Ballou

    @The Dangerman: “Acadian Driftwood”?

    Incidentally, am I the only one who noticed Doug quoted Dr. John’s “Such a Night”? There’s a Band connection there too ( cf. The Last Waltz).

  105. 105.

    MikeJ

    @geg6: I don’t think they ever even like Hillary that much. What they hate is losing and not getting to steer the direction for the party.

  109. 109.

    Spatula

    @RedKitten:

    What I don’t get is how the hell that boat got caught in the situation to begin with. Like did they not have enough warning that this little storm was out there? ???

  110. 110.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @vestigial: Lots of levees in the Northeast. Many along the Susquehanna, one right through the middle of Wilkes Barre. Chemung River in Binhampton NY. Codorus Creek in York PA, Four Mile Run in Arlington/ Alexandria VA.

    I’m not really a levee junkie: my company has been busy inspecting these for the Corps for the last year or so.

  113. 113.

    catclub

    Port Isaac’s Fisherman’s Friends have turned me on to:

    Pull for the Shore

    and Let the Lower Lights be Burning.

    Not disaster songs, quite, but I still like em.

  114. 114.

    Paul

    @Brachiator:

    But then again, American progressives are even more irrelevant than being a Lib Dem in the UK, or a Tory in Scotland.

    Yup. In 2010 they took the intelligent approach of not voting to send Obama a message. Compare that to the tea baggers who organized and now actually have some power. The progressives, due to their own tactical missteps, have less power than ever.

    Not voting – good grief!

  117. 117.

    Hill Dweller

    @? Martin:

    Tradition. Something of a gentleman’s agreement that if one campaign needs to stop for unavoidable reasons, the other will as well. It’s part optics, part actual courtesy.

    As Charlie Pierce pointed out, this is a guy that attacked the diplomatic personnel in Egypt while protesters were scaling the embassy walls, and doubled down the next morning after knowing people had died. Moreover, their shameless and dishonest campaign ads are still being aired. Willard and the Republicans don’t do courtesy.

    Obama’s campaign is still going full tilt. The VP and Clinton are still doing campaign stops. Their ads are still being aired. The only change is the President canceling campaign stops because he has responsibilities.

    I saw where Chuck Todd was already giving Romney campaign for stopping their rallies. Why stop? They aren’t accomplishing anything.

  118. 118.

    ? Martin

    @Baud:

    While I agree with your general point, that line was a bit overdone.

    But it’s actually true. We don’t remember the words of any of our liberal/progressive/conservative/etc champions. We measure left/right by the legacies they leave behind – Social Security, or Medicare, or the end of the Cold War or tax cuts or a booming economy or whatever.

    We just don’t remember the ideology at all. We generally reconstruct most of the ideology to fit the achievement, not the other way around, and we usually get a fair bit of it wrong. It’s also why the left and right have such different views on those achievements, because each side tends to be overly generous toward their own ideology and overly harsh toward their opponents.

    But if FDR never got any of those programs passed, he’d probably be viewed as a disappointment who imprisoned US citizens based on their ethnicity and called for mass civilian bombings in Germany and Japan. We’d construct different ideologies around FDR based on other prominent achievements, rather than on the New Deal. And it’s somewhat ironic that the people most disappointed in Obama, often over his civil rights decisions, still point to FDR as the ideal, who had a vastly worse civil rights record. FDR refused to make lynching a federal crime, out of fear of losing support in the south.

  121. 121.

    Phineas Phang

    Charlie Patton

    “High Water Everywhere” (about the same 1927 flood referenced by Randy Newman, but written and recorded about 40 years earlier).

  123. 123.

    catclub

    @Ceremet: “fast (picking up speed.)”

    Fast is actually better for limiting overall damage.
    Storms that linger are not a good thing.

  124. 124.

    Mnemosyne

    Gotta get one in for my coast: Bad Religion, “Los Angeles is Burning”

    @Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:

    When we had a big nasty windstorm here in the Valley last year, Charlotte insisted on sleeping between us, presumably so the flying glass would hit us first.

    Fortunately, very few people were hurt, but so many trees came down that parts of Pasadena and other cities were without power for a week because they had to detangle everything before they could risk turning the juice back on.

  125. 125.

    Baud

    @? Martin:

    Again, I agree with you on tangible achievements, but we also remember FDR’s speeches, more so than probably just about anyone.

  128. 128.

    Paul

    @Election Follower:

    With only EIGHT DAYS LEFT until President-Elect Romney, there is a new poll in Ohio showing Romney AHEAD FOR THE FIRST TIME

    Rasmussen obviously does not count. It’s a Republican based poll. Hell, the Rasmussen guy is on Bill O’Reilly’s show all the time.

    I think of the previous 15 polls in Ohio (again Rasmussen does not count), Obama has led in all of them.

    Good luck Election Follower/Political Observer!

  130. 130.

    Poopyman

    “After the Gold Rush”, by Neil Young. I’ve always gotten a strong sense of apocalypse when I hear it.

    Re: The Bounty. I don’t know what they were thinking, trying to make that run. That’s not known as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” for nothing, and it was feared long before U-boats gave it a worse reputation. Here’s another tall ship went down there that I was slightly acquainted with.

  135. 135.

    JGabriel

    __
    __
    Neil Young — Like A Hurricane

    Neko Case — This Tornado Loves You

    Death Cab For Cutie — Transatlanticism

    The Atlantic was born today and I’ll tell you how…
    The clouds above opened up and let it out.

    I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere
    When the water filled every hole.
    And thousands upon thousands made an ocean,
    Making islands where no island should go.
    Oh no.

    Those people were overjoyed; they took to their boats.
    I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.
    The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door have been silenced forever more.
    The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
    It seems farther than ever before
    Oh no.

    I need you so much closer

  136. 136.

    Spatula

    @Hill Dweller:

    Obama isn’t doing any campaigning because he actually has responsibilities,

    Spare me.

    He is campaigning BY pretending that he can’t monitor this storm from the campaign trail and MUST, simply must, stay at the WH. As would any other incumbent candidate.

  139. 139.

    Corner Stone

    @Spatula:

    Though DougJ likes to weigh in on everyone’s racism, I think the precise level of inherent racism is best judged by our BJ racism expert/accuser, Dennis G.

    Well, Dennis wrote that his smear was really just a joke, just a laugher, and he doesn’t really find Stoller’s issue to be based in racism.
    Of course, he wrote that down in the comments after his topline post did in fact name Stoller as a racist.
    So since this article has been fisked to death here and DougJ decided to make it the topic of a third or maybe fourth FP post, I thought I’d ask his opinion too.

  141. 141.

    Mnemosyne

    @? Martin:

    And it’s somewhat ironic that the people most disappointed in Obama, often over his civil rights decisions, still point to FDR as the ideal, who had a vastly worse civil rights record. FDR refused to make lynching a federal crime, out of fear of losing support in the south.

    Actually, they’re generally upset about Obama’s civil liberties decisions, which it turns out are different than civil rights because civil rights are for Those People while civil liberties are for White Guys and therefore should take precedence.

    I wish I were kidding, but that’s what the arguments I’ve heard have boiled down to. They sometimes try to throw in a fig leaf of “higher percentage of African-Americans in prison due to drug laws!” but they’re far more concerned about how drug laws affect them than in how they affect anyone else.

  142. 142.

    Spatula

    @? Martin:

    Obama is going to be as liberal as Congress will permit. There’s two schools of thought here – that you can drag the country in your direction through rhetoric, or that you can drag the country in your direction through achievement. Liberalism is about the former, progressivism is about the latter. Obama is in the latter camp. It’s not that they aren’t moving in the same direction, but Obama wants to actually get legislation passed so voters see the effect, and move left as a result.

    Good god, this old horseshit again.

    Hey here’s an idea: Why not use aggressive, teaching, truth-telling rhetoric, AND aggressive legislation? Is there some reason, in your mind, that these tactics cannot be used in tandem?

    Do you have any explanation for why Obama has rarely succeeded at using either?

  144. 144.

    BGK

    @Ceremet:
    Wilma did this in 2005. Came ashore near Marco Island and it wasn’t all that bad. It picked up strength from a cold front while crossing the Florida peninsula and whalloped Ft. Lauderdale. The only upside was that the post-storm weather was fantastic, which was great as I was without electricity for five days.

    The forward speed increasing is good news, as it means less storm surge and less rainfall accumulation. That’s what kept Charley in 2004 for being any worse.

  145. 145.

    SatanicPanic

    @Hill Dweller:

    Approximately 36% have already voted.

    And they can vote again on election day. I may just fly to Ohio so I can vote a couple dozen times.

  146. 146.

    Corner Stone

    @MikeJ:

    Don’t you love it any more?

    Of course he does. But when it returns to him? That will be the greatest love of all.

  148. 148.

    Spatula

    @Napoleon:

    Where is Cole?

    Sadly, it’s become clear that he would rather do almost ANYTHING other than post on this blog, choosing to leave it to the tender, bloody mercies of DougJ, Dennis G, and ABL.

  150. 150.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    @Spatula:

    No. The National Weather Service predicted a much less intense storm occurring, crossing Lake Superior far west (near the Keweenaw Peninsula) of the Edmund Fitzgerald’s position.

  153. 153.

    Joey Maloney

    @psycholinguist: great song, but, nitpicking: Tupelo isn’t actually in the Delta, nor is it particularly low-lying. I don’t think it took much of a hit in the 1927 flood. It did get torn a new asshole in 1936 by a tornado, though.

    I suspect Hooker was taking a bit of poetic license because the name scans well. Politifact gives it two Pinocchios and a slice of watermelon.

  155. 155.

    Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I’ve been watching this from our living room window. Storm is 12 hours away, and that’s already the third worst sea I’ve seen since moving here. The open seacoasts like Rockport are much worse (that’s Marblehead across the harbor, kindly taking the brunt of it for us).

    Locals like to drive up our street and park their car up close to the fence to get splashed by the waves. Some even get out and try to film (like a video I found by this guy, who must have filmed around the same time I did).

    Next high tide is at midnight. I’m 35 feet above sea level, built into a hill, and this street has never flooded in 120 years (not even in 1938). But we’ll have to be ready to bug out in the wee hours if we need to.

    My neighbors may want to move their cars, in any case.

  157. 157.

    pillsy

    @Mnemosyne:

    FDR’s decision to have a hundred thousand Japanese Americans sent to internment camps doesn’t affect their assessment of his record. That’s principled commitment to civil liberties for you.

  161. 161.

    Marmot

    Disaster songs–does an awful car malfunction count? If so, I nominate “Parry Thomas” by The Tea Set.

  162. 162.

    Paul

    @Spatula:

    Hey here’s an idea: Why not use aggressive, teaching, truth-telling rhetoric, AND aggressive legislation? Is there some reason, in your mind, that these tactics cannot be used in tandem? Do you have any explanation for why Obama has rarely succeeded at using either?

    I assume the same reason that Bill Clinton couldn’t get his health care bill through congress or Jimmy Carter didn’t even try. They, like Obama, didn’t have the votes.

    You can truth tell all you want – when you don’t have the votes, it’s pointless.

  163. 163.

    Democrat Partisan Asshole

    In 2010 they took the intelligent approach of not voting to send Obama a message. Compare that to the tea baggers who organized and now actually have some power. The progressives, due to their own tactical missteps, have less power than ever.

    @Paul: One might think that the sting of being outsmarted by the fucking Tea Party might cause so-called “progressives” (they are nothing of the kind) enough humiliation that they’d figure out another way of going about things.

    The TeaFuckers do it right, during primary season screech about the moderates and RINOs, all while feeding the party non-stop cash and votes, and then as soon as the convention is over, they all STFU, open the checkbooks wider, get in line and vote for the “R”.

    “Progressives” (again, they are not) screech about moderates and DINOS during primary season, sit on their hands and write millions of words on blogs while letting the party, the moderates, and the people with money decide who their candidates are, and then as soon as the convention is over, they all whine ever louder about how they’re not represented and the party has been taken over by corporate interests, stay at home on election day, and take back to the blogs after the election to whine some more about how all the elections are stolen and the nation keeps drifting to the right.

    The difference between real progressives (a phenomena born of the 1900-1930 timeline, and who are now all long dead) and the people who call themselves that today? Today’s “progressives” are the laziest people you’ll ever meet, and their involvement in politics is limited to writing insane screeds on blogs and doing something else besides voting on Election Day.

  165. 165.

    trollhattan

    @comrade scott’s agenda of rage:

    Love Dread Zepplin. They used to play clubs here and if anything, were loonier live than on record. Good enough musicians to make the parody work–a tough thing in itself.

    “Now, c’mere Charlie and bring me my water and towel.”

  166. 166.

    different-church-lady

    @? Martin:

    Something of a gentleman’s agreement…

    OK, so that still doesn’t explain why Romney would cancel campaign stops.

  168. 168.

    NR

    @Spatula: That’s racist. Sure, Obama’s done some bad stuff, but if you point that out, you’re a racist, because FDR did bad stuff too but nobody cares because he was white. You need to stop and think about what’s really motivating your criticism of Obama’s policies (hint: it’s racism).

  169. 169.

    Interrobang

    @Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: Yes, Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy’s version of “When the Levee Breaks” is the canonical version as far as I’m concerned, but admittedly I’m an early blues snob — if it was recorded after 1940, I pretty much don’t listen to it. Another great one that might fit the mood, if not the particulars, is “Last Kind Words” by Geeshie Wiley. Look it up; you will not be disappointed.

  172. 172.

    catclub

    @Corner Stone: “But I guess the question is where do they move them to, eh?”

    Who wants to walk three blocks to your own car?!

    Also, when a hurricane was aiming at a certain island, a lot of planes flew IN. One suspects their insurance was up to date.

  174. 174.

    Brachiator

    @Mnemosyne:

    Actually, they’re generally upset about Obama’s civil liberties decisions, which it turns out are different than civil rights because civil rights are for Those People while civil liberties are for White Guys and therefore should take precedence.

    Sad, but true.

    I would add that these idiots also cannot see that the Republican War Against Women and families is also a civil liberties issue.

    But too many progressives are just a bunch of dicks.

  175. 175.

    Corner Stone

    @trollhattan:

    If you stack them, only the bottom one or two get wet. Of course, of we all had car elevators.

    I thought it was day rigger that all you East Coast Elitists had those elevator doohickeys for your cars and such.

  176. 176.

    SFAW

    @NR:

    Not saying you’re wrong, but it could be that Spatula just doesn’t handle disappointment (with Obama not being as liberal as Spatula thought he would be, or perhaps DROOONNZ) as well as a 12-year-old.

    Either way, most of Spatula’s stuff is ignore-worthy, though. Or maybe flame-worthy.

  177. 177.

    different-church-lady

    @Spatula:

    Sadly, it’s become clear that he would rather do almost ANYTHING other than post on this blog

    Well, bully for him. It’s about time he saw the light.

  178. 178.

    Amir Khalid

    @different-church-lady:
    It might simply be that outdoor campaign events are a bad idea in hurricane weather. Getting large numbers of people to travel to indoor events in such weather would also be problematic, with conditions unsafe for driving and public transportation temporarily shut down in some places.

  179. 179.

    Paul

    @Democrat Partisan Asshole:

    so-called “progressives” (they are nothing of the kind)

    Thank you! You took the words out of my mouth. I remember during the health care debate when prominent posters on dailykos would badmouth EVERY proposed bill that came up because it wasn’t pure universal or it didn’t include the public option for everybody.

    My neighbor has diabetes and can’t find health insurance. ACA will be a life saver for her. Yet, these SO CALLED progressives were against helping people like her because they didn’t get the perfect bill NOW.

    You are absolutely right. They are NOT progressives. They have no clue that Medicare, for example, was not initially what it is today.

  181. 181.

    Democrat Partisan Asshole

    Outside of that four year stint as President, Hoover had a very remarkable and successful life.
    __
    I think at some point, people will rehabilitate his reputation in the history books; there are some striking positive accomplishments in his life.

    @gene108: I’ve done some fairly perfunctory examination of the guy’s career. He was great – smart guy, one of the most educated presidential candidates we’d ever had, mindful of his civic obligations, knew to look out for the little guy, that kind of thing – until the day he walked in the White House door, and then BOOM! – instant asshole, aided and abetted by equal parts tone deafness, cluelessness, and a nasty streak that alienated even those close to him.

    An example: when the country’s economy is vanishing, you don’t insist on a full Marine Color Guard for each and ever dinner you eat in the White House, but by God his predecessor had the privilege and so would he. And he did, every fucking meal until the day he had to pack up and leave.

    Strange guy. Would have liked to have met him because, unlike most of our presidents, I have no idea what he was thinking or what made him tick.

  182. 182.

    psycholinguist

    @Joey Maloney: Yeah, I’m from Starkville (go dawgs) so I know Tupelo is above the waterline. I was in Jackson for the 79 flood, that was pretty awe inspiring to see the Colosseum and most of downtown underwater, and full of snakes, alligators, and other mess. Hooker lived in Mississippi and then moved to Detroit, so I’d say he gets to label anything he wants as a disaster area. That factcheck crack made me waste a good mouthful of tea.

  183. 183.

    BruceFromOhio

    Ballad of Springhill, Peggy Seeger. Favorite version is by Peter, Paul and Mary.

    In the town of Spring Hill, Nova Scotia,
    Down in the heart of the Cumberland Mine,
    There’s blood on the coal and miners lie
    In the roads that never saw sun or sky

    Gaia save the crew of the HMS Bounty.

  184. 184.

    PurpleGirl

    @JGabriel: OMG. I’m trying to think of which corner that’s at, but I haven’t been in the area in a while. (A friend works at the Hearst Tower at 57th and 8th Ave., so I pass through that intersection often.)

  186. 186.

    burnspbesq

    Speaking of civil liberties, the Supreme Court wasn’t about to let the biggest storm in memory disrespect its authoritah. Oral argument in Clapper vs. Amnesty International went off this morning as scheduled. Let’s see how badly they can fuck up what everybody thinks they know about standing.

  190. 190.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Paul: a lot of internet progressives of the type you describe aren’t really interested in policy. They want a fight, they want revenge, they want their Republican brother-in-law to be as mad as we were in the Bush years.

  191. 191.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @burnspbesq: how long till Scalia is standing athwart the steps of the Court, point a gavel at the sky and commanding the storm to turn back?

  192. 192.

    geg6

    @The Dangerman:

    My thought went in that direction (non-natural disaster), too.

    Mine are from the Springsteen catalog:

    Youngstown

    Death to My Hometown

    My Hometown

  193. 193.

    Roger Moore

    @? Martin:

    Nobody remembers FDRs speeches.

    That seems a bit strong. I think a lot of people still remember his best speeches, like “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, “a date which will live in infamy”, “the arsenal of democracy”, and the four freedoms.

  195. 195.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Paul: Nah, they do actually know that. It’s just that there’s a theory of political change out there that goes like this: always fight, never surrender, never compromise, burn all bridges, lose nobly, then, um, something something something, and then you win. And since no politician has ever done it properly, it’s never really been tested, so it totally would work this time, except for all the corporatists, meaning both actual corporate interests and anyone who thinks it’s a stupid way to wage politics.

  198. 198.

    aimai

    @Spatula:

    When you think of the right wing freakout that he continued to do two things at once after Benghazi he really had no choice but to go back to the white house. If a single person dies and Obama isn’t shown talking on the phone to g-d fox news is going to insist that Obama personally caused his death and laugheda bout it afterwards.

    aimai

  202. 202.

    Xenos

    @? Martin:

    Nobody remembers FDRs speeches.

    What rubbish. FDR’s speeches were great. Best since Lincoln, and nobody to match him since. The more trenchant lines have entered the vernacular, like Shakespeare.

  203. 203.

    LanceThruster

    Leon Russell – “Out in the Woods” or “Tightrope.”

    (For the record, I hardly ever think of anything on topic at the time, but just like to list songs that I like that kinda/almost fit).

  206. 206.

    LanceThruster

    @JGabriel:

    Neil Young — Like A Hurricane

    Especially the “Austin City Limits” version live on the big olde-timey pipe organ.

    Whoo-hoo!

  209. 209.

    Mnemosyne

    I wonder if Cole will get us some new trolls for Christmas this year. I’m bored with the one- note ones we have now.

  210. 210.

    CW in LA

    My fave disaster music is the Rolling Stones at Altamont, even if that was a disaster of their own making (with some help).

  214. 214.

    Davebo

    Flooding down in Texas… SRV (OK, it’s not really flooding in TX and we’re happy, yet sufficiently saddened by the events in the north east. Hang in there kids.

  215. 215.

    Brachiator

    @Xenos:

    What rubbish. FDR’s speeches were great. Best since Lincoln, and nobody to match him since. The more trenchant lines have entered the vernacular, like Shakespeare.

    Keeping it grounded in the political realm, Churchill and JFK had a way with a nicely turned phrase.

  216. 216.

    Donald

    Didn’t read the thread. Glancing at it, it seems to be about the weather. I’m voting Obama and find very unconvincing the notion that we shouldn’t vote for the lesser of two evils and even less convincing the notion that voting for Obama would be the greater of the two evils because it means we’re lost forever to the pro-drone, pro-Wall Street forces.

    And yet, he has a point about how rotten the Democrats are and how rotten Obama is. I’m reading Charles Ferguson’s latest book about the financial disaster and yeah, both parties stink. It’s just that one stinks quite a bit more.

    Hitchens vibes? I’ll wait until he becomes a pro-war sellout. Hitchens’s betrayal of lefty principles was epic and obviously very very profitable. There are tons of lefties who hate both parties and vote Green and the like–they may have crummy political judgment but most aren’t sellouts of the Hitch variety.

  220. 220.

    AxelFoley

    @Democrat Partisan Asshole:

    @Paul: One might think that the sting of being outsmarted by the fucking Tea Party might cause so-called “progressives” (they are nothing of the kind) enough humiliation that they’d figure out another way of going about things.
    __
    The TeaFuckers do it right, during primary season screech about the moderates and RINOs, all while feeding the party non-stop cash and votes, and then as soon as the convention is over, they all STFU, open the checkbooks wider, get in line and vote for the “R”.
    __
    “Progressives” (again, they are not) screech about moderates and DINOS during primary season, sit on their hands and write millions of words on blogs while letting the party, the moderates, and the people with money decide who their candidates are, and then as soon as the convention is over, they all whine ever louder about how they’re not represented and the party has been taken over by corporate interests, stay at home on election day, and take back to the blogs after the election to whine some more about how all the elections are stolen and the nation keeps drifting to the right.
    __
    The difference between real progressives (a phenomena born of the 1900-1930 timeline, and who are now all long dead) and the people who call themselves that today? Today’s “progressives” are the laziest people you’ll ever meet, and their involvement in politics is limited to writing insane screeds on blogs and doing something else besides voting on Election Day.

    This. All this.

  222. 222.

    Corner Stone

    @AxelFoley: If anyone deserves the “troll” moniker it’s yourself. You pop in to talk shit at people and are a one note dullard.
    Learn how to shift gears, you’re boring the shit out of us.

  224. 224.

    nellcote

    @Joey Maloney:

    Tupelo isn’t actually in the Delta, nor is it particularly low-lying. I don’t think it took much of a hit in the 1927 flood.

    The 1927 flood was 50 miles wide and 150 miles long. Even if Tupelo wasn’t underwater the impact was surely felt there.

  225. 225.

    reality-based

    @Election Follower:

    just out of curiosity, election follower – on election night, when all your wing-nut fairy-land fantasies lie smashed and broken in the dust – are you gonna show up back here? Admit you were wrong? Reference past comments and explain and apologize for your incredible wrongness? Admit that just maybe Nate Silver is more reliable than your favorite Tea Party Political Porn site, Real Clear politics?

    ‘Cause you know we’ll be waiting for you over here on Election night. You gonna have the balls to show up then?

    Didn’t think so.

  226. 226.

    nellcote

    @psycholinguist:

    Hooker lived in Mississippi and then moved to Detroit, so I’d say he gets to label anything he wants as a disaster area.

    And just to tie it in to Herbert Hoover:

    The aftermath of the flood was one factor in the Great Migration of African-Americans to northern cities. During an era in which racism was commonplace, blacks built levees at gunpoint, starved in refugee camps and many were left to fend for themselves during the flood, while whites were rescued.[5] Previously, the move from the rural South to the Northern cities had virtually stopped. The flood waters began to recede in June 1927, but interracial relations continued to be strained. Hostilities had erupted between the races; a black man was shot by a white police officer when he refused to be conscripted to unload a relief boat.[6][7] As a result of displacements lasting up to six months, tens of thousands of local African-Americans moved to the big cities of the North, particularly Chicago; many thousands more followed in the following decades.[8]

    The flood propelled Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, who was in charge of flood relief operations, into the national spotlight and set the stage for his election to the presidency, but indirectly contributed to his defeat four years later. The flood also aided Huey Long’s election to the governorship of Louisiana in 1928.[9]:408-409, 477, 487 Hoover was much lauded for his masterful handling of the refugee camps, but later concerns over the treatment of blacks in those camps caused him to make promises to the African-American community which he later broke, losing the black vote in his reelection campaign.[9]:259-290, passim Several reports on the terrible situation in the refugee camps, including one by the Colored Advisory Commission by Robert Russa Moton, were kept out of the media at Hoover’s request, with the pledge of further reforms for blacks after the presidential election. When he failed to deliver, Moton and other influential African-Americans helped to shift the allegiance of Black Americans from the Republican party to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democrats

  227. 227.

    Raven Onthehill

    How ’bout a salvage song? I give you Show of Hands, The Napoli.

    Come gangs from the north
    Lads off the moor
    Wreckers on the cliffs, get down to the shore.
    Scratch Joe Public, what’s underneath?
    A looter, and a pirate, and a thief!

  229. 229.

    ChrisB

    How about a nominee for the worst:

    “There’s got to be a morning after”

    Maureen McGovern from The Poseidon Adventure

    Apologies if someone said this hours ago.

  230. 230.

    Percysowner

    What are the best disaster songs?

    Mighty Day by the Chad Mitchell Trio

    Link is to the album, Mighty Day is the first track. It’s a great album.

    I remember down in Galveston,
    When storm winds swept the town,
    The high tides from the ocean, Lord,
    Put water all around.

    Wasn’t that a mighty day, (a mighty day) a mighty day
    (a mighty day) a mighty day, great God that morning
    When the storm winds swept the town

  234. 234.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Democrat Partisan Asshole: Word.

    If progressives got involved in their local Dem politics the way Tea Partiers have stormed their local Republican parties, we’d have far fewer DLC and limousine liberals and Blue Dogs trotted out with big corporate piggybanks as our “liberal”, “Democratic” candidates.

    ETA: brain fart

  240. 240.

    KC

    Not a natural disaster, but this is about a mine collapse, and a bit of a cynical take on how the town reacts and doesn’t, from Tom T. Hall, who is being honored tomorrow in Nashville (and I can’t go) and is on my mind today:

    Tom T. Hall – Trip to Hyden

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