Don’t Worry Son – Marsters is a post from: Buffy Anne Summers, aka

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One was, ‘World Government, Inc.: 100, US Citizen: 0.’

Another was, ‘USA 1776 – 2010, R.I.P.’

Or simply, ‘Kiss Your Ass Goodbye.’

But ‘Kiss It Goodbye?’ seems to say it well enough, because whatever you may think ‘It’ is, whether it be your privacy, your right to own a small business that competes with the big boys, independent media, US sovereignty, or freedom itself, it just may be time to kiss it goodbye.

Because the same madmen in the Supreme Court that gave us George W. Bush back in 2000 gave away your country today to wealthy international investors.

On the off chance you haven’t heard by now — by a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court removed all restrictions on corporate spending on political campaigns, exactly the opposite of the kind of reform that is truly needed.

The potential consequences of this decision cannot be overstated. Imagine the worst case scenario from the most oppressive science fiction movie society you’ve ever seen. Okay? Now imagine worse.

Our founders (and the overwhelming majority of our leaders ever since) believed in regulating corporations — especially in the political realm — they believed in common sense definitions of common words and certainly could not have expected such insanity as this:  that a corporation is a person and that any regulation of its expenditures on political campaigns is an abridgment of that person’s free speech.

In a society of increasing ignorance, lack of engagement, apathy… perhaps this was inevitable, but to say a corporation is a person… well, we might as well say a dog is a person and that any laws that govern where and when that dog poops, or any law that requires that such poop subsequently be removed, is a clear violation of that person’s speech.

And yes, I’m comparing a corporation’s free speech to dog poop, although I admit it probably does do an injustice to poop.

A corporation is not (even remotely) a person. Any small child of average intelligence can tell you that. It has no friends, relatives or children who must live (or suffer and die) in whatever kind of future it creates. And it has no spiritual aspirations, no moral code, and no conscience. A corporation’s sole purpose is to maximize return on investment for its investors, who are by the way, international.

The fact that so many Republican “leaders” applauded this decision is incontrovertible proof, as if we needed it, that they and their party no longer represent US interests, but World Government, Inc.

So… if you’re not ready yet to kiss it goodbye, and if you’re not quite yet ready to grab your guns and head into the streets for a bloody revolution either, then call, yell, and scream at your Congress:  it’s way past time to impeach these madmen in our Supreme Court; it’s way past time for we the people to reassert ourselves and take this country back.

Kiss It Goodbye? is a post from: Buffy Anne Summers, aka

Kane has a nice voice, don’t you think?

Christian Kane – Different Kind of Knight is a post from: Buffy Anne Summers, aka

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Sort of.

But not entirely. What our mass media isn't telling you is that some of our "leaders" helped create this appalling situation.

Yes, this is what the pundits always call politicizing a news story, and what our mass media generally decline to do.

I could and probably should go into more detail, but as Max Blumenthal has done such a good job of that already, I'll merely point you in his direction:

http://maxblumenthal.com/2010/01/how-washingtons-plot-against-haiti-worsened-the-disaster/

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/07/16/haiti_coup/print.html

http://i2.democracynow.org/2004/7/20/did_the_bush_administration_allow_a

And can you believe Obama asked George W. to join in a bipartisan effort for Haitian relief? Really? After what happened (and is still happening in many respects) to New Orleans? Almost anyone, even John McCain, would have been a better choice. I guess in most ways Barack's just another politician, and the only reason I can continue to support him is that the alternatives all look to be much, much worse.

Well… heads up guys. Hope to be back in posting mode sometime soon. Have just been so busy lately… y'know?

How Our “Leaders” F–ked Up Haiti is a post from: Buffy Anne Summers, aka

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James Marsters interview on Rove Live back in July of 2004. Yeah, it's old but its kinda funny, and James, after your comment about Rove Live versus Letterman, I've had to rethink your blasphemy. It was just a very dry joke. Maybe it was just that British sense of humor that threw me (that you got by playing Spike all those years, as you were never actually British in spite of what some Buffy fans still seem to think).

But I get it now. I'm cool.

Sorry about that James.

James Marsters on Rove Live is a post from: Buffy Anne Summers, aka

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Anthony Stewart Head – Babies is a post from: Buffy Anne Summers, aka

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Joss Whedon on Humanism is a post from: Buffy Anne Summers, aka

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Christian Kane – Sweet Carolina Rain is a post from: Buffy Anne Summers, aka

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You promised. You promised the beginning of a new era, a new way. And you told us not to expect you to do it alone, not to go home but to stay involved, to keep up the fight, in short, to help you.

And then you took office. What happened? When since have you inspired us and led us and asked us to help? You began by leaving many of the various and Constitutionally questionable policies of the previous administration untouched, and asked us to be patient. You said it wasn’t time yet to close Gitmo, and asked us to be patient. You have so far refused to pursue any significant prosecutions of the previous administration in spite of mounting evidence that such prosecutions are sorely needed, and asked us not to look back.

None of that has been very inspiring, Mr. President, but most of us have continued to give you the benefit of a doubt.

Yet now, most recently, on health care and climate change, you have refused to draw a line in the proverbial sand and state unequivocally what is and is not acceptable — and even while failing to fight for a public option in a health care “reform” legislative battle (that now appears to be the war-time equivalent of providing free armaments and ammunition to the enemy), you pronounced an abysmally inadequate agreement in Copenhagen a great success.

During all of this, when did you inspire us? When did you ask us for our help? When did you take a stand, a specific stand, a real and unequivocal stand, and say to us, I will not turn, but I cannot do this alone, I need your help, I need you to come forth with the passion you had during the campaign and make your will known in terms that our detractors cannot mistake, and cannot deny, and cannot overwhelm with mere propaganda?

The sad fact is that that moment never came.

Yes, you have had a very full plate. Your predecessor left you with a daunting job, and I don’t mean to be ungrateful or harsh. But I and my friends have put ourselves on the line, and some of us may have endangered the future of our own careers, our own health care options, and otherwise, by taking a stand, publicly and honestly and dangerously. Because we believed in the cause and because we believed in you. Should we have just stayed silent?

Maybe you remember, or maybe you don’t, but I told you one time, several months ago, that if you wanted things to be easy, especially now, at this extraordinary time in history, then you’d had no business running for president, even less persuading us to believe in you, and even less actually being president.

If these were ordinary times, and if you were an ordinary politician, I very likely would chalk up all that has transpired this year to “politics as usual.” But these are not ordinary times and you are not an ordinary president. You encouraged a whole new generation to be involved, and you inspired many more to believe in possibility one more time. You promised change we could believe in.

Yet having begun with the potential to be one of this country’s great leaders and one of the best things to ever happen to this country, you are now at risk of becoming one of the worst. Not just because you never drew a line and stood your ground, not just because your fine words and speeches seem so much more empty of substance today than they did a year ago, but because your apparent inability to draw that line and stand that ground risks poisoning a whole new generation with the cynicism and apathy that has plagued this nation, and this world, for far too long.

I am still hoping that you are smarter and more clever and more courageous and more committed than I am giving you credit for, that somehow, like a magician, you will pull rabbits out of a hat, or better, cause elephants to disappear before our eyes, and we will ooh and ahh and be amazed at your strategy and gape in wonder at the change that has finally come, the change we really can believe in.

But it is beginning to feel as if the hour already is getting very late, and any and all evidence of that hypothetical, brilliant strategy has yet to show itself.

Mr. President, you are clearly a very intelligent man, clearly a very thoughtful man; you are charming almost to a fault, you speak well and have your way with words, often deliver your oratory almost without flaw, and are understandably concerned about your legacy.

But Mr. President, throughout the various battles this year, we didn’t need just your intelligence, and your thoughtful consideration, and your charm, or just your beautiful words, and we are very selfishly more concerned about our own futures and the future of our country and the world than we are about your legacy. We didn’t need talk. We needed walk.

What we needed was for you to take a stand and fight and refuse to turn even in the face of defeat. That would’ve inspired us. We would’ve stood with you and together we probably would’ve won, but if necessary, gone down in defeat with you, and come back again to fight again, knowing that the battles were right.

What we needed was — what we still need is — your leadership.

Obama, No Line, No Stand. (No Change, No Hope?) is a post from: Buffy Anne Summers, aka

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Yes, I’m a little bit disappointed in Obama, too, and not too keen about a lot of what’s going on these days, and yes, I’ve been sorely tempted to post and post and post — but I know I’ve promised a couple of times that the next post would be about Buffy, and I may’ve even implied it would be sooner rather than later (sorry about that)… but okay already.

So let’s talk about Buffy! Or more specifically, why we (or I) love Buffy (the show) and maybe even why and how Buffy loves.

Yes, I’m going to be talking about her love life.

First though, some of the why we love Buffy, or at least some of the why I do: the characters connect to me, and I think it is largely because they all seem so comfortable in their own skins, even when they are uncomfortable, and even in extraordinary circumstances. To a very large degree, in spite of superficial characterizations of a neurosis here and there, in no particular order, Xander, Willow, Buffy, Giles, Oz, Tara, and even Cordelia, all seem to accept themselves for who they are (though not always what they are), and they bring that to their relationships with each other and those around them.

And I guess this is largely true of the villains and demons in the show. Who would say any of the Big Bads were not comfortable with who and what they were? The Master, Angelus, Spike, Drusilla, Mayor Wilkins, Adam, Glory, the Trio, Bad Willow, the First? Okay, sure, Jonathan and Andrew had their little insecurities, and Bad Willow had all that Weltschmerz, and the First was only tangentially an actual character, but still … on some level, nearly all were not only okay with who and what they were, they pretty much delighted in it.

I pointedly did not mention Riley or Faith (Edit: or Angel and Dawn; jeez, I can’t believe I forgot Angel and Dawn!) because, although they did exhibit a share of this delight, their characters don’t strike me in quite the same way. More perhaps on that subject sometime.

No doubt I’m overstating the point anyway, but nevertheless it is part of Buffy’s appeal, I think, that the show is delightful, i.e., it is about characters who delight each other, delight in each other, often delight in the challenges they face (and when not, at least delight in overcoming them), delight in the wit of a well-turned phrase and delight in their own passions.

That’s right. Sounds like I’m back on the subject of love.

And what is love in Buffy’s world if not simultaneously delightful and dangerous? And isn’t it often that way everywhere for all of us?

Whatever love is, most of us would agree that love is a many splendored thing. And I think most of us could agree that love can also be hell. Certainly if you love someone who treats you consistently well and consistently loves you in return, love is great comfort against the often hard realities of life, and certainly if you love someone who treats you with an utter lack of regard, or if you love someone and lose them — to death or intractable illness or to another — that is emotional hell.

But Buffy takes it one step further, doesn’t it? Because in BtVS love isn’t just delightful, it is soaring, romantic passion, mythic in depth and scope — love affairs for the ages; and because in BtVS love isn’t just dangerous, it is deadly, demonic passion, and again sometimes quite mythic in its consequences for our heroes.

As a matter of fact (or at least my impression), BtVS was (or is, depending on how we think about it) bolder than any other prime-time television show I can think of about the relationship between love and violence and sex and death. Passion is passion, BtVS seems to say, and as surely as passion can raise you from the dead, it can kill you.

In some ways BtVS is a stand-in for what we all desire in life: to live life full throttle, with all the excitement, all the passion, to drink deep of all life has to offer; and it is likely most of us would live that way if we were absolutely certain that, like a good, satisfyingly upbeat story, all would end well for all concerned — or at least for ourselves and all those we care about the most.

But we know better. Life teaches us that, doesn’t it? — over and over again from the day we are born; don’t touch the hot stove, don’t fall off your tricycle, don’t run with scissors, look both ways before you cross the street… and be careful what sort of folk you hang with… and who you fall in love with — or you most definitely will get hurt, sooner or later. It’s inevitable.

Of course we get hurt anyway, no matter how cautious we become, but most of us — or at least the brighter among us — eventually learn not to jump blindly into this or that world of pain as if we haven’t a care. But all that caution’s just a little too grown-up sometimes, isn’t it? And it leaves us a little bit sad, too, doesn’t it? And maybe just a little bit bereft of… passion?

So we watch Buffy and vicariously experience the delight, the passion, the danger, the sometimes even disturbing twists and turns and implications of love, of sex, of violence, of death, of grief, of the depths and heights of the all-too-human passions as played out by our hot-blooded surrogates. But we don’t just watch, do we? We flirt with the very things we are afraid of, and long for: death and immortality, and love and lust; and a passion that transcends all, perhaps that transcends even our perceptions of wrong and right, or of good and evil, and certainly that transcends the world and death itself.

And isn’t that why we love it? Why we love these fascinating, passionate, emotive characters, their snappy, nuanced dialogue, and the sometimes great mythic story arcs they (and we) get all caught up in? Isn’t that why we love Buffy?

You bet. Or maybe it’s just me? Whatever. But why does Buffy love Angel? Or Riley? Or Spike? Is it because she is the Slayer? Is it because, on some profound level, our heroine doesn’t merely dance with death but actually makes love to it?

Perhaps. There is certainly that quality to her relationships. She is a killer after all, the Slayer, and yet young and full of life and passion. Drawn to sex and death, to light and darkness, to love and pain and hate and violence, and back to desire and life and love again.

Or maybe it’s just because they’re sexy good-looking hunks? (Hey, as I heard someone say once about interpreting scripture, you tend to take from it whatever attitude you bring to it, right?)

And no, this post hasn’t turned out the way I first envisioned it. I began with the expectation that it would be more about Buffy’s love life, but it has turned out not so much as I intended. Some odd combination of Clio, Polyhymnia, Erato, Calliope, Thalia and Melpomène, perhaps, have had their way with me. Still — now that I’ve broached the subjects of sex, death, light, darkness, love, pain, hate, violence and life itself (all in the same sentence!) — lest I wade in any deeper and find myself lost in the realms of ontology or (God forbid) theology, I will end this post (with a promise to write more about Buffy’s love life someday) right here and now!

About Buffy’s Love Life, But Not So Much is a post from: Buffy Anne Summers, aka