Dear Friend and Reader:<\/p>\n
IN LOS ANGELES, there is a cultural phenomenon started in downtown’s\u0412\u00a0Mayan Club called Lucha Vavoom.<\/a><\/p>\n Produced as a cabaret of Mexican wrestlers, midgets and strippers, it is a cult phenomenon attracting LA club scene singles, wrestling aficionados, the LA punk scene and\u0412\u00a0the ubiquitous college crowd. Once advertised, Lucha Vavoom tickets fly out the box office.<\/p>\n Audiences are drawn to the fighting tactics ranging from the typical WWF matches you see on tv — chair on the head here, full body slam there, from female mud-wrestling to scatalogical attack using your own shit to repel and humiliate your opponent. Between bouts there are beautiful female bodies in sexual display.<\/p>\n Sex and violence. What more distraction could you ever possibly want?<\/p>\n Which leads me to tonight’s Vice-Presidential debate.<\/p>\n In this corner, you have Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the neocon wet-dream vice-presidential candidate for the Republican Party. She appeals to evangelicals.\u0412\u00a0She appeals to post-pubescent right wing boy-men. She’s the MILF. She’s Caribou Barbie. She’s the “pitbull” of Wasilla, Alaska with lipstick. She reads loads and loads of papers. All of them. Ask Katie Couric.<\/p>\n [youtube]http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9go38MgZ4w8[\/youtube]<\/p>\n In the few short weeks that Hurricane Sarah<\/a> has been in the public eye (not\u0412\u00a0shuttled to an undisclosed location\u0412\u00a0like Cheney’s compound), she has managed to claim Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were government entities<\/a> (they’re private companies),\u0412\u00a0that Russia routinely flies over Alaskan airspace<\/a> (refuted by NORAD), and she seems to have trouble naming a Supreme Court case<\/a> outside of Roe v. Wade.<\/p>\n Then, in the other corner, there’s Senator Joe Biden<\/a> of Delaware.<\/p>\n For the news media, the blogosphere, in Washington circles and throughout the country, tonight’s debate has the same Lucha Vavoom appeal of watching something you know is really tasteless and awful but you can’t bear to look away. \u0412\u00a0<\/p>\n It’s a freak show that happens to star a sitting U.S. Senator and a normal mainstream news commentator.\u0412\u00a0In a perfect world, a debate between these two\u0412\u00a0opponents would only be\u0412\u00a0plausible in a film script by the Coen Brothers.\u0412\u00a0 But tonight we’re dealing with the highest end of distraction politics by the party that brought us 9-11, duct tape to prevent biochemical attack and Paulson’s Wall Street Bailout.\u0412\u00a0So anything goes.\u0412\u00a0\u0412\u00a0<\/p>\n Now\u0412\u00a0with everything that’s been said about Sarah Palin, the last thing we should do is underestimate her and her debate coaches. Yes, I could very well be saying this with a smirk, but this is the McCain campaign’s last chance to show just how competent a decision-maker John McCain is in this regard.\u0412\u00a0She is trained in the Republican attack dog mechanism of avoidance to direct questions. These tactics are the\u0412\u00a0one-set play for when you get in trouble. They are:<\/p>\n UPDATE: Credit goes to kagro x from the excellent Daily Kos diary posted on these tactics which can be read in full here.<\/a><\/ol>\n In her short time on the public stage, Palin has shown herself to be a candidate\u0412\u00a0whose credentials and responses\u0412\u00a0leave the most jaded mainstream political press corps aghast. Maybe that’s good, because they are sure calling her on it.<\/a><\/p>\n Even with his own embarassing gaffes — referring to the market crash in 1929, Joe Biden said “Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed…” (FDR wasn’t president then, and television wasn’t around) — Biden has an impressive record of accomplishment and the trust of his constituents\u0412\u00a0in his state and in the bigger world. I have every reason to believe Joe will cope well having a co-starring role in\u0412\u00a0tonight’s circus\u0412\u00a0and well afterwards. His reputation will not be tarnished by participating in what one could call a “wrestling cabaret.”<\/p>\n Your astrological weather report for tonight’s debate comes from Planet Waves’ own Genevieve Salerno, who says:<\/p>\n There is a grand trine<\/span> between the rising sign Taurus, Jupiter<\/span> in Capricorn and Saturn in Virgo, all within the 14th or so degree of those signs. The economy is going to be a hot topic<\/span> tonight. You’re going to have a side striving to reintegrate more conventional methods of control to basically make sure there is no change at all, while another side will probably prefer to talk about all the mistakes that have been made.<\/p>\n I’m not too sure anything stellar as far as ingenuity is going to come up. I say this because Taurus will be rising, and Saturn is trining that in Virgo. Jupiter in Capricron is like a really fat guy wearing a corset screaming “I can’t breathe!” so I’m not sure anyone will be addressing that, though that might come out as blaming greed on Wall Street…<\/p>\n Also, Chiron is conjoined with the North node in Aquarius. I would suggest this denotes a personal struggle within to do what is right for oneself instead of vying for the popularity and approval of the masses. Venus has just sunk below the descendant line, and the Moon is next to follow it. They are both in Scorpio: watch out for people trying to personify the warrior of light in the fight against evil.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If you’re interested in the astrology for tonight’s debaters, our friend Nancy Sommers\u0412\u00a0at Starlight News<\/em><\/a>\u0412\u00a0provides\u0412\u00a0interesting aspects as well.<\/p>\n Actually, what worries me is not what cringe-producing\u0412\u00a0moment Palin\u0412\u00a0will inevitably\u0412\u00a0produce\u0412\u00a0nor how\u0412\u00a0Biden responds or is not allowed to. What worries me is McCain.<\/p>\n If we can bear to watch US election politics’ equivalent to Lucha Vavoom tonight, let’s remind ourselves that the unwritten story on Sarah Palin is still what’s at the top of that ticket. From McCain’s doomed charge on a white horse to bail America out of the Wall Street crisis last week, to tonight’s debate between Caribou Barbie and one of the most trusted US Senators in the realm of foreign policy, we’re bearing witness to the freak show of McCain’s judgment.<\/p>\n As we have learned the last eight years, and even these last eight days, the one who distracts the most has the most to hide and to lose.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n Yours & truly,<\/p>\n Fe Bongolan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Friend and Reader: IN LOS ANGELES, there is a cultural phenomenon started in downtown’s\u0412\u00a0Mayan Club called Lucha Vavoom. Produced as a cabaret of Mexican wrestlers, midgets and strippers, it is a cult phenomenon attracting LA club scene singles, wrestling aficionados, the LA punk scene and\u0412\u00a0the ubiquitous college crowd. Once advertised, Lucha Vavoom tickets fly … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[301,111,1],"tags":[36,52,129,117,143,340],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n