Whine from the Vineyard
  
STICKY SITUATION
    Lawn signs and bumper stickers are a common form of communication here on the ur liberal island of Martha's Vineyard, where Barack Obama plays golf with banksters he should have put in jail.
    My favorite among the posters adorns a home in Edgartown. It calls upon our president to please save the world, with the word world represented by a globe graphic. I guess the thought is that if asked politely, Obama might just get around to doing that.
    My favorite bumper stickers come in anomalous pairs. One calls for peace and the other endorses Obama--both on the same bumper.  That’s like sporting both vegan and Eat More Beef stickers on your Subaru. The other supports both Elizabeth Warren, nemesis of the banksters, and Hillary Clinton, their ardent agent. But, hey, who's looking for logic?   
    Like liberals elsewhere, those on Marthas Vineyard don’t let such contradictions bother them. They don’t have to parse policy differences among Dem candidates because they don’t much care about such things.  Libs and Dems gave up on issues a long time ago.  Their only concern is voting against the Reps who scare the hell out of them.

EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE
    I call it the fogey forum.  It’s a once a week morning discussion group at the local senior center. In other places, duffers play bingo or engage in crafts. But since the Vineyard has so many smart seniors--retired execs, professionals, teachers and such--they like to keep their brains tuned up by chewing on the issues of the day. Topics can run from gardening and island history to global events. What surprises me at these confabs are the number of otherwise alert attendees who have never heard of the American empire.  Whenever I mention it, the reaction runs from dubiety to denial. The presentment of evidence of empire, no matter how compelling, doesn’t seem to have any effect--apart from choleric, that is.  It’s just another example of important stuff that many Americans can’t just bring themselves to acknowledge let alone talk about.