WTF - "The Surge"

Dear God (or Allah or Zeus or Tinkerbell), please tell me that my government is not going to wad up another 30-50k U.S. troops and throw them into the hell of Iraq. What could possibly be gained? Raise your hand if you think that one year from now we'll be drinking a toast to our great victory over "Terrorism"? Raise your hand if you think that ten years from now we'll be toasting the end of the "longest night"? Raise your hand if you think that by fighting in Iraq we're heading off a fight in the streets of Philadelphia against the terrorists? Come on.... honestly folks, what do we really think can happen once we "Surge" into Iraq... will they be shocked'd and awd'd, i.e., WOW'd more than they already are?

This is a foolish idea brought to us by folks that are having difficulties proving they can manage their way out of a closet. Jane Smiley has a nice piece on the historical perspective, but this Mark Benjamin's Solon article on the historical perspective of the U.S. fighting forces since 9/11 is very illuminating and worth the 4.5 minutes to read.

Raise your hand if you'd like to see the folks managing "Bush's Charge" lead from out front for a change...

Stephen Pizzo's piece on physical evidence that Bush is slipping into the abyss...

My Brother is a big fan of Pizzo.... after reading a few of his pieces from http://www.newsforreal.com/, I can see why.

Call Me Crazy
But Think I've Been Here Before

By Stephen Pizzo
Created Dec 9 2006 - 9:13am

Remember Watergate? I sure do. I lived through the entire sorted mess. But yesterday a particularly chilling image from those days returned to haunt my imagination. It was at the height of the crisis. Nixon, hunkered down in the Oval Office, buzzed his secretary and asked for his chief of staff, Al Haig.

When Haig walked in Nixon thrust a pill bottle at him. It was Valium. A frustrated Nixon asked Haig to open it for him. The bottle had a child-proof cap Nixon could not dislodge. As Haig went to open the bottle he noticed the cap had been nearly chewed off.

I always considered that moment -- an American president, the most powerful person on earth, in emotional free fall and desperately chewing the cap of tranquiler bottle -- the most frightening image of my life. That is, until this week.

This week I saw that look again. It was the look Richard Nixon had just weeks before the Valium bottle incident. It's hard to describe, but unmistakable -- an unsettling combination of nonsensical defiance, confusion, Captain Queeg-like paranoia with a dash of self-pity.

I saw that look in George W. Bush's face twice this week. The first time was during his Wednesday morning photo-op with the members of the Baker/Hamilton Commission. The best way to describe Bush's manner is that he seemed untethered from what everyone else in the nation considered a momentous moment. He lacked even appropriate voice inflection, delivering disjointed and rambling comments in a monotone. His comments were so bland and generic he might as well have been responding to a report from a local Rotary Club on the importance of good street lighting fighting street crime.

It was at that moment the thought first popped into my mind, “Whoa! This guy – or someone else – must have gotten the Valium bottle open this morning!”

It was just a guess, but the next day I was certain of it. It was during Bush's press conference with Tony Blair. At least Tony Blair looked appropriately concerned. Bush, on the other hand, looked lost. His performance reminded me of a stand-up comedian that suddenly discovers no one is laughing at the only jokes he knows any more. So he desperately tries them all, one after the other. When no one laughs at one joke he moves quickly to the next, then the next.... He tries all his golden oldies, but the audience just sits there. Some snicker, not at the jokes, but at the clueless guy on stage. Some get up and leave. A few actually heckle.

No one was buying Bush's old saws at Thursday's press conference. And he tried them all --- The, “Fight them there so we don't have to fight them here,” .... The , “if we leave before defeating them in Iraq they will follow us home.” .... The, “it's hard. I know it's hard.” ...

Nothing.

Worse than nothing. A British reporter asked him why he seemed to be the only person left not ready to admit things in Iraq are really bad. Bush got a glazed, far away look in his eyes -- the kind of look my dog gets on his fury face when ask if he had anything to do with dog dodo on the living room carpet. The answer was one not part of his usual act. He had to adlib. So it took awhile.

Finally he spoke: “Okay, It's bad.” Bush responded... followed by another long pause.

There was no laughter – except his own head-bobbing,“heh, heh, heh,” hint to the audience that he had just made a new joke. Only silence.

When no one reacted, he fished, “Is that better?” he pleaded. More silence. "I know it's hard. I understand that..." (It was an echo of Nixon's “Your president is not a crook,” declaration. Hell, I assumed most politicians are crooks. I wasn't worried that Dick Nixon was a crook. I was worried he was nuts.)

At a Senate hearing yesterday James Baker warned that the commission's report “should not be treated like a fruit salad, picking this, rejecting that.” That missed the point. We are not worried that the commission's report is a fruit salad, but that the guy they wrote it for is.

During Watergate the nation was spared the sad, and potentially dangerous, specter of a sitting president going stark raving mad in office. Adults in Nixon's own party conducted an intervention, leading their emotionally – and increasingly mentally – crippled leader safely off the world stage. It was an act of both statesmanship and patriotism by that handful of sage-like Republicans. It was also an act of kindness and compassion for a mortally wounded leader -- albeit the wounds were self-inflected.

So, is George W. Bush cracked or cracking? Or is what I witnessed this week just more of the uninformed, spoiled, arrogant little putz that 71% of us have come to dislike. Only time will tell -- but time is short.

President Bush hinted he would give a major speech before Christmas during which he plans to show Americans -- and the world – that he really is in touch with reality. But everything I know about George W. Bush argues against any sudden redemption. Because, as Oscar Wilde correctly pointed out, “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” And no president in America's history has been less imaginative than George W. Bush.

But if GWB is anything he's stubborn. Consistently so. Trouble is facts are even more stubborn. And it's facts now --- not Democrats, not surrender monkeys, not cut-and-runners, not the French, not the UN, not Michael Moore, not Cindy Sheehan – but the facts confronting George W. Bush. And facts can't be silenced by calling them names or insinuating they are "unpatriotic" facts. Facts are just what they are, nothing more, nothing less. And the facts on the ground in Iraq are ugly and will get even uglier in the weeks and months ahead.

The next few months will be very hard on Bush 43. Maybe too hard. We may see the weight of it all too much for a guy accustomed to getting his own way and never having to acknowledge, much less clean up, his own messes.

While we have not yet seen George the Younger crack in public, his father has. At a recent award ceremony for his other son, Jeb, George-the-Elder broke down sobbing. He said it was out of pride for Jeb. But I suspect it had a lot more to do with his concern for what he knows is in store for his other son, the one in the White House. He tried to warn young George against whacking Saddam, that doing so could spark a full scale mob war in that rough neighborhood. Now it's too late. War – civil war – will consume Iraq, and possibly ignite a full scale Sunni v. Shiite war in the Middle East. And Bush Sr. knows that the resulting mess will go down in history with the Bush family name stamped all over it.

The Baker/Hamilton commission has tried to show Bush Jr. a graceful -- if unavoidably ignoble -- path out of Iraq. But what may really be needed in the weeks ahead is someone ready to, not just crack open the Valium bottle for George W. Bush, but the door leading out of the Oval Office.

"Yes Mr.President. The way forward. It's right through here sir."

Scientific Fundamentalism

It's just as scary as religious fundamentalism, and in fact justifies the position of religious fundamentalism that science and religion are "mutually opposed and exclusive worldviews". Lakshmi Chaudhry does a nice job of pointing out the effects of "fundamental" intolerance in her article on Richard Dawkins documentary, The Root of All Evil. 

For another perspective, I recommend Bill Moyers "Faith and Reason". I believe the questions of why things happened the way they did are much more complex than Dawkins admits, and the world is not drawn in two tones.

Maureen Dowd inteviews Colbert and Stewart for Rolling Stone...

I've always liked Maureen, but if her questions were as good as their answers, this would be a much better interview....

Amelia in her Sari...

  

The dangers of fundamentalism on public policy

Seems like I've been down this road before, but I think Andrew Sullivan makes a much more reasoned argument here...

The RNC uses it's money to advertise for the other side...

"You have nothing to fear but fear itself." The RNC and the Rasputianian Karl Rove continue their Orwellian journey into the heart of darkness. This time it's a commerical that does more to promote the terrorist agenda than anything produced by Bin-Laden. Keith Olbermann lays the smackdown on this unbelievable use of the terrorist agenda to scare people into voting for them.

A chronological refresher on the war in Iraq...

PBS's Frontline has some great material on the war in Iraq. This chronology of events is a nice rememberence of how we got where we are now.

Olbermann..... again, calling it out loud

Keith Olbermann continues to channel Edward R. Morrow.... here's his latest. And here's a little reason why what he says isn't "just talk".

A small passage from Obama's new book

I'm returning again to the question of faith, religion and politics. This is an area that continues to pop up in different areas of my life and seems a source of some wisdom that I've yet to learn. Anyway, there is an interesting article on Obama from ThomasPaine.com reflecting on how his rhetorical skills might provide the progressives with a framework with which to wage the 2008 campaign. Within this, however, is also a link to a Time article which quotes a passage from Obama's forthcoming book. Well worth the ten minutes it will take to read.

Follow the money...

That old axiom is as true today as it was in when Hal Holbrook uttered them as Deep Throat in "All the Presidents men..." SecrecyNow follows up on the recently enacted Transparency Act to see where the money is going.

Bush and Co. and the falling price of gasoline

I have to admit that I considered idea that Bush & Co., and perhaps more specifically Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, were engineering the falling price of gasoline in anticipation of this fall's elections as a 1+1=2 equation. Like, duh? I do, occasionally, fall into an intellectual laziness that permits me to accept political conspiracy theories without much factual information. Then you read something like this and you see how easy it is to actually do (with the right connections) and what Goldman Sachs (formerly led by Paulson) recently did with respect to gas futures and, well, read it for yourself and decide what's possible and what's not.

And here is the Clinton / Wallace interview

... for your viewing pleasure.

Olbermann on the Clinton / Wallace interview

Well, it doesn't look like receiving an envelope full of white powder meant to appear as anthrax has dampened Mr. Olbermann's headlong charge into the belly of this administration... I do find it interesting that anti-Clintonites have latched on to to the Rovian "Howard Dean scream" spin to this interview. It's like the Rather story on Bush's activities during Vietnam - nobody questions the assertions, they just poke at the messenger.

The best country on the planet....

is getting ready to approve a bill to authorize the suspension of the fundamental rights and freedoms for which hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives. This administration and every elected official that votes for this "detainee bill" is laying a stone at the tomb of our grand little experiment.

This country has been sold out by a group of greedy, petro-fascist people with no more understanding of our hard fought history against tyranny than they do about "winning" a war. Molly Ivins has a nice piece on this steaming pile of legislation.

Think it's a just a lot of wind that doesn't mean much? Here's the text of the bill. I would direct your attention to sections 108(3), 106 and 107. Respectively, they give the President the right to be the sole "authority" on interpreting the Geneva Convention, suspension of writ or habeas corpus for detainees (overruling the recent Supreme Court ruling about detainees rights to contest their detainee status, and the prohibition of a detainee to invoke the Geneva Convention. That little chestnut was a right that came from Magna Carta.

Harry Reid, not one of my favorite politicians, put it quite eloquently on this occasion:

"The Framers of our Constitution understood the need for checks and balances, but this bill discards them. Many of the worst provisions were not in the Committee-reported bill, and were not in the compromise announced last Friday. They were added over the weekend after backroom meetings with White House lawyers. We have tried to improve this legislation. Senator Levin proposed to substitute the bipartisan bill that was reported by the Armed Services Committee. That amendment was rejected. Senators Specter and Leahy offered an amendment to restore the right to judicial review - that amendment was rejected. Senator Rockefeller offered an amendment to improve congressional oversight of CIA programs - that amendment was rejected. Senator Kennedy offered an amendment to clarify that inhumane interrogation tactics prohibited by the Army Field manual could not be used on Americans or on others - that amendment was rejected. And Senator Byrd offered an amendment to sunset military commissions so that Congress would simply be required to reconsider this far-reaching authority after five years of experience. Even that amendment was rejected. I strongly believe this legislation is unconstitutional. It will almost certainly be struck down by the Supreme Court. And when that happens, we'll be back here several years from now debating how to bring terrorists to justice.
The families of the 9/11 victims and the nation have been waiting five years for the perpetrators of these attacks to be brought to justice. They should not have to wait longer. We should get this right now - and we are not doing so by passing this bill. The National security policies of this administration and Republican Congress may have been tough, but they haven't been smart. The American people are paying a price for their mistakes.
History will judge our actions here today. I am convinced that future generations will view passage of this bill as a grave error. I wish to be recorded as one who voted against taking this step."

RIP, United States of America.

Olbermann with the 9/11 Commission report - the power of history

Not sure it can beat spin, but it makes me proud to be a History major... Olbermann did good.

Dollars to donuts this one won't be carried by the major media outlets

A new Gallop poll, released yesterday, on who folks feel is most responsible for the failure to capture Bin Laden... you would think the 'liberal media' would have a field day with this, but it won't make page one anywhere in America. These results actually make me kind of proud, particularly after the recent Disney 9/11 miniseries that really tried to lay this on Bill's doorstep. Reminds me of a recent article I saw that nearly 2/3rds of one poll sampling thought that the reduction of gas prices over the last several weeks was an effort by oil companies to help Bush and Republicans retain control of the government. Maybe the Rovian snake oil is starting to lose its power...

Krugman's Bush as Kafka rational

Stumbled on this Krugman thought late last night... honestly, if this is true, it's about the saddest thing I ever read. The Rove strategy never shined brighter than when they took up the "Islamic fascist insurgency". Does anyone reading that not understand what a fascist is? It is the subservience of the individual to the state and a marriage of the government and business... stop me if you've heard this one :) Or, as Benito said, "Fascism ought to more properly be called corporatism since it is the merger of state and corporate power.” And what do you have to get rid of to merge the state and corporate power? The Constitution. Pay attention to what you see and read that comes from the seat of our government and decide for yourselves.

So how do we actually go about winning the "decisive idealogical struggle of our time"?

The new Rovian moniker for the Bush doctrine, or DISOOT, is going to become the frame by which these things are discussed. And while I disagree that this conflict will ever represent anything more than an economic struggle for control of natural resources - the basis of every war in history - I'm willing to play in that dreamhouse while its the center of attention. I'd argue that everything you need to know about the Bush doctrine can be found in a position paper written by The Project for the New American Century. This has been the game plan since before Bush took office and they've done a pretty good job of following it, although the results have been far from what was forecast in that report.

In any event, given that we must take positive action to win the DISOOT, how do we do it other that what the Shock and Awe kids are offering up? Well, let's be honest about the source of our security and vulnerability, and about what funds the conflict for both sides - who the winners are and who the losers. And here's a starter for a vision of what policy decision we oughta look at next...

The use of 9/11 for political gain is about as low as it goes...

and yet none of are very surprised by that fact. That seems more than just a bit sad. As is this piece based on a study from Columbia University regarding the cold use of terror for political gain. And another piece from Joshua Holland on the perspective we bring to the WOT.

Joshua Holland's round-up of pre-9/11 intelligence

To counter the spin that has been building for weeks now, here's a great round-up of the facts surrounding who knew what and when. Thanks, Joshua!

The Next Generation... sans the Colorado Kids

 

We missed having the Colorado Kids (Tim and Nick), but here's the Kessler / Vierra / Phillips sprouts... 

War Profiteers

Olberman brought this up lightly in his Rumsfeld commentary last week, but Charlie Cray at Alternet did a nice job of tallying up the Top 10 war profiteers... the names may surprise you...

The well sure is looking mighty dry...

The president's latest dumb speech... yeah, Slate's Fred Kaplan hit this one right on the noodle with this piece on W's speech today. There has to be a cure for folks that are still "believers", but I fear it comes straps and a tenured position in a room with pillowed walls...

Rumsfeld, with "the batteries put in backwards..."

Donald H. Rumsfeld must have flunked his share of history classes. His obtuse reference to the pretender's war critics as being "appeasers" went beyond ignorance or stupidity. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann came back last night with one of the great commentaries on the actual lessons from the history Rumsfeld misguidedly referenced. This one is really worth watching, but here's the commentary just in case you can't get the video to play:

The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.

Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis—and the sober contemplation—of every American.

For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence -- indeed, the loyalty -- of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants -- our employees -- with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as “his” troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.

It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.

In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld’s speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril—with a growing evil—powerful and remorseless.

That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld’s, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the “secret information.” It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s -- questioning their intellect and their morality.

That government was England’s, in the 1930’s.

It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England.

It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords.

It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions — its own omniscience -- needed to be dismissed.

The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.

Most relevant of all — it “knew” that its staunchest critics needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile, at best morally or intellectually confused.

That critic’s name was Winston Churchill.

Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.

History — and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England — have taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty — and his own confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts.

Thus, did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy.

Excepting the fact, that he has the battery plugged in backwards.

His government, absolute -- and exclusive -- in its knowledge, is not the modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis.

It is the modern version of the government of Neville Chamberlain.

But back to today’s Omniscient ones.

That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely.

And, as such, all voices count -- not just his.

Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience — about Osama Bin Laden’s plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein’s weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina’s impact one year ago — we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their “omniscience” as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.

But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris.

Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire “Fog of Fear” which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have — inadvertently or intentionally — profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.

And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer’s New Clothes?

In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?

The confusion we -- as its citizens— must now address, is stark and forbidding.

But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart — that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.

The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.

And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a “new type of fascism.”

As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.

This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.

Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.

But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: “confused” or “immoral.”

Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” he said, in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

And so good night, and good luck.

More on the theme of fear and fear mongering..

I mentioned previously my belief that I think we're nearing a turn on the propogandic value of RNC-sponsered fear mongering. I've seen a few articles mentioning this, and I think the wave is still coming... here's another nugget from Bruce Schneier (from a Wired article. Let the rain pour down, brothers and sisters, spread your arms and enjoy the refreshing use of analytical and observational skills...

Countdown to the next terror alert...

The clock started immediately after Judge Taylor handed down her decision against the administration's NSA warrentless (and illegal) wiretapping program. Olbermann put me on to this last week, but it is scary to think that it is as obvious as it seems... maybe, hopefully, I'm completely wrong here and we aren't goint to have some breaking news from the administration about someone they investigated months ago but are only now revealing... or have "extrememly credible evidence" that a group was planning to.... wait for it.... wait for it...

Is there anyone outside of the Fox, er, Bush Administration that still believes that warrentless wiretapping is legal???

The Constitution doesn't really have optional clauses... and one branch can't decided on its own that the rules don't really apply to them because, after declaring on a tactic, they decide that they get to be King until after the victory party... turns out the federal court agrees. Thank you very much, Anna Diggs Taylor, for helping to restore my faith in the rule of law.

This is a good one....you must read to the last line!

For Pam...

It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and
then -- just to loosen up. Inevitably, though, one thought led to
another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker. I began to
think alone -- "to relax," I told myself -- but I knew it wasn't true.
Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was
thinking all the time.

That was when things began to sour at home. One evening I turned off
the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night
at her mother's. I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and
employment don't mix, but I couldn't help myself.

I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau, Muir,
Confucius and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused,
asking, "What is it exactly we are doing here?"

One day the boss called me in. He said, "Listen, I like you, and it
hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If
you don't stop thinking on the job, you'll have to find another job."

This gave me a lot to think about. I came home early after my
conversation with the boss. "Honey," I confess, "I've been thinking..."

"I know you've been thinking," she said, "and I want a divorce!"

"But Honey, surely it's not that serious."

"It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as
college professors and college professors don't make any money, so if
you keep on thinking, we won't have any money!"

"That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently.

She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to
deal with the emotional drama.

"I'm going to the library," I snarled as I stomped out the door.

I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche. I roared into
the parking lot with NPR on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors.
They didn't open. The library was closed.

To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that
night. Leaning on the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a
poster caught my eye, "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?" it
asked.

You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinkers
Anonymous poster.

This is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never miss a
TA meeting.. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week
it was "Porky's." Then we share experiences about how we avoided
thinking since the last meeting.

I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just
seemed...easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking. I think the
road to recovery is nearly complete for me.



SO..................



Today I took the final step............ I joined the Republican Party.

Olbermann connects the dots between administration bad news and fearmongering - "The Nexus of politics and terror"

This runs about 10 minutes long, but is a great summary of the last 10 "hightened" terror conditions and the events that preceeeded them... as Olbermann says, judge for yourself...

A trend is definitely emerging... I'm hoping it holds through November's elections!

Greg Palast wrote a nice piece on the various, nafarious ways the current administration is leveraging and manipulating information on "The War on Terror". But the really interesting part is that I'm starting to notice more and more mention of "the real danger" in the war. Coupled with a few entries I've seen on KOS and a mention on CNN this morning, I'm thinking that we might finally get a breakthrough with MSM to start keeping their eye on the ball a bit...

Wishing I had written this one...

Every now and again you stumble across a rant that you really wish you had written. This one, titled "Perspective: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Get a Grip" is a great example. DarkSyde, wrote this on the Daily Kos, and I was amazed how it made me feel for the rest of the day...

Finally, a comprehensive summary of the Bush Administration's overreaching work

The Huffington Post published this report from Rep. John Conyers documenting the Bush Administrations violations of statutes, laws and the constitution. And, as one might figure, only one main stream media outlet picked it up... The 4th estate has abrogated its responsibilities even more than the Republican led Congress. Where have all the investigative reporters gone, anyway?

Galen back from Australia!

  

Science and faith... The search for perspective

My dad was in town last week, which was a good thing :)

We started having a conversation on reason and faith, and my old man seems to steer further and further away from ideas of faith the older he gets. In my experience, faith, like science, is generally agnostic and it is the intentional manipulation that both are vulnerable to by those wanting to take some advantage. Now the idea of agnostic faith may seem strange, but there is some significant literature that suggests that many of the founders of the United States were in fact Deists. I believe that science will ultimately fail to answer questions concerning "soul", "mind" or "consciousness" in any meaningful way, but I've been wrong a time or two before. My point is that it is the search for the meaning of those terms that have driven many of our most cherished philosophical endeavors. In any event, I turned to Bill Moyers for a little help on this one in a series he did for PBS titled "On Faith and Reason"

The voice of conservative reason...

The unreserved, orgiastic love of authoritarianism that drools from the poorly educated lips of the "new" right talking heads (O'Reilly, Coulter, et al.) who have forgotten the faces of their fathers is sometimes all we think of when we think "conservatives" these days. But there was a time when conservatives actually had real philosophies, ones that could be argued and debated and respected, even in disagreement. John Dean's new book is a vivid reminder that real conservatives aren't dead, and that's not a bad thing at all. I'm sure this will earn him loads of love from the goosestepping Zeitright...

A little reason from the Deans...

In the wake of some unprecendented and truly vicious right-wing attacks against the NY Times, Dean's at several of the United States' most renowned Journalism schools did a nice j-o-b of putting the matter of what needs protection in it's proper place... read on

I latched onto this from Chris Hutchinson's Salon article, which caries the question of "prior restraint" a little further...

Just plain funny - The Bush Pilot

What many have suspected about GW turns out to be true... memories of Men In Black.

How do you create fewer terrorists? Give them something to live for....

This is one of those articles I stumble across now and again that just sort of hits me at the right time. Maybe it's crazy, but I can't help thinking of the vast number of terrorists that the U.S. has created since Operation Iraqi Liberation and, well, maybe we oughta start thinking about how to slow production...

On the importance of the suggested changes to the Voting Rights Act...

The GOP is getting ready to eliminate the VRA in anticipation of the 2008 elections. Having learned a lesson or two from the fradulant challenges they made in the 2004 elections, the GOP is positioning itself to continue those illegal tactics by getting rid of the Voting Rights Act. While southern states have some reason to feel picked on by the law, the answer isn't to abolish the act but to provide the same protections to voters in all states. Greg Palast, who covered the 2004 elections for the BBC and did a solid job of digging into the nuts and bolts of what happened, has a great piece on this and what it will portends for the next major election.

RFK Jr's Rolling Stone article on the 2004 election

I've been trying desperately to put this election behind me, but can't get the cliché about "those forgetting history are doomed to repeat it" out of my head. I'm not a hardcore conspiracy theorist, but I'm thinking that you don't really need to be to have a high level of confidence that there was an unprecedented amount of shenanigans going on during the 2004 presidential election, and that the guy who really lost still lives on Pennsylvania Avenue. RFK Jr's article does a nice job of putting the whole enchilada on the table to see...

Can you win a war on an emotional reaction?

Old information here, but worth remembering during the debate that is sure to develop from now until the fall elections. George Lakoff, Professor of Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley and a Senior Fellow of the Rockridge Institute, wrote this piece a while ago - an oldie but a goodie :)

Barack Obama @ Take Back America

What I enjoy about Obama is that he doesn't play on fear, demonize those he disagrees with or patronize the electorate... He is, in my mind, one of the great American orators of our time... well worth the download time, availble right here

More on 9/11 from Joshua Holland on AlterNet

I'm not convinced that the facts surrounding the 9/11 attacks have ever been revealed. My personal opinion is that there was a lot more ineptitude than malice behind the intelligence communities investigations prior to the attacks, but with an administration so bent on secrecy, I've often wondered. The NeoCons position paper written long before Bush II took office really lays out the administrations response very well, and they couldn't have asked for a better catalyst for the changes they've made than 9/11. Still, that ain't evidence. Here's a good article from Joshua, along with some good comments at the bottom, available on AlterNet. I'm not saying I know anything more, but it is interesting to keep track of the story after it moves off the front page...

Goldberg's article on the Christian Right a good read...

Michelle Goldberg has written an incisive piece on what is likely to become an interesting battle over the ever decreasing territory of the "middle"... read on:

Tyranny of the Christian Right
By Michelle Goldberg, AlterNet
Posted on May 30, 2006, Printed on May 31, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/36640/
Whenever I talk about the growing power of the evangelical right with friends, they always ask the same question: What can we do? Usually I reply with a joke: Keep a bag packed and your passport current.

I don't really mean it, but my anxiety is genuine. It's one thing to have a government that shows contempt for civil liberties; America has survived such men before. It's quite another to have a mass movement -- the largest and most powerful mass movement in the nation -- rise up in opposition to the rights of its fellow citizens. The Constitution protects minorities, but that protection is not absolute; with a sufficiently sympathetic or apathetic majority, a tightly organized faction can get around it.

The mass movement I've described aims to supplant Enlightenment rationalism with what it calls the "Christian worldview." The phrase is based on the conviction that true Christianity must govern every aspect of public and private life, and that all -- government, science, history and culture -- must be understood according to the dictates of scripture. There are biblically correct positions on every issue, from gay marriage to income tax rates, and only those with the right worldview can discern them. This is Christianity as a total ideology -- I call it Christian nationalism. It's an ideology adhered to by millions of Americans, some of whom are very powerful. It's what drives a great many of the fights over religion, science, sex and pluralism now dividing communities all over the country.

I am not suggesting that religious tyranny is imminent in the United States. Our democracy is eroding and some of our rights are disappearing, but for most people, including those most opposed to the Christian nationalist agenda, life will most likely go on pretty much as normal for the foreseeable future. Thus for those who value secular society, apprehending the threat of Christian nationalism is tricky. It's like being a lobster in a pot, with the water heating up so slowly that you don't notice the moment at which it starts to kill you.

If current trends continue, we will see ever-increasing division and acrimony in our politics. That's partly because, as Christian nationalism spreads, secularism is spreading as well, while moderate Christianity is in decline. According to the City University of New York Graduate Center's comprehensive American religious identification survey, the percentage of Americans who identify as Christians has actually fallen in recent years, from 86 percent in 1990 to 77 percent in 2001. The survey found that the largest growth, in both absolute and percentage terms, was among those who don't subscribe to any religion. Their numbers more than doubled, from 14.3 million in 1990, when they constituted 8 percent of the population, to 29.4 million in 2001, when they made up 14 percent.

"The top three 'gainers' in America's vast religious marketplace appear to be Evangelical Christians, those describing themselves as Non-Denominational Christians and those who profess no religion," the survey found. (The percentage of other religious minorities remained small, totaling less than 4 percent of the population).

This is a recipe for polarization. As Christian nationalism becomes more militant, secularists and religious minorities will mobilize in opposition, ratcheting up the hostility. Thus we're likely to see a shrinking middle ground, with both camps increasingly viewing each other across a chasm of mutual incomprehension and contempt.

In the coming years, we will probably see the curtailment of the civil rights that gay people, women and religious minorities have won in the last few decades. With two Bush appointees on the Supreme Court, abortion rights will be narrowed; if the president gets a third, it could mean the end of Roe v. Wade. Expect increasing drives to ban gay people from being adoptive or foster parents, as well as attempts to fire gay schoolteachers. Evangelical leaders are encouraging their flocks to be alert to signs of homosexuality in their kids, which will lead to a growing number of gay teenagers forced into "reparative therapy" designed to turn them straight. (Focus on the Family urges parents to consider seeking help for boys as young as five if they show a "tendency to cry easily, be less athletic, and dislike the roughhousing that other boys enjoy.")

Christian nationalist symbolism and ideology will increasingly pervade public life. In addition to the war on evolution, there will be campaigns to teach Christian nationalist history in public schools. An elective course developed by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, a right-wing evangelical group, is already being offered by more than 300 school districts in 36 states. The influence of Christian nationalism in public schools, colleges, courts, social services and doctors' offices will deform American life, rendering it ever more pinched, mean, and divided.

There's still a long way, though, between this damaged version of democracy and real theocracy. Tremendous crises would have to shred what's left of the American consensus before religious fascism becomes a possibility. That means that secularists and liberals shouldn't get hysterical, but they also shouldn't be complacent.

Christian nationalism is still constrained by the Constitution, the courts, and by a passionate democratic (and occasionally Democratic) opposition. It's also limited by capitalism. Many corporations are happy to see their political allies harness the rage and passion of the Christian right's foot soldiers, but the culture industry is averse to government censorship. Nor is homophobia good for business, since many companies need to both recruit qualified gay employees and market to gay customers. Biotech firms are not going to want to hire graduates without a thorough understanding of evolution, so economic pressure will militate against creationism's invading a critical mass of the public schools.

Taking the land

It would take a national disaster, or several of them, for all these bulwarks to crumble and for Christian nationalists to truly "take the land," as Michael Farris, president of the evangelical Patrick Henry College, put it. Historically, totalitarian movements have been able to seize state power only when existing authorities prove unable to deal with catastrophic challenges -- economic meltdown, security failures, military defeat -- and people lose their faith in the legitimacy of the system.

Such calamities are certainly conceivable in America -- Hurricane Katrina's aftermath offered a terrifying glimpse of how quickly order can collapse. If terrorists successfully strike again, we'd probably see significant curtailment of liberal dissenters' free speech rights, coupled with mounting right-wing belligerence, both religious and secular.

The breakdown in the system could also be subtler. Many experts have warned that America's debt is unsustainable and that economic crisis could be on the horizon. If there is a hard landing -- due to an oil shock, a burst housing bubble, a sharp decline in the value of the dollar, or some other crisis -- interest rates would shoot up, leaving many people unable to pay their floating-rate mortgages and credit card bills. Repossessions and bankruptcies would follow. The resulting anger could fuel radical populist movements of either the left or the right -- more likely the right, since it has a far stronger ideological infrastructure in place in most of America.

Military disaster may also exacerbate such disaffection. America's war in Iraq seems nearly certain to come to an ignominious end. The real victims of failure there will be Iraqi, but many Americans will feel embittered, humiliated and sympathetic to the stab-in-the-back rhetoric peddled by the right to explain how Bush's venture has gone so horribly wrong. It was the defeat in World War I, after all, that created the conditions for fascism to grow in Germany.

Perhaps America will be lucky, however, and muddle through its looming problems. In that case, Christian nationalism will continue to be a powerful and growing influence in American politics, although its expansion will happen more fitfully and gradually.

The country's demographics are on the movement's side. Megachurch culture is spreading. The exurbs where religious conservatism thrives are the fastest growing parts of America; in 2004, 97 of the country's 100 fastest-growing counties voted Republican. The disconnection of the exurbs is a large part of what makes the spread of Christian nationalism's fictitious reality possible, because there is very little to conflict with it.

A movement that constitutes its members' entire social world has a grip that's hard to break. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt put it this way: "Social atomization and extreme individualization preceded the mass movements which, much more easily and earlier than they did the sociable, non-individualistic members of the traditional parties, attracted the completely unorganized, the typical 'nonjoiners' who for individualistic reasons always had refused to recognize social links or obligations."

America's ragged divides

Those who want to fight Christian nationalism will need a long-term and multifaceted strategy. I see it as having three parts -- electoral reform to give urban areas fair representation in the federal government, grassroots organizing to help people fight Christian nationalism on the ground and a media campaign to raise public awareness about the movement's real agenda.

My ideas are not about reconciliation or healing. It would be good if a leader stepped forward who could recognize the grievances of both sides, broker some sort of truce, and mend America's ragged divides. The anxieties that underlay Christian nationalism's appeal -- fears about social breakdown, marital instability and cultural decline -- are real. They should be acknowledged and, whenever possible, addressed. But as long as the movement aims at the destruction of secular society and the political enforcement of its theology, it has to be battled, not comforted and appeased.

And while I support liberal struggles for economic justice -- higher wages, universal health care, affordable education, and retirement security -- I don't think economic populism will do much to neutralize the religious right. Cultural interests are real interests, and many drives are stronger than material ones. As Arendt pointed out, totalitarian movements have always confounded observers who try to analyze them in terms of class.

Ultimately, a fight against Christian nationalist rule has to be a fight against the anti-urban bias built into the structure of our democracy. Because each state has two senators, the 7 percent of the population that live in the 17 least-populous states control more than a third of Congress's upper house. Conservative states are also overrepresented in the Electoral College.

According to Steven Hill of the Center for Voting and Democracy, the combined populations of Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, North and South Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Alaska equal that of New York and Massachusetts, but the former states have a total of nine more votes in the Electoral College (as well as over five times the votes in the Senate). In America, conservatives literally count for more.

Liberals should work to abolish the Electoral College and to even out the composition of the Senate, perhaps by splitting some of the country's larger states.(A campaign for statehood for New York City might be a place to start.) It will be a grueling, Herculean job. With conservatives already indulging in fantasies of victimization at the hands of a maniacal Northeastern elite, it will take a monumental movement to wrest power away from them. Such a movement will come into being only when enough people in the blue states stop internalizing right-wing jeers about how out of touch they are with "real Americans" and start getting angry at being ruled by reactionaries who are out of touch with them.

After all, the heartland has no claim to moral authority. The states whose voters are most obsessed with "moral values" have the highest divorce and teen pregnancy rates. The country's highest murder rates are in the South and the lowest are in New England. The five states with the best-ranked public schools in the country -- Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey and Wisconsin -- are all progressive redoubts. The five states with the worst -- New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, Mississippi and Louisiana -- all went for Bush.

The canard that the culture wars are a fight between "elites" versus "regular Americans" belies a profound split between different kinds of ordinary Americans, all feeling threatened by the others' baffling and alien values. Ironically, however, by buying into right-wing elite-baiting, liberals start thinking like out-of-touch elites. Rather than reflecting on what kind of policies would make their own lives better, what kind of country they want to live in, and who they want to represent them -- and then figuring out how to win others to their vision -- progressives flail about for ideas and symbols that they hope will appeal to some imaginary heartland rube. That is condescending.

Focus on the local

One way for progressives to build a movement and fight Christian nationalism at the same time is to focus on local politics. For guidance, they need only look to the Christian Coalition: It wasn't until after Bill Clinton's election exiled the evangelical right from power in Washington that the Christian Coalition really developed its nationwide electoral apparatus.

The Christian right developed a talent for crafting state laws and amendments to serve as wedge issues, rallying their base, and forcing the other side to defend seemingly extreme positions. Campaigns to require parental consent for minors' abortions, for example, get overwhelming public support and put the pro-choice movement on the defensive while giving pro-lifers valuable political experience.

Liberals can use this strategy too. They can find issues to exploit the other side's radicalism, winning a few political victories and, just as important, marginalizing Christian nationalists in the eyes of their fellow citizens. Progressives could work to pass local and state laws, by ballot initiative wherever possible, denying public funds to any organization that discriminates on the basis of religion. Because so much faith-based funding is distributed through the states, such laws could put an end to at least some of the taxpayer-funded bias practiced by the Salvation Army and other religious charities. Right now, very few people know that, thanks to Bush, a faith-based outfit can take tax dollars and then explicitly refuse to hire Jews, Hindus, Buddhists or Muslims. The issue needs far more publicity, and a political fight -- or a series of them -- would provide it. Better still, the campaign would contribute to the creation of a grassroots infrastructure -- a network of people with political experience and a commitment to pluralism.

Progressives could also work on passing laws to mandate that pharmacists fill contraceptive prescriptions. (Such legislation has already been introduced in California, Missouri, New Jersey, Nevada, and West Virginia.) The commercials would practically write themselves. Imagine a harried couple talking with their doctor and deciding that they can't afford any more kids. The doctor writes a birth control prescription, the wife takes it to her pharmacist -- and he sends her away with a religious lecture. The campaign could use one of the most successful slogans that abortion rights advocates ever devised: "Who decides -- you or them?"

A new media strategy

In conjunction with local initiatives, opponents of Christian nationalism need a new media strategy. Many people realize this. Fenton Communications, the agency that handles public relations for MoveOn, recently put together the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, a MoveOn-style grassroots group devoted to raising awareness about the religious right. With nearly 3.5 million members ready to be quickly mobilized to donate money, write letters or lobby politicians on behalf of progressive causes, MoveOn is the closest thing liberals have to the Christian Coalition, but its focus tends to be on economic justice, foreign policy and the environment rather than contentious social issues. The Campaign to Defend the Constitution intends to build a similar network to counter Christian nationalism wherever it appears.

Much of what media strategists need to do simply involves public education. Americans need to learn what Christian Reconstructionism means so that they can decide whether they approve of their congressmen consorting with theocrats. They need to realize that the Republican Party has become the stronghold of men who fundamentally oppose public education because they think women should school their kids themselves. (In It Takes a Family, Rick Santorum calls public education an "aberration" and predicts that home-schooling will flourish as "one viable option among many that will open up as we eliminate the heavy hand of the village elders' top-down control of education and allow a thousand parent-nurtured flowers to bloom.")

When it comes to the public relations fight against Christian nationalism, nothing is trickier than battles concerning public religious symbolism. Fights over crèches in public squares or Christmas hymns sung by school choirs are really about which aspects of the First Amendment should prevail -- its protection of free speech or its ban on the establishment of religion. In general, I think it's best to err on the side of freedom of expression. As in most First Amendment disputes, the answer to speech (or, in this case, symbolism) that makes religious minorities feel excluded or alienated is more speech -- menorahs, Buddhas, Diwali lights, symbols celebrating America's polyglot spiritualism.

There are no neat lines, no way to suck the venom out of these issues without capitulating completely. But one obvious step civil libertarians should take is a much more vocal stance in defense of evangelicals' free speech rights when they are unfairly curtailed. Although far less common than the Christian nationalists pretend, on a few occasions lawsuit-fearing officials have gone overboard in defending church/state separation, silencing religious speech that is protected by the First Amendment. (In one 2005 incident that got tremendous play in the right-wing press, a principal in Tennessee wouldn't allow a ten-year-old student to hold a Bible study during recess.) Such infringements should be fought for reasons both principled, because Christians have the same right to free speech as everyone else, and political, because these abuses generate a backlash that ultimately harms the cause of church/state separation.

The ACLU already does this, but few hear about it, because secularists lack the right's propaganda apparatus. Liberals need to create their own echo chamber to refute these kind of distortions while loudly supporting everyone's freedom of speech. Committed Christian nationalists won't be won over, but some of their would-be sympathizers might be inoculated against the claim that progressives want to extirpate their faith, making it harder for the right to frame every political dispute as part of a war against Jesus.

The challenge, finally, is to make reality matter again. If progressives can do that, perhaps America can be saved.

Fighting fundamentalism at home

Writing just after 9/11, Salman Rushdie eviscerated those on the left who rationalized the terrorist attacks as a regrettable explosion of understandable third world rage: "The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings," he wrote. "Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multiparty political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex."

Christian nationalists have no problem with beardlessness, but except for that, Rushdie could have been describing them.

It makes no sense to fight religious authoritarianism abroad while letting it take over at home. The grinding, brutal war between modern and medieval values has spread chaos, fear, and misery across our poor planet. Far worse than the conflicts we're experiencing today, however, would be a world torn between competing fundamentalisms. Our side, America's side, must be the side of freedom and Enlightenment, of liberation from stale constricting dogmas. It must be the side that elevates reason above the commands of holy books and human solidarity above religious supremacism. Otherwise, God help us all.

Reprinted from Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg. Copyright © 2006 by Michelle Goldberg. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.


© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/36640/

Finally, a little clarity around "Peak Oil"

Bless Greg Palast for doing what I should have done myself a long time - go back to the source of the Peak Oil debate presented by M. King Hubbert to the American Oil Institute in 1956. It is actually proving very difficult to track down the actual source documentation, so I am taking Palast's at his word. I'll continue to try finding it, but it if Palast is right, Hubbert was actually talking about "cheap oil", rather than fossil fuel in general. Hope you enjoy the article... read on

More from the gang that couldn't shoot straight

The one thing that this administration has proved without a shadow of a doubt that, when forced to choose between loyalty and competence, they go with the former. But Ken Silverstein's Harper piece on what happens to truth-tellers within the intelligence community is stunningly frightening...

This administrations disdain for inconvenient facts has set a new standard for "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".

GOP gets off the accountability bus in a hurry...

Sham Lobbying Reform
Jack? Jack Abramoff? No, the name doesn't ring a bell.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006; A22

DO YOU remember, back when the spotlight was on Jack Abramoff, how House Republican leaders pledged to get tough on lobbyists? Well, you may; apparently they don't. The House plans this week to take up the Lobbying Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, a watered-down sham that would provide little in the way of accountability or transparency. If the Senate-passed measure was a disappointment, the House version is simply a joke -- or, more accurately, a ruse aimed at convincing what the leaders must believe is a doltish public that the House has done something to clean up Washington.

Privately paid travel, such as the lavish golfing trips to Scotland that Mr. Abramoff arranged for members? "Private travel has been abused by some, and I believe we need to put an end to it," said Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). But that was January; this is now. Privately funded trips wouldn't be banned under the House bill, just "suspended" until Dec. 15 (yes, just after the election) while the House ethics committee, that bastion of anemic do-nothingness, ostensibly develops recommendations.

Meals and other gifts from lobbyists? "I believe that it's also very important for us to proceed with a significantly stronger gift ban, which would prevent members and staff from personally benefiting from gifts from lobbyists," said Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) in -- you guessed it -- January. Now, Mr. Dreier's bill would leave the current gift limits unchanged.

Flights on corporate jets? No problem; the bill wouldn't permit corporate lobbyists to tag along, but other corporate officials are welcome aboard while lawmakers get the benefits of private jets at the cost of a first-class ticket.

Mr. Dreier's Rules Committee took an already weak House bill and made it weaker. From the version of the measure approved by the House Judiciary Committee, it dropped provisions that would require lobbyists to disclose fundraisers they host for candidates, campaign checks they solicit for lawmakers and parties they finance (at conventions, for example) in honor of members.

The bill would require more frequent reporting by lobbyists and somewhat more detail. Lobbyists would have to list their campaign contributions -- information that's available elsewhere but nonetheless convenient to have on disclosure forms. And some additional information would have to be disclosed -- meals or gifts that lobbyists provide to lawmakers, along with contributions to their charities. Some lawmakers want to strengthen the bill. But will the Rules Committee allow their proposals to be considered? Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) would require lawmakers to pay market rates for corporate charters. Mr. Shays and Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.) would supplement the paralyzed House ethics committee with an independent congressional ethics office -- needed now more than ever. House Democrats have a far more robust version of lobbying reform that deserves an up-or-down vote. Having produced a bill this bad, the Rules Committee ought at least to give lawmakers an opportunity to vote for something better.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Al Gore looking sharp and getting laughs on SNL

Thanks to Crooks and Liars for staying up late for me... Al never looked or sounded better..

Perspective from Robert Reich on the new "Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006"

May 11, 2006


Robert Reich is professor of public policy at the Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He was secretary of labor in the Clinton administration.

This week, the House is expected to vote on something termed, in perfect Orwellian prose, the "Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006." It will be the first real battle in the coming War of Internet Democracy.

On one side are the companies that pipe the Internet into our homes and businesses. These include telecom giants like AT&T and Verizon and cable companies like Comcast. Call them the pipe companies.

On the other side are the people and businesses that send Internet content through the pipes. Some are big outfits like Yahoo, Google and Amazon, big financial institutions like Bank of America and Citigroup and giant media companies soon to pump lots of movies and TV shows on to the Internet.

But most content providers are little guys. They’re mom-and-pop operations specializing in, say, antique egg-beaters or Brooklyn Dodgers memorabilia. They’re anarchists, kooks and zealots peddling all sorts of crank ideas They’re personal publishers and small-time investigators. They include my son’s comedy troupe—streaming new videos on the Internet every week. They also include gazillions of bloggers—including my humble little blog and maybe even yours.

Until now, a basic principle of the Internet has been that the pipe companies can’t discriminate among content providers. Everyone who puts stuff up on the Internet is treated exactly the same. The net is neutral.

But now the pipe companies want to charge the content providers, depending on how fast and reliably the pipes deliver the content. Presumably, the biggest content providers would pay the most money, leaving the little content people in the slowest and least-reliable parts of the pipe. (It will take you five minutes to download my blog.)

The pipe companies claim unless they start charge for speed and reliability, they won’t have enough money to invest in the next generation of networks. This is an absurd argument. The pipes are already making lots of money off consumers who pay them for being connected to the Internet.

The pipes figure they can make even more money discriminating between big and small content providers because the big guys have deep pockets and will pay a lot to travel first class. The small guys who pay little or nothing will just have to settle for what’s left.

The House bill to be voted on this week would in effect give the pipes the green light to go ahead with their plan.
Price discrimination is as old as capitalism. Instead of charging everyone the same for the same product or service, sellers divide things up according to grade or quality. Buyers willing to pay the most can get the best, while other buyers get lesser quality, according to how much they pay. Theoretically, this is efficient. Sellers who also have something of a monopoly (as do the Internet pipe companies) can make a killing.

But even if it’s efficient, it’s not democratic. And here’s the rub. The Internet has been the place where Davids can take on Goliaths, where someone without resources but with brains and guts and information can skewer the high and mighty. At a time in our nation’s history when wealth and power are becoming more and more concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, it’s been the one forum in which all voices are equal.

Will the pipe companies be able to end Internet democracy? Perhaps if enough of the small guys make enough of a fuss, Congress may listen. But don’t bet on it. This Congress is not in the habit of listening to small guys. The best hope is that big content providers will use their formidable lobbying clout to demand net neutrality. The financial services sector, for example, is already spending billions on information technology, including online banking. Why would they want to spend billions more paying the pipe companies for the Internet access they already have?

The pipe companies are busily trying to persuade big content providers that it’s in their interest to pay for faster and more reliable Internet deliveries. Verizon’s chief Washington lobbyist recently warned the financial services industry that if it supports net neutrality, it won’t get the sophisticated data links it will need in the future. The pipes are also quietly reassuring the big content providers that they can pass along the fees to their customers.

Will the big content providers fall for it? Stay tuned for the next episode of Internet democracy versus monopoly capitalism.

Communications lobbies getting ready to charge you to ride the internet...

Well, not exactly, but close enough. But first, let's dispense with the first question you should always ask when someone emails you some pending disaster... Snoops is good for this :) And here's the rest of the story and information on what you can do!

Colbert goes to Washington...

Stephen Colbert took his show to the Washington Correspondents dinner yesterday. If you haven't ever seen Colbert, it's worth a look - on after the Daily Show week-nights on Comedy Central. Apparently the president got offended, which makes this worth seeing :)

Of course, if the president leaks it, it would be "authorized"....

The stones this administration has for making it a crime to, well, pretty much disclose anything they decide they don't want made public, is just astounding. Here's an article from The Post on the latest dirty trick from their endless well of dirty tricks...

"Pockets of Resistence"...

A bird's eye view of "freedom on the march..."

From the archives...

I can't recall where I found this piece in the run-up to the 2004 election... I've had deep reservations about the long term prospects of Nationalism, as I believe that in many ways it is like religeon, more a source of division than unity. My thoughts about the misuse and misunderstanding of what "Patriotism" really are have been so well covered by Jed, that I could only weaken it with my own thoughts... comment on this one PLEASE!!!

by Jed Alexander
Patriotism makes people stupid. I don’t have statistics on this, it’s not scientific but purely anecdotal; put a flag in someone’s hand or affix it to their windshield and their IQ drops like mercury in a thermometer, like an egg timer rolling back the minutes. In the presence of such an unrelenting daily barrage of effusive patriotic demonstration, I feel the fog building in my head like a thick, testosterone musk, and I must retreat as soon as possible to the womb of my flagless apartment to retrieve all that remains of my ability to reason. Dubya, despite recent, blind support, is still a dumb guy with a sense of morality better suited to an elementary school playground than to world politics. We’re having a war and our adversary is—an abstraction? It’s a War on Terror, which is as close to monsters under the bed as we’ve come in this country since McCarthyism and the communist bugbears. Terrorism, terrorizing, it’s all so terrifically terrifying that no one seems to have actually defined the concept. When we were having a war on—a thing, not an organization, or government, or individual, but a thing—at the end of the last century, at least we’d narrowed it down to something that we could objectify. Reagan’s White House staged implicit metaphorical combat against substances proclaimed to be illegal by U.S. law—at least that’s what I understood The War on Drugs to be about, as much as it could be understood, assuming it wasn’t a War on Cough Syrup. But having a War on Terror is like having a War on Sadness. For Freedom. Because we love America, and—everything it represents? But what does it represent? And, more importantly, what do all those flags represent, that people seem to feel so strongly about that they’re willing to give up IQ points for its advocacy?
Separation of Church and State Except When Applied to Pledges of Allegiance and U.S. Currency


The original Pledge of Allegiance was published in the Boston-based Youth’s Companion in 1923 for students to repeat in honor of Columbus Day. It went like this: "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands—one nation indivisible—with liberty and justice for all." Notice the absence of “under God.” President Eisenhower signed the amendment adding “under God” in 1953, thus rendering the pledge unconstitutional. In Eisenhower’s words, "In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country's most powerful resource in peace and war."


Notice two key phrases here, “religious faith” and “spiritual weapons.” By requiring this Pledge to be recited in all public schools and proclaiming it to be an affirmation of religious faith, it became a contradiction to the Constitution’s original mandate for a separation of church and state. In 1955, Eisenhower signed a law further requiring that all currency display the motto "In God We Trust” (some coins prior to 1955 had displayed this motto, but not paper money, and certainly not all currency). "Spiritual weapons” is, in some ways, an even more frightening abstraction than a War on Terror. The phrase suggests that religious practice was a way to combat our Cold War adversaries, reinforcing the idea of religion as patriotism. Worse, it added a strange aura of violence to religion, with the odd and perhaps unintended implication that you could somehow pray your enemies into submission. So what are you pledging allegiance to when you recite the Pledge? The Pledge itself is a contradiction in what it claims to be pledging allegiance to. If you were really allied to what the flag represents, assuming the flag represents, in some part, the Constitution, then you couldn’t, in good conscience, recite such a pledge. It would be unpatriotic. Also notice that you are pledging to the republic for which it stands. Not the democracy but the republic. What’s a republic?


re·pub·lic - n. A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them.


Not to be confused with:


de·moc·ra·cy - n. pl. de·moc·ra·cies Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.


American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. 4th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.


Note the difference: A government in which “the supreme power lies in a body of citizens” as opposed to a government “by the people.” The “body of citizens” in this case consists of members of the Electoral College. Members of the Electoral College are nominated by their respective parties at state party conventions or by a vote of the party's central committee, in their respective states. The Electoral votes determine the presidency, not the popular vote, theoretically—even if the popular vote demonstrates a contrary opinion. Do you know all of this already? Good. American government is sometimes so absurdly complex, with it’s House Majority Whips and filibusters, that I, for one, have a hard time keeping it all straight. If you know this already just think of it as a summary of facts presented in order to prove a point.


Do You Love America, America?


So the U.S. has a tendency to be more democratic than many other nations, though we’re by no means a true or absolute democracy. In fact, real communism, not to be confused with socialism or Stalinism or Maoism, but actual communism—communes, kibbutzim, communities that are more micro-governed—tend to be closer to true democracies than large bodies of government. And we have a tendency towards allowing greater freedoms than many other nations do, however you choose to define freedom. But we still live in a very stratified, class-conscious society in which, depending on where you grew up, or your family’s economic or educational background, freedom isn’t always an evenly-rationed commodity. What does it mean to “love America?” When you say that you “love America,” you might as well be saying that you “love the equator.” But who’s to say that you can’t love geographical phenomena? Far be it from me to deny you your amorous feelings toward land formations. Hey, I love America too. Well, most of it. And then the flag; it’s never meant one thing, or meant the same thing to any one person or nation. It’s a very weighty symbol to lug around—too much baggage for me to stand behind in any consistent way. My feelings about the flag change constantly. Right now they lean heavily towards annoyance, so I tend to prefer my environment flag-free. My problem is that most people just wave it around thoughtlessly, not willing to wade past a certain depth to discover what the thing really represents. So much thoughtlessness brandished with so much aggressive bravado can be a dangerous thing.


September 11 Post Script: the Bulldozer of Fate


Post September 11, there were two mind-numbing and brain-deadening phrases echoed by individuals and throughout the media in response to a question that will never have an easy or simple answer: Why did they do it? The moony-like answers that were typically repeated seemed to reveal a collective regression to our earliest childhood responses to fear, and in some cases, to those of our hominid and Neanderthal ancestors, many of whom seem to have recently become my neighbors. These two phrases were: “They did it because we love freedom,” and “evil.” Yes. simply, “evil.”


What is “evil” anyway? Once again we are confronted with elementary school playground morality, now reinforced by the likes of Dan Rather and the “liberal” media. Since when was the media so “liberal” all of the sudden? MSNBC? AOL Time Warner? These guys are not exactly great bastions of liberty. Their primary motivation is to sell stuff. If anything in a news broadcast compromises this in anything more than a marginal way, do you really think they’d air it? *This includes the influence of advertising from other corporations, who own other corporations, etc. And don’t let 60 Minutes fool you. They go after the little fish, someone who AOL Time Warner doesn’t own, or who is otherwise expendable. It just wouldn’t make any sense for them to cut their own throats, so they compromise. Are they impartial, or without editorial bias? Hmm, using the big “E” word repeatedly in a single news broadcast to demonize a group of individuals, without even questioning their motivation sounds a little suspect to me. If exploiting the labor and resources of less powerful nations with less powerful corporate sponsorship isn’t evil, then there’s no such thing as evil, which, fundamentally, there isn’t. Multinational corporations have no moral compass, just a bottom line. It’s an absence of morality, not malevolence that compels them to act in the ways that they do. Not to say that malevolence doesn’t exist, just that it’s not an absolute. There is no such thing as absolute evil, or absolute virtue. Even if there were, it would just be too easy. Too dismissive. Once you’ve proclaimed someone or something to be evil, you’ve given up your option to delve any further into the question. Evil is beyond understanding. There’s no practical way to apply the concept, so it always remains conveniently elusive, conveniently outside of everyday experience—conveniently somebody else’s problem.


As for “loving freedom” and this assertion that somebody might just have a problem with that, this just further attests to the alien-ness of the motivations of someone we’ve decided to call “evil.” It’s just beyond our comprehension, so why bother trying? Who can figure evil? So what’s freedom? And what’s it mean to love freedom? Is it capitalism? Is it wealth (or the capacity to accumulate wealth)? Is that freedom or decadence? I’d imagine a lot of Maoists and Taliban would consider the way we live as decadent as we might consider a guy with a stretch limousine and solid gold bathtub. Neither of us is necessarily any more or less free for the stuff that we own. Is it freedom of speech and assembly? You can scream as loud as you want in this country about as much as you want, but that doesn’t mean what you have to say will end up on the six o’clock news, especially if MSNBC, Time Warner AOL, Arthur Daniels, Midlin, or Amgen have anything to say about it. But then if your name is Tim Forbes or Ross Perot…


Ok, so in some ways, we may have a tendency toward having more freedoms than the citizens of many other nations. Our average standard of living is considerably higher, for a nation as large as ours, especially when it comes to having our basic needs met (food, shelter, clothing, and medical care). Assuming that, by virtue of our citizenship, we’re all contributors to this great nation of ours in a way that certainly feels democratic, (however it may not be), if you’re a proud contributor then you’re willing to take on all the more responsibility for our country’s bullying and exploitation of our neighbor nations, aren’t you? If you’re a true patriotic citizen? I think that we’re supporting the right actions, for the wrong reasons. Of course bombing the shit out of Afghanistan is the most patriotic thing we can do. Not because of terrorism, or the Taliban, or Osama bin Laden, but because that’s just what we do, and do best. It’s Manifest Destiny in action. So please, let’s dispense with these highly suspect arguments about “loving freedom” and “evil” and so on, and get right to the meat of the matter. If you can’t supply us with oil, cheap electronics, Nikes, and designer clothing, then let the bulldozer of fate bury you alive in the ditch of obsolescence. God bless America.

Our inability to connect the dots...

It's a lesson as old the sea; you can always follow the money to figure out what interests are being represented in your government. We seem to have a tough time with that concept most of the time. The idea that political inequalities are somehow associated with economic inequalities seems just outside our ability to comprehend. That's really the only way you can continue to believe that money doesn't equal access doesn't equal "custom-taylored" legislation. Mother Jones writer Bradford Plumer has a nice piece this month on ThomasPaine.com. When you consider that 95% of those who made campaign contributions in the 2000 election cycle made more than $100,000, you have to stop and wonder how high the price will go for premium legislation in the 2006/2008 cycle?

Finally, a simple plan to remove the Duece

Gotta love this woman's perspective... incredible what a person can get impeached for these days... and what they don't get impeached for.... 

A view from the bench on Roe vs. Wade...

An interesting article from USAToday on how the states breakdown in Row vs. Wade. This one is a little scary, but there is some hope as well. I can't help thinking that the shape of this debate is what really pisses me off. If we could do a better job with sex education and work harder to prevent unwanted pregnencies, we could have so much more impact on the results. But with the fundamentalist unwilling to give an inch on condoms and prevention - ala Reagan removing funding from international aid to countries supporting prevention - it's an "all-or-nothing" debate. And that isn't in anyone's best interest. I can't recall exactly, but I think Bush II went further on that... have to go back and do some research. Having had some experience with this decision on a personal level, I know what the choice means and how it haunts you long after. I know it was still the right decision, but an ounce of prevention there would made all the difference...

Tiger says "spaz", hereto unknown "commision" denounces him...

This will be my WTF post for the week. I recall several years ago a series of commercials that Nike did with Dennis Hopper to sell more sneakers. You may recall them - Dennis as the slightly obsessed umpire fawning over athletes shoes. Some group took offense, saying that he was making fun of "crazy" people. It actually caused quite a stir and the ad campaign was ultimately dropped. I remember a segment on the 'news' about it - they went an interviewed this gentlemen about how he was offended by the reference and stereotyping the commercials represented. I remember thinking at the time that the guy seemed, well, a little obsessive about it. Oh well - no great loss - Nike figured out other ways to sell sneakers.

This time Tiger, in describing his putting in the Masters, used the word "spaz". Well, it turns out that this has significantly more meaning in the UK than the US, were I use it to describe all of my children at some point or another, and my wife on occasion. I'm still not sure what exactly it means to the UK (something to do with CP), but the spaz council apparently got upset and "blasted" Woods for his insensitivity, citing that, as an African-American, he should have been more aware of stereotypes. Excuse me? This is just bull-shit. All I have to do is wait for a celebrity to use some word or expression, call myself offended, and get stories generated all over the world with my name on them. Then I can put up his apology on my website, hoping that the press coverage will help generated donations. I don't mean to be a spaz about it, but WTF???

New book by Kevin Phillips on the trends in American Politics...

From NYTimes

March 19, 2006
'American Theocracy,' by Kevin Phillips
Clear and Present Dangers
Review by ALAN BRINKLEY

Four decades ago, Kevin Phillips, a young political strategist for the Republican Party, began work on what became a remarkable book. In writing "The Emerging Republican Majority" (published in 1969), he asked a very big question about American politics: How would the demographic and economic changes of postwar America shape the long-term future of the two major parties? His answer, startling at the time but now largely unquestioned, is that the movement of people and resources from the old Northern industrial states into the South and the West (an area he enduringly labeled the "Sun Belt") would produce a new and more conservative Republican majority that would dominate American politics for decades. Phillips viewed the changes he predicted with optimism. A stronger Republican Party, he believed, would restore stability and order to a society experiencing disorienting and at times violent change. Shortly before publishing his book, he joined the Nixon administration to help advance the changes he had foreseen.

Phillips has remained a prolific and important political commentator in the decades since, but he long ago abandoned his enthusiasm for the Republican coalition he helped to build. His latest book (his 13th) looks broadly and historically at the political world the conservative coalition has painstakingly constructed over the last several decades. No longer does he see Republican government as a source of stability and order. Instead, he presents a nightmarish vision of ideological extremism, catastrophic fiscal irresponsibility, rampant greed and dangerous shortsightedness. (His final chapter is entitled "The Erring Republican Majority.") In an era of best-selling jeremiads on both sides of the political divide, "American Theocracy" may be the most alarming analysis of where we are and where we may be going to have appeared in many years. It is not without polemic, but unlike many of the more glib and strident political commentaries of recent years, it is extensively researched and for the most part frighteningly persuasive.

Although Phillips is scathingly critical of what he considers the dangerous policies of the Bush administration, he does not spend much time examining the ideas and behavior of the president and his advisers. Instead, he identifies three broad and related trends — none of them new to the Bush years but all of them, he believes, exacerbated by this administration's policies — that together threaten the future of the United States and the world. One is the role of oil in defining and, as Phillips sees it, distorting American foreign and domestic policy. The second is the ominous intrusion of radical Christianity into politics and government. And the third is the astonishing levels of debt — current and prospective — that both the government and the American people have been heedlessly accumulating. If there is a single, if implicit, theme running through the three linked essays that form this book, it is the failure of leaders to look beyond their own and the country's immediate ambitions and desires so as to plan prudently for a darkening future.

The American press in the first days of the Iraq war reported extensively on the Pentagon's failure to post American troops in front of the National Museum in Baghdad, which, as a result, was looted of many of its great archaeological treasures. Less widely reported, but to Phillips far more meaningful, was the immediate posting of troops around the Iraqi Oil Ministry, which held the maps and charts that were the key to effective oil production. Phillips fully supports an explanation of the Iraq war that the Bush administration dismisses as conspiracy theory — that its principal purpose was to secure vast oil reserves that would enable the United States to control production and to lower prices. ("Think of Iraq as a military base with a very large oil reserve underneath," an oil analyst said a couple of years ago. "You can't ask for better than that.") Terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, tyranny, democracy and other public rationales were, Phillips says, simply ruses to disguise the real motivation for the invasion.

And while this argument may be somewhat too simplistic to explain the complicated mix of motives behind the war, it is hard to dismiss Phillips's larger argument: that the pursuit of oil has for at least 30 years been one of the defining elements of American policy in the world; and that the Bush administration — unusually dominated by oilmen — has taken what the president deplored recently as the nation's addiction to oil to new and terrifying levels. The United States has embraced a kind of "petro-imperialism," Phillips writes, "the key aspect of which is the U.S. military's transformation into a global oil-protection force," and which "puts up a democratic facade, emphasizes freedom of the seas (or pipeline routes) and seeks to secure, protect, drill and ship oil, not administer everyday affairs."

Phillips is especially passionate in his discussion of the second great force that he sees shaping contemporary American life — radical Christianity and its growing intrusion into government and politics. The political rise of evangelical Christian groups is hardly a secret to most Americans after the 2004 election, but Phillips brings together an enormous range of information from scholars and journalists and presents a remarkably comprehensive and chilling picture of the goals and achievements of the religious right.

He points in particular to the Southern Baptist Convention, once a scorned seceding minority of the American Baptist Church but now so large that it dominates not just Baptism itself but American Protestantism generally. The Southern Baptist Convention does not speak with one voice, but almost all of its voices, Phillips argues, are to one degree or another highly conservative. On the far right is a still obscure but, Phillips says, rapidly growing group of "Christian Reconstructionists" who believe in a "Taliban-like" reversal of women's rights, who describe the separation of church and state as a "myth" and who call openly for a theocratic government shaped by Christian doctrine. A much larger group of Protestants, perhaps as many as a third of the population, claims to believe in the supposed biblical prophecies of an imminent "rapture" — the return of Jesus to the world and the elevation of believers to heaven.

Prophetic Christians, Phillips writes, often shape their view of politics and the world around signs that charlatan biblical scholars have identified as predictors of the apocalypse — among them a war in Iraq, the Jewish settlement of the whole of biblical Israel, even the rise of terrorism. He convincingly demonstrates that the Bush administration has calculatedly reached out to such believers and encouraged them to see the president's policies as a response to premillennialist thought. He also suggests that the president and other members of his administration may actually believe these things themselves, that religious belief is the basis of policy, not just a tactic for selling it to the public. Phillips's evidence for this disturbing claim is significant, but not conclusive.

THE third great impending crisis that Phillips identifies is also, perhaps, the best known — the astonishing rise of debt as the precarious underpinning of the American economy. He is not, of course, the only observer who has noted the dangers of indebtedness. The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, for example, frequently writes about the looming catastrophe. So do many more-conservative economists, who point especially to future debt — particularly the enormous obligation, which Phillips estimates at between $30 trillion and $40 trillion, that Social Security and health care demands will create in the coming decades. The most familiar debt is that of the United States government, fueled by soaring federal budget deficits that have continued (with a brief pause in the late 1990's) for more than two decades. But the national debt — currently over $8 trillion — is only the tip of the iceberg. There has also been an explosion of corporate debt, state and local bonded debt, international debt through huge trade imbalances, and consumer debt (mostly in the form of credit-card balances and aggressively marketed home-mortgage packages). Taken together, this present and future debt may exceed $70 trillion.

The creation of a national-debt culture, Phillips argues, although exacerbated by the policies of the Bush administration, has been the work of many people over many decades — among them Alan Greenspan, who, he acidly notes, blithely and irresponsibly ignored the rising debt to avoid pricking the stock-market bubble it helped produce. It is most of all a product of the "financialization" of the American economy — the turn away from manufacturing and toward an economy based on moving and managing money, a trend encouraged, Phillips argues persuasively, by the preoccupation with oil and (somewhat less persuasively) with evangelical belief in the imminent rapture, which makes planning for the future unnecessary.

There is little in "American Theocracy" that is wholly original to Phillips, as he frankly admits by his frequent reference to the work of other writers and scholars. What makes this book powerful in spite of the familiarity of many of its arguments is his rare gift for looking broadly and structurally at social and political change. By describing a series of major transformations, by demonstrating the relationships among them and by discussing them with passionate restraint, Phillips has created a harrowing picture of national danger that no American reader will welcome, but that none should ignore.

Alan Brinkley is the Allan Nevins professor of history and the provost at Columbia University.