Addendum: Helpful Source

One of the people on the 3Nov.com website argued that the Green Party is out of step and not the right party, in part because it reflects "European"-style politics and didn't come organically from the US and that "Green" issues might work as a theme in Germany, but not here.

Well, my duckies, go to Pollingreport.com and you can see that the environment *is* important to people -- in fact, a majority of people (in 2002, granted, but I'm not sure that makes a big difference; it was in the depths of the economic downturn, afterall) said that NO economic cost was too high to pay for environmental quality and regulations should be made irregardless of this cost because of the importance of the environment. Now there IS such thing as "soft support" -- I'll say I support it, but you can pry my pocketbook from my cold, dead, fingers -- but you have to admit, this is an IMPRESSIVE LEVEL of soft support. Definitely more than enough of a base to work with.

And I'm not going to Google-research it now, but people, realize that the Internationalist Socialist/Communist Movement isn't a "European"-sprung construct (any more than most of "Western" Culture); just because we killed and jailed a bunch of our Internationalists after the Haymarket Riot doesn't make it any less US. (side note: I love Wikipedia) The continued erosion of this line of thought, beliefs, and values through subversion and accident (see great accounts in Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States (used copies from $10!)) has nothing to do with its genuine US-ness. The automobile was invented in Germany, after all, but 200 or so years later, no one would say it's not sufficiently US based. All we need to do is rediscover, not create out of whole cloth, the Green Progessive-ness here in the US. The seeds are there.

So Bad it's, well, Good

Heyo.

I hate to do it, as it's exactly the type of unproductive anger-mongering I've been decrying, but I have to say that Fuck the South is funny and worth the read.

For all 0 of my conservative readers, I completely agree that this is rude and viscious... but that doesn't mean it isn't full of facts. If you want to get angry, get angry at the man but think about the facts -- do you agree that they exist? And what does that mean if they are true (and they all are based on my research)?

For everyone else (all 3 of you), read and enjoy your guilty pleasure. Or for some of you not-so-guilty, you sarcastic pieces of...

In other news entirely, 3Nov.com is a website dedicated to Nailing (taping) Theses on the direction the Democratic Party should take on the Glass Doors (and breaking the glass ceilings) of the Democratic National Committee's headquarters throughout the US. I'm not sure how effective taping them to any of the Brasilian parties' doors would be (even their Right-parties have "Democratic" "Socialist" and/or "Labor" in them), so I'll have to ask you all in the US to do double duty for me. I also posted on there under the thread Support the Green Party Instead. Long-time readers guess whether I was for or against this proposition.

Actually, I think an either/or is ultimately destructive. We shouldn't turn our backs on the Dems to be spiteful or on principle, except on the (to me) very pragmatic and common-sensical approach: don't vote for someone you don't believe in. Ok, everyone thought this was an important stop-gap election. But it didn't work, and that wasn't Nader's fault. So it appears to me that if we're going to lose anyway, or more importantly, win in the long-run, we have to start supporting only those who support our views. And support them explicitly. (More than one J-friend has used argument I used last year that we had to simply trust that Kerry didn't mean anything he said, for instance, about appointing anti-choice judges, drilling "everywhere but" ANWR, sending more troops to Iraq, etc. I think believing this cannot strictly be called "pragmatism", unless by pragmatism you mean "wistful thinking" or "desperate hope".)

Because here's the brass tacks ladies and germs: as long as a candidate knows that s/he will not lose his/her base, they can go and do whatever the fuck they want to. And they will -- i.e. Clinton and Op. Desert Fox, the Pharm. Plant at Darfur, the "Welfare Reform" Bill, the Farm Bill, the increased rate of lumber production (several times higher than lumber production under Bush!), the end of the release of yearly Federal Environmental Quality Reports, the lowest rates of improvements in Environmental Quality in 40 years, voting for the PATRIOT ACT, for the Iraqi War Resolution -- without the near-complete support of the Democrats, Bush COULD NOT have done all of this! Our "politically pragmatic" Democrats did -- but if they were "saving their big guns" or worried about losing an election and supported such things in order to "go with the flow" and fuck over the 60-80% of Dems *against* the Iraq War and PATRIOT ACT, i.e., then when the hell is something important enough to make a stand? If not for War and Civil Liberties, I think it's definitely time there were some repercussions -- and not just losing elections because 50% of the Republican Electorate was unininformed into voting for Bush -- but because the INFORMED Left decided not to support someone *working against our Progessive Interests.*

What's the matter with Kansas, they ask. I ask, What's the Matter with Progressives? (Why do WE vote against our own interests?)

Kerry had the JoeMo

Have I already recommeded that everyone read Alexander Cockburn's post-election analysis yet? If not, go there now. And while you're at it, read at least 25% of the articles in Counterpunch.org. Don't worry, they're not all about the tiresome topic of this past election. Though in regards to Cockburn's work, hopefully if you find this article to be snotty and overly snide by half, as one J-friend did, please look past this as much as you can into his research.

One of his most important points, in my opinion, is the fallacy of Kerry as the Senate's "#1 Liberal." My friend pointed out that perhaps he was farther right over his lifetime record -- with decades to be in Senate, he'd doubtlessly made lots of votes out of political pragmatism that would push him right (she doesn't believe that he should be blamed for the political pragmatism that she correctly points out is necessary to maintain high elective office, and that in the Prez's office he would've wielded his newly gained power for good -- needless to say, we disagree). But I found an important point -- the analysis of Kerry putting him in the middle of the increasingly-conservative Democrats (though not to the right of middle as I may have claimed at some point) was *only* from the 108th Congress -- i.e. his past term in the whole. The "most liberal" label apparently is only based on a slim cross-section of issues. Source material here. (Ed's note -- just checked that website -- with the end of the term, it appears Kerry is the 21st most liberal senator out of 48 Dems -- 10 or so places ahead of Joe Lieberman, who may be the best known as a hawkish Dem, though around 30th place he has many lesser-known senators below him; Miller of Georgia is as "liberal" as a Moderate Republican based on votes; Nelson of Nebraska is the most conservative of the remaining 47 Dem Senators from this term. The website's methodology is somewhat complex, it was developed by someone at the University of Houston, apparently. It (the methodology) seems kosher to me from casual glance -- also on Kerry, his attendance record for votes was 8% this year -- ok, duh, election year -- but was 36% in 2003, missing many crucial close votes that Cockburn lists in his article. Primary sources of analyses over at UH again; second source, on Kerry's attendance, for the Intelligence committee here on FactCheck.Org. On a sad side note, my freshwoman Dem Senator, Debbie Stabenow, is farther right than Kerry, in between him and Lieberman I think...)

So 21st most liberal senator, not quite as inspiring. And this is just for his most recent term -- my friend may have been right that his older, pragmatic votes may slip him farther right (and then the question would be over what that means for the Kerry of today -- would he have continued his random walk towards farther Left? (Ed's note -- I, for one, don't think so...).

I hope this doesn't seem like crowing -- it's not. I feel this is an important debate -- just like in 2000 when I was telling people Gore wasn't all that great or much better than Bush (which still inspires righteous indignation; Gore's boss, who most people think is more liberal, is still estimated to have killed more Iraqis than Bush in his first 4 years (remember Desert Fox and non-UN sanctioned bombing, plus the trade sanctions?). If, as the many articles I have read and linked to here for you all, are correct (and no one I know has disputed their research, just the interpretation of it, or rather, said "well, you can't think Kerry actually meant it [when he said all of those Right-ist things]") then not only do we need to keep agitating, WE need to do our homework as much as any of the least-informed Red Staters who we unproductively deride and whose mind we hope to change. If WE, too, are voting against our interests -- and experts like Chomsky and Zinn are buying into it too -- then we need serious, serious re-evaluation, including re-evaluation of this past election. Obviously, I don't think the argument is resolved, though my immense respect for Chomsky and Zinn has not made their arguments seem any less weak to me. But we must sort this out, and quickly -- if the ABB/Centrists are right, and we need to focus on just eliminating the Republican advantage at all costs, then we must convince those of us (i.e. me) of this on the facts (and not on "well, obviously they don't mean it when the spout right rhetoric -- possibly, but a flimsy basis for a political strategy). If those of us who believe that you can't support change by supporting those who oppose real change -- especially if they are only slightly less opposed to real change than their competitor, or in some ways more hawkish, cause more casualties, or are worse for (at least some of) the environment -- are correct, we need to convince more of the Center-Left to follow us out of the party, or at least into voting ONLY for those in party that represent enough of our views to be more clearly distinguishable in rhetoric AND reality than the Imperialist Republi/Crats.

So far, I've never heard an argument for Kerry refuting the facts as laid out, that seem to me to show that he -- and his would-be sherpa guide to centrism, Bill Clinton -- have not been almost as bad as Republicans in some areas and rather worse in others. At best, I would think this averages out to a close call -- one should not easily have been assumed to be a "big damned difference."

Let the argument continue... and tell me where I'm wrong. I can change! Really! All I ask is, you know, facts.

Extra bonus J-Continuum update
Other random cool stuff at Counterpunch, highlighted here for your satisfaction:
Cuba's Response to AIDS: A Model for the Developing World
Reviews Cuba's program and tremendous success at controlling AIDS (0.7% infection), and uncovers (what appear to be) the facts on the forced sanitoriums -- i.e. quarantine -- of those infected with AIDS. In any case, these sanitoriums are now voluntary (since 1993) and reportedly were always places providing food not rationed (as it is for the rest of the country) and counseling in depression and nutrition for those infected. Everything about it now is completely voluntary, and Cuba's program seems to be working -- apparently the model is so successful, the World Bank has sent a rep to Cuba (the US didn't) for their AIDS conference, saying (as reported by Edwin Krales in the article linked above)

...their view is that economic disaster is a fate worse than socialized medicine. She suggested that the developing world adopt Cuba's medical model as the strategy for fighting the pandemic.

. (Though my cynical side says to my rational side that if the World Bank supports it, there's got to be a secret evil catch to their (the WB's) intentions.)

Kerry's Enablers: The Clinton Cult Factor
Good article further analyzing the Clinton/Kerry axis of using Centrist Politics to make things Worse

Debating a Neo-Con
A GREAT article by a self-described "burned-out commie vet emaciated with an amoeba". He only provides a summary of the Neo-Cons argument -- assumedly because it breaks no ground -- but his amazing and excellent comments should be required reading for anyone who wants to learn about this whole "Changing The World" thing.

Why do they laugh at us?
A good, if somewhat light-weight, article on the growing derision of America -- gone are the Stupid Pols, Greasy Pakistanis, and Jibbering Chinamen -- the Ugly American is apparently the new joke the kids will be telling on the playgrounds in the rest of the world. (Though he doesn't use the term Ugly American, just to note. All ire at the term should be directed at me alone.)

Failing the Test of History in Iraq
Pretty self-explanatory -- reviewing why, in the light of history, our (government's) plans for Iraq não da (lit. "it won't give" -- it won't work or it won't be worth it in Portuguese jiria, mais ou menos).

And with that, I'm getting the hell to bed -- as should you. Sleep and dream of an organized, informed, determined Left.

"Rest well. And dream of Large Women.
--Westley to Fezzik in "The Princess Bride"

**ps. in case the title is cryptic, it's in reference to the fact Kerry is almost as conservative as Joe Lieberman, whose horrible primary campaign was waged with "JoeMentum", apparently.

First Annual J Continuum Contest

Ok, actual, this isn't really a contest and I don't plan on doing it annually. (Sort of like "Everything you are about to hear is true. And by true, I mean false." -- Leonard Nimoy on The Simpsons.)

I just read a, I don't know, startling? article at Counterpunch.org. Anyone reading the site for more than 2 days or so (all three of you) will already have noted my counterpunch-obsession (though Portside also has had a lot of good articles I haven't spent much time reading). But, I think their analyses are right, and so I don't see any reason to stop my obsession.

All 3 of you prior readers will also realize now that I'm about to talk about something against Kerry. Well done. Award yourself 10 points on your Home Game Version of The J Continuum.

Here is an article discussing how, in fact, Clinton was worse than Bush on environmental policy, at least as far as tree felling goes (despite the "goodfact" name of the Healthy Forests Initiative, apparently, 1/5 the rate of the lumber per year that was generated in Clinton's first term has been felled under Bush -- 1.1 billion board feet/yr as opposed to 200 million board feet/year). Also, Frank (the author) asserts that more Iraqis died in Clinton's first four years than so far under Bush (not sure if he's counting sanctions here, though don't forget also that we had Operation Desert Fox and continued bombing in Iraq that was not approved of or under the aegis of the UN). Economic inequality under Clinton apparently increased the most it had for forty years.

Ah, yes, so the contest part. Since I already spend approximately WAAAAAAAYYYY to much time blogging and not enough researching non-blog related thesis work, I challenge any other readers to find the hard facts (realfact) behind Frank's article. Actually, it might be as easy as emailing him and asking his sources, I don't know. If I don't hear from others in the blogosphere, I'll take it on myself, but I'd really like to hear from "readers like you".

-J

An Eye Like A Ripe Grape

Got your attention? That phrase is, if I remember correctly, one of the signs of the End Days from Islam -- the Anti-Christ will come, and you will know he is the Anti-Christ because, among other things, he will have an eye like a ripe grape. You wouldn't BELIEVE the amount of time we spent discussing what exactly "an eye like a ripe grape" would be like. At one point, our professor quite reasonably said that the Anti-Christ was not the only part of the signs of the End Days, and explaining exactly what his looked like was definitely not the most important part of the topic.

Speaking of End Days...

I bring this up because the progressive AND center- left, swayed by siren song of beating mediocrity (or stark horribleness perhaps) with mediocrity, voted en masse for a candidate who not only voted to confirm Antonin Scalia, but said he could see appointing "somebody with a different opinion" on abortion than pro-choice (as long as it didn't result in, his example, a Supreme Court with a majority inclined to overturn Roe v. Wade. I still haven't found the primary source Counterpunch.Org used, but here is the Washington Post repeating that he did, in fact say it.

Why is this a sign of end days? Because it's likely that a Republican will be, and would've been, the one to oppose confirmation of anti-choice judges. And this Republican is in line to be the Chair of the Judiciary Committee. That's right, Arlen Specter, being moderately pariahed right now, apparently "[made the comment] last week that anti-abortion judges would be unlikely to be confirmed by the Senate".

So we have a (defeated) Democratic presidential candidate who as prez may have appointed the next Antonin Scalia (now with more scariness!), a Republican Senator lined up for chairmanship essentially vowing that anti-abortion judges wouldn't get to the floor, the Christian Coalition essentially saying that this is *not* what they expected as a result of their fealty ("This isn’t what we worked for,” he said. “It sends the exact wrong message to the core of the Republican Party that helped win this election. No matter what Senator Specter says, there is a complete lack of trust between him and us now, no matter how much he tries to do damage control”), and a pro-choice Republican ex-Senator rejecting the question of whether there even IS a Christian Right, much less whether or not Bush now owes them political favors, and essentially accusing Bill Maher of being a gay-basher, Wyoming-basher, Christian-basher, and Republican-basher.

These are no sun running backwards in the sky (or ripe-grape eyes), but at least they're funnier signs of the apocalypse than last week.

(and now I'm really, really actually going to work on my thesis...)

Tapdancing around awful truths....

So much rage… Michael Moore’s “The Awful Truth” is so good; but so bad.

So brilliant. (See for yourself.)

Confrontation, unfortunately, even (perhaps especially) brilliant confrontation, will not work for us.

It should. One should be able to say “Look, Tobacco Company/Lobbyist/Security Guard, your product is killing people; shouldn’t you re-evaluate what you’re doing?”

But no one wants to be a killer. No one will engage you if they feel guilty (even if they ARE guilty). More proof of the moral relativism of the Right. (How’s that? Isn’t smoking about personal responsibility? Sure – as much the responsibility of tobacco companies for a) lying about the health problems for decades, as internal documents and common sense have shown, b) lying about the addictiveness of smoking, and c) marketing to children on purpose to generate lifetime addictees. Some measure of personal responsibility falls to the smoker who “chooses” to set foot on the road to addiction; but the argument that it’s all THEIR responsibility rests on one of three premises: 1) awwww, they should’ve known better than to believe what the companies told them, 2) well, companies always lie, so we can’t blame them for lying just like everyone else, and 3) well, bygones should be bygones. NONE of these is a responsible argument for why Tobacco should get away with lying without taking THEIR personal responsibility for it. They already have you say?... What about the tax breaks they’re getting this year, supposedly in exchange for “allowing” the FDA to regulate nicotine… except the nicotine regulation part of it was taken out of the bill…)

Just like it’s been found you can’t encourage safe sex by “scaring” people into it (USE CONDOMS OR YOU DIE! AIDS AIDS AIDS! doesn't work) because they people generally unconsciously push negativity out of their mind before sex, you can’t win an argument by demonizing, or often even lightly ridiculing your opponent.

Sarcasm is a sharp sword for the Left – it cuts both ways. (Interesting tidbit: an ex-girlfriend, when we were dating, asked me if the Right had comics like “Doonsebury” or “The Boondocks” – it occurred to me that they probably didn’t, because comics like those lie usually on the irony of some Right foibles because we find them intellectually inconsistent; the things “they” often find ironic about us is, for example, our concern for parenting yet our stereotypical parental permissiveness. I speculated that a Right Doonsebury would be something we think of as POSITIVE, like a mom coming home and seeing her 18 year old daughter with a piercing, or coming out as a lesbian, and the mom saying “Great! I’m glad you’re your own person” or something like that… turns out, this pretty much IS their version of it – the only Right “political” comic strip she could find was “The Leftersons”, about, natch, naively permissive parents too intent on useless social causes. Make your own judgements here.)

Oh, but back to “The Awful Truth” – after seeing 3 of them, I wonder if they do more harm than good? Yes, it feels REALLY GOOD to see those who’ve lost their vocal cords to smoking sing “Voicebox Christmas Carols” to smoking lobbyists and execs, but what do you bet that we not only won no points with them (to be expected), but lost points with those security guards, and secretaries, and police officers who had to push Michael Moore out? While we who agree with Michael see the humor, and get enraged (or at least, my blood was/is boiling), I bet those functionaries just saw it as a hassle, and perhaps even had their heart hardened to “the cause.” The banality of evil, if you will.

As tiresome and logically unnecessary, the Left must “validate” the starting point of the Right before we start; the internalization of post-modernism by the mainstream means before you can argue about who is correct, you have to acknowledge everyone’s right to their opinion, and reassure them you respect it, before arguing against it WITHOUT mocking them (I lost a high school debate that my team AND the other team thought we won; the judges thought we were too “snotty” and awarded it to the other team; when I asked them about why, they couldn’t think of a logical reason – “I guess I just felt that they won,”) (also, I’ve taught the class “Biology and Human Affairs” – believe you me, students hate the idea that they are factually wrong, and even those most stridently against moral relativism will unconsciously resort to it, saying that “they have a right to their opinion”, or “you don’t respect them”, or even “they get points taken off if they don’t agree with your [political] views” – all arguments that may be valid, but many treat them as if they are always valid whenever they are argued against; as someone said, everyone has a right to their own opinion; they don’t have the right to their own facts – the inobtainability of “realfact” being a whole ‘nother issue…)

Achem. So. Yes. My point here is, unless I’m wrong, I think we face a very real choice between having to, in soothing words and pliant tones, ease our fiercest opponents into debates, using the dulcet sounds of mutual relativistic respect, before we can engage in “winning hearts and minds.” Sadly, I think the only way “The Awful Truth”-style confrontationalism can work is if we start a violent uprising (and as Sally Forth said, “Revolutions can be messy”). Of course, it might also work if it creates more new activists than it turns off people on the other side. A balance of the equation I don’t think anyone’s done… especially Michael Moore. (Well, other caveat – the guy who got a pancreas, and the change in Humana’s policies (supposedly) to allow diabetics pancreatic transplants – if this kind of turn around on a small victory was common to “The Awful Truth” – that satisfying result offsets some additional enemies, imho.)

What to do? What to do?

”The truth is, folks, that jokes in actuality defuse criticism of a politician rather than erode his support.”



“…so maybe I’m punkin’ you all…”

--Jon Stewart (from a Rolling Stone interview -- full version not online)

Great Analyses by people who just happen to agree with me, in part or in whole

For reasons surely based solely on quality and not on the fact that they agree with me (well, no, seriously, I think these are very good analyses AND are better than the ones I don't agree with), I highly recommend the following several links:

Voting Without the Facts (by Bob Herbert, who I've never heard of before but will be following closely now, on NYTimes.com; registration required)

The Radical Centrist Fringe (on J Continuum Blog-friend Geoffland)

Why Americans Hate Democrats—A Dialogue: To win, you have to fight (by Laura Kipnis, on J Continuum news mainstay, Slate.com)

Of course, the facts as presented in Herbert's and Kipnis' articles have to addressed... er, delicately, imho. See the next post to see why (though probably in an only semi-coherent form).

Interludes and Examinations... Oh, and A Call to Arms

Oh, yeah…

Hooray for Air America Radio (AAR?) – if I’m not mistaken, one of the most downloaded programs on the internet, and a better ratings-earner than Bill O’Reilly’s radio show (ok -- found old source showing that they were projected to out-compete Rush in April 2004(registration required). Don’t hear any news stories about it these days, do you though? At least I can't find any.) All those “this will never work, there’s no market for liberal radio, these people are delusional and don’t know what they’re doing” – where did all of those stories go? Have they all admitted they were wrong while I wasn't looking? No? ...Sigh.

(Other only partially informative and out of date link here showing that Air America raised the station it was on two places in rankings in Denver -- an increase of about 5,000 people -- over the two months it was on. Gee, aren't we lucky the liberal media is so closely following the fortunes of a genuinely liberal, yet genuinely fact-based radio station? I'm practically weeping at our good fortune.)

So it (AAR) seems to be a success to me. More importantly, now that I have internet at home again, I can listen to it, and verify that it still seems like a success to me in the most important way – despite Franken and many of the the other hosts’ DLC-centrism, they still use the facts.

All of this Democratic soul-searching that I’ve been reading the past few days seemed a little… misguided to me. I mean, we lost, and we lost big in terms of popular vote and seats in Congress, and now all of the party faithful are asking, “What did we do wrong? What must we change to win again?” Of course, as Tom Tomorrow points out in the article Why Americans Hate Democrats, A Dialogue: The party's message is low risk, low reward,
and J blog-friend Geoff have pointed out, asking “why does the US hate Democrats?” is RIDCULOUS and emblematic of our problems in allowing others to frame questions unfavorably, considering at least 55 million US citizens DON’T feel that way. (Not to mention the millions of people who didn't vote who are usually assumed to be the poor, the minorities, and others who feel they are ignored by the mainstream but would otherwise be "Democrats".


And all of this “moral values” claptrap seemed a bit off to me too, and solid analyses in Slate and the NY Times (in op-eds by David Brooks and by Gary Langer, ABC director of polling), among others, were able to articulate why I felt that way. “Moral values”, put simply, is an ill-phrased category for a response to the question of “your most important issue as a voter”! All of the other exit-poll questions were specific, i.e. jobs, economy, Iraq, War on Terrorism – these all have relatively unambiguous meanings; but moral values? The fact that the News Media is interpreting this as Gays and God (and maybe Guns) in the face of good counter-analyses (see Geoff, Slate, and the NYTimes), in face of the fact that Bush didn’t do that much better in anti-gay-ballot-intitiative states than he and Republicans have done in the past, but made big gains in other states on national security issues, the fact that only 8% of people said they voted for their candidate based specifically on religious issues, and the fact that if you were a strong Bush supporter but felt that the other options didn’t adequately represent your reasons, “Moral values” could be a catch-all – the News Media is doing us the great disservice of making that great, classic faux-liberal argument, “We’re just morally superior, and they don't appreciate it, and that’s why we lost.”

Now, granted, I think we’re morally correct on the issues where we stand up for gay rights, and against invading sovereign countries on false pretexts to depose a dictator we formerly supported and supplied with weapons, but that doesn’t mean we’re superior; if anything, it means we have had a terrible time doing a terrible job of making our argument. And gee, with a candidate unwilling to take a strong stand on God's place in government (hint: S/He is NOT and should not be Sec. of Defense) or Gays, much less against the War, against the PATRIOT ACT, and against the incoherent War on Terrorism, I wonder why?

Which brings us back to Al Franken: without being judgemental (as he was, a bit) about it, those that voted for George W. Bush, by a majority, had a fundamental misunderstanding, or at least, a fundamentally unsupported view of the War on Terrorism. A majority of them STILL thought that Iraq was directly involved in 9/11, that WMDs were found in Iraq, and that, in fact, the final Duelfer Report to the government, saying that NO WMDs were found, in fact, CONFIRMED that WMDs were found*. And this is just the tip of the iceberg – from the conservative tactics distracting from the fact the GW doesn’t seem to have actually fulfilled his duty to the National Guard to the fact that some of the evidence for this was shaky or forged (despite much STRONG evidence backing it up and near-universal admission of of the underlying facts), to the “Global Test” meme (where Kerry basically said when we engage in pre-emptive war, we need to be able to prove it’s necessary and that our evidence is true, to which GW, almost literally, said “We need to pass some kind of truth test? I don’t think so”, or how 'bout "We don't need no stinkin' test"?**), to the fucking Swift Boat Veterans (why in dear goodness’ name did Kerry let that float unrefuted for so long?) – objectively speaking, the Bush campaign used more lies/obfuscations/errors where the facts were concerned than the Democrats, and used them more consistently, more effectively, and in the end, more convincingly than Kerry could sell his milquetoast version of the truth.

This wasn’t a problem over GAYS (Geoff and others point out that 60% of US citizens support either civil unions or same-sex marriage; the amendments were primarily over marriage, even though some also banned civil unions), this was a problem over framing, and our (the Left, or more specifically, Kerry) inability to make the truth sexy (or really, in Kerry’s case, even acknowledge that the truth might be a useful tactic even if it’s viewed as “negativism”).

(Franken just pointed out that most Bush supporters believed Bush is for the Kyoto Treaty – I have to find his numbers! He also pointed out that most supporters believed that if there weren’t WMDs, and if Iraq wasn’t involved in 9/11, we shouldn’t have been in Iraq – INCRÍVEL! I really have to find his sources.) (...done: The Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) Report from August has the results of over 40% of people believing various things demonstrably false about Iraq... articles discussing it here and here.)

Franken’s guest right now of course is conflating this with the idea that we think “Red-Staters” (is anyone else beginning to really hate the red-state/blue-state meme too?) are stupid; which, is easy, because many of “us” are heard to say this in real life. Doh. But frankly, thinking someone is wrong, or was conned, is not the same as thinking they’re stupid – I think people believing the things above were conned by an extremely efficient Republican machine – just like I think many liberals were conned by the relatively inefficient Democratic machine to vote for a guy who doesn’t strongly stand for what we (Progressives) believe in. In this case, I think liberals voted against their interests as well, just like “Kansasians”. (Franken’s guest is decrying the condescension in the title of the book “What’s Wrong With Kansas?”. Although I agree with Franken that there is a non-condescending point to the book – that people are voting against their economic interests out of perceived moral similarity with the Republicans – I think his guest is right that the title doesn’t fully express this free of any kind of derision, without the “What the fuck is wrong with Kansas?” connotation and not just “I think the analysis of Red State Kansans is somewhat in error despite their wisdom as fellow US citizens.” And of course, his guest’s point as well that they DO believe that “moral issues” are more important than their pocketbook is well taken; I think the extended argument needs to be the Republicans by and large only give lip service to the important parts of morality, say, helping others and not invading sovereign countries and killing their civilians, and not lying and not accumulating unsightly wealth, in favor of nice, easy, issues like “gays bad; Bible says so.” Not to mention that religious freedom should go both ways – they should have the right to be very conservative, and others should have the right… not to be very conservative.) (And then there's the whole lying/misconception thing to go back to...)

But until the same type of massive pre-election blitzes of evilness and deception are shown in the Kerry Camp, such as has been pointed out from the Bush Camp -- including further examples such as passing out leaflets saying Kerry would ban the Bible if elected (also pointed out on Franken’s Show), the numerous accounts of Republicans either refusing to register people wanting to vote for Kerry, or “accidentally” signing them up as registered Republicans, or the piles of Dem. Registration cards ending up in dumpsters – we were Outfoxed kids; their tactics won, and their tactics were lies. And I’ll stand by this barring proof to the contrary – proof that people didn’t think there were WMDs, that Bush voters weren't by and and large convinced that Iraq was involved in 9/11, etc. We realized these issues were being distorted YEARS ago, but we let it fall by the wayside, in our rush to jump behind Kerry and his absolute refusal to critique the real problems behind the Bush Administration, and his talk about “reporting for duty” and being a Viet Nan Vet and… what the hell did he talk about of substance? Even I can’t clearly remember.

Wake up kids. Based on THE FACTS, and based on PRINCIPLE, and based on STRATEGY, the key is NOT to move right, to move left, to sell ourselves, to whore ourselves, to fight dirty, to fight more clean simply as electioneering TACTICS – the NEED is to FIGHT our GENUINE FIGHTS. Kerry didn’t fight, he defended. He didn’t stand for our principles, he squirmed from them. We need to say what we mean, mean what we say, and live or die by our issues – if we can’t find a Democrat that is FOR same-sex equality and AGAINST draconian PATRIOT measures, then dammit, we DON’T support him/her next time. We find someone who will MAKE THE CASE for our beliefs, and MAKE THE CASE for the truth. I don't believe in the various "tactics" put forward by many of the Slate-ers, or others, because they are just that -- based in tactics and not in strategy or beliefs. Will Saletan thinks we need to show we can speak morality too -- and kill terrorists just like everyone else without worrying about what the int'l community thinks (Will -- your hard-nosed swift-sword-of-death conservative underbelly is showing...)

I CAN HANDLE (losing based on) THE TRUTH! But what’say let’s try that – because we haven’t, we didn’t, and we lost. We had the strongest machine in recent memory – but we had a candidate as unwilling to call the President a liar when he knew he was lying -- unfortunately, just like "journalist" and my current nominee for "traitor to the truth" Jim Lehrer is. We can’t continue to let the Republicans get away with the same horrible, mushy post-modern relativism they accuse “intellectuals” of using – of our side saying something, and their side saying something, and leave the truth to sort itself out. As we all know, Kerry had plenty of ammunition – but he feared calling Bush a liar, despite ample evidence that he WAS.

This is the true battle. Anything else is DLC boilerplate or a distraction. We can’t decide that playing better politics is going to get us any farther as long as we continue to let all the petty lies (and some big, important, cardinal lies) accumulate without response. I am willing to lose based on what may be decried a bleeding-heart liberal “nuanced” wimpy unilateralist one-worlder agenda – AS LONG AS IT REALLY REPRESENTS MY AGENDA. If we lose based on the facts, it means we have to keep arguing. If we lose based on lies, it means we have to find someone who’s not too craven to call a lack of WMDs a lack of WMDs.

Let us live or die by our values, and by fighting them in their real terms and not in News Media-controlled memes. That’s something I’m willing to go down in the trenches for, and who knows, we might even make progress. But we can't do worse standing on our own values than we've now done standing on a guy one step removed from a President who could barely be farther removed from our views. So,

WHO’S WITH ME?




*Reading the Duelfer report's key findings also turn up this tidbit: He concluded the Hussein's nuclear weapon program-related-activities (to use David Kay's much trumpeted phrase) were primarily aimed at deflecting IRAN; "balancing Israel and the other Arab powers" he states were "secondary" goals -- so where does using them against the US come in? 3rd place, or maybe 4th place after "To Build an Authentic Diorama of Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove"? This is great, just great, not only are Bushies misinterpreting their own results on the presence of a threat, but even if the threat were present, the US isn't in the TOP 3 of the threat list of their own assesssor.... WTF, I say, WT Royal F.

** From Saletan's article:

...don't have to argue the point anymore, because last night, Bush confirmed it. Here's what he said at a rally in Oregon, according to a White House transcript:

Once again, last night, with a straight face, the senator said—well, shall we say, refined his answer on his proposed global test. That's the test he would administer before defending America. After trying to say it really wasn't a test at all, last night he once again defended his approach, saying, I think it makes sense. (Laughter.) The senator now says we'd have to pass some international truth standard. The truth is we should never turn America's national security decisions over to international bodies or leaders of other countries. (Applause.)

You heard that right. The president explicitly refuses "to pass some international truth standard." Because evidence is the fundamental test applied in France as well as in the United States, Bush thinks he shouldn't have to back up his claims or decisions with evidence.

Reflections and Recriminations

I have a lot of thoughts on this just past election (most of them virulently against the type of things said on Slate and new J Continuum blog-friend HopefulCynic), but I will save it for another time.

I just want to say, in a bit of a serious, somber, but also snide way, What did we gain in supporting Kerry????

By "We" of course I mean the Progressive Left, those of us off the Democratic Leadership Council's scale, those 60% of "Democrats" (I no longer count myself as a Democrat) who opposed the Iraq War all along and had no voice in our country's leadership (let's see, Dennis Kucinich was starkly against the war, and he's the politician given the most deference by the media and the people, right?). We supported a 'compromise" candidate to win the battle, hoping to have a stop-loss on the way to a real war strategy.

In all of my arguments against Kerry, I completely forget an important one: An "Anybody-But-Bush" approach has little or *no* value in the case of a Kerry *loss*. We lost even more than we lost from 2000, where Gore wasn't so strongly backed by even those "Democrats" strong-willed and intellectually honest enough to call themselves Socialists, Liberals, Communists, Anarachists, or other "Bad Names" in the US (like "Reader of Chomsky").

What would we have gained had the True Left (or Far Left or Real Liberals or Progressives or Greens) went all out for Nader (or pushed Kerry left or gone for Kucinich or Sharpton)? Can you IMAGINE the heartening feeling we wouldn've gotten for having a real liberal at even 30%? What if Nader got 20%? Or Kerry, running on a stringently anti-imperialism platform still got 49%? GREAT! "Our" views would've been heard, and we would've seen we shouldn't be so DAMNED afraid of them! (Tim Noah of Slate dismisses the idea of the Democrats moving farther to the left -- as well as farther to the right -- because it's clear that the US is moving to the right and left ideas won't win -- maybe yes, maybe no, but hey, no one big's made a big argument for them, remember? Not to mention the 1000s or perhaps MILLIONS of poor, minority, and/or women voters who just DIDN'T TURN OUT -- apparently Anyone But Bush didn't seem to reassure them the Demopublican Elite wouldn't continue to FUCK THEM OVER. Hey Tim, maybe we SHOULD ACTUALLY move left, or at least figure out why those in our society WORST OFF tend to VOTE THE LEAST. Could it be 100% of campaign rhetoric aimed at the "middle class" and approximately 0% at the "lower" class, the poor, the disenfranchised, the inner city, the farmer being squeezed out by Big Government (Republicrat) Policies of subsidizing agrobusiness???? For cripe's sake, Noah.)

One definite gain of this election was the apparatus of groups like MoveOn (though the Republican tarring of them as radical groups makes my head throb -- they're as radical as the Democratic Leadership Council for cripe's sake... which is to say, NOT radical; CERTAINLY not socialist as Rush Limbaugh and Hannity and similar talking heads tarred them; you realize how doubly bad that is? FIRST, it's already granting "socialist" as an evil thing, which I don't believe I am, conflating it with the State Capitalism of the USSR which had oh so little to do with the actual diversity of thought in socialist philosophy, and SECOND, MoveOn is NOT socialist, even if *I* think it *should* be...) Michael Moore, MoveOn, and others mobilized thousands of voters. This is good. I can only hope and assume they also moved voters to not just vote for Kerry out of reactionism, but to Get Involved and Do Their (Electoral) Homework.

So good things there. (Though as Tom Tomorrow on Slate points out, we REALLY have to stop letting conservatives set the terms of the debate -- read this with me again -- MOVEON IS NOT RADICAL, IT IS CENTRIST. And while we're at it -- this is a dangling thread for HopefulCynic and others -- MICHAEL MOORE AND F 9/11 WERE NEVER SHOWN TO HAVE MORE THAN ONE FACTUAL ERROR -- that is, Richard Clarke said afterwards that he *did* clear the Saudis for flight personally after 9/11, though it is my understanding he said differently in his book, making this a dubious factual error -- THAT IS, YOU CAN DISAGREE WITH HIS INTERPRETATION AND IMPLICATIONS, BUT STOP CALLING IT LYING DEMAGOGIC PROPAGANDA, especially without any kind of proof or nuanced analysis. Just cuz you hate it doesn't mean it's wrong, just like just cuz we hate W's policies doesn't make his backers stupid. (I may believe they are horribly incorrect, but that is different and far less condescending, neh? After all, they believe the same of me.)

All this is to say, a defeat with a candidate we believed in would've shown us there is strength in our views, we just need to work even more on convincing people. (Though of course the DLC and it's ilk probably would've and probably will always view any loss, or any win for that matter, as reason to move right -- an idea that, as Tim Noah points out, only even works on paper if you assume there is a limit to how far right the Republicans can move in response, a dubious prospect.)

Ignore, for god's sake, ignore all of those who say this proves that the Left's Agenda is Not America anymore. It is not 59 million US citizens, but hey, you know what, it IS 55 million of us. Hey, if you believe the studies, it's FAR MORE THAN THAT, in that the poor, minorities, non-voting women, and young voters have been repeatedly shown to skew Left; so it's LIKELY that culturally, we're STILL in the majority (though of course highly debateable), it's just that the majority of that, er, majority, doesn't vote because they haven't seen any real help for their conditions since, oh, maybe Nixon (who actually had some of the best policies on Race Relations of our presidents, and perhaps good policies on poverty as well; it was he who hired Maya Angelou as his advisor on race relations, not Kennedy, for example). This is NOT a GOOD THING.

I don't know if we can "win", I don't know if we can convince others that our agenda is superior and more in the spirit of the values we profess to believe in (religious freedom should include atheism, neh? How many atheist politicians do we have? Democracy would imply we wouldn't have invaded, or at least not stayed, in a country where 75% of the populace wants us gone; it would imply we wouldn't have had ProConsul Bremer dictating that partial elections were in fact democracy in progress and not anathema to democracy; we wouldn't have 1000s of dead foreign nationals on our hands, from the Sandinistas to Iranians during the Coup to the Kurds Hussein gassed while acting under our aegis with "weapons of mass destruction" supplied by US... and on and on....) I don't know if we can convince them that we can't kill every terrorist, for good, such that no terrorists ever arise again, such that we don't further inflame rage against us, such that we don't worsen the very conditions in the world that do not necessarily GENERATE extremism, Islamic or otherwise, but AIDE and ABET them in finding recruits, in taking root and prospering. I don't know if we can convince them that, logically, John Kerry was RIGHT in arguing to reduce terrorism to a NUISANCE, for the simple fact that you can't kill a method, you can't kill an IDEA -- terrorism is a tactic, and winning it completely as Bush wants to do means not only killing all terrorists, but killing all people who would THINK to use terrorism, or detaining them, or spreading "democracy" in a way FAR better and FAR DIFFERENT than in Iraq and Afghanistan, two countries sagging under the weight of our ineptitude, if you believe Bush's theory, which is of coruse bunk because DEMOCRACY PER SE doesn't seem to make people better off or happier, and certainly not FREE MARKETS or CAPITALISM, but substantive EQUALITY -- which is no more common in democracies than in autocracies it seems to me.

But I do know -- at the conclusion of all of that rambling -- that we can't hope to win ground for our ideals if we fight instead on the idea of averaging our ideals with "theirs" -- we may not be right, we may only be partially right, we may be all right or all wrong, but the only way to determine reality is not to fence off along partisan lines, nor is it to become the party whose ideals we oppose, but to have a genuine debate on our differences. To debate best tactics in "the war on terrorism", to debate the SANITY of the war on terrorism. And we may lose -- as good ideas often do -- but losing in and of itself is not a refutation of what we believe, and we must start to realize that. If we don't, all is lost and we have learned nothing.

Jon Stewart Sez: Funk you very much.

Hmm... actually, I think it's George Clinton who says Funk you very much.

Well.

Thanks to all my actual readers who stuck around through the dry spell of blogging -- sadly, I can garuntee it will continue (garuntee is the one word I can never, ever spell) as I continue through my studies here in Brasil. I will try and post as often as possible, but as procrastination is one of my brightest talents, I've been trying not to use the blog towards that end rather than my research (no, no, Slate.com and Warcraft III will do nicely...)

But, I just saw the clip of Jon Stewart laying the smack-down, the funk-bomb, the in-your-face, the slap-with-the-big-swiniging-dick, the kick-in-the-balls on CNN's Crossfire.

Mr. Carlson, who is your daddy?

Ok, sorry for the rude, crude obnoxious lead-in, but WOW. Stewart has been ready to burst for months, and the time apparently came.

I have many thoughts on this (including the theme I very much like of Jon Stewart as a real life The Fool in King Lear; as my beloved erstwhile Shakespeare professor would say "Rubric for the Day: Speaking TRUTH to Power: License and the Fool in the Royal Court".

As follows (comment by J reposted from here. (Link to JS on Crossfire Transcript here, and to video here.)

What Carlson -- and E-boy and others -- all look over is that Stewart is an equal-opportunity soft-baller. True, he has shifted into a MUCH more attackful banter if he thinks his guest is full of shit -- the Sen. from Texas, for example, and the guy who wrote "The Connection" (btw Osama bin Laden and Hussein).

But if you look back, two things:
a) This is only recent, and only sometimes -- he was pretty nice to the Democratic and Republican National Chairpersons both, not questioning their demagogery overmuch, not challenging them, having a nice conversation about life and the election and letting all the little white lies of both go without notice. If you look back further -- he has almost NEVER been hard-hitting before this year, which must represent a new level of frustration to the poor man. I mean, Ann Coulter was on his show, and he treated her like she was as reasonable a person as, I don't know, Sandra Day O'Connor. Which brings us to the second point...
b) Due to either being a suck-up, or, equally likely, a man somewhat intimidated by heights he never thought (or, imho, wanted) to obtain, simply by voicing what he feels is true and funny, he gets SCARED with big names. Watch him & Karen Hughes -- his nose was up her butt as much as Kerry's!

I want to repeat this, because it is very important: STEWART IS OFTEN TIMID IN FRONT OF BIG NAMES, REGARDLESS OF WHAT SIDE -- HE SUCKED UP TO KAREN HUGHES.

He doubtlessly would be scared of Bush, too, were Bush somehow on the show, and would softball him. But Karen Hughes -- the HEIGHT of political hackery, and Ann Coulter, the height of hate-spewing psuedo-intellectual non-sequitirs and controversy, gets a free pass as well.

No, if you look at TDS, Stewart has been equally nice to everyone in the past -- and these days, equally savage to those that come and lie (i.e. untruths in his house).

I'd bet you my last dollar that if Begala had not had the GOOD SENSE to shut up, and instead defended what he did, he would be taken down a peg with Carlson (though Begala is slightly less testy, making a drag-out fight unlikely even he stayed in the fray). But Begala knew he could gain nothing unless he a) prostrated himself before the truth and admitted all the "news" he's ever done has been just this side of an SNL skit of the news, i.e. bullshit, or b) shut the hell up, because while Stewart might be an equal-opportunity challenger, if Begala spoke no words, he could tell no lies for Carlson to debunk.

And whatever you think of JS's comportment, is it not for a moment a shame, or suspicious, or looney, that Carlson didn't challenge Stewart on the FACTS? His form of "debate" was a) stop lecturing b) be funny c) you were a suck up to Kerry on your non-news show d) stop lecturing e) what do you think of an irrelevant sex scandal? f) stop lecturing.

Hey, Carlson -- while you might have brought Stewart on as a "spice of life" segment, WHY IN THE HELL ARE YOU COMPLAINING ABOUT A "LECTURE"-LIKE DISCOURSE ON A SUPPOSEDLY INFORMATIVE SHOW? Fine, it wasn't what you'd planned -- but it isn't like this is The Bozo Show (let fly sarcastic ripostes here), where politics would catch everyone flat footed. He wanted to discuss realpolitik -- is that so foreign that you can't recover?

Oh wait, you did. It was vitally important that the US, in this heated and important election season, know about Bill O'Reilly's sex life.

Thank you for reminding me what fake news looks like.

--J

Post-script

Anyone who can get the phrase "Bush & Cheney's Excellent Adventure" into the popular lexicon will be my personal hero.*

Second best will be if anyone can tell me if they find it somewhere else (coolest would be in the mainstream media).




*Hey, it could happen. It took a year, but I convinced my friends to start using "big fat ass" as a complement in college, i.e. "You passed the course? You are a big fat ass!"

Hell, handbasket. Handbasket, hell.

Sigh.

I always hate to actually use the "hell in a handbasket" phrase, cuz, you know, as bad as things are, they're very rarely uniquely bad in terms of history.

Perhaps they aren't right now, in terms of ages of civilizations.

But in terms of recent lifetimes...

I'm not in the US right now, so I can't fully appreciate the absolute horror most of my friends and family are expressing right now. I don't even get CNN here yet. Of course, I can imagine the horror, both because of the election down here (it seems two candidates for prefect -- mayor -- who just happen to be down in the polls are accusing the current prefect's party of vast campaign malfeasance. What I have yet to see is one, any, SINGLE shread of evidence in this, the second-to-last week before elections here), and because of how bad it was before I left, I can imagine how horribly intolerable it is now. Even NPR and BBC get less good (horrible) during election years.

Meanwhile, we join our heroes in Iraq, where there certainly is a most un-pretty how-dee-do.

A really good overall take on the coverage here on Slate.com. (my favorite, Today's Papers of course. I can't believe I used to not like this feature. Of course, it didn~t used to be this good, perhaps.)

Also, splendidly horrible stuff here (really, truly, breath-takingly horrible -- can we all take a deep breath now and stop calling the ACLU crazy commie alarmists?)*

Also, a link to a Fray post that is really good on its own merits, but should be read by everyone just for its use (creation?) of the phrase, "Bush and Cheney's Excellent Adventure".

However, I think if we've learned anything from Bush and Cheney's Excellent Adventure, it's that good intentions, once implemented, aren't necessarily in one's best interests. That is, bringing Democracy to Iraq through force doesn't, by definition, improve the lives of either Americans or Iraqis.

Rarely has the phrase "Read them, and weep" been truer.

-J


*No? Really? <...> Sigh. Yeah, I didn't think so.

Brief Update

Fixed some links in the previous two pieces, in case anyone was worried.

Also, thought it worth it to bring this quote back to the top of the page (it is from an earlier post, quoted from Alexander Cockburn on Counterpunch.org).

"I agree that Bush should be kicked out of the White House, and if I lived in a swing state I would consider voting Democratic. But I don't believe that will be meaningful unless there emerges in the United States a significant anti-empire movement. In other words, if we beat Bush and go back to "normal," we're all in trouble. Normal is empire building. Normal is U.S. domination, economic and military, and the suffering that vulnerable people around the world experience as a result. This doesn't mean voters can't judge one particular empire-building politician more dangerous than another. It doesn't mean we shouldn't sometimes make strategic choices to vote for one over the other. It simply means we should make such choices with eyes open and no illusions. This seems particularly important when the likely Democratic presidential candidate tries to out-hawk Bush on support for Israel, pledges to continue the occupation of Iraq, and says nothing about reversing the basic trends in foreign policy."

--J

Other things -- Kerry: Not Doing So Bad (Maybe) and One More Reason to Not Vote for Kerry (I knew you couldn't wait)

Part the First:

DailyKos, a new favorite blog of mine, has some good stuff on the recent polling. I'm sure the looming spectre of Bush winning is not the only reason my friends and family back home are variously trying to learn portuguese in order to move down here with me or trying to convince me that it really is time to cut bait with Nader; I'm sure a lot of it is also the media saturation of having to think constantly about someone you loathe (in the case of most of my friends, Bush).

But here on DailyKos are several good threads with the theory that Gallup's poll, which shows Kerry 11 points behind, is possibly flawed, certainly an outlier, and that all of the polls may simply be lagging behind significant retreats in the gains Bush has made (that would be nice, for me as well as for the kids back home). At the heart of the matter, in part, is that Gallup assumes more Republicans will turn out than Democrats for this election -- and also apparently do not consider people who didn~t vote last year to be "likely voters" -- which would exclude the theorized large number of (mostly liberal) people who have come off the bench for this election. Read on and decide for yourself...

Also, a tidbit I had been pretty gleeful about but now am utterly incapable of finding, was an article that reported a survey or some other type of research indicated that while most people abroad hoped Kerry would win, few if any thought that meant life would get any better for them or that foreign policy would change noticeably. However, www.axisoflogic.com has many other articles discussing the Bush/Kerry problem, and I heartily recommend them, having read only a couple. Hopefully, the rest aren't all horrible or something.

Besides the what I consider numerous arguments showing that a Kerry presidency will not better the world -- only better the rhetoric -- I have what I think, hope, is a deeper point. People, i.e. Chomsky & Zinn, say that under a Kerry presidency, there is at least hope that he will change in response to the public, whereas under a Bush presidency, there is no hope.

I think they are incredibly wrong, and have misread the situation.

We have seen, time after time, Bush shifting positions -- his stances on Korea, China, Taiwan, Israel, Palestine, Homeland Security, Commissions, and a slew of issues on Iraq.

Why did he switch? Why, at some moment, did he back down (though claiming the entire time not to be backing down)?

The same reason he switched from not supporting an anti-gay amendment to supporting it.

He was afraid he would lose this election.

Bush has whorishly clung to whatever position he could best exploit to remain popular. Whether or not his advisors knew that stubborness would go over so well, I don't believe for a moment his "principled stands" of never, ever (admitting to) changing his mind come from an honest place; or rather, that if it weren't working it wouldn't be scrapped.

Bush knows that what he's doing is working for him. And he seems to be right, insofar as he's even if not ahead of Kerry at this point. But again, does anyone here have any doubt that Bush wouldn't find a way to move his position, or even become a "nuanced flip flopper" if he & Co. thought it would work to their (electoral) advantage? Of-course-fucking-not.

Now, many of my friends are saying that even if Bush loses, he'll win, because the Repubs are so evil/crafty. While I certainly believe they are doing everything possible to sabotage the election beforehand (i.e. being in bed with Diebold, the continuing problems with people wrongfully expunged from voting rolls in Florida, etc.), I don't think they will be able to steal it if they actually, publicly lose it, i.e. steal it after the fact like last time. While I'm not confident Kerry is a better "strategerist" than Gore, assumedly, hopefully, he wouldn't go Gore's crazy milquetoast way and only recount a select number of places -- research has shown Gore would've won a statewide Florida recount, but not the limited recounts he actually asked for.

But I have no more confidence in the Bush team's complete god-like genius now than when people said "even if they don't find WMDs in Iraq, they'll find some." After all, GHWB was CIA head, right? They could find a way to plant that shit.

Ain't happened. For two reasons I think -- they believed their own press ("everybody thought they had WMDs" -- give me a fucking break) and also it's very logistically difficult, and not that hard to expose.

Similarly, while I am SURE they are creating conditions for a fixed race, I think should it shift significantly Kerry's way, it will be his to lose. That is, if he, like Gore, chooses a challenge in such a way that even were it carried out, he would lose, then I think the GOP might be able to take another after-the-fact victory; Gore managed, as they say, to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. (Was it truly worth it to avoid looking petty, to lose the election?)

There WILL be irregularities. It looks like it will probably be close. And the GOP has any number of harrassment, subterfugeristic strategeries, and other ploys (like the true ploy, outlined in Eric Alterman's "What Liberal Media" (but documented in Bush campaign tax documents, so any conservatives who are here by accident or something, there IS source material to back up liberal claims) of bringing people from OUTSIDE OF FLORIDA to stage protests in front of the Florida government about the FLORIDA recounts).

While I'm alternately called too cynical and too naive by friends, I think that in a close election, if Kerry keeps the pressure on in a way wholly unlike Gore, he can win. Last time, Gore had the facts on his side but not the stones. This time, I have a hard time imagining the Supreme Court finding for Bush again. It left a bad taste in many of their mouths -- especially Sandra Day O'Connor -- and I don't think anyone outside of the big 3 -- Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas, the Boy Wonder -- would want to go down in history as having decided two presidential elections for the same guy. No, they would either avoid this hot potato or find in some way to not decide it conclusively. And seriously, I think the left would seriously go on an apeshit riot if it came to the Supreme Court again. I'm not entirely sure what kind of result that would lead to.

But my point here is this: in this election, it is largely irrelevant what president wins. You heard me. Bush has showed himself to be a pollwatcher as much as any other freakin' president, and he *follows where the polls go*. When HASN'T he? He's been able to do what he's doing because the country is split slightly in his favor, but he makes strategic retreats to maintain said favor. The reason such retreats have not been gains for the Left, like the bungling of the patient's bill of rights, the Health Care bill, anything dealing with Iraq, etc., is because the Left has not been able to create or maintain pressure outside of their own pre-existing groups. I do not believe the ability of the Left to maintain or create such groups depends heavily on the President; Chomsky & Zinn argue they will be more effective under Kerry, www.counterpunch.org has articles arguing the Left would demobilize under a Kerry presidency (a more likely outcome, imho). In either case, however, the challenge is not to create more protest groups, but to create a sustained, involved political movement reaching out across traditional lines. The "Hard Left" cannot afford leaving behind the soft left and the soft right. (The Hard Right definitely has to simmer for a bit longer before we try and gnaw on that hunk of meat. Or something that makes sense.) And I do not believe a Kerry presidency will in any way HELP remove the rift between the Left/Right (and various other divisions) we now see. It is POSSIBLE under a Kerry Prez, but no less possible under a Bush pres.

If we start changing those millions of Bush backers, it won't matter if he's still in office. It's been pointed out he went to Iraq even though the public wasn't behind him. But he went to Iraq months after ramping up about it, and basically wore down the resistance from 75%ish to 60% to around 50/50 and then, once in, it collapsed into very clear support. (Of course, there is still the argument that a Dem wouldn't have gone to Iraq in the first place... which is an argument I have to grant. Nevertheless, we ARE in Iraq, and it is clear that Bush does not have the political capital to go BEYOND Iraq, and Kerry doesn't have the political will to get OUT of Iraq. Looking at all those prepositions, it seems to me the "would've" is irrelevant in this case; the case today presents us with two candidates who I think will pursue essentially the same strategies, one because it's what he wants, the other because it's not so far from what he wants and he's too weak to move it too much.) If we had a true grassroots movement, beyond our 50% of the electorate, we would not have gone to war in Iraq. If we had a solid 60% of people against the war, or 75%, or everyone but the hard right, and it was clear that it was NOT going to dissolve once boots were on the ground, we would NOT have gone to Iraq. I think one of the lessons George W has taken from George HW is avoid unpopular decisions at all costs -- HW took the seemingly rational step of raising taxes. That's not the only reason he was defeated, but it contributed significantly, I think.

Bush will not do that. If faced with clear opposition that threatens to hurt his electoral chances, he has backed down every time. On the Patient's Bill of Rights, he was against it, then for a different version, then he had to go through back doors, getting the one medical Doctor in Congress to switch from for- to against- it, and not much later, it was dead. How many people know this is how it happened, how this popular issue got quashed? I guarantee you, had those moderate Republicans who were for it a clear idea of how it got quashed, and what was at stake, it would've gone differently. Bush could not afford to veto it; thus, he arranged for it to die in committee and he didn't have to take any political heat; it was, ideally, dissapated among not only Congress Republicans, but also the Democrats, who the GOP could claim stopped the bill because of obstructions in committee. Safe and sound for Bush.

Given that, to me, the grassroots movement depends on real, deep education and knowledge, I don't see what it matters who's president except as far as whether or not I will be able to keep my food down during the next 4 State of the Union Addresses. But while Bush has hurt education, Kerry has helped him. And it is certain that a Kerry president would not revolutionize the way education happens in the US, and it is clear Bush cannot stop the Left from teaching. The Miami riots were quashed, brutally, but this backlash clearly would not have propagated to Bush, even had it been out. And Clinton, like Kerry I suspect, was willing to have riots quashed as president as well, if not with such efficiency. But protests are effective only insofar as they are a learning tool, and very few center-rights listen to what is taught there.

Whatever the Left's strategy for the future is, winning over the soft right (or, hey, better yet, getting the Non-voting downtrodden Left on board -- another problem I have with Kerry -- numbers show many eligible women in the last election didn't vote, and most women vote Democratic. Further, many nonvoters are poor and minority, and don't vote for that reason. There are MILLIONS of votes Kerry could get with plans for REAL change -- politically dangerous, yes, off the beaten path, yes -- but it seems like a foregone conclusion that a candidate that can make the worst-off electoral base of the US *believe* in what they say, they will have gained a constituency of millions... more, I suspect, than the fucking swing voters everyone's so fond of. But no, this tactic was passed up for exactly the kind of pandering keeping many of those too cynical to vote exactly where they are) -- whatever the strategy for the future is, it won't depend on who is in office. It will depend on who is on the ground, and what they think, and what they are willing to do about it -- most especially, what they are willing to do about in November.

We can't afford the soft bigotry of low expectations (my hands will never be clean now, I quoted Bush in earnest). We can't afford to convince only ourselves. And we can't afford to think changing the face of our government will in large or small part mean that our education and compromising with the reality of other US Americans will be affected. Millions of Democrats (I believe) voted for Bush in 2000. Some number of Democrats will vote for him this time. Many eligble voters will not. Our job is to help in whatever way is needed to understand these people's views and, should we be correct in our ways, convince them to see it from our view, indeed, to think about many views, from that time on. Bush will not do this. Kerry will not do this. We can, we will, and we will not do that by spiting the only candidate who actually believes in it, the only candidate not wholly a whore to our present system.

Mo' Kerry, Mo' Problems; OR, Reason #????zillion Not to Vote for Kerry if you are a Liberal

In Two Parts

Act I

So, there are many problems with this upcoming election. And Bush is a big one of them.

But I think the focus on voting "against Bush" (i.e. anyone but Bush) misses the real problem -- it's like when they tell you not to aim a fire extinguisher at the flames, but rather at the base.

The problem, to me, the real problem, is the 50% of (prospectively voting) Americans or so who support Bush. The election last time was close as well. What this tells me is that despite all of the horrible things most of "us" on the Left think he's done, most of the voting public is still behind him. What this implies is that a conservative or almost evenly split Congress seems here for the next cycle; this means that a prospective Pres. Kerry would still have the same culture wars to fight, now with the virulently opposed masses having swithed sides, from being those on the Left to those on the Right. Prophecy becomes reality, and we have a weak, indecisive president -- someone not willing to risk political capital on being unpopular, without an overwhelming mandate, faced with a majority-opposition or razor-thin Democratic Congress.

There's no reason to think that the country will become less polarized in the coming months or years. Kerry has shown his unwillingness to stake a claim for any potentially unpopular position that he thinks is right and fight to bring people towards him, rather, he incrementally moves towards where he perceives the "swing" masses to be.

Not that this is out of the ordinary, or exceptionally bad behaviour on the part of a politician. But it does seem extraordinarily dense when, at least in March when a University of Maryland survey (pdf file) found that, essentially, the better a person understood the circumstances around 9/11 and Iraq, the more likely they were to vote for Kerry. I.e. a majority of people polled in March still thought WMDs had been found in Iraq and that Iraq and al-Qaeda had significant ties. (Much has happened since then, I encourage any comments with more recent info, but that may not mean much considering that the article says the numbers of people with such beliefs unsupported by the Bush Administration's own (occasional) statements didn't change much from months prior to the study (of course, there are also many Administration statements, including those in the linked article there, that purposefully muddy their own admission that Iraq was not allied with 9/11, but there you go.) Of course, there's that pesky correlation does not prove causation bit, meaning informing people that they were misled may not necessarily cause them to change their vote (especially in this case where a National Guard Colonel said, I shit you not, “What he was saying about George Bush not telling the truth on Iraq - I just don't believe that. George Bush did tell us the truth, so I guess I couldn't believe what Kerry was saying.” Maybe he preceded this with a half hour case presenting how Bush could possibly have been construed as telling the truth, but otherwise, this is a very scary case of Bush-poisoning – up there with “The President got an honorable discharge, therefore he must have completed his National Guard duties” fallacy… read any of the recent White House Briefings to see Scott McClellan trying to avoid a future perjury charge by specifically refusing to answer to the Prez’s whereabouts on his missing Guard duty days, with only the tautology of “he was honorably discharged, therefore he must have served honorably and completed his obligations.” Sort of like, my dog’s name ended up on an SAT score with 1600, therefore my dog must’ve taken the SAT and received 1600. (Further parenthetical comments: here and here (free subscription required) are articles implying that the documents and their discovery as possible forgeries may have been, at least in part, a Republican operation…)

Whew… all that is to say, while Kerry is ambling towards the Right in style unmatched even by Clinton- (waffles, flip-flops – where does the Right Attack Machine find these mundane monikers?)-esque standards, Bush of course, is worse, by staking a claim, and only moving from the claim when it is proven the claim is wholly wrong. When this happens, he slightly moves his claim (the only time he’s guilty of nuance, natch) and claims, Kosh-like, that “We have always been here”.

The point being, here now in the second paragraph I introduce as a sum-up, if we’re to fix the problems with US image and (more importantly) US actions, changing the face of the government won’t do. We must change not only the face, but the being of America. This is necessary as a pragmatic and as an intellectually honest move. Pragmatically, having 50% of the electorate thinking the disastrous Bush policies are working means that with Kerry prez or not, the root problems in terms of (in my opinion) an ill-informed public, subject to jingoism and American exceptionalism, will not change. How many minds has Bush changed? (By the by: Dennis Miller: Get the fuck out of here.) Would Kerry be able to change more hearts and minds here and abroad?

(see next post for an interesting piece on hearts and minds abroad)

Act II: Stomp Box Hear Me Shout
More Reasons to Not Vote For Kerry, This Having Largely Been Ignored in Act the First

Last I checked, we in the United States had some type of electoral system. Setting aside the problems of voting by fiefdoms, I mean states, instead of by popular majority, even those problem fiefdoms of Lord Vassal Jeb, there seems to be an important flaw in the reasoning of “Anybody but Bush” in this election.

Many, many people say we must vote for Kerry, because at worst he’s marginally better than Bush.

Let’s accept this premise for a moment. Let’s also accept the premise that there actually ARE better candidates in the Democratic Party than Kerry, in terms of a truly Left agenda, and/or that Kerry could at least try to hold on to some of the sentiments of the Left base, taking moderates into account but not cutting off his Liberal nose to spite his Independent Voters face in Running to the Right of them. (Or something that makes sense.)

Given these premises, it is fairly logically inconsistent, I think, to vote for Kerry over Bush.

Why? In an electoral system, the only true job review, and hiring and firing power the people have is an election (and possibly recalls, but this is not the case for the presidency of the US). Thus, any other leverage is not a significant threat to a candidate. Deciding to vote for a candidate, say, Kerry, no matter how much you’re “holding your nose” about what he apparently thinks of as policies in effect tells our public employees “We will always support you in times of crisis, no matter how much you contributed to the crisis and how little you resolve to do about it that’s different should you be elected.”

Now, there is a logically consistent argument to be made that this is an emergency, that Bush is really bad. This is an argument made by people who haven’t read Howard Zinn (or, sadly, ARE Howard Zinn). There have been many many really bad guys who were president. There have been few, if any, times that the wealthy establishment thought things would truly, radically change for the worse with a change between establishment administrations. The two parties have basically managed to funnel all conflict into internal battles, such that if you don’t like one guy (and for president, it’s always been guys), you have to vote for the other one, no matter how nauseous the other one is (thanks to Continuum friend Kelly, I have now used “nauseous” in its originally correct meaning).

Ok, so, maybe like Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, you think THIS time, it’s really REALLY bad, and we REALLY need to vote for Kerry. Setting aside for the moment that thousands of civilian innocents in other countries have died under Republican AND Democratic presidents (say, Carter and the Somoza Regime, JFK and LBJ and Viet Nam and almost Cuba, Clinton and Yugoslavia), which I actually think is a convincing argument that there’ll still be death and ruination under Kerry -- and I don’t think there’s much worse than that that can be done in the world -- if Kerry is going to sanction the death and ruination of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the loss of our men and women and the men, women, and children of those countries, what have we gained? (Though Noam Chomsky seems to believe in a sort of force-magnification theory, where because of the immense US power, a small change for good/less evil reaps significant benefits. Others, me among them, aren’t so sure – see previous posts, mainly this one.)

Ok, but setting that aside seriously now, I can actually kind of see this argument, and maybe it’s even true, but my problem is PEOPLE SAY IT EVERY GODDAM SINGLE TIME. That doesn’t invalidate out of hand the idea that this time, I really mean it, but my question is when will it be a safe time for it? Hmm? Every Republican president (rather like the Democratic ones) has presided over massive deaths overseas caused directly or indirectly by US policies. So let’s say Kerry gets 8 years and Edwards 8 years – will it be safe then? Or will it be too important to consolidate 16 years of “relatively less evil” Democratic governance? Will the Republican candidate be someone that we on the Left can actually live with and enjoy as President, so that it’ll be safe to vote for 3rd party? Because that’s what this argument requires (or an absolutely sterling grassroots movement building unprecedented steam in the next two decades). It requires that we know, in the short term at least, that the candidate we oppose (or oppose more) ABSOLUTELY is an acceptable alternative, so it is safe to vote for Nader, or his intellectual and moral inheritors. Hmm? Can someone out there imagine the GOP running a candidate that isn’t grating to our very values in the near future? I mean, they get OFF on this stuff. C’mon! It’s always going to be “too important” an election to go off the beaten path, the road less taken – this viewpoint is a permanent road to the status quo, a message to the GOP that they should always run hard right candidates, and a message to the Democrats that if they run a Halibut Named Eric then we’ll all still toe the line.

You cannot win a war of attrition.

Kerry has made clear he will continue the substance of Bush’s policies. People say that’s an election year ploy, that he doesn’t mean it and that he will return to the fold, but how the hell do you support a candidate on the premise that his election year promises are the opposite of what you want, and therefore he’ll do the opposite of what he says? Don’t candidates actual policies usually reflect a thin-gruel version or even a reneging on their promises? Is that our hope, that in John Kerry’s case, his promises really are the opposite of what he plans to do? (As my mentor JV said, when I was a Kerry supporter earlier this year, this point of view/ray of hope rests entirely on the idea that Kerry is a complete and unadulterated liar right now.) Besides this, it misses the last point I want to make:

BUSH is not the REAL problem, as I said in Act I. The REAL problem are the millions of people who support him and his regime. The Continuum’s good friend L points out that elections are not the time for brave failures, for a really Left candidate to go out on a limb. But I think just the opposite is true – as the research indicates that the better informed a person is, the greater the statistical chance that they oppose Bush/support Kerry, why isn’t an election year the CHIEF time to begin a campaign of education? Not “negativity” – negativity, to me, is using flimsy attacks based loosely on facts. (Everything, more or less, that Bush & Co. are doing.) No, the campaign of education doesn’t even have to have scripts. Use Bush’s own words against him. Many have pointed out, he’s “flip-flopped” (ps I am SO fucking tired of hearing about flipflops… flip-y-flop-ies in Portuguese, if you were wondering), on nation building, on negotiations with North Korea (against it, for it, against it, for it in a different way…), if you remember the plane downed in Asia, he went back and forth then (No apology, apology, non-apologizing apology), on consulting with the UN before going into Iraq, about appointing commissions to investigae 9/11 and Iraq, to creating a dept. of Homeland Security, and of making the HS head a Cabinet level position (how can you argue HS is your top priority but think that the head of it shouldn’t be among the most senior staff?). Use Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld caught, on tape, lying about how they described Iraq (an “imminent threat”) and the connections between 9/11 and Iraq (they’re pretty clear vs. we never described them as definitive). Consistently EXPOSE that many people think 9/11 and Iraq are connected, and that the Pres. Himself has said they are not, according to the evidence – but also said they are, and implied it at every opportunity. (If they’re not connected, what are we doing in Iraq, did we go there just to create terrorists in order to MAINTAIN the war on terror… Ohhhh, they’re good) Mention, for God’s sake, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report that not only shows the Administration had to have been intentionally misleading us before the war, but shows that the UN and PRE-2002 US intelligence says about Iraq – essentially that they do not have most of the 12 listed types of Biological, Chemical, or Nuclear weapons, or we are not sure if they have it, or in a few cases, we think maybe they have it. Note (please, please fucking note) that the intelligence AFTER 2002 from the US all says “Definitely.” How can we let them get away with this, when they say every major intelligence agency thought Iraq had nuclear weapons? OUR intelligence agency didn’t, two years into Bush’s term! The UN inspectors didn’t think so. Former inspector (Scott?) Ritter said “Absolutely no”, and Hans Blix and Mohammed al-Baradi both at least said “Woah woah woah guys – we’re the nukes experts, and we think we have time for a little more not-killing-civilians here.” Why don’t we see this? Or Rep. Henry Hyde’s independently-reviewed report finding hundreds of mischaracterizations and at least 5 lies by Administration officials in the lead up to war? (Hey, what say we change that to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA? Rep. Hyde was recently awarded something or other by Grover Norquist, so I imagine he’d rend his own eyes from his sockets before supporting my causes by and large.) Waxman’s report here. Also great: just saw on Waxman’s site a comprehensive report on the Bush Admin’s War on Public Information (Operation Enduring Shut-up-Of-course-We’re-Telling-the-Truth). Go to that as well here.

The point is, the election is THE time to educate people – and with Rep. Waxman’s work alone, WE HAVE THE TOOLS, or at least, the evidence, to do just that. Everything an election candidate says is news – and your message can get everywhere.

Thus, the logical requirements as I see them for a candidate to do their job correctly, and reflect the views of their base, has been waived by those willing to vote for Kerry. In the spirit of staunching the bleeding, we (using the reverse royal we, i.e., you) have decided to support a candidate who will not use this particular “bully pulpit” to educate people right now, when every news station will echo-chamber the every quotable comment. We have decided that Kerry will in fact do MORE than he promises, in the exact OPPOSITE direction than what he promises. We have decided that Bush is more dangerous than the other war criminals in our past, who ordered, advocated, or turned a blind eye to the deaths of so many innocent people in Dresden, Nagasaki, Honduras, Guatemala, Viet Nam, Korea, Argentina, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Nicaragua, Haiti, Sudan, the Phillipines, and on and on, Dem and GOP alike. We have decided to abrogate our one true time to exert leverage on our supposed Democratic party. To make the progress we hope to make under Kerry. Because the only, and I mean ONLY way they will listen to us is if they think there is a legitimate chance of losing if they do not.

If we take away all chance of that, all chance of the loss of support, we take away the very purpose of democracy, and give the men and women of many stripes in our government the go-ahead to continue to kill, browbeat, and swindle in our names. Make no mistake – Kerry has vowed to stay in Iraq, has said he would’ve gone into Iraq as well, has chewed out Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, who have tried to help the poorest of their people, and for once in history, are having some success, rubber stamped the military coup of an elected president who (from what I’ve read) was genuinely concerned with the welfare of his people in Haiti, has said he would appoint pro-life judges, “drill everywhere [he could] but ANWAR, and just generally behaved in every way counter to my beliefs. (It’s argued that he, or an Al Gore, wouldn’t have actually gone into Iraq – so why the hell is he saying he would, ESPECIALLY considering a majority of Americans now think it was a mistake? WTF?)

If we vote for someone we truly believe in (Kerry, if that’s who you believe in after reading this screed), then we will have told the Democrats, told all of the parties, that we won’t vote for you unless you follow the wishes of your base, of the people. If we vote for Kerry because we are afraid of Bush, we are telling the parties that if we are afraid, they can do and say what they want. And as much as I think the Democrats are noticeably, if at many times only slightly, less evil than the Republicans, I don’t put it past them to use the very proven tactic used now – if we are afraid, if we are made to feel an urgency about the consequences, we will go and do exactly what they want – which is to vote for the one you find “least bad” – and they can continue on being bad, as lost as they’re less bad than the other guy.

That’s all they’ll have to do.

Link to the Press Policy Forum wherein Jim Lehrer proves himself a wuss

Here is the link to the transcript discussed two posts ago. It's an amazing example of how easily one mixes intellectual honest with CYA once one rises to certain rarefied heights.

Mea culpa, we were wrong... But not too wrong, and we don't apologize, well kind of, but we have nothing to apologize for and we had no other choice.

I wish I had access to the Daily Show so bad.

And Now for a Word

Not from our sponsors, but rather a quote from a book I~m reading, Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States. It is most apropos to what I wrote here about US, democracy, and our "territories" -- specifically, Guam, US Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico (though I feel like I may be missing one or two; if that's so, what I say obviously applies to them as well). (This very ignorance of mine is emblematic of part of the problem.) The quote below serves for today as much as it did then, especially if you replace those territories above for the mentions of the downtrodden class in this passage.

"Fellow Citizens: Pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today: What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence: are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us: And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from you independence to us?...

What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival...
--Frederick Douglas, Fourth of July, 1852

Harsh words. The Holocaust obviously springs to mind as a modern day atrocity that the US cannot compete for. And perhaps not. But how quick we forget, nonetheless, the 1 million Vietnamese died in the Viet Nam war? We suffered grave casualties, yes, but what did we inflict? With the two so far apart, how can we spend so much time mourning for our own and so little for others? We have lost perhaps 1,000 troops in Iraq. Iraq has lost perhaps 13,000 civilians and 5,000 or more soldiers. Yet we hear of our casualties so often; so often. And they are truly losses beyond recompense. Yet we almost never hear of the Iraqis' casualties; are their losses less tragic? How? Why? It's said by our military that 1,000 of Muqtada al-Sadr's fighters died in the recent clashes with the US in Najaf. We may not believe in what they're doing, but they believe they are fighting for independence just as we did over 200 years ago. Does our belief that they are wrong invalidate that they are also people's sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers? Do they deserve to die because we think they're wrong to oppose what we want to do with their country? And our handpicked successor, Allawi, ex paid CIA collaborator? Would we like to have a Baathist appointed leader of the US come November? Oh, but what if it is a really GOOD Baathist operator, is it ok then? Then why for us, and for Allawi?

I leave with a second quote. Many may say, should they read this blog, that I hate America. Yet they are wrong. I hate the deeds of the United States that are reprehensible, and I wish to see those responsible out of power forever, prosecuted, and remembered as a lesson. (What the hell is Kissinger doing still walking around?) If anyone should understand the concept of hate the sin, not the sinner, it should be some of those who most decry us America Haters, those who profess true belief in a Christian god. Yet they ask us to prove we love the sinner, by forgetting or endorsing the sin.

"If war be declared... Will we fight in defense of a government which denies us the most precious right of citizenship?...The States in which we dwell have twice availed themselves of our voluntary services, and have repaid us with chains and slavery. Shall we a third time kiss the foot that crushes us? If so, we deserve our chains.
--The Colored People Press, 1841

"Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reforms. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of struggle...If there is not struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will..."
--Frederick Douglas, 1957

Is it just me, or could he be talking of the Irish and the Ulsters, the Iraqi insurgents and the Coalition Forces, WTO and Convention Protests, or even the desire to put Kerry in in order to put out the brightest fires of imperialism yet still letting it burn...