This Just In:

Robert Fisk, reporter for The London Independent, reports on Air America Radio points out that, from his personal observations in Iraq, most Iraqis thought they were voting for an end to US occupation! I haven't heard this reported elsewhere, and so don't fully believe it until I see more sources, but as Mr. Fisk puts it, the general Sunni attitude is to resist US occupation by insurrection, the general Shi'ite is to end it by going to the voting booth and voting us out.

Perhaps I'm missing something here, or Mr. Fisk is not entirely accurate, but this is a dramatic statement, especially considering the recent US tongue-twisting:

"The New York Times leads with a newsless sitdown with President Bush, who said the U.S. would pull out of Iraq if the new government asks, which he said it won't. (And he's probably right.) Former Secretary of State Powell made the same semi-offer a few months ago, as did former Iraq boss Paul Bremer. Anyway, Bush "appeared more relaxed than he was in August, when he was last interviewed by the Times, in a changing area off a men's room.""

(Today's Paper's, Slate.com, Jan. 28 2005)

Oh, yeah, this is bad too...

The Bush Regime (as Mike Malloy aptly calls it) has found a NEW way to be thoughtless. Priceless in its horribleness.

From last week's Today's Papers on Slate

"Auschwitz, Lambeau Field, same deal... Vice President Cheney was at Auschwitz to mark the 60th anniversary of its liberation. "He was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower," says Post fashionista Robin Givhan. "Like other attendees, the vice president was wearing a hat. But it was not a fedora or a Stetson or a fur hat or any kind of hat that one might wear to a memorial service as the representative of one's country. Instead, it was a knit ski cap. It is also worth mentioning that Cheney was wearing hiking boots -- thick, brown, lace-up ones. [See the] Requisite, pricless photo."

(bangs head against keyboard again)

Media BS: Can you spot the Media Bias?

Hey all, this is still a busy year for J, trying to catch up on things that should've been done last year, so sorry for the lackluster (er, nonexistent) updates. Maybe this has just given all of my many, many (let's see, one, two, er, three...) fans time to catch up on their J Back-Issues.

Any case, today's ever so brief taste of J's return is to be found here. Can you detect the subtlely hidden CNN bias? Eh? Eeeeeh?

1) Identify the bias. Is it liberal? Is it conservative? Is it sensationalist? Is is Kiss-Ass?

2) Did you answer Conservative/Kiss-Ass? No? Be sure to show your work.

3) The answer is Conservative Kiss-Ass Bias. This is true.

Answers:

1) "Since the 2001 attacks, the staunchly conservative Ashcroft has been vilified by political opponents, civil liberties groups and privacy advocates for pushing controversial counterterrorism policies, which critics say undermine freedoms."

Vilified? Perhaps, perhaps not -- but isn't this a, say, purely subjective judgement? Granted, anyone who knows J knows that I don't believe in purely "objective" news (as in, it doesn't exist and instead of trying the News Media should collect the best information available, and make as best they can conclusions to the public, showing the process of getting there -- classic examples include Global Climate Change -- He Said She Said "fair" coverage of "both sides" obscures the fact that a vast majority of scientists credit that the evidence for GCC is solid, including conservative DoD consultants, report here).

What was I talking about -- oh, yes, so, "vilified" is not something that is easily defended as some kind of objective judgement. They continue to say: "which critics say undermine freedoms. They include the Patriot Act, which bolstered FBI surveillance and law enforcement powers in terror cases; increased use of material witness warrants to hold suspects incommunicado for months; and secret proceedings in immigration cases. Ashcroft made no apology for his actions, saying he has enjoyed full support from President Bush."

2) Surely, you say, these statements are ok. Well, maybe -- but to be even marginally low-CNN-standards-meeting, they should, you know, mention why Ashie's opponents, you know, oppose him, cuz you know, maybe, just *maybe* they have a point (or points).

3) "The president understands that this is almost mission impossible, to keep winning every day," he said."
Nov. 9, 2004: "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." (free subscription required) (also: "I have handwritten this letter so its confidentiality can be maintained until the appropriate arrangements mentioned above can be made." huh? As Lizz Winstead of AARadio asked, "He does realize that we can photocopy things now, doesn't he?" -- however it happened, handwriting didn't stop the release of his letter very promptly...)

Sigh. The whole thing is Crap-Tastic. It goes on ""Rights have not been infringed. Human dignity has not suffered. It's been enhanced and it has not carried a cost or toll on the civil liberties of America," Ashcroft said." It hasn't carried *any* cost or toll? That's AMAZING! There IS a free lunch!!!!

"More than 375 people have been charged in terror-related prosecutions in the United States since the 2001 attacks, with 195 either convicted or entering guilty pleas." Heaven forbid we mention, say, the 0 (zero) convictions for terrorist *acts*, but rather "some convictions under a questionable new law prohibiting Americans from offering 'material support' to foreign based terrorists", and in fact "as David Cole points out here, Ashcroft is now zero for 5,000, in that the Justice Department has detained 5,000 people on grounds that they are somehow connected to terrorism—and convicted none."

4) Does anyone else count detaining 5,000 people without any convictions, in many cases without charges or on marginal, misdemeanor-type immigration or material witness charges, as perhaps an "infringement" of "rights" or that perhaps it has caused "human dignity" to "suffer"?

5) (bangs head against keyboard)

6) Air America's Unfiltered is reporting that apparently Condi Rice and Sen. Biden had a meeting, a luncheon, to talk about poverty in, I think, the Islamic World that featured Wine and Shellfish -- apparently, most all of the food had to be taken back off the table and all of the US diplomatic staff "smacked upside the head". (I may have made that last part up.)

Until later meninos,

J

Blood yet runs in my veins

Angry, sarcastic, biting, and perhaps a bit debonair blood. Blood that has been traveling through many lands and working on many things.

In other words, stay tuned, keep clicking to the blog and I'll try and make it worth the energy of briefly tensing those muscles and tendons in your fingers that rest atop your keyboard.

Many things are afoot, and many words will soon hopefully be afoot to make fun of, laud, or criticize some of these things.

J

Intelligent Attraction of Mass

Ahhhhhhh... Today's thing driving J crazy is the further attempts to bring Intelligent Design into school curriculums (apparently the anti-evolution forces have a majority on the Kansas schoolboard again... so look for more ridicule-inducing cringe-worthy news from there soon). Today's NY Times (reg. required) has the latest on this.

Now, you can maintain, like one dude in the article, that the reason the ACLU, and, well, me, and others get so upset about this is that, apparently, sound science filling in the "gaps" in evolution is actually what's at issue, and that this so-called sound science then leads to the possiblity of a Creator, and we just don't like religion, and that's why we have a problem with all of this. Yeah, sure, that's the ticket.

I'm sorry, but people -- PEOPLE -- listen to me -- a theory saying that some parts of the world are unexplainable and attempts to prove that they are, by definition, unexplainable and therefore made by a Creator are *simply* *unscientific*. To make the conclusion of a Creator based on a lack of ability to explain phenomena is NOT a valid deductive chain -- it is fallacious! Why can't you see that? It may or may not be true, but our present inability to explain something does NOT logically lead to the idea that it must have been created by means beyond the view of observable reality. Occam's Razor would imply that we SIMPLY DON'T HAVE A COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF THE PHENOMENA. By the same reasoning as Intelligent Design, Phlogiston was COMPLETELY reasonable -- phlogiston being the concept that, since burned objects were noticeably, well, different than the same object before it was burned, that they contained an odorless, colorless, tasteless, weightless substance called phlogiston -- and when you "burned" something -- that is, dephlogisticated it -- you were releasing the phlogiston and what remained was the true material the object was made of. Er, yeah. But given a certain set of information, it can be seen as reasonable, no? Logical, no, reasonable, perhaps. Or what of the flat earth? Certainly, as far as any one person standing on the surface of the earth without advanced observation equipment (or simply a very tall building), it is PERFECTLY REASONABLE to deduce the earth is flat -- this is only disprovable once equipment and/or information previously undiscovered or unrealized is used. The earth-centered solar system? Very possible -- though that explanation of retrogression gets tough -- probably just God moving around those lights fixed in the black cloth of the firmament.

Ok, here's the brass tacks kids -- next time anyone gives you some Intelligent Design claptrap, point out that evolution is better understood in many ways than gravity -- that is, we have stronger evidence confirming our understanding of evolution than the universal theory of gravitation -- BECAUSE WE DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHY GRAVITY WORKS. Einstein's brilliant insights about time-space being all very well and good, the idea of gravity being "wells" in the "fabric" of space-time is a great metaphor, but the actual explanation of WHY things act like this is, well, lacking. We KNOW the details of evolutionary theory -- though we can't explain all observed cases. We know the mathematical rules governing gravity -- except for the expanding, accelerating universe (dark energy) and the details of explaining how it propagates faster than light (seemingly instantaneously).

Must be God pushing the elements of the universe apart -- yeah, that's it. Intelligent Pulling and Pushing Things Together and Apart -- that's a much better explanation than the universal theory of gravitation.

Seriously kids. Gravity. Less understood. Than evolution. In many ways.

Though I'm sure SOME people SOMEwhere wouldn't be opposed to Intelligent Gravitation, can the rest of us see now how baaaaaaaaaaaad intelligent design is?

Please. Now. Go forth and tell people that gravity is a less complete theory than evolution. Seriously. And please. Tell a lot of people in Kansas.

Please Throw Eggs at Dinesh D'Souza

Or anyone else who ever proposes Two Cheers for Colonialism.


aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh.

Also, read an interesting article in Slate by Tim Noah on D'Souza's antimaterialism (ha!)

J

....?

I should be working, really, serious, but I can't resist.

USA Today leads with word that the Dept. of Homeland Security's effort to create a list of potential terrorist targets, such as dams, nuke plants, and skyscrapers, is way behind schedule and kind of whacked. Apparently, it includes water parks and miniature golf course, but not some major sites.

"Their list is a joke," said one Republican congressman.

--Eric Umansky, J-Fave Today's Paper's on Slate

Proxy Servant

Hey one and all, latest fall-down bad job by the much-maligned (by me, at least) US media.

I've been slightly suspicous of our Ukraine election coverage, particularly because Yushchenko's better-for-democracy-ness has been chiefly "proven" in the media with simple mention of the fact that he is more "pro-western". I haven't heard anything like "and he supports more transparency and politics responsive to the average and less well-off citizens" or, I don't know, he insists on a larger role of women in Ukrainian politics (this is a random example of something I would consider "pro-democracy", though for all I know, the Ukriane could have amazing gender equity). The point here is that the story crafted by our media was already somewhat suspect to me -- if nothing else, it was ever-so-superficial; can any of you tell me WHY Yushchenko is better for democracy than Yanukovich? No? You, in the back there, with your hand up? Oh, you were stretching? What about proof of election fraud? Yes, over there -- no? No clue?

What this is leading up to is this article recommended by J-friend and advisor John. Don't let the fact that it's on Al-Jazeera frighten you. Not that I expect anyone reading my page to be uncritical enough to dismiss something simply cuz it's on Al-Jazeera (see: Control Room. No seriously, see it. It's really good. Much better, convincing movie than Fahrenheit 9/11, in my opinion). Basically, one guy seems more under Putin's thumb, one more under our thumb -- and guess which one our unbiased media portrays as the democratic underdog? (Though I have to admit, the possibility that Yushchenko was possibly poisoned with dioxin does compel some sympathy -- though perhaps it should be no more sympathy than would be due your average Roman Senate-esque wheeler/dealer.) Nonetheless, the point isn't whether or not Yush is the great, er, whiter hope, but rather what the real political landscape is. Who wants to bet that what we're going is a good, sophisticated analysis of that? (Though to be fair, NYT did have the conventional "on the other hand" article a little while ago.)

In other news, speaking of gender equity in government (a paragraph or two ago), check out the Human Development report from this year. US: 14% women in "parliament" (congress); around 30% in Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, and Australia; 36% in Cuba; 10% in Brasil; 20% in Nicaragua, to go through some other countries I'm familiar with. So, we're not on the bottom at all -- but let's see, women are only about 14% of the populace right now, right? Riiiiiight. Sexism. Thing of the past. Well, that's a relief.)

That's all folks,

J

New Meme: The Bush Administration Is Awesome!

No, I haven't gone crazy. I've just become desperate/bored enough to think of a useless silly subversive tactic.

You realize, of course, that even among Bush supporters, expectations aren't very high? (Disclosure: More than half of US citizens think he's mishandling Iraq, won't help the economy, the tax cuts shouldn't be permanent, and that he will fuck up social security; more than half do think he's doing right in general on the war on terror.)

And of course, as we all know, with low expectations, it's harder to be disappointed.

That's right, you see it, don't you? That's right.

We must TALK UP THE BUSH ADMINSTRATION. Maybe if we liberals and progressives wage a constant, non-stop positive PR campaign about how good Bush's crony-Cabinet is going to in its second term, then its failures will be all the more dramatic! Bwa hah hah!

It's just crazy enough... not to work.

In other news... anyone besides me remember the earlier critiques of the Department of Homeland Security? (Seems not -- Slate had some great stuff that appears to have gone down the Memory Hole, annd not the ironic, good kind).

I mention this, because the "Intelligence Reform" flap had a similar background that has also disappeared. Hey, I realize it's important to reform intelligence -- everyone, everyone agrees there was some major fucking up (remember SecState-to-be's description of "Bin Laden to attack inside US" as historical information?), but the sometimes-mentioned point that THIS reform might not be efficacious, in that, it may not, you know, help fix things seems COMPLETELY GONE.


AHHHHHHHHHH.


Just to refresh or introduce you to the critiques, the DHS and the "Intelligence Czar" have the similar critiques that creating new bureaucracy may not help increase the efficiency of information flow, especially without large (painful) reorganizations (which seem unlikely to be done); the DHS united (what was it? 22?) many disparate departments with varying degrees of connection to "homeland security" without (seemingly) creating an appropriate administrative structure to handle it. And as Fred Kaplan has pointed out on Slate, if the problem in the 9/11 mishandling was that information wasn't properly flowing through the different organizations, i.e. it was "over-centralized" in that the Washington hierarchy supposedly wasn't keyed in enough to the branch offices, and there was "groupthink", how does having one new guy (or in an unlikely case gal) at the top of it all fight groupthink, lack of cooperation between competing intelligence organizations, and over-centralization?

Now, I don't know -- maybe the 9/11 Panel's suggestions are great, and actually answer all concerns. BUT MAYBE WE SHOULD STILL BE TALKING ABOUT IT. I defy you, DEFY YOU, to find critiques of the intelligence proposals and the DHS: 2 Years Later, or even a systematic analysis of what's gone right, rather than simply "process" stories on Bush vs. Congress vs. Hastert vs. DonRum vs. etc. Shouldn't we not only know about the progress of reform, but WHETHER OR NOT IT WILL BE EFFECTIVE? Surely, not everyone in the entire US is convinced this bill will work, or that DHS is working just fine?

You wouldn't know it from reading the "news".

Sigh.

Today's News... not really (...spoliers! a J-Continuum first)

No current events stuff for the people today... just two random entertainment/enlightenment recommendations...

On the entertainment front, finally saw one of the last Angel episodes... had a marathon on today here in Brasil. BOY. A very sad ending to the series -- sad, emotionally, not quality-wise.

Though I had some qualms about the quality of the last season, these last episodes did imply there was some method to the madness that had been missing, in my opinion, since the end of the Jasmine saga and a little before that, even. (I think Angel got a lot rockier after Connor buried Angel at the bottom of the sea... though the beginning of the next season was still relatively tight, with "evil" Wes a cool move... but I digress.) I was trying to think of why the (synopses -- still haven't caught the actual last eps) last eps got me so sad, and I think it's cuz, despite the weakened (imho) writing behind their characters, I really miss them. I miss the more "happy go lucky" days of the apocalypse, with Lorne still in Caritas (I think he lost a lot of direction, not just as a character but in the writing for him as a character, after he lost his club), with Gunn still a little more "street" (again a loss of depth in his character as he became Scooby-ized), with Cordy still in the SHOW! (and not completely turned into a nice, 3-dimensional, caring person), and Wes -- Wes actually stayed the most true to his character, throughout I think, though he moved from comic to tragicomic to just tragic... Whereas Spike was moving through this progression the opposite direction, in a way...

Anyway, I was going to say, I think I miss them more than many characters from series because they're *dead* -- some of them -- or just (apparently) *gone*. Fred's dead, seemingly *forever* -- destroyed to the essence (though of course, so was Elektra in Marvel and now she's got her own fucking series, no?). THAT's tragic. Wes' dead. Cordy's dead. (Though at least not dead down to her soul being destroyed). In many series, i.e., Buffy, you can go on to imagine the life their characters might lead (though Buffy did its closure so well, it would've been hard to imagine without Angel's clues to their life continuing, and possibly even being - gasp -- fun!), but in Angel, well not only are the living characters fighting the Apocalypse, but several are dead and gone beyond (easily) conceivable return. And their last few years were not happy ones. I miss them... like friends that are dead. Their deaths were so tragic, and moving (to me, at least), watching old episodes won't cut it -- they're *dead*. They're gone, and memories of them are just that... wow. What good tv.

In other news, hopefully those intellectual elites among you sniffing in disdain about TV and/or Angel specifically made it this far, because YOU MUST READ CORNEL WEST. I'm reading "Democracy Matters" and it is EXCELLENT. It is very refreshing to hear a black voice in the US railing against EMPIRE -- when was the last time you heard Kwesi Mfume and the NAACP talking about Empire? They're been pretty DNC-ized (maybe why their membership is flagging...) The radical strain of American thought is dying, and the NAACP is complicit in this... like West's heroes James Baldwin, W.E.B. DuBois, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and many others -- a deep radicalism is needed these days, in my opinion, to reinvigorate the entire left. But perhaps, most especially, the African American Left. We can't play the DNC/Clinton games like the NAACP has been doing and win... we cannot, as it has been said, seek approval from the same system we wish to overturn or reform. Come with me my Democratic friends... the African American community can no longer afford to be Center Left!!!

The Unbearable Moral Bankruptcy of Being Center-Left

Michael Kinsley, on Al Franken this week (or was it Morning Sedition? Whatever) proved the ABSOLUTE idiocy of the erstwhile Kerry Platform/Centrist Democrat approach to Iraq.

As usual, the nonsense began with something making sense...

"Has there ever before been a war that so many people disapproved of but so few wanted to stop? Have the reasons for starting a war ever been so thoroughly discredited without turning into reasons for ending it? " Kinsley asks in a recent (21 November 2004 LA Times) article.

"What seems to be today's antiwar position — it was a terrible mistake and it's a terrible mess, but we can't just walk away from it — was actually the pro-war position during Vietnam. In fact, it was close to official government policy for more than half the length of that war.

Today's antiwar cause doesn't even have a movement, to speak of, let alone an agenda. It consists of perhaps 47% of the citizenry — the ones who voted for John Kerry — who are in some kind of existential opposition to the war but don't know what they want to do about it."

Thank goodness he represented this as the 47% of the citizenry that voted for JK -- I'd hate to be confused with having an existential* opposition to the war. I have a very DEFINITIVE opposition -- we were wrong, and we should come home now. After all, the earlier worry for why we SHOULDN'T come home is we could leave a civil war in our wake, right? WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS GOING ON NOW, EH?

Just in case you think that there lay some kind of logic or reason left unvoiced by Kinsley, some deep motivation that stands up to examination that he forgot to mention -- an answer to the implied question of what sense this existential opposition makes -- nope, he cleared that up on old standby Air America Radio. He's just whistling into the wind.

I can't find a transcript... but more or less, he said the only reason to stay IN Iraq is the belief that things will get better if we stay there: that in the next couple years, our presence will finally help restore a stable society. He WENT ON to say that he saw no particular reason to believe this, he just supposed he hoped that it wasn't the case the it would continue as it was now. He didn't have a reason for such beleifs, but, he said, he wasn't ready to say that the US should pull out.

GREAT. What a towering intellect you're showing Mike; a) the only rational reason to not advocate for a pull out is if the US will help stabilize Iraq in the next couple years, b) that's not happening now (stabilizing influence), c) there's no particular reason to believe it will happen in the future, d) but what the hey, just cuz it's logically inconsistent, let's continue our existential opposition.

THIS is (was) the case for Kerry? EXISTENTIAL OPPOSITION? Hope for something you don't think is likely? WOW, the military-industrial complex, worried after Viet Nam that the US' citizenry's irrational confidence that using US power to kill other people (and to have our own soldiers killed) in service of our myopic economic interests, appears to have had a tremendous victory. Kinsley, the token-Leftist Talking Head, has confidence in our use of the military's force as a force for good, DESPITE the already serious problems doing so (between 20,000 and 100,000 civilians dead, the use of napalm, torture in Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and recent reports from the Red Cross "alleging" continued torture (see earlier Red Cross report at The Smoking Gun).

Can all of you see this? How morally repugnant and weak this is? THIS is the Kerry legacy -- opposition equivalent to support from the Viet Nam era.

There is, in my opinion, LITTLE REASON to think that we will be a force for good in Iraq in the short or long term, with our troops on the ground there (see: Haiti, Nicaragua, Grenada, Viet Nam, Korea, Cambodia, Iran, Iraq Part I...). Therefore, pulling out is the only, rational, opposition stance to have. Further, if one is to believe in democracy and/or Tariq Ali, Iraq should, Iraq must be allowed to develop their own government, their own way -- to say that we must stay there to create a democratic utopia for them is anti-democratic and simply intellectually incoherent... not to mention ignorant of our incontrovertible history of only supporting and implanting puppet or semi-puppet governments. (Yow! Haven't read this yet, but check out the transcript of Mr. Ali v. Chris Hitchens... if there aren't some sparks here, we deserve our money back...)

Chalk another one up to the failure of today's so-called liberals...




*J-Friend Sarah points out that she doesn't believe existentialism has ever been used correctly, and indeed may not have a coherent meaning. She tems some razão (to use super-portuglish, after J-Sister's super-spanglish "I gotta voy") -- that is, she's got a point. "Existential" means both "grounded in existence or the experience of existence : EMPIRICAL b : having being in time and space" -- in other words, something solid and perceivable in a mundane day-to-day way, and also means related to existentialism, " chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for his acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad", in other words, something uncertain grounded in a universe that is inherently thus. As Sarah points out, there's little better than those english words that mean both something and a concept almost exactly the opposite of that something.

And that's... one to grow on.

Hooray... I'm sick to my stomach...

Randi Rhodes and Air America Radio are possibly the last patriots left…

There’s so much wrong with Iraq right now, where the fuck to start.

Randi is reporting today that the US has been using Napalm in Falluja… a quick google search provides back up for this. Although the Pentagon apparently denied this last year, they also apparently admitted this last year (thanks to J Continuum fave Globalsecurity.org). Our use of napalm is also reported by the Sunday Mirror, the Independent, Al-Jazeera, and Alternet, both last year (where we tried to claim, apparently, that our technologically updated Mark 77 Napalm bombs were ‘remarkably similar’ to Napalm, but not napalm) and THIS year, in Falluja. (But hey, at least the media has done a great job of covering Falluja, right?) FUCKING. SICKENING.

Supposedly, there have been some calls before the UK House of Commons to take the US to task over this, described ever-so-Britishly as a “row” that insisted PM Blair take account of this and threaten to withdraw UK troops if such actions continued. Dollars’ll get you Pounds Sterling that this Napalm thing doesn’t break out into the open, much less get Blair to make any serious noises against Herr Bush.

NAPALM????

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.