Crush All Boxes!

Visualize Victory - Obama, pt 2

2005-05-28T21:42:00.000-07:00

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I think the aforementioned worry about Obama is misplaced, for the reasons I gave in the previous post. But that's not to say I don't understand the fear people have of the feckless and lumbering 'DNC machine'. Such a 'machine' does still exist, but what is it really? For lack of a better term, I'd call it the DNC 'Consultantocracy', in league with the 'old guard' pols - the people who've brought us defeat and decline. But I'd submit that, to the extent they matter now, this Blob is taking their cues from the new younger politicians like Obama, John Edwards and Howard Dean, and operatives like Simon Rosenberg, rather than the other way around. I'm sure this transformation isn't complete, but that is clearly the trend. If you want to worry about the 'old guard' and 'cogs in a machine', worry about Kerry - and, to some extent, Hillary Clinton - in '08, not Obama now.

As far as interpreting Obama's 'civility' and 'playing the game' goes, the key dynamic to understand here is assertion vs reaction. Democrats have been in 'reaction mode' for 25-30 years. Reacting is acceding to your opponent's agenda. Obama is being courteous, careful, respectful - by choice. He could easily have decided to be a "progressive's" wet dream, a firebrand, a loud, lonely voice, etc. But he's more sly than that. He chose not to be that. At this point, the real political power comes from deciding your own route, from saying: 'You Republicans don't ruffle me at all; I don't care about your provocations and your cheap theatre - hey, knock yourselves out! I/we are going to calmly, deliberately build a new agenda and make YOU react to US. In the long run, we're not worried about you at all, politically; we will take you apart piece by piece: keep your eye on us 'new guys', because you have no idea what we're going to do'.

Building a new agenda means being constructive and serious, compromising when you can (like the very Senate-ish courtesy votes on Rice and Negroponte - votes which don't affect the outcome anyway), and being firm when you can't (Gonzales; bankruptcy). Kill them with kindness and beat them with steely resolve. Most voters don't care about the old liberal/conservative tropes, and they're right not to: what do they mean anymore? Let the Republicans wallow in their aging construct: their brittle ideological castle will be their political hospice. Let them do that while truly new (not 'New') Democrats methodically build a different and much more relevant structure around them, which, BTW, will be a broad coalition, not a insurgent 'wing' of the Democratic party (sorry).

Don't worry about Senator Obama. Act, don't react.

[UPDATE: The reason this stuff sticks in my craw is that Mr Sirrota has done to Obama precisely what (qualitatively) Bush/Cheney/Rove did to Kerry. It's very easy to take Congressional votes out of context - most especially in the rarified world of the Senate - and make them seem to mean what you want. If you happened to skim Mr Sirrota's piece and not actually check on - contextualize - his charges, you could, in good faith, decide that Sen. Obama is selling out, somehow. Sirrota flings misleading charges at the Senator, and then quotes an unnamed 'political scientist' who speculates about cynical motives for these presumed 'offences'. This is a textbook hit piece, no different from one a Republican would write. The only difference is that this one is a 'friendly' hit piece. WTF?! Circular firing squad....]

[Cross-posted at Total Information Awareness ]

Circular Firing Squad, part 2,593 (this year)

2005-05-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

____________

Apropos TTN's post yesterday about political parties rationalizing internal dissent, we get, as if on cue, David Sirrota's "What Happened to Barack Obama"? Sirrota writes:

...his first six months in office have given progressives a reason to be worried that he will be just another cog in the Establishment's machine, throwing his significant political capital behind some of the worst initiatives to move through Congress.

The 'worst initiatives'? Really? Like what?

Despite his anti-war positions as a candidate in 2004, Obama's second vote as a U.S. Senator was in support of confirming Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. He also voted to confirm John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence, despite Negroponte's involvement in Iran-Contra and other situations that clearly raise questions about his ethics and discretion.

Condoleezza may be an 'intellectual tart' , and Negroponte certainly does have an odious past, but this is the Senate, folks. You have to choose your battles. Senators traditionally confirm most of a president's nominees for anything, unless they are truly beyond the pale, like now-AG Gonzales, whose nomination Obama voted NOT to confirm, eloquently explaining why at the time.

Obama also voted for a bill to limit citizens rights to seek legal redress against abusive corporations.

This was the class-action lawsuit bill. Honorable people can disagree about this one. I'll leave it to the legal scholars to argue the merits, but it's hardly among the 'worst' initiatives to move through congress lately. I notice Sirrota doesn't bother to argue the merits. Knee-jerk is so much easier.

During the bankruptcy debate, he helped vote down a Democratic amendment to cap the abusive interest rates credit card companies could charge.

Obama (and Kerry) voted against this amendment because it would've overridden state laws limiting interest rates. Of course, Obama voted against the heinous Bankruptcy Bill itself.

And now, Obama cast a key procedural vote in support of President Bush's right-wing judges.

This was a 'key' vote? Nice wordplay, David. This was a fait accompli. Obama voted to avoid the nuclear option - voted to live to fight another day (SCOTUS-time).

Obama was supposed to be different - he was supposed to be a real progressive champion.

Projection anyone? Obama is exactly what he seemed to be. He never mislead anyone into thinking he was going to be Bernie Sanders. If people mislead themselves, that's not Barack's fault.

Senator Obama's record so far (six months) - both his votes and his statements - is very very good. He is one of the brightest lights of the Democratic party, and will probably be a national leader one of these days - if ideologues from his own party don't strangle him in his crib first.

Nothing 'happened' to Barack Obama. Let go of your pickle, David.

[Cross-posted at Total Information Awareness ]

'The Cold War' For Dummies

2005-05-08T08:46:00.000-07:00

A central insight of Harry Frankfurt's essay 'On Bullshit' is that the bullshitter is dangerous in a way different from the liar because the liar, as such, must at least know what the truth is, whereas the bullshitter needn't know or even care. To rephrase Nadezhda , perception may be reality, but facts aren't even facts. Bush the Lesser has bewitched his critics by simply keeping them guessing - is he stupid? ignorant? visionary? It's an innovation Bush will be remembered for: the strategic seasickness of the first throughly post modernist presidency. He will literally say anything. (What are 'words' anyway? Just sounds arranged into patterns, really.) However you credit all the Trotskiana/Straussissimo intellectual pretentions of this gang, Bush himself really is a cipher, and in a more complete way than any other modern, including Saint Ronnie. Welcome to the Peter Principle Stage of empire.

George and the Beanstalk, Chapter Umteen

What did Bush get for his oblivious, ahistorical, pointless, straight-out-of-1950s-Reader's Digest smear of FDR and Churchill on Saturday?

Bush said the agreement in 1945 at Yalta among President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ''followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact."

What did he get in return for his mock-profound revision? For (yet again) rhetorically cracking America's united face to the world? For attempting to make the world itself 'partisan'? 1.) a little red meat for his freeper/neocon constituency; 2.) a little self-aggrandizing Reagan identification; 3.) the appearance (and it could be more than that) of supporting democracy in Belarus and standing up to Putin (however contingent on what kind of government would eventually be elected there); and 4.) a chance to bolster some of the few remaining members of his 'coalition of the willing' (Belarus, Georgia and Latvia, who've 'collectively' contributed a full 280 soldiers to the fight). Such a deal.

We can never know what young Dubya would've done in FDR's place - with Poland already fully occupied by the Soviets, with a 12 million man Red Army in Europe, and the Russians already in the suburbs of Berlin; and with an unfinished war in the Pacific. Perhaps he would've looked into Stalin's eyes, and found a good soul.

It's very sad that, likely, few take what the American president says very seriously anymore. But for all that, one's also thankful for it, in the present case.

Publius/Strauss Comment, for pity's sake

2005-04-30T23:40:00.000-07:00

_________

"The object of philosophy is to prove that you are right in doing what you want." O. W. Holmes

(Publius): "Correlation is not causation"

I think you're right to point out that too much can be made of the Straussians' influence on the current GOP coalition. It's easy to get to pat about this stuff, and it's easy to SEEM too pat when you're trying to be blog-brief, as I think Billmon might have been doing. But correlation doesn't exclude causation, either. Correlation is correlation.

It's not very easy to empirically 'pinpoint' this kind of influence, and as I said in an earlier comment, philosophical concepts can get pretty muddied or corrupted by the time they get to the political realm. And furthermore, neocons aren't identical with Straussians. But I think the more familier you get with Strauss and some of his students (like Bloom of 'The Closing of the American Mind' and 'Ravelstein' fame), you have to wonder if the closeness with which the current political order often tracks Strauss & Co.'s ideas can really be just happenstance. I think it's a symbiotic relationship. The two correlate for a reason.

Drury has been aware of the Strauss cult for a long time (she is a philosophy prof), and notes in several places that most of the Straussian acolytes had ended up not in academia, but in 'think tanks' and other politically subsidized 'foundations' and the like. That is probably changing lately, but formally (according to her), the acolytes were often found to be well trained in Straussism but not so well trained in actual philosophy, and hence were sometimes not hired by universities.

Xenos, in the article linked above, also says:

The Straussian network is really an amazing thing. Any political theorist or anyone who has been around political science departments has seen it at work. Long before attaining public attention, the Straussians were often ridiculed for their cult-like qualities: they speak and write the same way, they write the same books on the same themes over and over again, they dress alike, they are almost all men, they went to the same schools—those sorts of things. It thus comes as a shock to discover that Leo Strauss may turn out to be the most influential political theorist of the last fifty years in the United States with respect to the exercise of political power.

...in the mid-1980s some commentators ....noticed that something strange was going on in the Reagan administration. The first sign of this was in an article by Stephen Toulmin, a historian of science, in the New York Review of Books in 1984, in the middle of a review of a book on Margaret Mead. Toulmin used Mead as an example to which he compared the then-current State Department policy planning staff, where, he said, they had more people who were acquainted with the writings of Leo Strauss than they were with the cultures that the State Department has to deal with.

(emphasis mine. Xenos goes into greater detail, of course). That doesn't 'prove' anything, exactly, but it's crazy to think Strauss' influence means nothing.

(pub) it just doesn’t follow that Strauss has been the source of all this. Perhaps this my own bias, but I tend to favor material explanations to ideological ones.

Of course he isn't The Source. He plays his (considerable) ideological role and materialist factors play theirs. Materialist vs Ideology doesn't make sense; it's not an 'either/or' situation. When is it ever?

..let’s assume that the war was not about democracy promotion, but was about something else. My point is that even if it is about “something else,” that doesn’t make it “Straussian.”

The Straussian idea is that it makes no difference what you say the war is about, or what it indeed IS about. War qua war is a value. I have to admit that I never got all the way through 'The End of History', but from what I did read, and have since read by Fukuyama, he doesn't seem to be the quintessential 'Straussian'. For Strauss, the End of History is a major (not minor) crisis - it is The Crisis. General prosperity, peace, widespread leisure, mass entertainment, etc. were anathema to him. Without constant struggle, the spirit of man dies. The Iraq war, and indeed an open-ended global war on something is exactly, precisely, what the doctor ordered. Endless war 'ennobles' us.

Yes, it's easy to get too facile about the 'noble lie' business, but you can't ignore Strauss' conception, or rather his transformation of Plato's conception (Strauss thought he was just finding Plato's 'esoteric meaning', in other words, revealing - albeit also esoterically - what Plato 'really' meant). Plato's noble lie was a lie which tells the truth; Strauss' is a lie for our own good. I'm not going to argue about how to designate the WMD lie, except to say that that it could be seen as a little of both: I think a lot of Americans kind of knew that there might be another reason or reasons for the war, aside from blood lust: oil, vaguely 'doing something' about the middle east, you name it. The whole acquiescence was extremely dysfunctional. I know there are people who seem to really still believe that there WERE WMD, or that Saddam really WAS involved in 9/11, but I don't think either brainwashing nor simple denial can explain the relative lack of broad outrage over there not having been WMD found. I think Bush really is a Leader - a profoundly BAD leader, but a leader nonetheless. He knows his audience.

One final thing. I think your likening Strauss to Burke is right as far as it goes, but it's sort of barking up the wrong tree. Burke was a traditionalist and a conservative, but he wasn't a reactionary. He feared too-rapid change, but he didn't fear ALL change (and he certainly believed in his OWN power of reasoning). In his letter about the French Revolution, he compares England's slow, relatively orderly liberalization (there is no other word for it) favorably to what was happening in France. That makes him a very conservative person in an at least proto-liberal context. Strauss is reactionary. His favored 'tradition' is to be found WAY before the 18th century - probably before the middle ages. I'm positive there are LF readers who know a lot more about Burke than I do, but I think it's pretty clear that favoring 'gradual change' is very different from the brittle resistence to change altogether you'd find in a real medieval stalwart, for instance. You may be right, ultimately, that 'Liberalism replaced god with human reason', but functionally, I'd say it's more like 'liberalism replaced god's supposed earthly political representitives and institutions with reason'. Strauss replaces god with reason altogether (he was an atheist), but only with the 'reason' of a very very tiny elite (people like him, naturally).

To sum up: I tend to have a pretty materialist POV myself, but first principles DO matter - everything flows from them. And just as important, while I don't know that I would be as sweeping as Holmes, ideology/philosophy obviously do have a vital function in politics. In the present case, we may be talking about Straussism being an intellectual fillip (or excuse), but that's not cause for discounting it. Did Marx 'cause' the Russian Revolution? No. Would it have been the same kind of revolution at the same time without him? Also no, IMO.

The Tree of Liberty is Not Nourished By Uric Acid

2005-04-04T21:23:00.000-07:00

connard du jour
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Gosh, he looks like such a nice man. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas today :

...we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence.

The thing is, Congress is much less popular than the Judiciary - and for good reason. Gee, Senator...er..

Reminds me of a tragedy we've mostly forgotten about, namely, the time a few years ago when that guy somehow got into the Capitol with a gun. Awful. He shot some perfectly innocent Capitol Police officers.

I would never call for violence against members of Congress or anybody else even if I believed it was right (which I don't) because there's a decent chance I'd get a little visit from some guys in black suits and sunglasses. 'Splain to me, please, why this connard* can say what he said -on the Senate Floor no less - and it's acceptable? What d'ya have to do to get censured in this joint?

* French slang for prick, wanker or idiot.

I'm Back

2005-04-04T20:59:00.000-07:00

painting by Lee Kroemschroeder
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Ask anyone who knows me to describe me, and the first thing out of their mouths would probalby be 'Trend- gripped' . If Billmon and Publius can come back, so can outlying little me. My head will explode if I don't post now and then. Eric at Total Information Awareness - who, incredibly, hasn't taken a break yet - has been kind enough to post a few of my longer items over the months, and that will keep happening as long as he wants. But some shorter posts are in order, too. Members of congress are starting to think about trying to rinse away their swamp-ass a little in preparation for the midterms, and for that and other reasons, the 'tempo' of indignities should increase in the next thrilling months. Must. Comment.

Against Euphemasia

2005-04-03T11:48:00.000-07:00

Ah...the Culture of Life
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

This post isn't mainly about Terri Schiavo, because the controversy to which her name became crazy-glued wasn't about her, either. It is impertinent (to put it mildly) for me to pronounce myself either glad she's finally 'resting in peace' or sad that she has passed on. None of this was ever my nor the public's business. Unfortunately, the 'drama' will probably continue; we're probably going to have to find out what kind of freak Terri's dad was, about her eating disorder, etc. etc. You can run, but you can't hide.

Just in case you couldn't bear to read Peggy Noonan's Schiavo 'piece' in the WSJ called, appropriately, 'In Love With Death' , I'll offer a few highlights shortly. Don't roll your eyes; yes, Noonan is pretty...pretty vacant, and has lots of harder-edged dimwitted company , but her piece is exemplary.

And it is indubitably a 'piece', not a mere op-ed. Peggy is good at what's known as 'creative writing' (it's not just writing; it's creative writing!), a concept invented in the US sometime in the late 60s - early 70s. A particularly cheesy remnant of that era, 'creative writing' was one manifestation of the vaguely leftish idea that 'expressing yourself' (however incoherently) trumps reason, persuasion, logic, critical thinking. In other words, just having an opinion or a 'feeling' of some kind is the total extent of your responsibility as a, pardon me, sentient human. This overall concept's wholesale political adaptation by the GOP gradually affected a change in how Americans see their own basic role as Americans: the role of 'citizen' was supplanted by that of 'consumer'. It's a subtle but fundamental change. A citizen is active and makes judgments; a consumer is passive, and has only to have an opinion. This confusion of the two roles is summed up in the cliche 'voting with your pocketbook'. That is such a common phrase and concept, we don't realize how absurd it is. You can't vote with your pocketbook anymore than you can breathe through your feet. You're doing something with your pocketbook, but it's not voting.

This change is a basic fault deep in the heart of the Reagan Cultural Revolution. It's usually euphemized as 'individualism', but it's really fetish-individualism, ie desperate. In practice it means a set of extremely rotten values: greed, self-absorption, atomization, suspiciousness, superstition, lying (especially to ones' self), responsibilty-shirking, resentment ('coveting'), and ultimately, nihilism ('rapture'). The very word 'citizen' in this context sounds 'collective' or 'social' - in other words, 'commie'! Can't have any of that! Civic Virtue itself has become suspect. The Reagan ethos was/is: Don't think, just feel; believe what you want to believe; there is no price to be paid for anything; if it feels good, do it; you can always have your cake and eat it too - and with extra frosting, if that's what your 'heart' tells you you ought to have. Forget about informed judgment, responsibility to people you don't know, consequences, forethought - all that stuff. Be positive! The Invisible Hand (and the Invisible Army) is a system! It just works by itself! (And if it doesn't, we're in the 'last days' anyway.)

'Magical Thinking' - a term of art in the psych world - is not only bad mental health, but, as a civic or personal ethos, is morally slack in any serious sense of the word 'moral'. It is opinion without knowledge. Action without consequences. Faith without struggle. Rights without responsibility. Sound familiar? Reagan embodied this way of thinking, as when, for instance, he explained that 'my heart tells me' we didn't trade arms for hostages, but 'my head tells me otherwise'. He instinctively wanted to have an opinion about a fact. This is beyond 'wishful thinking': it's Magical Thinking, and his 'revolution' institutionalized it.

Common sense tells you that there is more than a little Projection going on in the red-faced right wing cultural barking of the past several years. How can all those rotten values I mentioned before be described in one word? 'Permissiveness'. When you hear boomer 'conservatives' yack on about 'permissiveness' (usually for tidy sums), you know they know, deep down, that they're really talking about themselves. No wonder they're so angry! The stupidest part of the '60s-'70s ethos - a quite literally mindless Free-Lunch-ism - was co-opted by the Reagan Cultural Warriors, and they hate themselves for it, as well they should. They will never stop squirming and blaming.

The 'Culture Wars' are an expression of the self hatred of the warriors. The Republicans of the 80s won and profoundly changed the direction and cultural shape of the country. They, not Hollywood, or liberals (HA!) promulgated the culture we have now. Us Regular Folks out here in the real world (the 'American People') know perfectly well that politics shapes culture far more than the other way around. Politics, in the real world, is: who lives and who dies, who makes money and who doesn't, who's educated and who isn't, and what the rules are. American politics has been dominated by the Republican party for 25 years, and we live in the porno culture they stewarded.

Originally, I had a little delayed gratification here, tantalizing the reader with anticipation for the creamy-goodness, the sheer sugar-and-spice girlish charm of Noonan's piece to come. I'd had a brief detour into a column by legend-in-his-own-mind Nat Hentoff , who, as a 60s NYC hipster, I felt simply must be paired with Peggy in the context of this post. But...I thought better of it. Hentoff's column really didn't add anything, and was just full of stock lies you can read anywhere, like this one:

Terri Schiavo has never had an MRI or a PET scan, nor a thorough neurological examination.

Really?

Anyway, Nat Hentoff, meet Peggy Noonan. You kids have a lot in common.

The 'It' Girl

I do hate to wallow in this herpes outbreak of an issue (paraphrasing Eric, I'm not apologizing, I REALLY hate it), but Noonan's column sums up a lot about a lot, and is the most direct way through, I think. Her job - as a speechwriter and now - is like that of a gilder, in the sense that not just anyone can do it, even though it looks easy. Naturally though, it's not razor-thin gold she's expertly floating onto the frame. It's perfectly uniform cheese-food, fresh from the can:

[The Shiavo protesters] do not want an innocent human life ended for what appear to be primarily practical and worldly reasons--e.g., Mrs. Schiavo's quality of life is low, her life is pointless. They say: Who is to say it is pointless? And what does pointless even mean? Maybe life itself is the point.

I didn't realize that these protesters were Jains! My mistake. 'Life is the point', eh? OK, but that means no killing at all - of insects, of animals; no wars, no self-defense, no death penalty, no living wills, no nothing. No 'worldly reasons'. Life is the point. Deep, Peggy.

I do not understand the emotionalism of the pull-the-tube people.

Er...did you say 'emotionalism'? Hmm...emotionalism...emotionalism... Other than the hordes of liberals and white-coated, clipboard-clutching 'science-types' marching in the Florida streets chanting 'kill her!', I'm not sure who you're talking about, Peg.

The chairman of the Democratic National Committee calls Republicans "brain dead."

Tasteless indeed, albeit about a 'two' on the logarithmic 'tasteless scale' for this Very Special Television Event.

Michael Schiavo, the husband, calls House Majority Leader Tom DeLay "a slithering snake."

Well, that is horrible, except for the fact that he IS a slithering snake. By the by, I wonder if DeLay will someday have a deathbed change-of-heart, like Rove's mentor Atwater did (along with so many others)? Deathbed changes of heart come conveniently too late to stop or correct any damage done by the person, but it is the traditional way to insult one's religion one last time. Just wondering.

I don't "know" that any degree of progress or healing is possible for Terri Schiavo; I only hope they are.

Epistemological Peggy! It's perfectly alright that you don't "know" (important quotation marks, those). Let's make this the Happiest Place On Earth, Peggy, a Shining City On A Hill. We don't need to 'know' stuff. Ya just gotta believe! (Perhaps we can levitate the Pentagon! ) 'Knowing' stuff is for atheists. Clearly, Christian faith is not about a life of personal spiritual struggle and reflection - all THAT crap; it's about believing what you choose to believe! It's your right to believe what you want, right?

How do the pro-death forces "know" there is no possibility of progress, healing, miracles? They seem to think they know. They seem to love the phrases they bandy about: "vegetative state," "brain dead," "liquefied cortex."

How do they know? Or how do they 'know'? Yeah, those darned 'pro-death' forces do seem to love 'bandying' snappy phrases like 'liquefied cortex' around. They DO seem to love it! They DO seem..! They....I....it's...!

Ackk! Torture me no more! Tear up the floorboards! Behold the beating of the hideous heart!

The pull-the-tube people say, "She must hate being brain-damaged." Well, yes, she must. (This line of argument presumes she is to some degree or in some way thinking or experiencing emotions.)

Strawman Peggy! Cover-all-bases Peggy!

Who wouldn't feel extreme sadness at being extremely disabled? I'd weep every day, wouldn't you?

Terri Schiavo's brain damage denied her even the dignity of weeping.

But consider your life. Are there not facets of it, or facts of it, that make you feel extremely sad, pained, frustrated, angry?

We have arrived at the crux of the 'piece', and we can't avoid an unpleasant truth: this is about Peggy and her ilk, not Terri Schiavo. This is not 'respect for life' but fear of death.

But you're still glad you're alive, aren't you? Me too. No one enjoys a deathbed. Very few want to leave.

Consider your life, dear reader...the facts and the facets of it. The windmills and the highways and the byways of your mind. The Times of your life. Wouldn't it make you extremely sad if something icky happened to you, or even just something unpleasant - especially when you're still pretty hot for your age? Wouldn't that make you feel sad? Pained? Frustrated? But you'd want to still live, wouldn't you? Me too.

...why do those who argue for Mrs. Schiavo's death employ language and imagery that is so violent and aggressive?

Speaking of violence and aggression, Peggy goes on to compare what she calls the 'pro-death' forces to the Nazis, etc., calling them 'red-fanged and ravenous' (I'm not kidding).

And finally, since Peggy is definitive on all this, her piece wouldn't be complete without a word about those who - sadly for them - are 'still learning'; a word about.....wait for it.......the children:

And those who are still learning--our children--oh, what terrible lessons they're learning.....They're witnessing the Schiavo drama on television and hearing it on radio.

Ah, the 'PMRC Oral Sex At Gunpoint' phenomenon. Again. Yes, the children have indeed learned lots of terrible lessons from some of their pathetic parents in the past several years. All the humiliating National Porno you can eat, year after year. If people like Peggy took their cultural responsibility to their children and grandchildren seriously, they wouldn't project their own hysteria onto the entire country. (Not to mention the fact that it's all stultifyingly boring - no small sin.) This is solipsism writ grotesquely large. I guess when you've been 'washed' of all sense of shame and humility, when it's Morning Again in your soul, you need have no qualms...

Winning One For the Home Team

I part ways here with some 'moderates' from my side of the aisle, who feel that we should've been 'sympathetic' to the other side in this argument - and I mean the political other side, not Mrs. Schiavo's parents. The blowhards, the politicians, the charlatans, and the goofballs in FL, used Terri Schiavo as a human spittoon, a cypher, a psychic dildo. It's telling that most didn't even bother tolearn her name correctly ('She-avo' not 'SHY-vo'). They didn't give a shit about her, personally. Not one bit. The ugly truth is: if this woman hadn't really been in a persistent vegetative state, the whole circus would've been impossible. The 'forces of life' people needed her to actually be in the state they denied she was in. If she had been able to communicate, respond, etc., the whole thing wouldn't have 'worked'.

Feeling sick yet?

So! Are we as a nation content to, as it were, kick the dog when we really want to yell at our boss? Are we really facing our mixed feelings about abortion and euthenasia, and our fear of eugenics (and of science), when we seize on and demonize this poor Schiavo guy, and fetish his poor wife? It's called 'dysfunction' for a reason, folks - dis-function. The license to be spoiled , ignorant and credulous is a cherished American entitlement - Ronald Reagan (with the signal help of Noonan) effectively made it the law of the land two decades ago. Messing with that entitlement is the real 'third rail' of politics at the moment. But can we really afford it anymore? It is a terrible luxury - absurdly expensive. I see some 'hard choices' on the horizon. We going to have to deliberately step on that third rail at some point, and end it all. Only illusions will die.

I admit to being 'red-fanged', rhetorically, about this. I hope this whole awful 'in love with death' episode backlashes horribly on these ghouls, these American death-cultists, and the attendant profiteers. Unlike DeLay, Frist and Bush, my aim is not narrowly partisan; I'd just like to see a win for the 'home team', AKA homo-sapiens. I hope this is some kind of a watershed event. (Even though Terri is dead now, let's keep seeing those 2 clips of her face over and over on tv for another week or two. Since the damage is already done, since her inherent, basic human dignity - which was all she had left - was already pissed-on and sold out before she died, why not?) Institutional obsession with death, fear of our own learning and intelligence, religious superstition, solipsism - these things are literally a mortal danger to us all in the long run. Life itself IS the point.

[Cross-posted at Total Information Awareness ]

Ciao For Now

2005-01-16T09:46:00.000-08:00

They're cute. Punish them.
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

To anybody still reading this blog: it's time for me to sort of 'suspend' it. I'll probably still post occasionally, but knowing that no one will be reading it - blogs are 'publish or die'! I've realized that I've really been blogging for the election (how could one resist?). Now, I have to face the fact that I don't really have time to write, dangit. If it's not worth doing well....well, you know. Right now it's time for me to concentrate on making some of those ever-lighter dollars.

Anyway, the bad news is, Bush Tango'd his way into another term in office. The good news is, it's all on him. G-d punishes people by giving them what they ask for. Rather than make us feel cowed and demoralized, the election has merely pissed core dems/progressives off. The blogosphere is really becoming more aware of itself, is getting more spontaneously organized. It's soberly thrilling. I certainly don't feel demoralized, politically (the looming cultural problems are, er, more complicated).

The Democratic party obviously needs this sort of 'time-out'. We've forgotten that the GOP is paying us a backhanded compliment when they deride us as the 'establishment' or 'status quo' party - even as they beat us with it over and over: basic, inexorable progress is the status quo in the US. The US has historically been a vanguard kind of nation, down to its very constitution. W. Bush is able to do an astonishing amount and variety of damage in a short time - he has an actual genius for fucking up - but his lasting legacy will mostly be economic decline, I suspect. I'm not happy about it, but that's not everything. The Republicans - optimistic rhetoric aside - are what they are: conservatives, a force for a kind of social 'market correction'. Their power is an aberration; they are a natural minority. Our creaky old winner-take-all electoral process is still, unfortunately, a bit more 'republican' than democratic, but we actually eat at Jefferson's and Jackson's table. It's where we live. There is no real 'Republican Revolution', at least not yet. It's gut-check time now, though. If the, yes, Established Democratic party doesn't become a disciplined opposition party - one with the courage of its convictions and a belief in its natural trajectory, it will either be taken over by a very angry grass-roots, or simply dwindle away, to be replaced by something better. If Bush's Social Security gambit, 'Tort Reform' and Tax Program get more than a very few Democratic votes in congress in the coming 18 months or so, we've got a problem.

I know that once I hit 'publish' on this post, I'm going to think of a dozen things to blog about. But until I can figure out a way to do this periodically rather than closer to 'daily', I'll just see everybody in comment land. The blogosphere is starting to kick ass, and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

Thanks for stopping by.

Rummy Ontology

2005-01-15T11:14:00.000-08:00

Big Don hears an unknown unknown
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Ask any certified angry white male if our culture's apparent emphasis on 'self-esteem building' bothers them, and every one of the hardcore of them will light up like christmas trees. They HATE that. HATE HATE HATE it. They counter - rightly - that true self-esteem is built on achievement rather than simple jawboning (note that this critique is a MAJOR part of the whole populist Right rhetorical underpinning - El Rushbo, et. al.). But, what's this?! It seems they highly resent getting their tender self-esteem gored, and tend to be quite touchy about it. What delicate, sensitive souls they really are!

This last election was ALL about 'self-esteem'. Bush and Rove played this tune relentlessly. All resentment all the time. The Bush fans (because that's what they really are - 'fans') thereby showed they tacitly accepted the idea of 'building self-esteem out of thin air' - the danged, supposedly 'liberal program' they despise! This weakness, this contradiction, speaks volumes about how ephemeral W Bush's political support really is; notwithstanding his 'political capital/that's mah style' comment, George and Karl are on fairly shaky ground, and they know it. We should know it too.

Sen. Obama recently endured an hour+ of being interviewed by Charlie Rose. Squeezing in between Charlie's usual small eternities of gibbering solipsism, Obama was able to make some good points. The main one was that the GOP didn't win in '04 so much as the Democrats lost. He's right-on, there. People naturally yearn for revisiting their ethical roots right now, for myriad obvious reasons. I hate to say it, because I think 9/11 was, in a very real way, the beginning of the end for per se religion; but withall, the primary source of ethics in this country is the Judeo-Christian tradition. It just is. Religion simply matters to people, even if they aren't active churchgoers (like Bush). And you essay a culture with the ethics you HAVE, rather than the ethics you think you wish you had. The problems, of course, are with the religiosity itself, the literalness. Take it to its logical conclusion, though, and religion is ultimately about ethics, not religion. Religious customs come and go; ethics is forever. But religious customs don't come and go gently.

There is a reason why it's Southern, explicitly Christian, Democrats who win. It's not because they're condescending, or 'slick'. It's because they know we're in something of an ethical tempest at the moment, and are not too 'cool' to admit it and speak to it. There's absolutely nothing 'stupid' about people yearning for their ethical roots in a storm like this. Democrats must lead the country we have, not the country we wish we had.

Three Reasons I'm Not Posting Anything Lately

2005-01-12T19:40:00.000-08:00

Blue-eyed Soul
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Harold Meyerson in the WaPo sums Bushco up nicely: The fabricated crisis is the hallmark of the Bush presidency:

I can't think of one [President]....so fundamentally invested in the spread of disinformation -- and so fundamentally indifferent to the corrosive effect of propaganda on democracy -- as Bush.

(Ted Kennedy even used the line in his Nat'l Press Club speech today, which was funny).

-James Wollcot is on Unction Reconnaissance Duty today. I'm not so interested in snark for snark's sake; but Fineman deserves it, every bit of it. Other good posts at Wollcot's site today, too.

-'Salvador' means 'saviour', an extra fleck of unintended irony about this desperate 'Ave Maria' Pass/float. If you have any questions about the 'Salvador Option', Eric at TIA employs the fire which burns but does not consume to take it apart for you this week. The discussion on this and related topics has been lively, too.

(And 4, I have to work at my real job, dangit.) But the blogosphere is definitely 'warmed-up' lately. The shock of the election is starting to wear off. Folks are on it - commentors, too. What do I need to add? I feel I can safely leave off lurking fretfully in the lead car of the subway train; the train will get there whether I stand there or not. HA.

[UPDATE] And that's only three reasons, of course. So much good work being done on the web. And you can even watch TV, and see people trying to be serious in DC, too. Council On Foreign Relations C-SPAN event on all night (Wed.) is worth seeing. Also check out Sperling et. al. eviscerating Bush's SS gambit (you'll probably have to watch that online - worth it).

[UPDATE 2] For all you Me'shell fans, the full title for the photo would be: 'Blue-eyed soul, without the hot comb'.

Tyranny of the Minority: The Endless Republican Filibuster

2005-01-08T13:55:00.000-08:00

Why, these letters are all IDENTICAL COPIES!
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Publius, this last week, chose to ventilate the issue of the threatened rule change in the Senate which would disallow the per se filibuster (AKA, the 'nuclear option'); in the process, he neatly baited some righteous Christian Soldiers into full battle-mode in his comment area (jumping, as they were, to the defense of that nice Dr. Frist with the good bloodlines ). Their argument is predictably legalistic AND moralistic: the idea of a filibuster is morally abhorrent, you see, because it's a tyranny of the minority (notice that their argument is the other way around when they themselves are in the minority: the questions change, but the answers never do. Exactly like the Bush tax cuts). Their objections to the New Deal are similarly 'adjustable': it's not the programs themselves they object to, necessarily (wink, wink), just the way they were justified legally via the Commerce Clause. Riiiight. That explains the red-faced fury, alright. Pub also gets to the heart of that matter this week, with his ruminations on the difference between an advocate and an analyst (or 'empiricist'). He makes the extremely important point that it matters what kind of lawyer you are; to be a good advocate, you yourself have to know all the actual facts. These Soldiers are salesmen/advocates, and change their arguments like they change their socks. As I've said elsewhere, this phenomenon is a big reason women have historically despised men: that unreachable emotional obtuseness, an ignorance of self so complete as to be laughable, but not that funny. It's basically justifying what you want to do anyway with a big, nerdy, abstract rationalization, the more abstract the better. (Not that women never do anything like that, but men have perfected it.) It's also why people hate lawyers and might even think they want 'Tort Reform'. Moral relativism. Slippery!

This is no deep insight, obviously, but: what is the primary MO of the modern GOP surge since Newt? The Filibuster-style. What are El Rushbo and his ilk but filibusterers? Remember the talking heads whipping the Clinton Whitewater/impeachment, etc. stuff into a frenzy? How did they do it? By talking louder, including shouting people down; by running out the clock; finally, by simply yelling 'shut up!'. And on and on it still goes - you can tune in anytime and hear Sean Hannity reading a phonebook of talking points, hour after hour, day after day.

I know that this 'tyranny of the minority' stuff is transient; we'll get some new 'passionate' argument for the next thing soon. But I don't mind taking note when sheer irony squeezes and oozes through the cracks: the modern GOP insurgency is nothing if not a tyranny of the minority.

Web-log-rolling

2005-01-07T08:59:00.000-08:00

With the advent, by now, of the 2Millionth weblog , it's easy to forget the history of the weblog phenomenon. As many of you no doubt know, back in the 90s, true weblogs were originally compendia of interesting links with short commentary - sort of like voluntary 'push' technology. It was more of a 'log' than a 'blog', a 'meta-web' service. Some of you may remember the pioneering 'Robot Wisdom' (which I think is no-more); and 'memepool' (in my blogroll at left) has been around for a long time and is still going strong. Nowadays, blogs run from the essay-style mostly original content of Total Information Awareness and Legal Fiction (and the dear-departed Billmon Whiskey Bar), to the more link-oriented atrios (Danny Yee's 'Pathologically Polymathic', also at left, is another great, old-style weblog).

I suppose most blogs are a mixture of the two, a notable example of which is coturnix's Science and Politics . I thought I had added it to my blogroll long ago, but...I hadn't, dang me. So, check it out, but be warned. Coturnix is a scientist, albeit with very diverse interests, who always offers so much to read and think about, that the only problem is the embarrassment of riches - finding the time to grok it all. A good problem to have.

Taxing The Unborn

2005-01-05T23:43:00.000-08:00

die Magie Macht Frei
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Oyster is all over new Social Security 'reform' counter-programming today (over at YRHT ). He suggests we repeat the above phrase at least ad nauseum. It does have a certain tang, doesn't it? He links to the people who came up with it, among other good stuff...

(ps Click on the photo to get a good look)

Note To My Vast Readership 2

2005-01-04T14:52:00.000-08:00

I've changed the name of this blog to 'Crush All Boxes' but left the address the same just so nobody has to change bookmarks. The new title is more appropriate to what I want to attempt in this post-election milieu. I want to try to really rev up and examine some very general cultural themes in the next few months. I realize that this will greatly increase the possibility (already present) of my committing Pompous Hokum, but I figure it's worth the risk. I hope people will see fit to take a little time to set me straight now and then.

Cozy Footies

2005-01-04T14:42:00.000-08:00

tender tootsie comfort
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

As I suggested in my last post, vis a vis so-called 'Intelligent Design', human life is a continual struggle to balance between instinct/fear/rationalization and Reason. I call it a tension. We would never survive or DO anything without instinct/fear/rationalization (eg walking is literally falling forward). Not admitting that a deeper rationality can sometimes be found in this realm - one we don't yet understand 'scientifically' - is, well, irrational (or, how about 'silly'?). But to maintain a tension, the Rational mind must always be probing, revising, learning.

Another manifestation of our partially reptilian (?) brains - which I propose we simply accept, and even use and enjoy - is our two conceptions of history and time, linear and circular. Humans need cycles. We need to presume a certain amount of 'always was, always will be'. We may know intellectually that empires, even worlds, come and go; but we still need the 'working illusion' that ours is forever. If continuity didn't exist, we would have to invent it - and we do. The challenge is to have a sense of humor enough about our own species to be able to recognize and act against a wrong instinct rather than enshrine it, but to do it without foolishly discounting instinct/et. al. altogether; to distinguish between one's own personal cosmic struggle, and politics and the world. Because history is really more linear than circular. I think dealing with our human dichotomy about this can be easier or harder.

History does repeat itself, but more/less metaphorically than really. In a vital sense, history doesn't repeat itself at all. It is a line. You can probably analogize nanotechnology or modern genetics to something ancient or old, but the analogy is going to be very strained, and probably counterproductive. We, as a species, are going somewhere, and we can definitely fuck it up or not. Nothing is inevitable.

I would draw (or ask someone else to help me draw) a distinction between classic conservatives and our modern day crop - who call themselves conservative, but are really reactionary. I've mentioned elsewhere that I'm not so sure Burke would be a 'Burkeian' today (I'm not a Burke scholar, but he sounds to me like a very conservative liberal in his famous 'letter' about the French Revolution). Skepticism and cynicism about the 'perfectibility of man' are not the same things. Classical conservatives and liberals are both interested in progress - both think in linear terms, but favor different rates. Reactionaries, on the other hand, enshrine the circular, comfy way of thinking as doctrine.

The cry from post-communism progressives, and liberal conservatives, is not for the 'perfectibility of man', (a straw-man anyway) but for 'perfect enough' - evolved enough to handle the wonders which lie ahead. Despite the best efforts of reactionary spirits from Washington DC to Kandahar, science is not stopping. Reactionary politics doesn't really have a 'plan B' (other than Armageddon). It is reactionary politics - rather than the generally liberal kind - which has the touching, naive conception of human nature. Reactionary thinking and politics are the cozy footies of the mind.

For progressives to regain political power, we need to think like the majority we probably are. That partialy means dealing with the ins and outs of the human need for cozy footies of some kind - and not in a contemptuous way, because we ALL long for them. So, 1.) Remove stick from ass. 2.) Laugh. 3.) Move forward (as the dynamic Scott McClellan would say).

But first....

2004-12-31T11:11:00.000-08:00

(a couple things before the end of the year...)

Mind the Gap! - Social Security made EZ.

The partly fake and partly real problem with SS is that the government borrowed SS monies that might have been in a 'lockbox'. The Federal Government owes its people that money - this is a payroll tax, levied specifically for that pension, remember. At least raise your eyebrows when someone says, '..but, you see, from a more sophisticated point of view, it's just money the government owes itself, so....' Balls. It's money the government owes us working people - earmarked. As Josh Marshall very clearly lays out, it's public indebtedness (not to mention our whole fiscal/trade situation) that's the real problem. (And, gosh, how did THAT happen? 'Conservatives' don't borrow and spend money laciviously....do they?). Evidently, we've lost some of these monies in the risky 'politician market', so the suggestion is that we just put 'em into the 'pure' market - cut out the middle man. It has a cheap, Oliver Stone cogency, and reminds you again of the strange grudging pride in political incompetence which is never far from the surface with this bunch: [whining voice] 'We can't do politics, too hard! Politics, Washington, bad! we we we!'. Been waiting for George Bush to ask for sacrifice from the American People after 9/11? Here it is! We can all do our part in the War on Terror by screwing our kids and grandkids out of part of their pensions.

Bend over, America!

Intelligent Design

Publius over at Legal Fiction, among others, has been busy for months doggin' the real-world issues Christians might have with Democrats and Republicans. There was a pretty lively discussion (and links) there about so-called 'Intelligent Design'.

You don't remotely impact the basic philosophical question of this or any age (ie What is the nature of Intelligence and Design in the Universe?) by simply broadcasting an eponomous catch-phrase and writing a few fumetti books. The ID crowd is not offering science OR philosophy, really. They endeavor to colonize the entire question with a ridiculously thin force, pretending that merely naming it explains it. [El Rushbo voice] Just another marketing job, my friieeends. Naturally, their aim is not to advance the thinking on this question, but rather to posit an enemy - namely, some supposedly monolithic, remorseless, souless, nihilistic Science Force, the fear of which is, unsuprisingly, ripe for exploitation. After all, show me one honest person who can declare that they live life with absolutely no illusions, and I'll show you someone who is very deluded indeed. In a way, illusion makes us human, distinguishes us from other mammals. We suspend or rationalize or generalize specific fear in order to survive and accomplish things, and we do it every single day. Human life is partially defined by the tension between rationality and what could be called faith. Us reality-based people should admit to that fact, at least to ourselves, lest we simply react, which is passive. (ENOUGH PASSIVITY ALREADY!) This is NOT an apology for religion, but simply the suggestion that we acknowledge that tension - have a little sense of humor about ourselves. Doing so helps us understand more fully what our evolutional history, much modern science, and frankly, our common sense, tell us: that guiding, choosing our illusions can be a deeply rational, if not entirely concious, act. Anyway, it's part of who we are.

Of course the ID folks aren't interested in working that tension. They don't think there's even a tension there. They simply declare victory in that struggle. They just know. It's Happiest Place On Earth. 'If you really really believe....'

Homeopathy Gone Terribly Wrong

Eric over at TIA keeps tabs this last week of the year, on the evil gift which keeps on giving: Henry Kissinger's continuing establishment and influence as a foreign policy 'elder statesman', and the bad effects it has on everyone he touches - in this case, the Council on Foreign Relations. When will our own, American Angel of Death finally buy the farm? Why do people like him seem to live forever?

Because they do.

Happy New Year!

Crush All Boxes!

This Is Not a Blog (for a minute)

2004-12-08T14:24:00.000-08:00

..by the power vested in Me
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

A Note to my vast readership:

This blog is going on a de facto sabbatical. It will reemerge in a few weeks with a new look and a new focus. It was always supposed to have been about 'politics AND culture in the days of Bush the Younger', but has actually been mostly about politics - an understandable skew in the throes of an election. Now that our Prom Plebiscite (gee, do I sound cynical?) is past, and my head is no longer in so much danger of blowing up all at once, it's finally clear to me that many other fine blogs (and of course, even some traditional news sources) are, and always were, quite sufficient to the political situation; and that my little venue is now, frankly, about as useful - to me or anyone else - as fur on a teacup, eyes on a violin, etc.

Unlike many of the best bloggers, I am not a lawyer, economist, or formal political scientist. I will contend to my dying day that one needn't necessarily be nominally any of those things to be able to formulate an intelligent, informed opinion or argument about those subjects - in fact, I think the fate of the Republic hangs on the ability of ordinary citizens to synthesize complex facts and ideas outside their vocational purview. I further insist that 'certification' (in the form of degrees) is wildly overestimated in our culture. Indeed, specialization can often be a curse. BUT... the aforementioned best-bloggers can and DO help the rest of us to understand the disciplines they know best, and god bless 'em for it.

My speciality, such as it is, is what could loosely be called 'culture', so I'll approach my criticism in the future mostly from that general direction. I'll probably do a lot of movie and television reviews, and the like - not usually with the presumption of 'advising' you to see or not-see something, but as my preferred way to insinuate myself into the conversation. I've got pages and pages of notes about 'values', which spurted out of me after November 2nd. Rather than splatter that material in its raw form onto this space, I've decided to try to bake those thoughts into something a little more easily digestible, a little more of a cuisine approach.

Ours is a seriously ill culture in many ways. The hordes on the Right are hardly wrong for feeling such tremendous anxiety. However, many of them have also rashly called for a Culture War - what I see as a painfully obvious object-lesson of the old adage about being careful about what you wish for. If it's not yet clear that they've 'lost' it already, it soon will be. A call for 'war' is itself a pretty sure sign of failure, but it will presently be made manifest; as the silly, and strangely politically-androgynous catch-phrase of the just-past political season had it: Bring. It. On. Bush, et. al. will try to moderate the forces they've unleashed, but only sheer luck - partially in the form of exhaustion and complacency on the part of their opponents - will allow them to succeed in any great measure. It's crazy to try to opt out of a war, especially one you will ultimately 'win'. So, here's to engagement, vigor and cultural hygiene. It's long past due, anyway.

I'll be posting again after Christmas. Hope everyone has good holidays and a nice relaxing bit of time off.

Precious Moments

2004-11-28T18:52:00.000-08:00

Jollity Farm
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Like many bloggers, I've been taking a little break lately; I had no idea how burnt-out I was until I stopped! Anyway, it's been nice to get away from it for a few days. I've got some pieces brewing and should get back to more frequent posting this week.

In the meantime...a couple fun facts about Cheney:

1.) Is everyone aware that he is only 63 years old?! (He'll be 64 at the end of January '05.) Our National Dick is not only Unsafe At Any Speed but also Old At Any Age.

2.) His name was originally pronounced 'CHEEnee'. Evidently, once he ascended/decended into the 'bigtime' people just assumed it was 'CHAY-nee', and it stuck. He mentioned all this a couple years ago, and also said he might revert to the original pronunciation. I've been derisively calling him 'CHEEnee' for years, and am delighted to have been right all along.

_______________

One other thing. A few weeks ago, I silently added a blog called 'Your Right Hand Thief' to my blogroll; I thought a seamless 'excuse' for citing one of his posts would present itself, but I guess my imagination wasn't up to it. I've been reading it for several months, and commend it to you - no excuse needed. Oyster does a good job, managing to be both informative and funny about goings on in his hometown of New Orleans and elsewhere. A recent post about vital fluids, security, and the perils of young parenthood is laugh-out-loud; also check out one about a busted New Orleans madam who is about to spill the beans on some of her High Snazz clients (the usual suspects - moral/political leaders, sports stars). Good stuff.

White Man's Burden

2004-11-22T12:00:00.000-08:00

don't try to look behind my eyes
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

I'm guessing anybody who happens to read my blog also reads Josh Marshall's (if not, make a new bookmark!). He's really been on top of the recent Istook and DeLay matters, bless him. Istook's newest denial has some 'interesting' language in it:

"We have a chain of command problem over whether the subcommittee staff are ultimately accountable to the full committee staff-who represent the full committee chairman-or to the subcommittee chairman."

.

Got that? It's just a 'chain of command problem'. That has a nice ring to it....

"Our committee has responsibility for the IRS budget. That includes its personnel, facilities and equipment. This language wasn't sufficiently reviewed because it was drafted by the IRS, so our staff presumed that it was okay. The IRS drafted this language at staff request, in an effort to make it clear that our oversight duties include visiting and inspecting the huge IRS processing centers-but NOT inspecting tax returns."

In other words: humina humina humina. We didn't look at it because we requested it and figured it was OK. What?! Why in the world would the IRS write language explicitly giving the right to look at tax returns to committee chairmen? Here's the actual language in question:

Hereinafter, notwithstanding any other provision of law governing the disclosure of income tax returns or return information, upon written request of the Chairman of the House or Senate Committee on Appropriations, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service shall allow agents designated by such Chairman access to Internal Revenue Service facilities and any tax returns or return information contained therein.

Istook. Gesundheit.

Mr Marshall also catches what is apparently the spin du jour on Delay:

CBS's David Paul Kuhn quotes "an official involved in the investigation" as saying he thinks a DeLay indictment is unlikely and that DeLay's lawyers already know that.

Material further down in the article suggests that while DeLay was "kept aware" of illegal activities being committed on his behalf that the investigators have not been able to uncover evidence that DeLay "acted to promote" the illegal activity and they haven't been able to uncover sufficient evidence of that.

Josh wonders why, if his lawyers don't think he's going to get indicted after all, Delay would bother with the rather embarrassing House rule change. Good question. Spin is always interesting more for the details than for the 'headline' - in this case, a bit of moral/rhetorical plea bargaining: the difference between being 'kept aware' of illegal activities and 'promoting' them.

Such wonderful standards our government officials see fit to maintain! Working class-resentment-hero Richard Nixon called it 'plausable deniability', but blue-bloods like the Bushes have always known it simply as, 'If you can't be good, be careful'. Of course in Istook's case, he surely does what he does for our 'own good' whether we like it or not; he carries the awesome burden of knowing what's best for all of us.

Texas Hold 'Em; Texas Squeeze 'Em.

2004-11-20T11:30:00.000-08:00

tassled loafers; tousled hair; sealed lips
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Although they might not particularly relate to the money-greed, Oliver North and John Poindexter would still love the sheer conceptual beauty of it. Former Tom DeLay aide/spokesman Michael Scanlon (pictured above) and his partner, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, in conjunction with the Fair-haired boy of the GOP, really did come up with one killer plan, and doesn't every red blooded American 'love it when a plan comes together'?

The Washington Post previously reported that Abramoff and Scanlon quietly worked with conservative religious activist Ralph Reed to help persuade the state of Texas to shut down the Tigua [El Paso] casino in 2002, then persuaded the tribe to pay the $4.2 million to try to get Congress to reopen it.

Wow. Light that cigar, boys.

But that's not all! Have we got a deal for you! Just $11 down and $11 dollars a month! That's right, you heard right: just $11 dollars down and $11 dollars a month! And if you don't have the $11 dollars.....we'll loan ya the $11 dollars:

Documents released yesterday show that when the Tiguas were out of money in 2003, Abramoff came up with a plan to provide term life insurance to tribal elders, who would make their beneficiary a Jewish school Abramoff founded in Wheaton. The school would pay Abramoff's lobbying fees at the firm of Greenberg Traurig, from which he was ousted earlier this year.

You see, Abramoff and Scanlon were all about helping these tribes help themselves:

The tribe also was asked to pay $50,000 for Ney [Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio)] and several others to accompany Abramoff on a golfing trip to St. Andrews, Scotland. According to testimony yesterday, however, two other tribes ultimately paid $50,000 each for that trip. Among those who accompanied Abramoff and Ney was Reed.

I'm thinking we need to establish a ''Roy Cohn Memorial Hall of Fame' award. The first inductee would have to be Ralph Reed, who in recent years has moved away from the gospel music of his youth, turning instead to the earthy, sensual, secular soundscape of R&B and Soul.

Of course there are downsides to any job. These lobbyists and 'Public Relations Executives' did have to actually spend some of their precious time dealing with idiots and troglodytes:

When Scanlon complained [in an email] on March 5, 2003, about an Agua Caliente tribal member, Abramoff counseled: "I think the key thing to remember with all these clients is that they are annoying, but that the annoying losers are the only ones which have this kind of money and part with it so quickly."

Quid pro quo.

You're the Top!

2004-11-18T13:00:00.000-08:00

we don't windsurf; we Astroglide
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

When is a metaphor not a metaphor? Do some of our lower/middle class 'moral values' voters object primarily to literal buggery, as memorably described in the Texas State GOP Platform?

"The Party believes that the practice of sodomy tears at the fabric of society.."

Or do they object to figurative sphincter-screwing, too? So far, it looks like mostly the former, but we ought to, at long last, find out for sure in the coming months. As the Washington Post reveals today, the PRI...er, I mean the GOP, has some tax reform plans up their...sleeves:

The administration plans to push major amendments that would shield interest, dividends and capitals gains from taxation, expand tax breaks for business investment and take other steps intended to simplify the system and encourage economic growth, according to several people who are advising the White House or are familiar with the deliberations.

The changes are meant to be revenue-neutral. To pay for them, the administration is considering eliminating the deduction of state and local taxes on federal income tax returns and scrapping the business tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance, the advisers said.

Is this some sort of Tantric Economics - reabsorbing rather than 'spending?! IS there even any 'trickle down', so to speak?

I think Dan Conley puts it best:

So...hard working families barely getting by on $30,000 a year and who voted for Bush because he shares your moral values, welcome to his America, a place where you'll have to spend $5000 out of pocket each year to pay for your boss's dividend tax cut.

Just relax and try to enjoy it, Red America. You'll get used to it.

Let The 'Eagle' Soarrr!

2004-11-17T09:59:00.001-08:00

for Mature Adults Only
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Imagine how hard it must be to put out The Onion every week! I don't know how they stick to their charge of doing parody news when so much of the news itself defies parody. That they don't swing into wild clotted satire is a testiment to their nerve and resolve.

Lex A. over at Blog on the Run catches a good one from the Indiana caucus of that Exhaltation of Larks, that Pride of Lionhearts, the Cream, the Seed of Genius we know as the US House of Representitives. A Rep. Hostettler is introducing legislation to change the name of interstate I-69 to something more 'moral'. Really. Seems that teenagers snigger when he wears an 'I-69' pin (there is such a thing?). So clearly, this is an issue which needs to be put 'front and center', so to speak.

By the way, Lex's blog is a good one, and particularly notable because Lex is one of a dying breed: the reasonable, funny, sane, moderate Republican. People like him serve to remind us that it's not only people of the GOP who have valiantly carried on the real, moral work of the government - for example, introducing such concepts as oral sex at gunpoint to hapless youngsters....but, let's face it, it mostly is them. Sorry Lex. The Club For Growth calls people like you RINOs, but naturally, they're actually describing themselves, aren't they?

[UPDATE: Thanks to Ken at Heraldblog for the heads up that the 1-69 story is apparently a hoax. The perpetrator, a middle school geography teacher named Josh Whicker "just thought it would be a funny news story that some might believe was real." I guess the tip-off should've been the 'I-69 pin', an unlikely detail. The upshot is that this story was very easy to believe, unlike the horse pucky some of the PMRC ladies believed about heavy metal records (11 cycle tones, secret messages, backwards masking, etc.)]

The New, Real 'Realism'?

2004-11-16T11:47:00.000-08:00

Need a break from bleak pondering on the Bush Administration's dysfunctional authoritarian foreign policy? Wondering 'wither globalization'? (and why someone like Tariq Ramadan is identifying with the 'anti-globalzation' forces on the far left)? May I recommend checking out Thomas PM Barnett's weblog? Barnett is a military strategist who insists that globalization is not only inevitable, but a positive force (if handled intelligently). He notes that terrorism and other serious instability flows exclusively from the un-globalized, non-integrated areas of the world he calls 'the Gap'. In his fascinating book The Pentagon's New Map, he calls for, among other things, a bifurcated American military; one part heavy-duty warriors - who strike and leave - and another, much larger part he calls the 'Sys Admin' force, which does police action, peacekeeping, nation-building, etc. I am not qualified to do a total critique of his approach, but my basic impression is that he makes a lot of sense (and his wonderful refusal to be diverted by stifling, worn-out Ideology is like a cool zepher on a hot day).

Here he is, for example, on the future of Asia vis a vis the Middle East:

Already, Asia as a whole takes the lion's share of the energy coming out of the Persian Gulf, dwarfing what this country imports from the region. Our energy requirements will rise by less than a third over the next two decades, whereas Asia's will roughly double over the same time span. In short, we can expect India, China, a united Korea, and Japan to all come militarily to the Middle East in a much bigger way than their miniscule efforts to date. They will come either to join the growing security alliances our current efforts in the region will hopefully someday beget, or they will come to salvage what security relationships they can out of the strategic disaster we have generated by our mistakes. Either way, these Asian powers will be coming, because their economic interests will eventually compel it. My point is this: nothing we should do in this realignment process should be construed by any of these states as constituting a zero-sum strategy on our part to deny them military—much less economic—access to the region. If anything, our base realignment process should not only encourage stronger military ties with all of these states, but do so in such a way as to facilitate their eventual entry into the region under the conditions most conducive to our long-range objectives of transforming states there into stable members of a larger security community that will be—by definition of both geography and economic transactions—more Asian in character than Western.

Keep your eye on the C-SPAN schedules for his return to that network around Christmas.

Look Away!

2004-11-11T23:02:00.000-08:00

political capital
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

There's this little piece of apocrypha floating around the 'net. You may have seen it. It's a mock Kerry concession speech (thanks NS). It's harsh, and not completely fair, but much more fact-based than the hateful, bizzare, ignorant spew coming from the 'wingers, including mainstream, elected ones. And this wasn't written by a crazed lefty. Some of you red state people have pissed off some very moderate, even conservative, blue state folks. None of us really knows yet what you've sewn, both by re-electing an incompetent, obviously poor president, and by indulging your ignorance, superstition and savage Pride - by voting for national division and personal vanity writ large. All Americans will pay for both mistakes, but you a little more. You will reap a withering scorn much greater than you imagine yourselves to be the target of now, fair or not. BTW, I see 'moral values' (strictly speaking) as less central to this election than our annoymous writer might. But that doesn't really matter. You've pissed off a lot of non-Hollywood, non-elite, non-smug, non-decadent moderates and true conservatives this time. Not marching-in-the-street pissed-off. Less obvious, but also less ephemeral than that. It will come back to you in one form and/or another. I'll feel sorry for you when you're safely marginalized, politically. You are radicals in a very conservative country, and it will be, ironically, America's true, hard-nosed, practical conservatism which will put the kabosh on you in the end.

Again, the following piece is a little over the top, but also again, it's worlds away from the frothing 'freeper' type stuff, or even some of our new US Senators' raps. And it does express a core political emotion a lot of us feel - namely, that you're dangerous and have gone too far, whether you meant to do or not. When the next Bush disasters come - whether you are slow or fast to admit to them - a lot of us will be thinking about you, politically. You choose to be 'divided'? Careful what you wish for.

I don't see anything wrong with 'publishing' stuff I would never write myself (eg this folk-explication of the religious right.) We don't have a script or talking points. We have to make our own, and the only way to start is to start. Not only the nuanced, researched, meticulously accurate political positions matter: the ferment matters, too.

Anyhow, here's how this person wishes Kerry had conceded (an exerpt):

I concede that I put too much faith in America's youth. With 8 out of 10 of Â you opposing the President, with your friends and classmates dying daily in a war you disapprove of, with your future being mortgaged to pay for rich old peoples' tax breaks, you somehow managed to sit on your asses and watch the Cartoon Network while aging homophobic hillbillies carried the day. You voted with the exact same anemic percentage that you did in 2000. You suck. Seriously, y'do. Thank you. Thank you very much.

There are some who would say that I sound bitter, that now is the time for healing, to bring the nation together. Let me tell you a little story. Last night, I watched the returns come in with some friends here in Los Angeles. As the night progressed, people began to talk half-seriously about secession, a red state / blue state split. The reasoning was this: We in blue states produce the vast majority of the wealth in this country and pay the most taxes, and you in the red states receive the majority of the money from those taxes while complaining about 'em. We in the blue states are the only ones who've been attacked by foreign terrorists, yet you in the red states are gung ho to fight a war in our name. We in the blue states produce the entertainment that you consume so greedily each day, while you in the
red states show open disdain for us and our values. Blue state civilians are the actual victims and targets of the war on terror, while red state civilians are the ones standing behind us and yelling "Oh, yeah!? Bring it on!"

More than 40% of you Bush voters still believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. I'm impressed by that, truly I am. Your sons and daughters who might die in this war know it's not true, the people in the urban centers where al Qaeda wants to attack know it's not true, but those of you who are at practically no risk believe this easy lie because you can. As part of my concession speech, let me say that I really envy that luxury. I concede that.

Healing? We, the people at risk from terrorists, the people who subsidize you, the people who speak in glowing and respectful terms about the heartland of America while that heartland insults and excoriates us... we wanted some healing. We spoke loud and clear. And you refused to give it to us, largely because of your high moral values. You knew better: America doesn't need its allies, doesn't need to share the burden, doesn't need to unite the world, doesn't need to provide for its future. Hell no. Not when it's got a human shield of pointy-headed, atheistic, unconfrontational breadwinners who are willing to pay the bills and play nice in the vain hope of winning a vote that we can never have. Because we're "morally inferior," I suppose, we are supposed to respect your values while you insult ours. And the big joke here is that for 20 years, we've done just that.

It's not a "ha-ha" funny joke, I realize, but it's a joke all the same.

Resentment Inc.

2004-11-11T13:41:00.000-08:00

This is not earth-shattering, but it occurs to me we have to keep in mind that Anger is a business now, a pretty big business. It's supposedly an 'insurgent force' into the decadent 'liberal' media world, but it's really an Establishment industry now. El Rushbo did start as an insurgent, all right - stirring up resentment in the Heartland and makin' money doin' it! Yeah, baby! Mr Mencken? "..when you hear some men talk about their love of country, it's a sign they expect to be paid for it."

Resentment Inc. Countering that is important. It's true that non-far-right radio doesn't 'do' anger as well. So? Don't do anger as your whole 'format'. Don't do their format, don't fight them on their terms. Do your own - more entertaining: more (gasp) informative, funnier, saner. Of course, do anger when it's called for and will be effective. We have to be a little more cool and cunning. Look what we're up against.

(I haven't heard any of the satellite radio shows. Has anybody? There's some promise there, maybe.)

The old Democratic party has a lingering sort of 'church/state' problem about 'mixing' marketing with politics, namely the quaint notion that an election is about facts and argument, and should be a time for civic rationality, not selling. Ever since Nixon in '68, the GOP has been an unabashed leader in using marketing in politics. Voila, Dubya, who's almost completely imaginary.

We have to face the fact that marketing is not always inherently good or bad in itself. It has uses other than conning people. It's really a new kind of communication. It's not going away, regardless. The way to fight the dangers of political marketing is to master the art, not shy away from it.

Easy for me to say. Just a thought.

Some Election Thoughts

2004-11-07T20:33:00.000-08:00

he WAS, but he 'reinvented himself'
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

First: I didn't speak ill of Kerry once he'd won the nomination, but I sure as hell did beforehand. He's a stiff, a bore. I attended one of his 'Real Deal' rallies during the IA caucuses: two and a half hours of mausoleumony. By the time Kerry got to the stage, you were so bored as to be a tough audience for even a good speaker. And of course, he wasn't one. The endless drone, the reflexive arm/finger jabbing...a good man - actually, a very good man - but not a good candidate, as we currently understand the concept. Versus Bush, he was - by orders of magnitude - the better choice for president. Not that THAT matters...

Let's face it, people like a 'hook', and Kerry didn't have one. Bush - who's at least as big a dork - did:

Vote for me because the rest of the world hates me. Vote for me because all them Europeans and liberal elite big time movie stars tell you you're stupid to vote for me. And the New York Times! They're callin' you stupid! You gonna let them tell Americans who to vote for? America decides. [to self: I decide, actually]

.

Bush values are the worst values. They are the values of self-indulgence and irresponsibility. This 'voting against the world', for instance, is a purile self-indulgence for which we will pay dearly. Like the furniture store which 'goes out of business' every few months, it's our latest 'last and final' let's-be-idiots swan song; even though we've 'lost our innocence' several hundred times, it always seems to seep back. We Americans are loath to give up what we see as our right - our entitlement - to fuck up even though we know better. I guess every over-grown adolescent goes through that. More about 'values' later.

Second: Don't blame Edwards. During the primaries, Kerry started winning using Edwards' rhetoric - often word for word. Just ripped it off. I think one reason Kerry chose Edwards was for rhetoric. You often heard Edwards-lines show up in Kerry's speeches during the general election, too (Kerry was not disciplined enough to make them work; he was not really very good on the stump ever). We need guys like Edwards and Obama, who are smart and can talk. Some have grumbled that Gephardt would've been the correct choice, because he could've won MO. Gep would've been a bad choice. Two stiffs (and both from the 'yesterday' generation) on the same ticket. And there's no guarantee he would've carried MO for Kerry. Iowa either. And you can't blame Edwards for not getting more of the rural vote, which supposedly was his 'job'. The problem is, the vice pres. nominee is a surrogate for the pres. nominee and his campaign, he's captive to that. He can't go out into the countryside and fight the Rove Master Plan alone. Edwards is a very smart guy, smarter than many people seem to think - because of the way he looks, mainly, and his role in the Kerry campaign. No backlash on Edwards, please. He allowed himself to be humiliated for the sake of the party and the country. He deserves thanks, not scorn.

Third: Americans just like their tv. They don't want to watch Kerry for four years. I think several pres. nominees have lost for this reason, partially. People joke about it, but I think some really mean it.

[UPDATE: Commenter and fine blogger Eric suggests that a preponderance of Americans vote with their hearts rather than their heads. I think that's right, but that they really want to vote with both, if possible. The good news in this election is that Kerry at least came close to winning despite offering pretty much only 'head' reasons to vote for him. The bad news is, of course, that he lost. The bad news is that the callow, arrogant prick won: "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it; that's my style."]

[UPDATE 2: Randy Newman's song 'Political Science' was written and recorded in the 1960s, but is just as appropriate now. The coda:

Let's drop the Big One, there'll be no one left to blame us:

BOOM goes London
BOOM 'Paree'
More room for you 'n' more room for me

And every city
The whole world 'round
Will just be another American Town, oh

How peacefull it will be
We'll set EVERYBODY free!
You get a Japanese Kimono, baby; it's Italian shoes for me!

They all hate us anyhow.
So let's drop the Big One Now
Let's drop the Big One Now

Without Thee I'm Nothing

2004-11-06T17:23:00.000-08:00

is it your day to be god or mine?
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

The intelligent and politically savvy Dan Conley is back, and has pin-pointed the 'problem' with us Blue-staters: we don't sin enough. Clearly, without a big increase in our Hypocrisy Quotient, the very foundations of judeo-christian culture are at risk.

I Thought Jesus Sat in a Purple Chair

2004-11-04T18:05:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a longer post about values and other stuff. In the meantime, I wanted to post a long and informative comment by a person named BushNotMyPresident from a discussion at the excellent MyDD; s/he seems to know what s/he's talking about vis a vis what I would call our domestic madrassas-lite. The post (called 'Our New Base'), is a must-read, too; it has some good news in it.

Now, the comment in question, and many thanks BNMP, whoever you are:

Understanding the Religious-Right

Well, I personally think that religion is what happened on election day Nov 2. I attended my local Kerry/Edwards party on Tuesday. The problem of the religious-right came up. We all agreed that something is going to have to be done about these religious people. However, I get the impression that most Democrats don't understand the religious-right, who they are and how they break down. As a person that grow up in the Charismatic Church from age 4 to age 13, I can help with this. I am not an expert, but I can give the basics.

The top reasons for being a Republican are the following: 1)Greed, 2) Religion, 3)Fear(losing guns or terrorists), 4)Racism

The threat to the Republican are the following: 1)People of Color, 2) Regular people, 3) Poor people.

Well, the republicans targeted one of their threats through the religious-right. This threat would be the people of color. They made some successful inroads in this area. The black vote went from 9% in 2000 to 13% in 2004 nationally. The Latinos in Florida went wild for Bush this year. We should think about Texas, there are tons of people of all kinds of colors. However, there is a lot of religious-right influences in this state.

The primary threat to the Democrats is the Pat Robertson crowd of churches. These churches break-down into the following categories:1)Charismatics, 2)Pentecostals, 3)Assembly of God, 4)Church of God, )Evangelicals, 6)Evangelical Free, 7)Full Gospel, 8)Foursquare Gospel, 9)Apostolic, 10) what is called the Five-Fold ministry. Watch churches that call themselves 11)into Prophecy, 12)Faith-based ministry, 13)Non-denominational, 14)Inter-denominational

The secondary threat to the Democrats are the Jerry Falwell crowd of churches.
These churches break-down into the following categories: 1) Fundamental Baptists, 2) Independent Baptists, 3)Southern Baptists, 4) Some of the white General Baptist churches.

The above is the real threat to Democrats. Now, some of you may not know any people like this or kids. This isn't a surprise to me. Many of these types of Christians in Robertson's and Falwell's Fundamental/Independent Baptist crowd shelter their lives and children from the real world. Many of their children are home schooled or go to Christian schools. Christian school is very different from Catholic, Private or Prep schools. Christian schools are not as focused on education or technology, but religion and discipline (corporal punishment is strong in many Christian schools). Examples of Christian schools are the following: Evangelical Christian school, Christian Academy of Knoxville, Temple Baptist Academy , Knoxville Christian School. There are so many more of these schools in Knoxville and state of Tennessee and all around the country. I would not recommend them academically. My Mom put me in one and I paid for it academically until high school. I was way behind when I went to public school in 7th grade. Teachers in these schools are often hired on their religious affiliation and not their qualifications. There curriculums are all written by religious people and that is the only reason they use them not because they are the best. I can't stand the Abeka curriculum. Other curriculums are Bob Jones Press, and Saxon.

These types are Christians send their kids to colleges like the following: Oral Roberts University(OK), Bob Jones University(SC), Brigham Young University(UT), Liberty University- Falwell's University(VA), Lee University(TN), Johnson Bible College(TN), Crown College(TN), David Lipscomb University(TN) etc.. these types of universities are all around the country as well.

I think Democrats need to find away to go after the Religious-Right. A good place to learn about the Religious-Right is to watch Christian television. In my area, we have 3 stations on our basic cable of this. All of these networks are run by Charismatic/Pentecostal type of Christians These would be the following: 1) Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN), 2) Christian Television Network, 3) INSP - The Inspiration Network, 4) Sometimes you will see things on PAX, the program Worship comes on late at night between 12:00AM and 4:00AM or 5:00AM. It the kind of worship that would be common in a Pat Robertson type of church.

I can tell you what types of sermons you will hear in the Charismatic/Pentecostal Church. Their sermons tend to be based on the following: 1)Prosperity, 2) Seed Faith, 3)Tithes/Offering, 4)Supernatural Healing, 5) Self-perfection, 6)Salvation and 7)Morality.

You won't hear much about the following:1) Love thy neighbor, 2)Helping people, 3)Helping the poor and 4)Kindness. However, you may hear that the poor are cursed because they don't live for God, pay tithes or sow seed.

Fundamental Baptist preach a lot about what is wrong with other faiths and salvation.

The directory of Charismatic and Pentecostal Churches

Assembly of God Home page
AG Colleges
Church Directory

Religions that are fairly new, but growing and something to watch or be concerned about:

Catholic Charismatic

Charismatic Episcopal

You should also keep in mind that cults like the Jim Jones/Jonestown
and David Koresh
Both of these guys came out of the Charismatic Church. The power of many Charismatic preachers is amazing. They can suck all kinds of people up. David killed some very educated people and people of color.

Make Them Wear Lead Boots

2004-11-03T13:14:00.000-08:00

christian values
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

I plan on being depressed for a bit.

After that, though, I'm for the resumption of the fight - harder now. These assholes (B/C) are as dangerous as they ever were, if not more. We must help them get the worst case of 'second-term-itis' in history. Scandal, indictments, fierce and focused criticism - rain them all down on these people, to the extent that they and the rest of the Republican party wish they had lost.

No quarter.

Congratulations, America!

2004-11-03T07:36:00.000-08:00

[UPDATE]

This post was written a couple days ago, but I didn't want to be dour and post it before. May as well now. Congratulations, America! You're a dumbass!

BTW, the only silver lining in this is that now Bush will have to deal with his own disasters. We owe it to ourselves to make him the lamest of lame duck presidents ever. Let's at least make sure that Dubya completely destroys the GOP while he's fucking up this country and other areas...(doesn't seem like a very good trade, does it?).

Now we hold not only Bush, but McCain, Giulianni and the rest of them responsible.

One of the great things about having vibrant internets is finding that there are so many smart, interesting people out there. Really. One was more used to the prevalence of knuckleheads before the advent of the internets (the inevitable 'fuck you' scrawled onto our civic bathroom wall), so I don't focus on all the stupidity - we knew about that already. It really is heartening that there are so many people who have something worthwhile to say, or to at least ask: 'non-professional' volunteers who report, ask and argue simply because they want to. But another benefit is finding a relatively obscure 'professional' you've never heard of, who's been writing for decades and is damned good. Thanks to the inner-netts you get to read them too. Thanks to reader Allmaya, I now know about Michael Ventura of the Austin Chronicle. I've read only a few back columns, but I get the impression that Allmaya is right: at his best, he's really excellent. In his latest, Welcome to the Situation, he 'outs' a truth that many of us - especially above a certain age - know in our hearts and bones:

The great days of the United States of America are over. Nothing will bring those days back. It's too late. The damage has been done. There is no possible political, military, or economic solution. The general prosperity of the Fifties and Sixties (as opposed to the one-sided prosperity of the Nineties) is irretrievable. The capacity of the U.S. to lead the world has been drained. The only question is how America will decline – gracefully, clumsily, or tragically?

I wouldn't put it quite so starkly as 'The great days of the United States of America are over'. Indeed, if we accede to Mr Ventura's council and 'grow up', we will surely have some great - in some ways, greater - days ahead. But you know what he means. Economic decline. Yes, great 'damage has been done', but it's even a little more obvious than that: no country can forever stay in the position of absolute economic dominance the US enjoyed after WW2. A decline from THAT was inevitable. As it happens, the administration of George W. Bush begs the issue of Decline, because they seem to want to just get it over with, smash it up, level down all at once - another meaning for the phrase 'race to the bottom'; what Mr Ventura calls a 'crash landing'. Will we ever know why human beings can have an inate attraction to decay, to death? I think Mr Bush's mystic political appeal is partially explained by this attraction. Something in our nature makes us intrigued in spite of ourselves. Ask Zarqawi.

Will we decline with our Constitution intact? Will our decline make us more tolerant and interesting, or meaner and more dulled? Britain declined drastically between 1914 and 1950, yet still produced great literature and a leader of the caliber of Winston Churchill. France declined just as badly, yet still had the cultural power to produce influential art and philosophy. Europe as a whole declined during the 20th century, but retained the intellectual vitality to reinvent itself for the 21st and become another kind of power. How will America decline? At this moment in history, that is the important question: How will America decline?

Indeed, that is the main question. Will we plan for the future? Will we leverage our current strengths (including our Constitution and other cultural treasures) so as to glide down as slowly as possible or will we just dive bomb?

Mr Ventura's column is well worth reading in its entirety. It's not cheerful reading, but, let's face it, sobriety can offer its own kind of deeper relief sometimes.

President Bush: Fuck Yeah! 2

2004-11-02T23:34:00.000-08:00

I've been working and out of the dread loop. It looks pretty bad. I wonder if they can really call OH yet? Enough. If Josh Marshall is right and the 'youth vote' didn't really turn out...well, it's their asses, among others. I hope this isn't over, but I can't take anymore. To bed.

The All-Important Hitchens Endorsement

2004-11-01T15:05:00.000-08:00

Being a professional crank - especially a brilliant one - must be terribly hard work. Hitchens has said that he thrives on anger and outrage, is fueled by it. It's kind of a shame that he came up in the US just when anger-and-resentment was blooming here into a high-growth, very profitable industry. It has cheapened him to swim in this pool; he's been seduced into thickets of real-time political controversies he just isn't built to negotiate very well. He's a fine critic (often very fine) and can be an excellent historian. But he's often simply clueless about the American politics he is steeping in. Wanting to be Orwell, he's ended up being Midge Dector. Hitchens is more myopic about events of the day than average, for a usual reason: being terribly, stubbornly willful.

Until recently, CH was unequivocally pro-Bush. He's now neutral, which I think is as it really should be.

Here he is today (election-eve) with his non-endorsement:

At a campus event quite late in her life, when asked in a whiny way by a member of the audience "why have you not endorsed gay lib?" [Lillian Hellman] paused briefly. Her thick and darkened spectacles were opaque. "The forms of fucking," she finally declared, "do not require my endorsement."

That would be vaguely analogous to my view of this depressing and trivial election campaign, in which I do not in any case yet have the right, let alone the inclination, to vote.

This is as close to admitting error as Hitchens gets, and notice how ultra-grouchy - surly - he is to have to get so close. Yes, Christopher, it has indeed been a trivial and depressing election campaign. (If you were eligible, would you be voting for the campaign? It's an odd sentence). Your erstwhile Standard Bearer's side has been responsible for the lion's share of the triviality and debasement. (Unfortunately for your formulation of US politics, Michael Moore is not part of the Kerry campaign, but John O'Neill is, all but technically, part of the Bush one.) Strangely, us Americans 'outside the beltway' don't think it's a trivial election at all. Pity us poor rubes who actually think it really does matter who wins it - or at the very least who loses it.

From his original non-endorsement at Slate:

I do think that Bush deserves praise for his implacability...

Yes, Mr Hitchens, that's you all over.

....and that Kerry should get his worst private nightmare and have to report for duty.

Hitchens hates Kerry for touting his service in Vietnam in this campaign. He reckons that service as nothing to be proud of, which is a defensible argument. However, he carefully elides Kerry's own later fight against that war; for all CH's righteous indignation about Vietnam, Kerry's anti-war (and then reconciliation) efforts were more consequential than anything Hitchens did or could've done at the time or since. And CH says nothing at all about the smear campaign against Kerry because of his protest of, rather than service in, the war. Oh well, 'adjustments' like that must be made when you're a person like Hitchens, and....implacable (a euphemism for 'never wrong').

Christopher Hitchens hasn't chosen to become an American citizen for a very good reason: he isn't really an American in any meaningful way; rather, he's a cosmopolitan, one whose portfolio includes the US. In no sense do I mean this as a criticism of him. He is probably more useful - and is definitely more interesting - from his perspective as a true 'citizen of the world', anyway. I also don't mean to suggest that he's 'disloyal' or that he shouldn't be welcome to become a US citizen if he chooses to do (he has American children). But as a writer and critic, he doesn't see the world through the eyes of an American. I repeat without any irony or snark: there's absolutely nothing wrong with that - the reverse, in fact.

CH writes so incredibly well about things he understands, that when he's writing about something he doesn't understand - in this case, the USA - it's glaringly obvious; check out his reviews of art or music, for instance (luckily, he admits to not understanding them very well). I think the America outside the beltway, outside the largest cities, and off the campuses, frightens and bewilders him. I don't think he has a clue about it. His characterizations of the American People are, perhaps inadvertently, condescending, hollow. His answer to our fear and anger about Bush's degradation of our government: 'there, there now children, settle down; Bush won't be president forever and it'll all be alright, so just simmer down' (a paraphrase). He couldn't care less. Perhaps he shouldn't. Fine. We shouldn't take his domestic political opinions very seriously, either, for the most part. Hitchens is fascinating and has much to teach, but his journalistic American political writing has become a kind of glittering garbage since 9/11. Embarrassingly bad. Strange phenomenon, isn't it?

Father Knows Best

2004-10-27T18:32:00.000-07:00

Hey, it's Screamin' Jane Hawkins!
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Coturnix over at the fascinating Science and Politics gives us a round up today of stories dealing with the psychology of faith-versus-fact based politics. He also has done a lot of work on the bizzare sexual meta-themes of the current presidential campaign. His brief commentary includes the following:

Apart from presenting himself as masculine, Kerry also has to work on the other side of the equation: portray BushCo as sissies, wusses, cowards....They present themselves as erect falluses - we need to show they are just flaccid dicks, afraid of vaginas with teeth.

That brought to mind a little story which, in the interest of providing a bit of (I hope) comic relief, I humbly present to you now:

Stern Father watches from the window of his third-floor leather study as his very young son plays innocently with a little girl on the sidewalk below. He's getting angrier and angrier, his head filling with blood, his veins throbbing. He finally snaps, flies down the stairs, grabs his bewildered son by the ear and drags him all the way up to the study. Stern Father seals the door and turns to glare at the boy: 'You won't understand now, but always remember what I'm about to tell you: stay away from girls; they have TEETH in there and they'll chew you up! In a tremulous whimper the boy says 'Y-y-yes Father'.

A guileless teenager now, the boy finds himself crazily preoccupied with girls. He makes the mistake of walking home with one from his class on the very same sidewalk. His father spies them, rages down the stairs and pulls his son by the scruff of the neck up the stairs: "Don't you remember what I told you?! STAY AWAY FROM GIRLS! They have TEETH in there and they'll CHEW YOU UP!. "Y-y-yes sir".

The boy eventually graduates from college and, displaying enormous drive and ambition, becomes a journalist with a very bright future. A real eager beaver. One day he meets and is smitten by a beautiful turquoise jewelry designer. He certainly remembers what his father had told him, but he can't help it, and neither can she. It's Love. Right after the wedding ceremony, they board a cruise ship and start their honeymoon. After a full first day of shuffleboard, fabulous entertainment and way too much food, the couple retires to their wedding bed. The young groom gives his new wife a big warm affectionate hug and kiss, rolls over and goes right to sleep. She is a little perplexed, but decides to let it go, figuring that he's just tired or nervous or something. She herself rolls over and goes to sleep.

The next day is even better. They swim, do karaoke and again eat way too much scrumptious food before finally returning to bed in the soft pink bridal cabin. He gives her another warm, genuinely affectionate hug and kiss, says 'G'night honey!', and rolls over. His new wife yells: "WAIT A MINUTE!"

"Is..is there something wrong dear?"

"Well, YEAH, there IS! Howard, you're a fine man, but you have to, you know...consumate the marriage!"

After she explains exactly what that entails, he says, "Oooh No! My dad told me that you women have TEETH in there and that you'll chew me up!"

With a mixture of pity and slight revulsion subtly animating her face, she says, "Look, Howard; we're husband and wife now. It's time for you to finally learn the truth. Take a very good look at what's right in front of your eyes. See? There're no teeth in there!"

"Well, with gums in THAT condition, of COURSE not!"

Moral: A truly 'responsible' American journalist dutifully goes wherever a story leads him.

The Bodice Rippers

2004-10-27T11:16:00.000-07:00

no means yes
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

The future make-up of American civic life will have to be something which actually works. Americans have always demanded that, and will continue to. Our politics will continue to become more and more of a cobbled-together modern admixture of what the country was meant to be about at its inception: libertarianism and liberalism; free markets AND social justice, individual freedom and creativity AND equal opportunity. Ideologues always forget that reality - in the form of passion & rationality & imagination & necessity - spawns theory, not the other way around. It's time to remind some of them of that.

The Editors of the more/less libertarian magazine Reason preface their presidential poll of 'policy wonks, journalists, thinkers, and other public figures' (from which most of the items below are drawn) as follows:

Voting for president is a lot like sex, and not just because it takes place every four years in the solitude of a semi-private booth. Both are intensely personal activities that nonetheless can have profound public consequences. We might add that both often involve drug-and-alcohol-fueled delusions and morning-after feelings of guilt, shame, and recrimination.

Ah, ha ha, they are so witty and sardonic, aren't they? Sex in a semi-private booth once every four years, mixed with shame, alcohol and other drugs. Hoo boy, those libertarians are a fun bunch, I bet. It's a safe, conventional thing to say that a presidential vote is 'intensely personal', but does it really make sense? Isn't that attitude a bit of a luxury in the komplex kluge of big-country politics, especially when the choice is so absurdly narrow ('either/or')? Are we choosing a politician or an avatar?

You will hear a lot of complaints about 'statism' below (especially from the economists!). As a fellow creative person, I have some sympathy with that critique. Without creative deviation from the norm, no net progress is possible. Without a hallowed individualism you will waste or squelch incalculable creative deviation along with its incalculable ramifications. But what our libertarian dreamers miss is the fact that - cliche though it is - politics is no more or less than the art of the possible. It's not intrinsically systematic, but rather terrifyingly intentional. Nauseatingly prosaic. It requires (gasp!) a sense of humor. Why, when 99% of the rest of life is decidedly alloyed, do they think politics can be 'pure'? Lenny Bruce noted that there is only 'what IS'. But, god! Dealing with 'what is' is so vulgar....

If you thought the 'Hollywood Liberals' were dewey-eyed, check out these 'angry old/young men: severe and hopeless Romantics when it comes to voting. Notwithstanding the tough bawdy-talk about sex-in-a-booth, what they seem to really want is immaculate conception. Too bad voting is so icky and not theoretical at all; it's something you have to affirmatively, physically DO. Ewwww! Pity the poor cynics, for of course they're disillusioned, betrayed idealists. Awwww.

You will notice that all of them are 'elite' in some way - have a lot of money and/or work on a university campus. They mostly can't bring themselves to vote effectively against probably the worst Leader Of The Free World in our history. So delicate! so romantic! such fine sensibilities! Most of the rest of us have to content ourselves with shuffling along, trying to simply pay our bills, hoping we or our children or their children get the chance to even dream of creatively deviating from the norm some day.

They have fetishized making the perfect the enemy of the good. They would rather nobly serve what is by definition a lost cause; they'd rather attempt to eat the recipie than the actual-but-flawed meal. How beautiful and fine and hopeless!

It doesn't require a whole lot of education, specialization and intellectual fire-power to be this stupid, but it helps.

Come, let's decant some of the most pungent American intellectual ferment of our time:

Drew Carey

Carey stars in Drew Carey's Green Screen Show, beginning October 7 on the WB.

2004 vote: Quit pretending that it matters, would you? Can you vote for all the nefarious cabals that really run the world? No. So fuck it.

2000 vote: I voted Libertarian, for all the good it did me.

Most embarrassing vote: Is it considered embarrassing to cast a vote out of principle for someone you know doesn't have a snowball's chance of winning? Oh, OK. Then they're all embarrassing.

Favorite president: Andrew Jackson, because he's what a lap dance costs (and because, ironically, he opposed having a National Bank).

Oh well, comedians are famously un-funny when they're not on stage. Drew is the wandering, solitary searcher, sojurning through the night looking for ways to blow his big bucks.

Richard Epstein

Epstein is a professor of law at the University of Chicago and author, most recently, of Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism (University of Chicago).

2004 vote: I don't know who the Libertarian candidate is this time, but you can put me down as voting for him; anyone but the Big Two. As far as I can tell, the debate thus far has borne no relation to the important issues facing the nation...except Vietnam. It's just two members of the same statist party fighting over whose friends will get favors.

2000 vote: I can't remember.

Most embarrassing vote: Since I don't remember who I vote for from one election to the next, it's hard to say. I suppose Richard Nixon in '72, though that doesn't mean I'd want to have voted for George McGovern either.

Favorite president: I'm certainly a Calvin Coolidge fan; he made some mistakes, but he was a small-government guy.

Ah yes, the great Coolidge. Such a contrast to the two statist candidates who simply want to give their friends (in Kerry's case, that includes poor people who clean Epstein's house and don't have basic health insurance) 'favors'.

Nat Hentoff

Hentoff, a nationally syndicated columnist, writes regularly for both the Village Voice and The Washington Times. An expanded paperback edition of his book The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance (Seven Stories Press) will be released this fall.

2004 vote: I'm not voting for anyone at the top of the ticket. I can't vote for Bush, who supports Ashcroft's various "revisions" to the Bill of Rights, since our liberties are what we're supposed to be fighting for. As for Kerry, I think he's an empty suit: How much time did he give his years in the Senate in his convention speech, about 40 seconds?

Thanks Nat. Penetrating! One candidate wants to dismantle the Bill of Rights and the other is just as bad because....he's an 'empty suit'. Gotcha. Keep up the Good Whine, Nat.

Penn Jillette

Jillette is the larger, louder half of the comedy/magic team Penn & Teller and star of Showtime's Penn & Teller: Bullshit!

2004 vote: I'm undecided (always the stupidest position). I might do the moral thing and not vote at all, or do the sensible thing and vote Libertarian (Badnarik, right?), or I might make 100 bucks from my buddy Tony and vote for Bush. (I told Tony that Bush and Kerry were exactly the same, and he bet me 100 bucks that I didn't believe that enough to really truly vote for Bush.) But if you want to be pragmatic, I'm in Nevada, so who cares?

Yes, Penn. Since it won't affect YOU, both candidates are exactly the same. Why not make the hundred bucks? At least that IS about you.

John McClaughry

Contributing Editor McClaughry, a senior policy adviser in the early Reagan White House, is president of the Ethan Allen Institute in Vermont.

2004 vote: George W. Bush. Unlike his opponents, he at least understands that only America can defeat militant Islam by a combination of military force and the ideology of freedom. At home, his recent advocacy for "a new era of ownership" promises the only way out of statist stagnation.

2000 vote: Bush.

Yes, John. The 'ideology of freedom' and a recent 'advocacy for a new era of ownership' will save the day. Isn't it great that simply getting your speechwriters to write something up and then saying it makes you a leader? It's a slam dunk! Wanna buy a bridge into the 19th century?

Charles Murray

Murray is W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and author, most recently, of Human Accomplishment (HarperCollins).

2004 vote: Reluctantly -- very reluctantly -- George Bush. I find the Democrats so extremely obnoxious that I have to vote against them, and I can't do that voting Libertarian.

Right. Bush in inept and dangerous. But not 'obnoxious'. I'M sold!

P.J. O'Rourke

O'Rourke is H.L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and author, most recently, of Peace Kills (Atlantic Monthly Press).

2004 vote: George W. Bush, because I don't want Johnnie Cochran on the Supreme Court.

2000 vote: George W. Bush. (I always vote Republican because Republicans have fewer ideas. Although, in the case of George W., not fewer enough.)

Yes, PJ, I'm worried about Jonnie Cochran getting on the SCOTUS, too. And I would emphatically agree that Bush doesn't have 'fewer enough' ideas, but...there's the Jonnie Cochran thing...

John J. Pitney Jr.

Contributing Editor Pitney is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and author of The Art of Political Warfare (University of Oklahoma Press).

2004 vote: I'm voting for Bush. He cut taxes. Kerry would raise them.

2000 vote: Bush. Former reason Editor Virginia Postrel put it well: "Bush is a mixed bag. But I think Al Gore is the devil."

The Business of America is..... John J. Pitney Jr.'s tax bracket.

The stuff about 'Gore is the devil' is not the obvious stupid hyperbole it seems to be. It is a more involved, subtle stupid hyperbole. The 'stateism' thing again. Interesting that Ashcroft/PATRIOT 2 doesn't seem to bother most of these people...

Robert Higgs

Higgs is a senior fellow in political economy at the Independent Institute and author, most recently, of Against Leviathan (Independent Institute).

2004 vote: I never vote. I don't wish to soil my hands.

2000 vote: Had I been forced to cast a ballot for president in the 2000 election, I might have died of septicemic disgust.

'Septicemic disgust'?

Mickey Kaus, Contributor: Kerry

I'm voting for Kerry, mainly because I think Bush is prosecuting the fight against terrorism in a way that will make us dramatically less safe unless we have a conspicuous change at the top. Even if you supported the war in Iraq, now is the time to a) try to preserve our gains in that country and Afghanistan while we b) let the world calm down so that fewer people hate us (and hence fewer people try to come and kill us).

I don't expect Kerry to be a successful president in any other respect. It doesn't matter.

Ah, uber-smart-guy Mickey Kaus gets the (almost) last word: It doesn't matter!! PPS: If I seemed to think that anything but Iraq did matter, then I might be thought of as a chump and not a smartguy!!! PPPPPSSSS: Aren't I a wag?!!

And the Winner is.....

2004-10-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

I can see for miles and miles
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Actually, this is part of the previous post, but I thought Landsburg of Slate deserved his own special entry and picture. Enjoy the Strange Fruit of Steven's strenuous 'creative' deviation from the norm:

Steven Landsburg, Economic Writer: Bush

If George Bush had chosen the racist David Duke as a running mate, I'd have voted against him, almost without regard to any other issue. Instead, John Kerry chose the xenophobe John Edwards as a running mate. I will therefore vote against John Kerry.

Duke thinks it's imperative to protect white jobs from black competition. Edwards thinks it's imperative to protect American jobs from foreign competition. There's not a dime's worth of moral difference there. While Duke would discriminate on the arbitrary basis of skin color, Edwards would discriminate on the arbitrary basis of birthplace. Either way, bigotry is bigotry, and appeals to base instincts should always be repudiated.

Bush's reckless spending and disregard for the truth had me almost ready to vote for Kerry, until Kerry picked his running mate. When the real David Duke ran against a corrupt felon for governor of Lousiana, the bumper stickers read, "Vote for the crook. It's important." Well, I'm voting for the reckless spendthrift. It's important again.

To be fair, Landsburg is only 13 years old, but still...

President Bush: Fuck Yeah!

2004-10-25T15:15:00.000-07:00

is this a great country or what?!
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

I choose to be an optimist. I'm tired of all the whiners, the gloom-and-doomers, the complainers. America is at her best when she looks forward, not backward. My parents grew up poor and look at where they are today: doing OK! My life is pretty fucking great at the moment. And I look around me and see other people who's lives are pretty fucking great, and I think: everything's gonna be OK. It's all going to work out. It always does.

The war on terror is going to be really hard. Thank god we have a tough 'son-of-a-bitch' in the White House. Yeah, Bush is kind of a dick, but we need a dick right now. I leave it to him. You think Janeane Garafolo is better?! Give me a break! You hear a lot of stuff on the news and whatnot, but of course you can't trust the news. It's so pessimistic! Look at Dan Rather! It's all about the benjamins, of course. None of it really matters. I'm not fooled by the news and the pundits. And those liberal Hollywood types? They're all sooo superior. Look at Michael Moore! He's so fat! (and what's with that fucking baseball cap?!). They all want us to keep track of all these stupid details, which I don't believe anyway - these people are such a bring down. Dude, it's just not that dire! Lighten up!

Sure president Bush looks like a total dork sometimes and might have fucked some things up here and there. Could you do any better? I couldn't, and nobody I know could. That's just the way Americans are, anyway. Plus, he's funny. We need to laugh MORE, not less! Older people just don't understand what it's like to be a young person these days. The future is uncertain. The economy is uncertain. The environment is gonna look like 'Blade Runner' no matter what anyway. Our parents were self-absorbed assholes who didn't love us (they spoiled us, but didn't love us). Religion is all bullshit. Politics is all bullshit. Reading books is bullshit, unless it's fantasy or sci-fi. (Now it looks like the Boomers are going to live forever so they'll never get out of our way! We'll still be force-fed 'the Boss' when we're 60!). We know that ten years down the road, no one is going to listen to the hit music being created today. Same with tv shows and movies. All disposable. Everything's already happened, pretty much. And the hippies didn't have to deal with AIDS or herpes, or metal detectors in schools. And it was so easy for them to get pot!

So, to conclude: Think positive. Laugh more! (If I got cancer, I know I'd make a joke out of it, cause I have a sense of humor!) Follow your gut! America is not Europe. We're on a positive tip.

The Customer is Always Right

2004-10-22T15:27:00.000-07:00

there is no flag PIMPING amendment
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

President Bush stands for a culture of passivity and irresponsibility, a culture of weakness, entitlement and permissiveness.

CNN Poll of the day: Do you believe that Mount St. Helens will erupt again in the next two years? Yes: 50% No: 49% Don't Know: 1%

There is a difference between a citizen and a consumer. A citizen has the duty to make informed decisions; a consumer simply has to have a preference or an opinion - founded, unfounded, it makes no difference ('Pepsi Clear is clear, not brown. As a woman, I like that'). Evidently, about half the electorate (or, to be fair, probably more) doesn't know the difference between the two roles. If you haven't yet read the PIPA report (and you are part of the 'reality-based community'), prepare to be amazed. In it, you find that a large majority of Bush supporters believe all sorts of things which simply aren't true, aren't debatable. (I can hear the protest right now; no it's NOT my 'opinion' that those things aren't true. They AREN'T true). They believe them because they want to believe them, as if their total job as citizens is to have an opinion, whether they know anything about the subject or not. They feel arrogantly entitled, that their pulling any opinion out of their ass or anywhere else is their sacred American right. There is no sense at all of concomitant responsibility.

In these closing days of this wretched presidential campaign, I would like to see Kerry and Edwards hammer Bush on his terrible, weak, permissive, values. The Bush campaign is increasingly desperate, a doddering shit-tower; but they have to make it last only a few more days. Kick. It. Over.

(By all means, click on the pic above to get a good look - maybe you'll want to actually order a gross of patriotic vomit-bags, or whatever they are).

'1984' Is Like, Sooooo Twenty Years Ago!

2004-10-20T12:31:00.000-07:00

hi there, earthlings
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

One of the main dangers of fighting a war (or having any kind of main enemy) is that of becoming like your enemy. For example, the advent of the United States' relatively authoritarian, 'garrison state', 'military industrial complex', era was a Cold War response. Other examples abound. In the words of famous Quaker moralist Richard Nixon: 'Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.'

I was not really surprised to see budding dictator Vladimir Putin ('Puty-poot') endorse George W. Bush for re-election. They're buddies, and probably see eye to eye about a lot of things. As I've said before, they both see themselves as 'men of destiny', and seem to feel, hey! screw anybody who doesn't 'get it'! But I had to make sure I wasn't dreaming when I read first thing this morning that the Iranian government (yes, the 'mooolahs') had done the same thing! Seems they feel that Democrats tend to be too concerned with 'human rights' and other pesky stuff. My, my. Who will win the all-important Qaddafi Endorsement? And what about that other member of the Axis of Evil, Kim Jong Il's North Korea?

Even though we haven't heard from him, I think we know who bin-Laden - if alive - is pulling for: his number-one recruiter, naturally.

The Death of Comedy

2004-10-19T07:59:00.000-07:00

Or it at least has the flu.

I reluctantly went to see 'Team America: World Police' on Sunday night. I mainly went for a chance to hang out with some friends I don't see all that often. I saw Ebert's review, and knew whereof he spoke when he called it 'nihilist'. I'm not a big fan of 'South Park', although it is very funny sometimes. But, I figured, if Sean Penn is pissed off, it can't be all bad....

The problem is not exactly 'nihilism', but an actual inability to know the difference between seriousness and humor, resulting in a lazy, cowardly satire, neatly disguised by deliberate outrageousness. There is no comedy without tragedy. They define each other. If you don't know what to be serious about, you can't be funny, and these guys are hardly alone in our entertainment culture in not realizing this. At dinner after the movie, my friend Alex called Matt and Trey 'cover your ass' comedians - whenever they veer towards making an actual point, they say 'just kidding!' (My other younger friend Andrea got all the way to the crux by pointing out that being serious about nothing is no better than being pompous and humorless. Parker and Stone may be kinda dumbass, but that doesn't mean their audience necessarily is).

Aside from the strictly high school stuff (eg the vomit scene), they are hilariously funny as they satirize American culture, especially Hollywood and the 'media' generally. The first forty minutes or so of 'Team America' are worth the price of admission. I'm not going to give anything away, but I almost injured myself laughing. The 'Thunderbirds' marionettes are a perfect absurdist vehicle, even better than the crude animation of 'South Park'.

The politics are ultimately deeply stupid, however. I certainly don't mean the skewering of Sean Penn, Jenneane Garafalo and, inevitably, Alec Baldwin. That part is just a cheap plot point (funny at times), although they do sail a little too close to the wind when the Sean Penn marionette has his little speech about how wonderful life was in Baghdad before the invasion; Michael Moore is more responsible for that piece of idiocy than Penn, and that leads to the key point. Parker and Stone's real target is Michael Moore and Hollywood culture, not Alec Baldwin and liberalism in general. Unfortunately, they're too stupid and lazy to know the difference. And proud of it. ('America! fuck Yeah!'). That's why their cultural satire is funny, and their political comment is so dumb.

This becomes clear in the end. The 'cover your ass' satirists can't avoid coming out with a moral (just like they always do in 'South Park'), and it is literalistic and witless: the 'dicks, pussies and assholes' formulation - basically the idea that dicks like Bush are dicks (and hated by pussies like Baldwin), but we need them to take care of assholes like bin-Laden. If Stone and Parker had the guts to know what they were talking about, they would see that Bush is really just another asshole, not a 'dick'.

Hollywood in general is not very good at comedy these days. So many movies don't know what they are. 'Cable Guy'-type films abound - is it comedy? Is it drama? We are living through a humorless, literalistic moment in the US. Guys like Parker and Stone may enjoy their own lives, but - in 'South Park' and their movies - even if they express it in a converse way, they are ultimately all about generational self-pity: 'see how absurd everything is? See what a crappy ridiculous culture we've inherited? Poor poor us!' Neither funny nor tragic, only solipsistic. I don't disagree with their diagnosis, but they are part of the crappy absurd culture, too. And they turn out to be at least as mindless as what they skewer - only 'snarkier' and 'hipper' about it. Now that it's their turn....they mostly chicken out: 'just kidding'.

[UPDATE: Behold, the brilliant satirists of the age in their own words:

I think we just deal with everything with humor. Everything. We say all the time, "I know that if one of us got cancer tomorrow, we would be joking about it." It's just the way we deal with stuff. A lot of people with no sense of humor think that that means that you just basically don't care about anyone or anything, and it's not true.

Ultimately, I think we're both pretty optimistic people, too. A lot of this movie came out of, you're laughing at people because you're sort of saying, "Dude, relax." You have the Michael Moores of the world and all these people telling you, "These people are evil and America's going to be destroyed in a matter of five years!" And it's just, to us, not that dire. It's like, you know what? Our lives are pretty fucking great. And a lot of the lives we see around us are pretty fucking great, and everything's gonna be OK. That's just our basic philosophy.

(from the Salon interview )

The 'Mushy' Bigotry of Low Expectations

2004-10-16T11:36:00.000-07:00

knock knock!
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

It's gotten to be almost as predictable as clockwork; or really more like an incipient sneeze: it's probably going to happen (ah..Ah..AHH), but it might not. I'm talking about arguing with a certain type of angry white (usually) man (usually) here in the blogosphere about this Bush policy or that - say, tax policy. You argue to him that Bush's tax cuts are a windfall for a very few, very rich people, and a hose-job for everybody else, especially said angry white working-class man himself. You're telling him that he's voting against his own interest. Exasperated and indignant, he finally says: 'What, do you think I'm STUPID?!.

Oh, gosh, NO! Wouldn't want to call somebody 'stupid'! That would be mean, or possibly even (gasp!) inappropriate! He's daring you to call him stupid, hypocritically relying on a very discrete slice of 'PC'. Imagine the riot of crisscross synapse-firing in his brain at that moment, the wildly mixed emotions; the shocking intimacy of witnessing his amygdala and pre-frontal cortex dukeing it out right there in public cyberspace.

I have never understood why it's perfectly conventional (and commonsensical) to see high or low expectations as pivotal to the performance of children in school, but it's not painfully obvious that the very same phenomenon applies to adults in civic life, especially in a hierarchical, 'broadcast' culture like ours. Although it isn't really altogether new, there has been a marked shift in the last 25 years, the apotheosis of which is George W. Bush: our political and cultural leaders have deliberately re-set expectations lower and lower, and we - in the aggregate - have, inevitably, lived down to them. This is the very definition of mis-leadership (and 'mis-follower-ship').

A commenter on Matt Yglesias' site makes what is, unfortunately, a very good political point about the current Mary Cheney 'controversy':

But there are a great many people in this country who are neither 100% tolerant of gays nor 100% hateful towards them. Many of them would hold the exact position, incoherent or not, that they'd privately love and accept their child if she turned out to be gay, but would also be embarrassed to talk about it in public.

It's all well and good to denounce this viewpoint as based on bigoted assumptions or whatever. But in relation to present-day American political spectrum, these people are neither strongly pro-gay nor strongly anti-gay. They probably represent the middle of the electorate.

Some of the GOP's rhetoric might make it sound like they're trying to masquerade as gay rights defenders. But the object of that rhetoric is not to drive home a logical point but rather to keep the issue in the news long enough to turn this "mushy middle" against Kerry.

Is the position of this 'mushy middle' stupid? Incoherent? Illogical? Yes, yes and yes. Does the type of person this commenter is describing sound like anyone you know or have met? I would bet the farm that it does. Who cares if it makes ZERO sense? The 'customer' is always right.

A very intelligent artist once observed that Americans, to a singular extent, honor, cherish and even exalt stupidity. We love it and reward it extravagantly, while excellence is often feared and scorned (except in sports). While decrying this, he (an American himself) also allowed that stupidity can be a lot of fun, and even charming - we often call it 'goofiness'. Fairly or not, this election will 'send a signal' (as dubya might say) to the wide world, indicating whether or not we understand that distinction between charming and appalling.

In the words of a Great American Icon: 'Stupid is as stupid does, sir.'

The True Meaning of Democracy

2004-10-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

pic courtesy of fitley
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

'The President does our talking for us, as with most Americans.'

- Former Nixon stooge and current Swift Boat Running Dog John O'Neill, from his 1972 debate with John Kerry.

Break's Over

2004-10-15T11:01:00.000-07:00

My 'rod' shall comfort thee
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Television news is Karl Rove's best and most reliable tool. Most of the time, it's a passive one. The professional idiots on TV will, without much prompting, talk up anything if it's somehow tittilating - 'Where's Chandra?'; Shark Attacks!; the Dean Scream; etc. Sometimes they get an overt nudge from Mr Pudding Pants, as in the case of the Swift Boat Assholes For Filth. The result is always the same: preposterous - sometimes pernicious - distraction. The 'news' - especially cable news - creates the illusion of vibrant, teeming life ('American Morning') so you can passively sit back and pretend to be alive. The 'American Spectator'!

But aside from the current standard-issue Mary Cheney brou-ha - no, we need an even snottier, more WASPy, polo-shirt word for it; how about 'kerfuffle'? - there are actually some liberals out there wringing their hands about Kerry's mention of her in the third debate. Steve Clemmons originally called it 'gratuitous' (although he did backtrack a bit); others have called it a 'low blow'. (Eric Martin explains why this is simply wrong).

Attention liberals (and by 'liberals' I mean anyone to the 'left' of Dwight Eisenhower)! Pop your heads out of your asses! Not only was there nothing wrong with what Kerry said, but - although he was a little awkward, stylistically - it was exactly the right thing to say. Liberals (and by 'liberals' I mean non-reactionaries) lose and lose because we don't have the courage of our convictions, are unwilling to fight for those convictions, and NOT primarily because of what those convictions are. We have an opponent whose goal is to destroy us, while our goal is to beat them at chess. Guess who prevails in that scenario?

The two sides in this matter couldn't be clearer: on the one side, the Federal Marriage Amendment, which seeks - however improbably - to embed religious and sexual bigotry into our constitution; on the other, a belief in equal civil rights for all. Any questions? Will Edwards' and then Kerry's mention of Mary Cheney alert or remind some 'evangelical' bigots out there that Cheney 'tolerates' a gay daughter? Might that suppress their turnout at the polls? LET'S HOPE SO. If that's 'hardball', we need to play a lot more of it.

Let's get down to brass tacks, here. Osama bin-Laden is a bad Muslim. Jimmy Swaggert is a bad Christian. No, we don't have to be 'tolerant' and 'respectful' of their beliefs when they are trying to shove them down everyone else's throats. Jesus himself understood, 2000 years ago, the distinction between Church and State, for christ's sake ('Render unto Caesar...').

This is war, of a sort. The separation of Church and State is about as basic and fundamental an American value as there is. Why are we fighting insane theocracy abroad and equivocating about it here at home? If you believe in Religious War, it makes perfect sense, but not otherwise. Am I suggesting that liberals fight the way Rove does? Yes and no. We need to be as canny and tough as Rove, but we don't need to lie and slander and cheat. The current grotesque incarnation of the Republican party has provided all the ammunition we need, if we will only use it.

Many people putatively of the Right in America despise liberals because we won't fight for what we believe in. They are absolutely right to. If we won't fight hard against what is probably the worst, most dangerous government in our history, we don't deserve to win.

The Shrinking Man

2004-10-14T06:55:00.000-07:00

the vision thing
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

It ain't over 'till it's over, but the prevailing winds are defintely blowing John Kerry's way now. Like millions of other Americans, I was just glad, late last night, to have these 'debates' over with. However, it would be easy to miss the significance of last night: Kerry pretty much put Bush away. Many have pointed to Kerry's looking much more presidential (he did so) and much more, well, adult (on the 'strong women' question, Bush said his wife told him, more/less, to 'sit up straight, wash behind my ears, eat my vegetables'; Kerry good-naturedly said the women in his life kick him around a bit and then invoked his mother admonishing him with the word 'integrity').

But the key moment for me was when Kerry complimented Bush on his post-9/11 speech to congress, saying he was 'moved', Tom Daschle and Bush hugged, etc. Of course Kerry used that to contrast the unity of then with the bitter polarization of now, but he was very wise, even deft, to linger, sincerely, on that compliment. Bush's margin of majority support has always been his 'likability' - it's the chinese-finger-trap of political Dubya: attack him too hard, and many people viscerally object because they kinda like him, or just object to the "hatin'", or just don't like to see any president humilated; handle Bush with kid gloves, however, and he'll roll right over you. Kerry solved that riddle last night, was perfect: Dubya seems like a nice fella, but he's not up to the job (which has the added merit of being true - emphasis on the 'seems'). Some 'punches' aren't felt right away. This was a subtle but devastating one straight to the solar plexus.

Noted schweinhunt Karl Rove has claimed to have a few 'October surprise'-type things in reserve. But it is getting pretty late, and unless he's hiding something earth-shattering beneath his shiny little piglet hooves, it looks like we're going to get a new administration in Washington.

Debate Preview!

2004-10-12T16:01:00.000-07:00

TKOs don't count
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

President Bush will distort and lie and be peeved and repeat the same crap over and over. Kerry will speak English and answer the questions in substantive but still slightly senatorial locutions. Pundits will blab mindlessly and self-importantly; some will 'dot their drawers' in silly-billy excitement. Passive-aggressive 'undecideds' will continue to secretly thrill at being, in a very small way, the center of attention for a change; and, rather than work (ie 'think') at figuring out how they ought to vote, will instead continue to sit mulishly and wait for something to 'happen' to make their minds up for them.

[UPDATE: Hey! I was right! Does that mean I'm now a 'pundit'?]

Courtesan in Chief

2004-10-12T15:28:00.000-07:00

pic courtesy of Fitz
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

No real comment, just thought people would enjoy the pic, which was provided by the pic-master, a certian Fitley who has ALL the good graphics.

Most of the talk in the blogosphere today is about the latest example of crony capitalism (or 'courtesan capitalism') 'poking a nose' into our conciousness, making some of us in the Body Politic get - as Fat Bastard would say - 'all emotional': Sinclair Broadcasting's shameless politicking for their patrons in the White House. If you've missed the controversy somehow (perhaps you busy doing something more directly related to your own life), click on either the 'TPM' or 'Legal Fiction' link on the blogroll on the left for all the pertinent info and links.

By all means, this is a good time to interrupt our consumerist stream-of-semi-conciousness and get some boycott action (actual or threatened) going against companies who do national ad buys on the Sinclair chain (if you actually live in one of Sinclair's markets, make your voice heard by local advertizers). Ad revenues are down all across broadcast as it is, so they're mighty touchy about it. Unfortunately, our FCC is and has been a piece of shit for the last few years, so this is probably the only good way to fight back. Obviously, Sinclair is going for broke here. If there were justice, they would lose their licences after the election, although this is unlikely, even if Kerry wins. Broadcasters in America are granted use of the airwaves as 'public trustees' (that's what the licences actually say). HA.

[UPDATE Still haven't 'hit the links' about Sinclair Broadcasting? Here's one to get you started - it tells you which markets have Sinclair stations. Raise hell!]

Dick's Favorite 'Republic' is a Book

2004-10-07T23:14:00.000-07:00

Dick is at ease on the gyroscopic vehicle
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

In his new column, veteran Washington journalist Richard Reeves makes a good, common sense point about politicians (and other people) and character:

My view of political character is that an honest politician is one who only lies when he has to. In this case [Cheney's claim that he'd never before met Edwards], it was more than not true, it was obviously a deliberate and unnecessary lie. You do not forget meeting people who are after your job. It is not only politicians who lie in predictable situations. We all do, of course. Honesty is almost always a virtue but there are times where all of us to sin, perhaps when someone asks, How do I look?

Quite.

Parsing Cheney in cold print is not the hilarious fun that tweezing Bush's transcript from last Thursday was. Bush is the theatre; Cheney is the brick wall at the back of the theatre behind the drapery and flats. You sometimes can't be absolutely positive that Bush knows he's lying about something (usually, but not always). Cheney, on the other hand, always knows precisely what his lies are, because they are eye-poppingly baroque - he weaves them expertly. Bush is the emotional con, Cheney, the intellectual con. Bush is a dork. Cheney is a prick. A sociopathic marriage made in heaven. One of Ifill's questions during the VP debate was about being 'a heartbeat away'; Cheney's performance that night reminded us that his reptillian character and personality - whether a heartbeat away or in overt power - is one of the most important reasons to vote out the grubby stub-figurehead at the top of the ticket.

Others in the 'sphere and in the press have done a good job unfolding Cheney's many lies and distortions (Kevin Drum is a good place to start), so I'll mention only a few more:

Concern about Iraq specifically focused on the fact that Saddam Hussein had been, for years, listed on the state sponsor of terror, that they he had established relationships with Abu Nidal, who operated out of Baghdad...

Yes, Abu Nidal. The Palestinian terrorist - silent since the early 90s - who was thrown out of Iraq in 1983 (so Saddam could get US support for his war with Iran) and shot dead by either himself or Iraqi authorities in 2002. This is one variation of Cheney's more professorial-sounding version of Bush's ''They' attacked us, Jim!'.

The effort that we've mounted with respect to Iraq focused specifically on the possibility that this was the most likely nexus between the terrorists and weapons of mass destruction.

Cheney: 'The effort we've mounted with respect to Iraq..' Bush: 'It's hard work!'

And get a load of the strange nubbin of honesty in that statement: '..the possibility that this was the most likely nexus..'

Of course, they focused on Iraq because they wanted to; they had a partially-baked Wilsonian plan to remake the Middle East. Bad idea? Not in theory, at least not necessarily. Funny how things go wrong when you are overly secretive and utterly insulated from everybody else. Good thing for Cheney he's not a high official in a democratic government...oh, wait.

(Of course most people know by now that the obvious 'nexus' between terrorists and WMD is Pakistan and Central Asia; not to mention Iran, which is not Iraq).

We've, of course, been through a difficult recession, and then the aftermath of 9/11, where we lost over a million jobs after that attack.

After the tornado, my car ran out of gas.

There's no better antidote to poverty than a good, well-paying job that allows somebody to take care of their own family.

Yeah, Cheney's right. We ought to get rid of the fat dole we have in this country. Cheney the revolutionist: making money is the antidote to poverty.

What he [Bush] said he wanted me to do was to sign on because of my experience to be a member of the team, to help him govern... And I think from the perspective of the nation, it's worked in our relationship, in this administration.

'From the perspective of the nation'? Oh, THAT!

When Dubya was governor of TX, he charmed and was mentored by another powerful, accomplished man named Bob Bullock. Bullock - a nominal Democrat - was the most powerful person in TX state politics for many years, most definitely including his years as Lt. Governor 'under' Bush. The TX Governorship is constitutionally very weak, so Bush did the PR/BS, and Bullock often wrote and always negotiated the passage of legislation.

The main difference with Cheney and Bush is that Cheney clearly chose himself, and maybe even chose Bush. Will to Power and all that. Why be actual president when you can have all the power AND a nice stalking horse to skulk behind?

I think it's worked in part because I made it clear that I don't have any further political aspirations myself. And I think that's been an advantage. I think it allows the president to know that my only agenda is his agenda.

Yes, there's only one agenda, alright.

Nihilists All

2004-10-07T09:24:00.000-07:00

a return to modesty
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

MEANWHILE......as we rubberneck the demolition derby of electoral politics, the 'multi-pronged' reactionary project quietly oozes on. Eric Martin gives us an overview of probably the most nefarious part of the right wing War On Empiricism: the fight to impose 'correct thinking' on Academia. A must read.

(BTW, isn't it great that while we're supposed to be fighting for liberalism and rationality in the world, the same tough 'hawks' are fighting against them here at home?).

Residents of Mars Agree: Cheney Won

2004-10-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

the leader screen
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

A more detailed look at the transcript will follow in the next few days, but just some general impressions about the VP debate for now.

All of these debates are about persuading non-base voters. Who persuaded more leaners or created more leaners? I'd guess that this was close to a tie, but the edge was Edwards'. Cheney is a very tough debater, especially since he has no compunction about lying extravagantly; his 'baffle 'em with yards and wads and gallons of bullshit' technique is very effective on the moment. But Edwards didn't yield much, and I think he capitalized on the opening Kerry created last week; if you were leaning against Bush coming in, you still are, probably more so. For the people who have doubts about Bush but still aren't sure about Kerry, who knows how they reacted to this debate? Could go either way. Net advantage Edwards.

On substance it was no contest at all (terribly naive of me to bring up actual substance; guess I'm just a sap!). The Bush Cheney record is one of patent failure. There are plenty of people in the blogosphere annotating Cheney's distortions and lies as we speak, so I won't go into them here. Edwards held his own and, I suspect, gained ground with people who think there is something fishy about Bush/Cheney. Edwards made a career taking on corporate bald-faced liars like Cheney. Would that the electorate was more like a jury!

Edwards Does Kick Ass

2004-10-05T19:04:00.000-07:00

What piquant, excellent cultural theatre tonight! I can't wait to dig in.

Who's the Boss?

2004-10-05T13:26:00.000-07:00

W interacts with the 'help'
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Known leftist agitator Will Saletan in Slate mockingly disposes of Bush's current stump-'global test'-canard in his most recent column. Actually, he pretty well disposes of Bush altogether, and not for the first time. Some people give Will crap, and I too have done, at times, but credit where it's due: he's been on to the con for a long time.

Proof, intelligence, spy photos. The pattern is obvious. The test isn't moral. It's factual..... [Bush is] not simply failing the test. He's refusing to take it.

Ouchy-ouch-ouch. Saletan strikes.

He defines credibility as agreement with himself. He reinterprets evidence of policy mistakes in postwar Iraq as evidence of success. In Thursday's debate, he dismissed unwelcome reports from that country as too offensive to heed.....Bush claims he has done all this to protect you. But that claim is precisely what's challenged by the evidence he conceals or disregards. ...And he expects you to applaud him for it, because he thinks you resent the French so much you'd rather have a president accountable to no one.

Why are conservative Democrats/moderate Republicans like Saletan getting so 'shrill'? Gee, you'd think the Bush Administration was anti-democratic! THAT couldn't be, though....

My little 'Debate Highlights' post, (below) was so easy to write (I left a lot of stuff out) that I'm sure I could write an entire book of W. Bush exegesis - it's like falling off a log! But, naturally, someone already has done that very well - two books, in fact. Mark Crispin Miller - author of 'The Bush Dyslexicon' - has a newer book called 'Cruel and Unusual'. I would highly recommend it, except that I get chest pains if I read more than a few pages at a time, so I haven't finished it. But I'm as loud a member of the Choir as I can manage, so I'm really missing out on only the chest pains.

Miller assembles many pertinent perfectly in-context Bush quotes. I present a few of them with no comment (other than emphasis) from either me or Miller:

Woodward, Bush At War

"I'm the commander. See, I don't need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."

New Year's Eve 2002:

"You [a reporter] said we're headed into a war with Iraq. I don't know why you say that. I hope we're not headed to war with Iraq. I'm the person who gets to decide, not you."

The day before Inauguration Day 2001:

In 24 hours, I have the highest honor, and that's to become the Commander and Chief of the greatest nation in the world".

Interview in US News '02:

That's the great thing about democracy: occasionally there is a chance for the voters to express their belief or disbelief. I guess that chance will be coming down the road one of these days"

True North - Selected Debate Highlights

2004-10-04T23:36:00.000-07:00

tightly wrapped
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Yes, it's hard. It's not soft, but hard. A president must be forever tumescent, must not DIS-EN-GORGE. That would send mixed messages, the wrong signal. Not to mention the wrong message and mixed signals. Our vital, precious bodily fluids are at stake. It's hard work to stay 'up'. But a president can't wilt.

Before we dive into the comedy, one quick note about Kerry's 'global test' statement of which the constitutionally desperate Bush campaign is trying to make so much. It was clearly the wrong thing to say, politically; the Kerry campaign, too, was making the RNC spot in their heads 30 seconds after Kerry said it. But it's obvious what Kerry meant: 'global test' as in comprehensive test, not 'global' as in 'the world'.

Anyhow... naturally, the debate is much funnier to watch than read, but there's a certain charm in seeing the words of our dear leader ('dear-leader-lite') frozen on the page. Let the strength and firmness begin:

[The following statement is not a cut and paste error, nor has anything been yanked out of context. This is a contiguous Bush statement]

I know how these people think. I deal with them all the time. I sit down with the world leaders frequently and talk to them on the phone frequently. They're not going to follow somebody who says, "This is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time."

I know how these people think. I deal with them all the time. I sit down with the world leaders frequently and talk to them on the phone frequently.

They're not going to follow somebody who says this is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time. They're not going to follow somebody whose core convictions keep changing because of politics in America.

What tha? Bush is doing a remix of himself here! It's phat (and firm). And, of course, since the US government is alienated from much of the rest of the world, you wonder what he means by 'I know how these people think'. Oh well, they are foreigners, so it's good to have a president who knows how 'these people' think. He seems like a worldly guy. And he can call 'em on the phone!

And I'm optimistic. See, I think you can be realistic and optimistic at the same time. I'm optimistic we'll achieve -- I know we won't achieve if we send mixed signals. I know we're not going to achieve our objective if we send mixed signals to our troops, our friends, the Iraqi citizens.

You can 'be optimistic and realistic at the same time'. Yes you CAN be, but that's not to say you MUST be in any given situation. Also, we see here indication of a pattern. Note how he says, 'I'm optimistic we'll achieve - I know we won't achieve..' (hey! are we being optimistic or not?!). For all their posturing about strength and resolve and pro-action, Bush/Cheney '04 is itself sending a strangely negative, passive..well, mixed message: you, the voter, CAN'T vote for Kerry, because then the bad guys will get us! Our country is so vulnerable, our situation is so delicate and precarious that even saying the wrong thing - even thinking it - will cause us to be hit again. Yeeeesss, it's nice and sleek and rigidly, bulbously firm now, but, ai ai ai! don't touch it! DON'T TOUCH IT! DON'T TOUCH IT!........[Sigh]...oKAY, then. We don't want to have an 'accident' and lose our firmness, do we?

The thot plickens:

My opponent just said something amazing. He said Osama bin Laden uses the invasion of Iraq as an excuse to spread hatred for America. Osama bin Laden isn't going to determine how we defend ourselves.

Osama bin Laden doesn't get to decide. The American people decide.

I decided the right action was in Iraq. My opponent calls it a mistake. It wasn't a mistake.

[then, later]

Again, I can't tell you how big a mistake I think that is, to have bilateral talks with North Korea. It's precisely what Kim Jong Il wants.

Ah. We wouldn't want to do 'precisely what Kim Jong Il wants', would we? Clearly, US policy, then, should be 'precisely' the opposite of what Kim wants. In other words, it should be in diametric reaction to Kim. Sounds pretty 'proactive' to me, George. And of course, it's worked great so far.

As to the 'OBL doesn't get to decide' part, Of course it's logically incoherent, but this is still a powerful component of Bush's schtick - that America stays one step ahead of the terrorists by being aggressive. But at the same time, it's a fatally weak spot for him. If OBL or Kim Jong Il or anybody else is trying to 'psyche us out' ('It's precisely what Kim Jong Il wants'), you have to be one step ahead of them in THAT department, too, rather than simply talking/acting tough or refusing to talk. To be unaware that a mishandled invasion of Iraq could possibly abet al-Queda - to be generally unaware of the obvious dynamics in play in this war on militant Islamism - is to surrender much (to put it mildly) to the enemy. Ya see, Jim, I believe you can be not-a-fucking-dipshit and strong at the same time!.

And on it goes:

You know, I think about Missy Johnson. She's a fantastic lady I met in Charlotte, North Carolina. She and her son Bryan, they came to see me. Her husband PJ got killed. He'd been in Afghanistan, went to Iraq.

You know, it's hard work to try to love her as best as I can, knowing full well that the decision I made caused her loved one to be in harm's way.

No, it caused her loved one (her husband, and the father of Bryan) to be killed, not in 'harm's way'.

I told her after we prayed and teared up and laughed some that I thought her husband's sacrifice was noble and worthy. Because I understand the stakes of this war on terror. I understand that we must find Al Qaida wherever they hide.

We laughed! We cried! (well, I only 'teared up' 'cause I'm a strong leader). What a guy I am! See how I am? I gave..what's her name? Missy Johnson..some of my precious time. I'm compassionate yet strong.

KERRY: It's one thing to be certain, but you can be certain and be wrong. ..........

LEHRER: Thirty seconds.

BUSH: Well, I think -- listen, I fully agree that one should shift tactics, and we will, in Iraq.

We will? Wow, THAT's good to know. Don't let the world know, though. Bad signal. Bad message, if you will. Oh, and Novak? That's just a newspaper article. There are a lotta news articles, Jim.

Our commanders have got all the flexibility to do what is necessary to succeed.

..other than having enough troops to establish security practically anywhere in Iraq or even to do basic border monitoring. Gotcha. Good to know they have flexibility. Good to hear you're not one a' them 'micro-managers', except for Fallujah.

But what I won't do is change my core values because of politics or because of pressure.

Can anybody figure out what those 'core values' actually are? Looking at his total record, I can't for the life of me do it. What I get is, roughly: 'Freedom is good. Jesus is good. Firm. On the offensive. Trust me'. I hate like damn to bring him into the discussion, but...Slim Pickens.

And it is one of the things I've learned in the White House, is that there's enormous pressure on the president, and he cannot wilt under that pressure. Otherwise, the world won't be better off.

Wait a minute! Wha...you mean you're the President?! By god you ARE the president! Great to hear what you've learned while you've been away, being president. Thanks for checkin' in with us. Must be a lot of pressure in that job, eh? Important to keep your pecker up in that kind of environment, huh? Yeeeah, boy.

I've got a good relation with Vladimir. And it's important that we do have a good relation, because that enables me to better comment to him, and to better to discuss with him, some of the decisions he makes. I found that, in this world, that it's important to establish good personal relationships with people so that when you have disagreements, you're able to disagree in a way that is effective.

Who decides? Vladimir and Ariel, or America?! er.... Of course Bush is right about Russia. Even (or especially) a bully knows that you don't fuck with somebody big. Too scary. Unpredictable.

[from Bush's closing statement]

The next four years we will continue to strengthen our homeland defenses. We will strengthen our intelligence-gathering services. We will reform our military. The military will be an all-volunteer army.

Oh, you mean there will be no draft? There's something creepy about a leader answering a question before it has quite been asked. So, that could be an actual lie (as opposed to simply over-promising).

We've done a lot of hard work together over the last three and a half years. We've been challenged, and we've risen to those challenges. We've climbed the mighty mountain. I see the valley below, and it's a valley of peace.

My Rod and my Staff shall comfort thee. The ol' tallywacker points straight, due, true north. Never fails.

The Con Cracks a Little

2004-10-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

The Bush 43 Administration has, in large part, been about pushing envelopes. It is actually part of their political strength, I think; aside from the tactical advantage of the blitzkrieg, it also appeals to people's natural 'Fuck it! Let's just get on with it!' instincts. But, every strength can be a weakness, as Rovie knows all too well. One of Rove/Bush's 'tolerence experiments' is to test the limits of how close to exclusively you can rely on the 'automatic gravitas' you're afforded just because you are the president, sort of an 'I dare you' strategy. All or nothing. Bush's spinners and the press forge euphemisms like 'not the most articulate' and 'plain-speaking' to elide the fact that this is a guy who clearly, obviously, has no business being president. He hides in plain sight, sort of a converse 'Bullworth'. In these more formal occasions, Bush reminds us that - as he might say himself - what you see really is what you get; presidential trappings aside, Bush is exactly as he seems: peevish, ignorant, impatient, jive.

These days, you learn the RNC's talking points almost by osmosis! They certainly understand the 'multiple, reinforcing impressions' marketing technique. A big one is a variation on a theme: Bush was on the defensive last night because it was all about his record and not about Kerry's Senate record. Bush himself worked Kerry's Senate record into one of his responses. What they mean is that a Senate voting record is relatively easy to spin and distort, so they're pissed that they didn't get the openings from Lehrer they expected - the sort of opening to which they've become accustomed. Kerry's Senate voting record is actually pretty good, and not particularly doctrinaire. And of course, the point is: Kerry's not running for the Senate. They seem to want Kerry to run on his Senate votes, but complain about the fact that Bush has to run on his record as president. Let's play Twister! Sorry Charlie. (I wish I could add sound effects to this blog!)

Speaking of which, I was glad to hear Lehrer ask mostly substantive questions, with a minimum of 'perception as reality' cable news crap.

When I have time, I'm going to go over the transcript for Bush Gems (there were many), but two come to mind immediately:

[irritable voice] "I know how the world works!"

(once I regain my composure and dry my eyes, I'll type the other one.................hmmm, whew! OK)

[irritable, peevish voice] "I know that Osama bin-Laden attacked us! I know that!

...ahh, laughter is so good for the soul.

Americans All

2004-09-30T12:34:00.000-07:00

dancing about architecture
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Not much to say about the 'debate' tonight. Not that that will stop the 'nattering nabobs' of teevee land all day today. I can't bear to watch any of it; because of another comittment, I can't even watch the actual debate in real-time, which is unusual for me, but..actually, it's fine.

All I can say is that I hope Jim Leher takes good care to craft his questions, hone them down to essentials - doesn't 'wing it' like he does sometimes on his own show. I'm not holding my breath on that, but also don't expect total disaster. What IS the proper way to frame the question about Iraq? Loyal republican Diane Sawer put it to Kerry in the usual, less than meaningful way: 'Given the same situation, would you have gone into Iraq?'. She wants a 'yes or no' answer to a non-yes-or-no question. I would frame the whole issue differently.

I am as fervently anti-Bush as I can be. I've supported and volunteered for both Edwards and Kerry now. I think Mr Bush is easily the worst president of the 20th century. HOWEVER, if I had to choose between a.) the debacle of this president's foreign policy performance, especially in Iraq, and b.) a successful prosecution/administration of the Iraq war, leading to huge popularity and easy re-election for Bush, I would not hesitate to choose the latter. Much as I despise the ethos of Ashcroft, Cheney, Bush and the rest, I'd rather have them in for another term than have the disaster we have now in the Arab world. And I think a whole lot of Democratic voters would agree. I even think that, privately, quite a few Democratic officeholders would agree. Some of us see a limit to partisanship, or as McCain famously said: 'Not everything is politics, George'.

[Poor Hitchens. Frantic wishful thinking. 'Round the bend, I'm afraid.]

Let's hope Kerry gets it right.

Duty, Honor, Loyalty, Discipline.............country

2004-09-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

some guy named Alex
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

In one of the new 'Swift Boat' ads, one of the guys says: 'He [Kerry] betrayed us then; how can I be loyal to him now?'. There are a few interesting things about that rhetorical question. One is the debatable idea that it's his choice whether or not to be generally loyal to whoever the president happens to be ( the treasonable idea which was very popular vis a vis Clinton). The other is the fact that this guy was - probably briefly - a temporary soldier, but is a permanent citizen: loyalty is due to the country, not to a particular president. Civics 101, dumb-ass.

There can be something tacitly gay about military life for some people. I don't mean sexually gay (necessarily), but it clearly fills an emotional need in some people, even after they 'get out': the total dominance, the total submission, the rigid hierarchy, the existential thrill and terror, the bonding. This need to offer total submission to personal loyalty runs very deep in some people. A guy like Mr Swift Boat wants to 'give his all' to a romantic figure - his man on horseback - but he must withhold his virtue, his heart, from the wrong guy (Kerry). It's not about the country, it's about the guy.

In one of his old essays, Gore Vidal (who was born at West Point) points out that the slogan 'Duty, Honor, Country' has the words in the wrong order. This is an essential schism in this election. The Swift Boat guys are not just yahoos; they really exemplify a fundamental point of view, which is also the essential Bush/Cheney '04 point of view. Are we a nation of Men or a nation of Laws? Are we free citizens or 'soldiers'?

[UPDATE: I realise I'm sailing a little close to the wind with this post, but there is a method to my madness, even if I'm not very good at implementing it. I'm trying to consistantly use the RNC campaign against itself. THEY brought up gay rights; THEY brought up 'girlymen'; THEY pimp foolish old veterans. The key to understanding them is to realize that everything they accuse their opponents of is precisely what THEY are guilty of: they're not just hypocrites, but perfect hypocrites.

I am absolutely NOT disrespecting anyone in the military in this post. But - although the track record doesn't look so good at the moment - it must be remembered that the military in this country is under civilian control. Mr Swiftie's attitude is like the sailors' who refused to salute Bill Clinton when he was president. They should've been put in the brig in nanoseconds. I am FED UP with fake patriots who don't understand their own form of government attacking others. People like these Swifties, people like Cheney and Ashcroft are the REAL sissies and 'weak reeds'. They don't have the guts to fight for truth, justice and the American Way (if I may be allowed to quote the legend of 'Superman').

And besides, why is it that the Spartans insisted on their soldiers being lovers with each other to foster unit cohesion, and the US military will discharge gay people, also for the sake of unit cohesion? I'm not gay nor do I have a particular ax to grind about this issue, but it and the aforementioned 'hot water' it got Clinton into are all of a piece: I am sick sick sick of the grotesque hypocrisy oozing out of every pore of the current Right wing, fouling everything up for everybody. They are wrecking the country - MY country - and also doing their best to mess up other parts of the world. Grrr. In fact, I could entitle every post I write about the RNC 'Grotesque Hypocricy'.....that would be boring, but accurate.

And, yes, I cited the 'omni-sexual' Gore Vidal absolutely on-purpose.]

[UPDATE 2: Commenter TEd clairifies my point for me with this:

the link of D/s to the military is cute, and it's been done before, but the reasons for entering into the relationship are very, very different. In one, you submit to survive. In the other, you submit because you want to.

Exactly. Mr Swiftie and the millions of others of like mind are civilians; they are choosing the military mindset: the B/C '04 strategy in a nutshell. Thanks Ted.

Our Lee Greenwood is Better Than Theirs

2004-09-22T20:47:00.000-07:00

ferret in pants
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Funny how the subconscious mind can have a perverse sense of humor. We often see it in our dreams - visual puns, word play. I am particularly subject to the intercranial playback - in ultra-Hi-Fi - of random songs which pun or leap from the stuff of the day. Somebody said the word 'Diamond' at some point, and then I went out on my porch to enjoy the beautiful....yes, 'September Morn'. Suddenly the rivers of unrendered schmaltz started to flow, and Neil Diamond's faux-rasp voice filled my head. Yes, two lovers playing scenes from......some romantic play. Ack, all the crap 'ballads' of the last 25 years: the disease which keeps on giving. Funny how that kind of obvious, humorless crap ('I'll be your knight in shining armor') really took off in the 80s. Hmmmm... 'It's Morning Again in America...we danced until the night became a brand new day.

And speaking of earnest humorlessness, there was the Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam thing today. Aside from the insulting idiocy of keeping this guy out of the country, it also prompted an involuntary review - in my head - of his greatest hits. Before the slick cynical goo of the 80s, was the 'sensitive' singer-songwriter tra-la-la thing of the late 60s and 70s (quick: what rhymes with 'legal tender'?......ICE CREAM VENDOR!). I wonder which I don't not dislike more?

And, BTW - as Jon Stewart just pointed out - what is the point of discovering someone on a 'watch-list' when they're already airborne? And furthermore, does Tom Ridge give one damn about Salman Rushdie and his fatwa? I doubt it. Cat Stevens is going to come to America (hey! 'He's comin' to America®') and coordinate terror. Riiight.

[UPDATE: As Eric points out in the comments, Diamond is a strong and substantial Kerry supporter. So, I like him now. It was completely artificial to compare the Cat Stevens' hits with Diamonds'. Unlike Georgiou/Stevens/Islam, Diamond is kind of an 'icon' - he decided sometime in the 70s-80s to go the 'Icon Route' (that's what it's called in showbiz) - the scarves, the sequins, the gigantic, 'Armageddon-Beat' ballads, etc. etc.. Eric also points out that Diamond is sometimes so bad he's good - the kitch factor. I guess so. ]

Finding Your Inner 12-Year-Old

2004-09-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

kid colour
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

This election seems to hinge on what 'strength' means. Does it mean strong like an adult or strong in the conception of a 12 year old boy? The choice is yours America!

Josh Marshall sniffs the whiff of a trial balloon (filled with god knows what) laboriously hauled out and heaved into the sky by Robert Novak:

Inside the Bush administration policymaking apparatus, there is strong feeling that U.S. troops must leave Iraq next year. This determination is not predicated on success in implanting Iraqi democracy and internal stability. Rather, the officials are saying: Ready or not, here we go.

[To get the full effect, you need to enter Novak's parallel universe and read the whole column]

This is kind of a big deal, actually. Quite the gamble for the Bushies, in a way. Josh mentions the two campaign messages, one for thoughtful conservatives and one for the 'hands over the eyes' supporters, but....the twain surely meet, don't they?

[Another interesting note is the idea that the Bush 'administration' sees an Iraq in civil war as preferable to one with Saddam in charge! (Really, go read the column). Now THAT is one for the record books! 'It's all part of the plan, grasshoppah'! That is beyond mere 'spin' - it's rhetorical vertigo!]

I guess the upshot is: if the second Bush administration pulls out of Iraq peremptorily, it'll be because they're strong and resolute; if the Kerry administration does it, it's because...well, frankly, they're "fags", 'girlymen'. Who do you want in the WH in this age of 'terra'? Girlymen or Machos?

Brang on de Denial, Part 1a

2004-09-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

Following is an excerpt from a blog you should read called A Family in Baghdad

The context is provided by Helen Cobban in her post 'Life Under Occupation'

'Fools and Criminals'

The driver told me yesterday that before he came to take me to work, he took his sister to Al-Nu'mman Hospital in Adamiyah because she was ill. The Emergency ward was filled by Iraqi Police corpses, dead and wounded… some criminals drove to Antar Square in Adamiyah in the early morning, got out of their cars, and shot the Iraqi Police Patrol with automatic weapons, filling the street with bloody bodies, then ran away….
One day before that, there were attacks on police patrols in Baghdad and other cities, there was a large number of victims… and today, while we were at the shop, we heard the blow of a nearby explosion, which turned out later to be an attack against a police patrol by the Rowad Restaurant in Mansour… a crowded shopping area.
And then I read in the newspaper today that Bush promises to make Iraq an example in fighting terrorism, not an example to adopt terrorism in the Middle East.
I smile as I look upon this beautiful example, and how it is being created and formed, with plenty of wisdom, and the least possible minimum of damage to lives and property… GOD only knows when this example will be accomplished, and how many casualties will be paid for that.
I do not know.
The equation still goes between fools and criminals, who are disfiguring the world… and each thinks himself right. Each speaks sometimes in the name of GOD, rightness, and justice.
And there is a foolish American woman who writes to me from time to time, asking me: What have you done to help Iraqis? Why do you speak about the bad things, and not mention the good ones??
She is a supporter of Bush, and the Fox Channel…
I answer her quietly, and in contempt: Read my articles again, and you shall see that I talk about how much effort we spend to rebuild Iraq, and help the Iraqis. But I forgot to tell her that, as usual, if I have seen some good things, I would have told you, because I am more eager than you are for them.

Gosh, it sounds like them Iraqis are human beings or something. My, my.

Interesting to note the PR effort by the lady junior-wolverine FOX News wannabe. Funny that Faiza (the Iraqi blogstress) doesn't quite 'get it'; why don't these pesky Iraqis understand? As the great American philosopher Fernando said: 'it's better to look good than feel good'.

Let the Denial Begin

2004-09-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

rumsfeld_saddam
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Aaron Brown and Sen. Evan Bayh last night on 'Newsnight':

BROWN: But I wonder why it is that Iraqis, who, after all, we did liberate from a truly reprehensible government, why Iraqis are not more supportive, are not more helpful, are not more willing to fight for their country. It doesn't seem to me they're doing a very good job of it.

BAYH: Well, this is an example of no good deed going unpunished, isn't it?

We were temporarily welcomed as liberators, but that seemed to last for the blink of an eye. And it's irrational to my way of thinking, Aaron, and I'm sure to the American people, here, where we're spilling our blood, we're spending our treasure on behalf of the people of Iraq, but there doesn't seem to be that much gratitude.

This is reprehensible, despicable crap. Let's review, shall we?

The United States Government has been cruelly diddling the people of Iraq for 30+ years - the way a cat 'plays with' its dead or dying prey. First, it cynically 'tilted' towards Saddam in the pointless blood-lust exercise known as the Iran/Iraq war, sending him weapons and support. Then, we invaded Iraq and Kuwait, killing tens of thousands of hapless conscripts along the 'train of death' or whatever it was called. Then, we left Saddam in power, allowing him to psyche 'Stormin' Norman' out with a bad truce, including, among other things, allowing Saddam to keep his helicopters. Then, after urging the Kurds and Shia to rise up against Saddam, we did nothing to help them when they did, and Saddam used those same helicopters to slaughter thousands more (some Kurds on the killing fields said they could see US jets high in the sky observing the carnage). Then, 12 years of crippling sanctions, which - although they were improved over time - still resulted in many thousands of deaths of ordinary Iraqis, and the hollowing out of the country's infrastructure - a formally advanced country reduced to a shell . THEN, we invaded the country again, removing the government, such as it was, but having nothing to put in its place. The Americans sat behind their lines and, again, watched while what was left of the country devolved into utter chaos and lawlessness (Rumsfeld had the gall to call it 'untidiness'), and it went on month after month after month. No security, no plan. America 'transitioned' Iraq from a Stalinist, authoritarian state to no-State-at-all.

'Gratitude'!? SHAME.

Dick Cheney - The Official Shit-heel of the United States Government

2004-09-15T19:21:00.000-07:00

montage courtesy of atrios
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

It's hard to be surprised at anything Cheney says anymore. I thought his recent highly parse-worthy 'vote for us or else' statement was incredibly bad, but this one - utterly tasteless, callous, reptillian - takes the cake, so far; you can't parse it to mean anything other than what is apparent:

"I think some have hoped that if they kept their heads down and stayed out of the line of fire, they wouldn't get hit. I think what happened in Russia now demonstrates pretty conclusively that everybody is a target. That Russia, of course, didn't support us in Iraq, they didn't get involved in sending troops there, they've gotten hit anyway."

It leads me to wonder what Bush would do, if elected, when Cheney blows an o-ring and finally buys the farm; who would replace Dick? Let's see...someone moderate, uncontroversial...someone both parties could agree on...hmmm...I know! If he loses his Senate race, Tom Coburn would be available!

[UPDATE My conscience is telling me that this post is as lizardish as is Cheney himself. I wouldn't laugh, sneer or cheer if Mr Cheney had a fatal heart attack. I, frankly, have been kind of amazed at how routine and unremarkable late night-comedian 'heart attack' jokes about him have been. However, Cheney is not an ordinary person. He's a shockingly powerful one; he makes a decision and other people - often lots of other people - die. In the case of both Bush and Cheney, we're dealing with scary pathologies: lack of conscience, lack of empathy. As actors, I have nothing but contempt for them. As human beings, I don't presume to have them in my 'portfolio'.]

Draft the Bigmouths

2004-09-10T23:48:00.000-07:00

I want YOU
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Iraq is a mess. The next president, whoever it is, will be looking for ways to get out. (Don't think so? I've got a plan for you below, then). Even if we collectively pretend that our slinking away is actually 'peace with honor' or something, we will have to get out sooner than we had planned, perhaps much sooner. If it's Bush, he will simply deny that it's happening, or blame democrats somehow, and (probably) avoid blame or responsibility - as always. The Bush MO: trash the place and walk (or strut) away; let someone else clean it up - and then blame them). On the other hand, the jackals of the seething right are already - via the blogosphere, pissed-off radio, etc. - predicting that a president Kerry will 'cut and run' in Iraq, and therefore in the war on terror (and we all know they are synonymous, don't we?). Kerry will get the blame for the catastrophe Bush has created. (Actually, democrats and any other antis will get the blame whoever wins the election, but that's another story).

So, in an attempt to avoid the United States' becoming a one-party state, I propose the following: reinstate the military draft - but make it a voluntary draft. Here's how it would work.

- Since young men still have to register for the draft, we already have a national registry of draft-age men. Women should have to register, too.

- Every draft-age person would have to report to their local draft board and sign one of two affidavits. If they think 'staying the course' in Iraq is essential to our liberty, they would sign one affidavit saying so, and they would be inducted for active duty in Iraq. If they don't think it's such a good idea, they sign the other affidavit saying so, and they wouldn't have to go. (If somebody who signed the first affidavit has a medical problem which disqualifies them from being a soldier, they could do something else, like be on kitchen duty outside Fallujah, or some other support task. Having more US military personnel perform support tasks would save money, due to the much lower salaries and benefits paid to them as compared to contractors.)

-The database with everybody's name and which affidavit they signed would be public and available on the internet.

- Since president Bush has such strong and vociferous support throughout the country, this voluntary draft should yield millions of young men and women eager to fight and die in the Persian Gulf for freedom. They would, further, be available for future wars in the Arab World and beyond.

That's it. There would be NO deferments of any kind, but at the same time nobody would be forced to go; everybody would be forced only to make a public statement.

Perhaps in this way we could alleviate the epidemic of 'Bush Doctrine' - or 'Bush Doctrinaires' - in this country (The Real Bush Doctrine: George W. led by example, unambiguously supported the war in Vietnam, but avoided serving in it himself; we don't know how Cheney felt - he had other priorities - but I rather doubt he was protesting in the streets). I imagine it would focus a lot of minds - as it did in the Vietnam era - to have the personal, physical asses associated with those minds on the line. I would expect everybody at NewsMax, the RNC, et. al. (or their sons and daughters or grandchildren) to sign up for service in a flash.

Outsourced Nation, PT 2 - the Co-Dependent Variation

2004-09-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

stern father
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Charles Pierce writes in the American Prospect:

[White House Chief of Staff Andy Card] attempted to explain how the president feels about the 200 million-odd souls who are, after all, his employers:

"It struck me as I was speaking to people in Bangor, Maine, that this president sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child. I know as a parent I would sacrifice all for my children."
.........

I wish it hadn't been Andy Card who gave us this peek behind the curtain, because I know him to be a sensible, decent person who wouldn't have mouthed this lunacy unless he really meant it. If it had come from one of the wolverines in Karl Rove's shop, it wouldn't have been half as frightening. Nevertheless, what Card said perfectly encapsulates this administration's approach to governance -- its fundamental contempt for democratic restraints and its hubristic insolence toward any limits on its political appetites. Our president is our Daddy. He will make his wars to keep us safe, and all we have to do is love him back, and do what he tells us to do. Go shopping. Go on happy vacations. Leave the decisions to Daddy and to Daddy's friends. They run things so we don't have to.

During the convention, I know some people were scratching their heads about ol' Zell bringing up Wendell Wilkie v FDR in his speech, but I think it's all part of the uber-script. Not only does the GOP want to undo FDR, but they simultaniously want us to emotionally, substitute Bush for FDR! Cop that 'paternal feeling'. Of course, FDR actually did calm and reassure people as time went on - but the Bushies approach their job not as a matter of actual governance or leadership, but rather as one of pitching a 'high-concept' idea for a prime-time Television Event. If you think of it that way, it makes a very cheesy, Hollywood kind of sense. Their idea of leadership is to encourage people to blend TV/movie fantasy with reality. And why not? This sort of thing has been 'green-lighted' before.

Did I mention I despise these people?

Out of the Mouths of 'Babes'

2004-09-08T13:57:00.000-07:00

A treasured memory from my days working in the radio business involved the owner of a mini-golf complex insisting on - as did many clients - writing his own advertising copy. Pacing around my studio like a caged...er...mini-golfer, he fretted that the copy we'd written - while good - just didn't have the oomph, the sizzle, the jazz, the pizzaz, the etc. As he left, he promised to think about it and let me know what he came up with. About two hours later, he called: 'I've got it! It's great-great-great! You're gonna love it! Here it is, and drumroll please: "Bud's Mini Golf: An Alternative to Something to Do"

I tried not to sound underwhelmed, and said something like 'Um, but - heh - er, don't you mean to say...?' But he wasn't having any of it. It was pure tag-line genius. Cut and Print! And it went right into the spot. And I preceded to laugh about it for the next few days. The guy had unwittingly summed up the true nature of mini golf in an epigram! It really is an alternative to something to do! Not that that description is limited to mini-golf, but still, it does catch the essence.

Reading Eric's - over at Total Information Awareness - understandable-but-hopeless attempt today to ascribe rationality to the Bush Administration's seeming disinterest in fighting al-Qaeda here in the US, brought to mind these words of wisdom from Britney Spears:

"I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens."

Cheap shot quoting Britney from 2002? Not really. This is the essence of B/C '04's message. Cheney, with his 'vote for us or else' statement in Des Moines, and 'ol Zell, with his 'it's unpatriotic to run against Bush' assertion at the RNC convention are saying the same thing, basically. Did Britney actually mean to say 'Be faithful that everything will turn out alright'? Probably. But what she actually said is perfectly descriptive of the message from the president's re-elect campaign: be faithful in what happens.

Too Bad

2004-09-08T12:30:00.000-07:00

"Douglas Feith...didn't want competence; he wanted fervor. Col. Pat Lang, a Middle East expert who served under five presidents, Republican and Democratic, in key posts in military intelligence, recalls being considered for a job at the Pentagon. During the job interview, Feith scanned Lang's impressive resume. "I see you speak Arabic," Feith said. When Lang nodded, Feith said, "Too bad," and dismissed him."

(Whole article in Rolling Stone)

I don't have any comment on this (is any really necessary?). Just a good excuse to remind or exhort anyone coming across this blog to keep up with Laura Rozen's excellent coverage of our fabulous Pentagon over at War and Piece.

Outsourced Nation

2004-09-02T20:20:00.000-07:00

Watching our fraud of a president make his speech tonight, one of those things which is so obvious you don't see it, finally dawned on me. I've been wracking my brain, trying to understand how an appreciable number of American voters could support someone for re-election who has never - either in life or his presidency - taken responsibility for anything he's ever said or done, from his youthful shirking, to his political shamelessness, to his utter incompetence as an administrator. Elsewhere, I've referred to his bulwark of support as a 'nation of enablers', who reflexively dream up excuses for his each and every error and failure, no matter how bad. Because there are so many of those, the question keeps coming back and back. Tonight, it finally struck me.

These people don't themselves want to be responsible for their own government, their own democracy. To them, politics and public policy are either for specialists or are simply teevee entertainment. Civic virtue is a quaint and outmoded concept. The distinction between 'citizen' and 'consumer' is pretty much gone. Government is now, as it were, outsourced: "don't bother me with the details; I don't want to know and shouldn't have to know. Hire some guys to take care of it all and just leave me alone while I work on my 'lifestyle'".

So perhaps Bush is not a total fraud. Obviously, the GOP knows exactly what it's doing. But don't call them 'smart'. They may be clever, but any fool can be clever. They 'cleverly' manage to embody the worst of oligarchy wrapped in the worst of democracy. They dare to piss away a fragile and precious anomaly - an enlightened, rationalist approach to government.

It's said that America gets the government it deserves. That's not precisely true, due to some barnacles clinging to our constitution, e.g. the way the Senate represents, the Electoral 'College'.... But broadly speaking, it IS true. We may get a new president in November. But if we actually choose Bush, there won't be any blaming the SCOTUS or anybody else this time; and, although I hate to say it, we will be diminished in the eyes of the world for a long time.

Gosh, look at all the Negroes

2004-08-31T21:18:00.000-07:00

spiro
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

As a video editor, let me let you in on a little secret (if you don't know it already). The best way to watch tv - most especially commercials (or RNC conventions) - is to watch with the sound off. Whether it's live tv or a post-production-type item, watching with the sound off lets you understand the real, underlying logic and narrative of the piece (in other words, the visual logic), whatever it is (try it! Mute a commercial break and watch carefully; you will discover a much more focused storyline. It's how editors usually work: sound off or sound-ignored). Every shot is a choice - and, as I say, this can be true even with live tv, if it's elaborately staged.

Now that overt racism is only marginally useful to the modern Republican party, they have enlisted every black person they could find: to be in crowd shots; to be creepy pseudo-reporters; of course to be at the dais - you name it. EVERY OTHER SHOT TONIGHT - on average - has been a black face. It's official! Black folks are now officially welcome to disdain poor or semi-poor people (including themselves, if applicable), and are further welcomed - by the GOP itself - to be bamboozled by the razor-thin hope of getting rich, just like everybody else. From the 'B roll' of tonight's convention, the message clear: we're all equal in the ability to get screwed the same. No more pitting poor white or brown folks against poor black folks (unless it's momentarily 'handy' later). What a long way we've come!

[UPDATE: Obviously, my pointing out the GOP's cheap spotlighting of the few people of color at their convention is hardly a novel insight (and, as I hope I made clear, race itself is not the issue; nauseating as the metaphor is, race has always indeed been a mere 'card' for most politicians, Republicans most recently). However, it's precisely because their presentation is so obviously shallow again this time that I felt compelled to comment. Even notwithstanding the moronically slow pace of our country's political development - literally 'retarded', and totally on-purpose - this is 2004 after all. You'd think they could come up with something better. I guess the vaunted racial and ethnic 'outreach' program hasn't worked out all that well....]

The Gender Gap Isn't About Gender

2004-08-31T12:42:00.000-07:00

(Just in case it's not obvious enough, the person on the left has a..er...large adam's apple...)

hi_girls!
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Why has the US - salient among democracies - never had a female president or other major elected political leader? There must be many reasons, some of which may have to do with choices of American women themselves (and it begs the question, 'Why, particularly in today's degraded national politics, would anyone want to volunteer for such a terrible life?' The quality of ALL candidates for national office has been on a clear downward path anyway for decades). But I think the correct answer is that women only really started to go - en masse - for elective office in the last 25 years or so, and it takes some time to build up to the higher levels. We will have a female president, VP, Speaker, Majority Leader, etc. one of these days. And unlike some, I don't think gender will matter very much. It depends on who it is, the times she's in, etc. The idea some women (and probably some men) half-harbor that electing women to high office will greatly improve or even 'save' the country is really kind of silly - to re-title a recent movie: 'Chauvinism, Actually'. President Schlafly, anyone? Or how about that other pro wrestler...what's her name? 'Chynna'?

But the more interesting question is: what is the cause of some men's (and plenty of women's) abiding, visceral negative reaction to the very idea of being led by a woman? I'm going to try to leave aside all of the 'personal is political' stuff for now and just focus on politics per se - I don't have the time for a huge essay on 'local' sexual politics, ie relationships, marriage, etc. It's too easy to be reductive when you're dealing with so basic a thing as sex. So let's stick with things which are observable.

So, what is the reason for this resistance? I was never a fan of Hillary Clinton, but also have never found her to be viscerally threatening, a la the fierce reaction against her from conservative circles (baking cookies, etc). The reasons women sometimes mistrust other women are also beyond the scope of this post; the reasons men do is what interests me here. Why is it? You know the answer. 'Women are 'emotional' and 'romantic'. You can't have a woman who is at 'that time of the month' with her finger on the Big Red Button' etc. That's what guys said during the Cold War, anyway. But is that really right? The fact is, men - particularly middle-aged men - are subject to physiological vagaries, too; and at least with women, those vagaries are predictable, or at least acknowledged; whereas many men - particularly men with inflated egos - are loath to admit any physiologically-based error at all, even if it's obvious to everyone outside of their own heads ('oh honey, you always get this way when you're tired').

It bears repeating periodically that it is and has always been men who are the true romantics. Men invented Romance. Of course, like so much else, romance is a great gift as well as a great curse. Romance is pure creativity and imagination. But it's also self-absorbtion and cruelty (love is about the person loved; romantic love is about the romancer himself). Any fool can tell you that women tend to be much more practical and detail-oriented about love - and about many other, non-abstract things - than men. Biology really is destiny, like it or not.

Listening to as much of the speechifying at last night's GOP convention as I could bear - particularly that of the shameless and deeply mediocre little prick Giuliani - I was struck by the fact that the modern Republican Party is now the party of emotionalism and wild romanticism (name me someone of either sex more romantic than Paul Wolfowitz). It seduces people to the idea that details don't matter, that all you need is the right heart, the right Big Idea, and the details about how it's affected will take care of themselves - always 'eventually' or 'in the long run'. Thank god there is a plurality of women out there who are a little more clear-headed. They may make the difference in this election.

But of course, everyone who keeps their nerve will, I hope, make the difference in this election. As the Bush administration (among many others) have shown, imagination, daring-do and 'gut' instinct aren't sufficient. But on the other hand a strictly technocratic, humorless, unimaginative culture is not only extremely boring, it probably leads to one kind of gulag or another (or at the very least, utter stagnation). Men and women both have both instincts! I always thought that was the original point of Feminism ('Equity Feminism', anyway). Whether in an Arab country or in this one, deny - in some fundamental way - a basic part of your humanity, and you are asking for big trouble.

This national decision really isn't about left vs right, women vs men or any other simplistic binary choice. As I and others have pointed out, there is no real, singular polarization in this country. Polarization is a fiction stumbled into by both our decadent political parties - but relentlessly stoked by the mainstream right wing for 35+ years. National identity, like sexual identity, is only worried over, fretted over, when that identity is in question or doubt. Insecurity always plays a defense which pretends to be offense. For god's sake, let's keep our heads here. Overheated jingoism is the worst kind of pie-in-the-sky, idiotic, emotionalist romanticism. Like the aforementioned egoist man who can't see what is obvious to everyone outside his own head, Madison Square Garden is, this week, the hard bone isolating and protecting a squirming, deluded, vaporously romantic mind - willfully oblivious to the messy reality without.

It's The Ineptitude, Stupid

2004-08-27T12:33:00.000-07:00

It really is and always was.

Unser Kampf

2004-08-25T15:31:00.000-07:00

The idea of the 'False Moral Equivalence' really got into the pedestrian world of political 'talking points' when Noam Chomsky equated the bombing of the chemical plant in Sudan to the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. While that was indeed a perfect example of a FME, the charge (along with 'moral relativism') has since been leveled more or less reflexively; compare in any way the tactics of the Mayberry Machiavellis to any other winning-is-everything politician (including Hitler or Lenin), and you are facilely accused of one of the two things almost instantaneously - as if you were a dog getting its nose spanked. Hence, we learn caution: positing a False Moral Equivalence is repugnant and dangerous because a.) it trivializes the worse of the two things, and b.) it effectively dismisses what is, in absolute terms, a lesser evil, but an evil nontheless. But old Trotskyites/New Neocons have not stayed so attuned to the Dialectic as they flatter themselves. They offer, rather, a glittering, multi-faceted, closed-system: a sophistry.

The vulgar, reductive, 'talking points' version of the dialectic (including the 'materialist' kind) is really only an aspect, extrapolated onto the entire way of thinking, viz: a single murder and a genocide are both killing, but the genocide is killing on such a scale that it becomes something quite different qualitatively. But real dialectical thinking is not only about the transformations between quantity and quality: it's also about eternal motion, eternal mutability - in other words, context, with a capital 'C' (well, alright: 'Context').

The political techniques of Karl Rove, his Master Lee Atwater, and both George Bushes are indeed often similar to some of those used by Hitler and Lenin. Does that mean that Bush = Hitler? Of course it doesn't. But that doesn't make the qualitative similarities meaningless, nor do the differences in context disappear. A good Trotksyite Neocon might argue that a little misleading and demagoguery here and there are OK if they are in the service of a 'larger truth'. (Moral relativism, anyone?) But when does routine lying (clearly, all politicians must - strictly speaking - lie at times) become qualitatively different? The short answer is: when it becomes a value in itself. The longer answer lies in the consideration of political context.

Germany in the 20s and 30s was, politically, nothing like the USA of 2004. Germany had its very first democratic government after the first world war. The United States in the 21st century has over 200 years of a political system based frankly on rationality, openness and what you might call a kind of 'materialism' - or at least practicality. Whether you think it's viable or not (and clearly, some of our Neocon friends don't), our system is based on open debate using agreed-on facts. In a word, liberalism.

In her recent 3-hour appearance on C-SPAN, the historian and author of Paris 1919 Margaret McMillan, was asked if she thought the Second World War could be thought of as a continuation of the First. In replying that it might be thought of that way, she set part of the scene for nacent National Socialism:

Germany surrendered in November 1918 and it signed an armistice; I mean if you look at the terms of the armistice...it is a surrender... But what happened between November 1918 and the end of June of 1919 when Germany signed its treaty, many Germans convinced themselves that they hadn't really lost...most Germans hadn't really seen allied occupation; the German army marched home and was greeted by the president, saying 'I greet you undefeated'...and The German high command, who had begged - absolutely begged - for an armistice in the fall of 1918, forgot that, conveniently, and began going around saying 'Well, we never lost; it was the weak-kneed civilians who had asked for an armistice, it was the traitors at home, you know the socialists, the left wingers of all sorts, the liberals...AND the Jews who stabbed us in the back..' And so you began to get the belief growing in Germany that Germany really hadn't lost....

Sound familiar? The subtext of the current Swift Boat controversy is that it was the anti-war people - like John Kerry - who were responsible for the failure of that war, rather than the realities of the war itself. Obviously, there is a big difference between Germany in 'Great' War and the US in Vietnam, but the disgusting reality is that the US finally withdrew from Vietnam in 1973 on virtually the same terms it could've done in 1968. American generals weren't pleading for a peace agreement, but five (5!) extra years of involvement didn't change much on the ground. Richard Nixon (Swiftie John O'Neill's patron) 'asked' thousands and thousands of people 'to die for a mistake'.

SO, does that mean the current Republican slime machine and the Freikorp/Hitler are the same? Again, of course not. But the pure lies, character assassination, amorality and winking hostility to empiricism of the New Right are, in a way, just as egregious in the American context: we have so much further to fall, have so many more political treasures to lose. Does that mean that a country like Germany 'deserved' Hitler because they had no liberal tradition? No. It means America deserves so much better because we do.

This Is Not a Buck

2004-08-23T23:13:00.000-07:00

President Bush made a certian kind of history today in his press conference down at the Ranch, when he said:

"I'm denouncing all the stuff being on TV of the 527s......I, frankly, thought we'd gotten rid of that when I signed the McCain-Feingold bill. ....... I don't think we ought to have 527s.....That's why I signed the bill, McCain/Feingold."

In other words:

[in that annoyed-peevish voice of his] It's not my fault I didn't know what was in that bill nobody TOLD me what was in it THEY told me to sign it it's not MY fault I thought..etc. etc. etc.

The President of the United States is, evidently, a 9 year old boy.

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2004-08-22T20:15:00.000-07:00

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The Modern GOP: Traitors?!?!?!?!

2004-08-20T13:20:00.000-07:00

clever_political_montage
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

There are many concrete ways the current Bush Administration and this truly awful Congress have made the country weaker: the utter botch in Iraq and its implications for the entire Arab world; the incredible fumbling of the North Korea situation; the inaction (and worse) on other nuclear proliferation/'loose nukes' (you know, 'WMDs', 'mushroom clouds'); our continued mulish bone-head-ism vis a vis Central Asia; the fiscal incontinence; and many others you could think of without trying very hard. But I think there's a more fundamental way the entire modern, mindlessly partisan GOP - of which W. Bush is merely the acme - has weakened the country, a way more like termite infestation or dry-rot than overt calamity.

After we watched a TV re-cap of various recent domestic events, including the Clinton impeachment and the 2k Florida/US Supreme Court election disaster, a particularly laconic Japanese friend of mine on a visit to the 'States, turned, gave me a significant look and asked, using - for her - very strong language: 'What the hell is going on over here?!'. I could only shake my head and sigh, also significantly.

Obviously, it would be reductive, hysterical and libelous to say - a la Ann Coulter - that the never-ending shenanigans of the insurgent, radical, myopic, power-grubbing modern GOP caused the terror attacks of 9/11 and before (although hysteria does raise unavoidable psychological questions about the hysterians themselves. Gee Ann, do you really mean 'treason'?). But cheap hyperbole aside, I don't think there's any doubt that, time and again, the degradation by the modern GOP of the American political system to an anachronistic, paralyzed, creaky laughingstock in the eyes of the world has made us weaker in very real and consequential ways. Consider how these particulars might look to non-Americans: eight years of an 'acting' president; Iran/Contra; arming the proto-Taliban; the government shutdowns of the 90s; the overstuffed prison system; the relentless hounding of and eventual blowjob coup d'tat attempt on a sitting president; the banana-republic denouement of the 2000 election and the elevation of another, even more ridiculously unqualified man to the presidency; the constant accusations of traitorousness hurled at what is really only fairly mild political opposition....a partial list. How does all this look to the rest of the world, including of course radical Islamists and the people they're trying to sway? 'Pile-on' anyone?

I submit that this ongoing self-assault makes ALL of us, the entire country, look feckless, weak, incoherent, silly, vulnerable and just plain weird - in short, a country in decline. The entire country pays - and dearly - for cheap, transitory Republican domestic political victories. Terrorism is a tactic in a war between pluralism, cosmopolitanism, democratic rule, rationality and religious tolerance on the one hand, and authoritarianism, religious superstition, a glorification and fetishing of death, and soul-crushing intolerance on the other. This war is no less about rhetoric and 'psy-ops' than literal battle. 'United We Stand' has to mean something. There is a difference between domestic political contest - even 'hardball' - and Machiavellian userpation. When you attempt to destroy ALL common ground between you and your domestic political opponent, you of course are destroying the ground your own side is standing on, too, AKA, crapping in your own kitchen (perhaps it's an updated version of the old Vietnam War idea of destroying a village in order to 'save' it). Pretending that America's petty - and not so petty - political hypocrisies, foolishness and stupidity are invisible to the 'outside' world is not just dumb, but insane. We behave as if in front of a two-way mirror: we mostly see our own reflection, but most people on the other side of the glass can see in perfectly well. It's not a pretty sight: there we are, obliviously primping away, believing con men who assure us that our solipsism is really some sort of unique virtue.

The enemies of small 'l' liberalism understand, if we don't, that the 'helpless giant' metaphor has to do with more than strictly military strength and efficacy. The recent crop of ideologue-Republicans is selling the very idea of the country out for pennies on the political dollar.

He Lives

2004-08-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

little_dick
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Just when you think the lining of the national esophagus has finally healed and the Nixon-reflux, at least, has fluxed its last...damned if there isn't that familiar twinge again! John E. O'Neill, Nixon's shifty-eyed point man for Vietnam resentment and grudgery is suddenly everywhere again, lying - about John Kerry and himself - with a shamelessness worthy of the 'old man' himself, if not beyond. Will we ever not 'have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore'?

We owe thanks and huzzahs to President Bush for keeping the dream of a blackhearted, cynical, resentful, cowering America alive.

Hugging The Vital Center

2004-08-10T18:07:00.000-07:00

look_away
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

In a recent interesting post and discussion over at Legal Fiction, the question 'What's up with McCain?' was more or less boiled down to one of two possibilities: either he's positioning himself for another run for president in '08 or '12, or he might not be because he is (or will be) too old and his health may not be very good. I think he's preparing for either eventuality. Despite the Kerry/McCain pipe dreams of a few months ago, if you look at it from McCain's point of view, he has no real choice but to offer ostensibly vigorous support for Bush in '04. Anything less than seeming-vigorous support would be a news story in itself, and he knows it.

The best of all possible worlds for McCain, politically, would be for his buddy Kerry to win the coming election. If Bush were to squeak through to another term, the odds are heavily in favor of a Democrat winning the White House in '08. If Kerry wins, on the other hand, he actually has to be president. Who knows what will happen in the next four years? Anything could. And a president Kerry would have a lot of Bush messes to deal with/clean up in addition to everything else. I fervently hope for one, but a successful Kerry presidency is hardly a fait accompli.

Both Kerry and McCain know what Clinton knew - and what the Bush-backers in the Republican Party have forgotten in the rush of events: political power is to be found in the vital center - center-Right for McCain, center-Left for Kerry. McCain is what he's always been: a loyal, and pretty conservative Republican. He's out to save his party. If the presidency doesn't happen for him, then it doesn't. But breaking with the GOP now would ensure that it wouldn't.

How do politicians live with having to pay so much (by all means, click on the photo for a closer look) for such appallingly meagre returns - and often no returns at all? Beats me. But they do volunteer for this kind of duty.....

Meanwhile....

2004-08-04T08:41:00.000-07:00

war and piece catches this story from the Sydney Morning Herald:

In a significant shift of US policy, the Bush Administration has announced that it will oppose provisions for inspections and verification as part of an international treaty to ban production of nuclear weapons materials.

For several years the US and others have been pursuing the treaty, which would ban new production by any state of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons.

At an arms control meeting in Geneva last week the US told other countries it supported a treaty, but not verification.

US officials, who have demonstrated scepticism in the past about the effectiveness of international weapons inspections, said they made the decision after concluding such a system would cost too much, require overly intrusive inspections and would not guarantee compliance with the treaty.

However, they declined to explain in detail how they believed US security would be undermined by creating a plan to monitor the treaty.

Arms control specialists said the change in the US position would greatly weaken any treaty and make it harder to prevent nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. They said the US move virtually killed a 10-year international effort to persuade countries such as India, Israel and Pakistan to accept some oversight of their nuclear production programs.

The announcement at the United Nations-sponsored Conference on Disarmament comes several months after President George Bush declared it a top priority to prevent the production and trafficking in nuclear materials, and as his Administration works to blunt criticism by Democrats and others that it has failed to work effectively with the UN and other international bodies on such vital matters.

Daryl Kimball, director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said it was "surprising and baffling that the Administration is not supporting a meaningful treaty".

Can ANYONE 'splain this to me?! Does it have to do with Pentagon plans to build a new class of 'nukyaler' weapons?

I really don't have a comment on this, except 'WHAT?!'

Strong Leadership. Leadership. Strong.

2004-08-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

President Bush's news conference today was notable for its especial brittleness, shakiness. I defy any honest conservative to watch the tape and assert with a straight face that this is a strong leader. And it's not just a matter of style, although that helps.

Highlights include:

- at least one VERY long pause before Bush could think of a word to say in answer to a fair and not terribly aggressive question;

- nice example of Bush's signature annoyed peevish BS-artist stammer;

- a pointed refusal to call on Helen Thomas (opting instead for that hot young stenographer from MSNBC);

- Bush's pronouncing mullahs as 'MOOOLAHS'. (let's talk about 'moolah', shall we?)

We swim in a sea of Dada....

Behold, the lilies of the field...

2004-08-02T12:15:00.000-07:00

get_a_brain
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

It's a common refrain: 'How can there be so many undecideds at this stage of the presidential campaign? How can they possibly have avoided making up their minds by now?' How indeed? Is this a demonstration of the vaunted native sagacity of the American people, or just indolence? Well, both.

The fact is, it's incredibly easy to seal yourself off completely, have absolutely no contact, even peripherally, with current events and politics if that's what you want. You can easily choose to live in an America which is timeless as memory - sports being the only current events kept up with. You can make it all go completely away. True, if you live in a swing state, you have to have a well-trained finger on the remote for a while, but this too shall pass. There's always a Seinfeld or Law and Order rerun on. These politicians in DC or the Statehouse aren't the real America. If we ignore them, perhaps they'll just go away....

Is the ability to be oblivious a right, an entitlement? Is it a right - perhaps a commercial right - to be able to live on your own little cloud? ('My life, my world! It all begins with a dream' goes the jingle for the Financial Advice company). I would say it is, but not the overarching right.

We take the 'pursuit of happiness' VERY seriously in this country, and well we should. It is one of the most beautiful things about America. Politics is not life; life is life. We ALL, no matter how obsessed, need breaks from the gigantic, unsightly kludge which is politics. But there is a difference between being a citizen and being a 'consumer' (after 9/11, Bush told us that our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to get out there and spend money). To those who say, 'I'm not really into politics', as if it were a hobby or entertainment, I would assert that life and liberty are prerequisites for the third item in that phrase. Beautiful as the idea of Political Lilies of the Field is - and it's as old as Jefferson - it simply can't work in a democracy. Like cancer or car troubles, completely ignore politics and it will get worse and worse.

Vladimir! Talk to me, babe.....

2004-07-30T13:16:00.000-07:00

Bush's big line out on the 'trail' today is, 'My opponent has good intentions. [pause...knit brow] But good intentions aren't enough. You need [fake salesman grin] results'. Ah, so typical of the Mayberry Machiavellis: always accuse your opponent of what you yourself are guilty of. It's been their MO from the start. Machiavellian or not, it's a technique common to insurgencies everywhere. Doing it not only preempts the strongest, most obvious criticism of you - and, incidently, precludes serious debate - but it baffles and disorients your opponent. It reminds me of the old adolescent trick of answering a ringing phone with: 'Hello? Is Harold there?'. W-w-wa-HUH?!

It's not very 'hopeful' or 'uplifting' of me to say it, but God, how I despise these people.

[UPDATE

I notice that Josh Marshall at TPM is thinking along the same lines, but I would submit that the more pertinent sound bite is the shorter one, the one I cited; unless they feel they are in very deep doo doo (which they probably do, although incoherent scrambling is nothing new nor rare with this administration), they can't believe they are really going to get very far comparing Bush's life with Kerry's - a dangerous comparison, as TPM points out. I think the broader 'theme' is that Kerry and his laundry lists and promises sound good, but good intentions are not enough. What makes this deeply galling is that the Bush Administration is ALL intention and NO result, to an astonishing degree. 'Results' are precisiely what the Bushies lack, from the wars to fiscal policy to health care, to etc. etc. etc.]

'bwamp bwaaaam'

2004-07-27T20:37:00.000-07:00

Why are political or other news events so often followed by the equivalent of a muted trumpet playing a 'comic' 'bwamp bwaaaam'? Why does bathos always rush in? Why must everything devolve 'safely' into farce? Why does every sentence end with a fatuous giggle?

After giving his absolutely electrifying, brilliant keynote speech tonight, Barack Obama had to endure...er, I mean was briefly interviewed by, 'CNN Senior Political Correspondent' Candy Crowley. Among other things, Obama talked about how he put together his coalition to win the primary in Illinois using a non-ideological, common sense approach (keep your eye on Obama, BTW). She asked, 'What advice would you give Senator Kerry..to..ehh...help him with Illinois voters?' Obama, who might have been introduced to Crowley as CNN's 'Senior Political Correspondent', paused, a little puzzled, then explained to her that 'John Kerry is going to win Illinois'. Does CNN'S 'Senior Political Correspondent' not know that Illinois is not a swing state? Maybe it was a long day for Candy, but...there's plenty of cluelessness around other than Convention Week.

One thing many people, from cranky lefties to cranky righties, might agree about is the atrociousness of pundito coverage of both daily news and political news. I don't know how I was ever able to put up with some of the bad tv heads, but I sure can't now. And that includes Lerher on PBS. It's like listening to a review of a rock or hip hop concert by your great-grandfather ('You know, when I was a boy...'.). I'm not comparing this convention to a rock or hip hop show, obviously, but it's that kind of madning, bewildered, almost willful clulessness. It's as if they were reading talking points from a page...oh, wait...

One Hour Cleaners

2004-07-22T15:50:00.000-07:00

The WSJ ran a story this week which is getting a fair amount of juice, at least in the blogosphere. No, it's not 'Dennis Endorses Kerry'; it's about the effects of the Bush tax cuts, (and is extra-piquant at the moment because of the current weird showdown (mano a mano in Bushspeak) over extensions of some of the cuts). If you have time to read only one essay about it (after the story itself), check out Billmon's.

One of the main points of the WSJ story is: "[the] tax cuts . . . have sharply benefited upper income households relative to others.." Was that result ever in serious doubt? Not really. (It has been in plenty of unserious doubt, of course...) How do they get away with this crap? I would suggest that one way they do it can be illustrated by this classic (Pythonesque) Bonzo Dog Band routine from the intro to their song Shirt:

"When can I pick these up?"

"About 3 weeks, gov'ner"

"3 weeks?! But your sign says 'One Hour Cleaners'!"

"(slightly wearily) That's just the name of the shop, Gov'ner. Of course if you want starch, that'll be four weeks...."

"FOUR WEEKS?! BLIMEY!!" etc.

The tax con is abetted by the fact that Americans famously define themselves as 'middle class' no matter what income group they're in. But deep down, we all know that, when the rubber meets the road, there is a material middle class dream, defined by what we buy, or can buy. Middle class today means having a cushion of truly 'disposable' income - running through a certain amount of 'non-essential' stuff. You know, Consumer Things. And that's after health care and tuition. If you drive a crappier, older car, or your footwear is a little off, or fill-in-the-blank, you might be 'sorta poor' and sort of a 'loser'. (This obviously doesn't apply only to kids.) You needn't be actually poor, but you know you aren't really 'middle class'. It's no wonder that there is a vogue among some younger, and some not-so-younger, people for 50s-60s 'ring a ding' nostalgia: those years were the Great Awakening of true Consumerism. The images of that era seem sweeter in the context of our much more developed consumerism. It's a kind of fetish, and an understandable one.

So what is the actual dollar amount for the middle class 'dream'? [For the sake of argument, I'd like to leave aside (but not 'behind') the people who have crushing debt.] What does it take to be reasonably solvent, raise a family, and have all the things you deem necessary for your basic self-image as a quasi-50s/60s-style middle class person or couple? Some may quibble, but I'd say between mid-$60k to - mid-$100k, depending on where you live, etc. Is that the 'middle' in any real way?

Actually, the median (literally 'middle' - opposed to 'mean', or 'average') US household income is a little below $50k. But even that might give too rosy an impression, because the point of a middle class is having a plurality of people making enough to feel successful - a cultural bulwark we used to be very proud of having developed in this country. It used to be called the 'broad middle class'. Since the curve downward in numbers (percentage) of people making $65k-$150k must be VERY sharp (given that only 2% make above $200k), clearly, the middle class, as I defined it, is not very many people at all - certainly undescribable as 'broad'. 'Thin' is more like it.

So how do they get away with it? As with the 'maturing' Dry Cleaning Business, the idea is to keep the name the same but change the meaning of it - absurdly. 'Middle class' is now defined by what it 'should' be rather than by how many people can actually afford to be in it. There's nothing 'middle' about it in the real world, in terms of percentage (or even, pathetically, median). We just call it that. In other words, a middle class income is what you should be making if the vast majority of you weren't such losers.

The Next Constitutional Amendment...

2004-07-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

godkills
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

....advances in the Senate. Does America feel safer with the current government on the case? I know I do.

In a related story, Aaron Burr commented: This Senate, he said, "is a sanctuary; a citadel of law, of order, and of liberty; and it is here-it is here, in this exalted refuge; here, if anywhere, will resistance be made to the storms of political phrenzy and the silent arts of corruption; and if the Constitution be destined ever to perish by the sacrilegious hands of the demagogue or the usurper, which God avert, its expiring agonies will be witnessed on this floor."

Back-stories

2004-07-20T20:26:00.000-07:00

Despite the oceans of journalistic spew which spatter our country like acidified widely-scattered-showers day after day, there are always back-stories which few ever quite manage to talk about, even thought many people know them - like the punchline to a joke - in their heart of hearts. 'Polite company' and all. They aren't always 'uber-narratives', but they are geared differently, usually having more 'torque' than the everyday yack. For example, the changed role of the US Vice President. There is a clear narrative line from Clinton through Kerry. Clinton chose Gore, another Southerner, and actually gave him some things to do during the administrations - something of a first; the imaginary corpus called the 'Bush Team' responded, 'Ha! We'll pick a VP who will actually run the White House, and at the same time, allay fears about our pres. candidate's callowness'. Kerry has now continued the story: 'OK. I see your Cheney and raise you Edwards. I'll choose someone who the GOP is most scared of (and who I'm a little scared of) and give him a bigger role in both the campaign and in the administration - at least rhetorically, cause I need help there - than Gore had; sooo, I'm too vain and pompous to name someone who might outshine me? HA! I will not only choose him, but encourage him to outshine me - to my benefit'. Complete campaigns are so rare, relatively speaking, that pols study every previous campaign like it were sacred text. It's a kind of continuity....

In a polity as dysfunctional as ours, back-stories naturally loom especially large, and there are many of them. Juicier ones to follow.

When the Law becomes an Ass....

2004-07-20T13:37:00.000-07:00

I live in Chicago, where the annals of relatively petty corruption are full of juicy stories. And a quick glance at Mayor Jimmy Walker's record of shocking maladministration of NYC reinforces the conventional view of machine hacks and ward heelers as scummy little criminals - perhaps somewhat laughable, but scummy. But a closer look at New York's Tammany Hall in the teens and twenties, and its production of Alfred Smith and the proto-New Deal, and then the subsequent transformation of NYC from Al Smith's NYC to Robert Moses' - gives rise to another thought: at their best, big city machines may have been pettily corrupt, but they served a real function - a social welfare function. The really big corruption which replaced the old machines is both much more damaging, and doesn't really serve anyone except the large beneficiaries. At least you got a free turkey or a job from Tammany. What did regular people get from Moses and his Authorities and bond-floating power? Lots of bridges, roads and parks, whether you wanted them or not, and whether it destroyed your neighborhood or not. Who really made out in those deals? It goes without saying that banks LOVE bond issues like Moses'....

Oligarchy-minded folks have probably always known the really smart, effective way to snatch more and more money and power: make it legal to do so. Just as it's much easier to dupe people who presume themselves to be 'free' - nobody believed anything they read in Pravda - the best way to steal is, and has always been, to make it legal. It's the trump card-argument that can be used over and over again, in almost any situation. "Of course the impeachment of Clinton wasn't about sex, it was the perjury; yes, marijuana is not as dangerous as cocaine and heroin, but it's a DRUG, it's illegal; yes, it makes little sense to give corporations a tax break to move their businesses off-shore, but those who've done it haven't done anything illegal". You hear it over and over in right wing talking points: when all else fails, ask the question 'Were any laws broken?'. This knee-jerk is provided an 'intellectual' underpinning by Federalist Society types - 'originalists' ('see, here's the constitution right here - it's the Law, you know - and I don't see anything in it about the right to privacy..').

From our horrendous tax code, to our outrageous drug policy and mandatory minimum sentencing - resulting in prisons becoming a for-profit-growth-industry, to our Rube Goldberg campaign finance laws, it's clearly time to stand up and say that, in some cases, the law, sir, is an ass.

Time to Snap Out of It

2004-07-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

When Norman Ornstein - the fairly conservative but scrupulously non-partisan pundit/scholar currently employed by the American Enterprise Institute - sounds an alarm, it's a big serious bell which doesn't toll that often. In short, Norm is both highly intelligent, very knowlageable, and hardly the alarmist sort. So you know he's not kidding around when he writes in his recent op-ed:

Democracy is a fragile web of laws, rules and norms. The norms are just as important to the legitimacy of the system as the rules. Blatant violations of them on a regular basis corrode the system. The ugliness of this one [the hours-long vote in the House on the recent Medicare 'reform' bill] will linger...

Ornstein is one of a vanishing breed - the conservative. But he's hardly alone in his alarm. Indeed, in light of the blatant corruption and abrogation of its oversight responsibilities evident in the last couple Congresses - but particularly the current one - some are wondering whether our whole system of separation of powers, with its checks and balances, needs some sort of fundamental overhaul. The Greens are pushing the idea of run-off elections, which, while attractive, would be very difficult to affect at the Federal level any time soon. A better place to start would be real, sweeping, campaign finance reform - not a variation of McCain-Feingold, but truly taking money out of politics. THAT we could do NOW.

The conventional wisdom is 'oh, it can't be done, there are constitutional problems, bla bla bla'. Bollocks. It most certainly CAN be done. It's a matter of leadership. This is not intended to be an 'Edwards fan-blog', but he is salient for reasons additional to simply being on the Democratic ticket. During his primary campaign, John Edwards - alone among national politicians of note - talked about taking money completely out of elections in every speech for several months (before the 'two-Americas' stump got set into stone toward the end). He talked about standing on the WH lawn periodically (as president, of course) and simply telling the country what the DC money sewer cost them THIS month (or quarter or whatever) - a great idea.

But can it be done constitutionally? Of course it can. Over at the excellent Legal Fiction blog, my mere mention of this potential immediately brought this comment from a reader named Rahul Sinha (whose blog is quite good, too):

Actually there is an elegant solution:

Senate Bill 11, 1997 (or was it '96)

Basically elegant optional public financing of all federal elections.

As a candidate who either personally received 5% in the previous election or is the representative of a party that did, you get the option of opting into the system.

Within the system you agree to echew all sources of money, personal and external, in exchange for $X from the federal government. If any compeditor to you does not opt in, you either get $X or 110% of whatever they spend, whichever is higher.

It is constitutional, as it is optional....

I would go further, insisting on free television time - as Sen. Edwards and others have suggested - and a pot of federal money which the candidate who opted into the system would have to share with his competitor(s) if they opted in, but not if they didn't. Make taking the federal funds optional but very very attractive. If you opt into the federal funding, you get your millions and free tv time; don't opt in and raise your own money and pay for your tv time.

There are lots of other pressing issues this year, obviously, but this one is germane to all of them, in one way or another. Our current campaign finance 'system' is literally legal bribery - well beneath the dignity of a great country. Let's hope that a president Kerry will charge a vice-president Edwards with the task of leading on this - or that he will lead on it himself. Real, radical reform would change everything.

Cuomo Disses Edwards

2004-07-17T12:50:00.000-07:00

During the Q&A section after a recent speech about Lincoln - his new book is called 'Why Lincoln Matters - Mario Cuomo was asked (first question) who Kerry should pick for VP (BTW, C-SPAN happened to air this a day before Kerry made his announcement). Notwithstanding his token attempt at circumlocution, it was very clear what he meant: Kerry shouldn't pick Edwards. Cuomo - of all people - did allow that, yes, the ability to give a good speech is important (!), and yes, you have to win to govern, but suggested that Kerry needed someone with....wait for it....gravitas, like Gephardt or Clark. He cited what he called Edwards' "one skimpy little term in the Senate", and finished with the crowning insult: the implicit comparison of Edwards to Dan Quayle, whom Cuomo then, bizzarely, claimed to know to be a 'very intelligent guy'.

What tha'...?

Now, I'm surely not alone in long-thinking that Cuomo has always been a bit overrated - his 12 years as Gov. of NY were not really notable; I admire him for his decency and principled opposition to the death penalty, but he was not a remarkable Governor. But this is a new, and sort of touching, crank-dom. A gratuitious branding of Edwards as a 'lightweight'. Isn't it amazing how often our particularly elective criticisms of others apply perfectly to ourselves? Cuomo's star has fallen while Edwards' is rising - Edwards even has the 'speechifying' skills which were Cuomo's only real claim to fame.

Perhaps Mario is just getting old. It's happens to us all. But I wouldn't expect him to be very high-profile at the Dem. convention.

suswah writes, "Tim Russert asked Cuomo about his presidential aspirations during the MSNBC interview. He replied that he was not really good enough for that job. I don't know if that is false modesty. Or really how he feels." Kind of heartbreaking, really. The intention of this post is not to sneer at Cuomo, but rather to spark serious thought about the failures of the Dems and liberalism in the last 25 years; for many, Cuomo is still an icon, the best Dem of all ('if only Cuomo had run for pres.'). Clearly one necessary step is to - humanely - question our conventional wisdom now and then.

(I couldn't find a transcript for Cuomo's speech, but here is an attempt at a link to the video. The Q&A starts at about 41:25)