The Justice Log

Searching for John McCain

2008-06-04T14:11:00.001-07:00

I know, Roland doesn't post much here anymore, but I thought I'd borrow his soapbox for a few lines :-).

1. John McCain Votes to Filibuster Minimum Wage Hike

2. McCain's housing policy shaped by lobbyist

3. Bush, McCain plug Social Security

4. McCain blasts Obama’s and Clinton’s attacks on NAFTA

5. McCain in NH: Would Be "Fine" To Keep Troops in Iraq for "A Hundred Years"

6. McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion

7. Senate passes expanded GI bill despite Bush, McCain opposition

8. McCain says overturn the law that legalized abortion

9. McCain Defends Bush's Iraq Strategy

That's it -- I now return you to whatever you were doing before I started talking about John McCain :-).

Spreading a meme

2006-10-24T22:09:00.000-07:00

Roland wanted to post this here, but he's crashed for the night so I'm taking the liberty. Hey, I need to use my posting rights once in a while :-).

Info on a few important Senate and Congressional races:

* AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl
* AZ-01: Rick Renzi
* AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth
* CA-04: John Doolittle
* CA-11: Richard Pombo
* CA-50: Brian Bilbray
* CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave
* CO-05: Doug Lamborn
* CO-07: Rick O'Donnell
* CT-04: Christopher Shays
* FL-13: Vernon Buchanan
* FL-16: Joe Negron
* FL-22: Clay Shaw
* ID-01: Bill Sali
* IL-06: Peter Roskam
* IL-10: Mark Kirk
* IL-14: Dennis Hastert
* IN-02: Chris Chocola
* IN-08: John Hostettler
* IA-01: Mike Whalen
* KS-02: Jim Ryun
* KY-03: Anne Northup
* KY-04: Geoff Davis
* MD-Sen: Michael Steele
* MN-01: Gil Gutknecht
* MN-06: Michele Bachmann
* MO-Sen: Jim Talent
* MT-Sen: Conrad Burns
* NV-03: Jon Porter
* NH-02: Charlie Bass
* NJ-07: Mike Ferguson
* NM-01: Heather Wilson
* NY-03: Peter King
* NY-20: John Sweeney
* NY-26: Tom Reynolds
* NY-29: Randy Kuhl
* NC-08: Robin Hayes
* NC-11: Charles Taylor
* OH-01: Steve Chabot
* OH-02: Jean Schmidt
* OH-15: Deborah Pryce
* OH-18: Joy Padgett
* PA-04: Melissa Hart
* PA-07: Curt Weldon
* PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick
* PA-10: Don Sherwood
* RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee
* TN-Sen: Bob Corker
* VA-Sen: George Allen
* VA-10: Frank Wolf
* WA-Sen: Mike McGavick
* WA-08: Dave Reichert

Pass it on :-). Info courtesy Chris on DailyKos.

Five Minutes To Midnight

2006-09-04T23:50:00.000-07:00

It's been too long since I've posted, but even with all that I've seen recently, this jumped out at me:

Five Minutes to Midnight: The War Is Coming, No Matter How Hard We Try to Evade It.

"This Time We Must Not Surrender Five Minutes Before Midnight." -- Adolf Hitler

The war referenced in the linked title is the supposedly necessary and inevitable pre-emptive invasion of Iran.

Res Ipsa Loquitur.
--
(/) Roland X
Remember, remember on the 7th of November...
...vote.

A Plague of Madness

2006-07-15T15:29:00.000-07:00

Is this the beginning of the end?

I refer, of course, to the ever-widening circle of war, murder and stupidity in the Middle East. I point no fingers, because every force actively involved in the violence seems to want to inflame the other side as far as possible. Naturally, Israel has the big guns, but that's not the problem. Unsurprisingly, the various terrorist groups who want to destroy Israel are targeting its military, but that's not the problem either (military targets being, you know, legitimate). No, the problem is that both sides seem intent on inflicting as much misery, fear and death to their foes' civilian populations as possible. This is an unprecedented escalation for both sides, but especially Israel, which (while guilty of collective punishment et. al. in the past) has always maintained at least some restraint.

It would seem to me that the wisest course of action for the United States, given our vulnerable position in Iraq and Afghanistan, would be to stay as aloof from the actual fighting as possible while trying to end the violence diplomatically. I'm genuinely, pleasantly shocked that this appears to be what the Bush administration is trying to do, though their politically idiotic statements of unconditional support for Israel aren't helping.

Unfortunately, it seems that not everyone wants to give peace a chance. While browsing the blogs, I found this highly disturbing report on the neocon attitude at Glenn Greenwald's site:

In the past, neoconservatives have danced delicately around the notion that Israel's conflicts should be viewed by the U.S. as its own conflicts. But, to his credit, Bill Kristol yesterday came right out and candidly put his views on the table. In the Weekly Standard, Kristol's column -- entitled "This is Our War" (by "Our" he means the U.S.) -- argues explicitly what many have contended for some time is an unstated belief of neoconservatives: that the U.S. should view the threats to Israel as threats to the U.S., because the enemy is the same, and should join Israel in the destruction of these enemies. Kristol actually argues that President Bush should immediately abandon the G-8 summit in Russia and fly to Jerusalem in order to stand by Israel, in "our" new war, which should be waged against Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, for starters. This article is very significant and I am quoting from it at length:
What's happening in the Middle East, then, isn't just another chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict. What's happening is an Islamist-Israeli war. You might even say this is part of the Islamist war on the West--but is India part of the West? Better to say that what's under attack is liberal democratic civilization, whose leading representative right now happens to be the United States....
Bill Kristol is one of the most influential neonconservative pundits in the country, if not the most influential, and the fact that he is openly advocating this world-view means that we will be seeing much more of it from the neoconservative precincts which led us into the invasion of Iraq.

Mr. Greenwald is measured and quite civil in his assessment of Kristol's position. My take is somewhat less measured: are they effin' nuts?!?

Let's take out the morality question for the moment; I consider both sides of the conflict equally psychotic (this does not, of course, include the majority on both sides who would rather not kill anyone), so the only moral question in my mind is how best to end the killing while being as fair as possible to everyone involved. From a purely strategic standpoint, then, I have to ask: are they effin' nuts?!?

Our military is stretched to the limit. Boots on the ground are out of the question, given we don't have enough troops in Iraq and our forces in Afghanistan are present in laughably low numbers. Providing air support is a joke -- does anyone reading this think Israel needs any help on that front? -- and will only serve to make America that much more hated in the region. So our military assistance is irrelevant for various reasons and all we could do is make our own situation (not to mention Iraq's) worse without helping Israel. What possible reason could America have for getting involved?

Hmm... could it be our own home-grown lunatics who see a chance to "make" the Second Coming happen? Obviously, none of these people have any real representation in the administration (except the increasingly irrelevant Bush), but Rove knows he has to keep them happy, and with Republican poll numbers tanking across the board, he needs a rallying point with the only real base the party has left. The horrific implications make the Iraq debacle look like a slight misstep, but when has something as inconsequential as possibly destroying the world ever stopped the Architect?

I end this post with hope: Gush Shalom, a peace organization in Israel that seems to be making more headway than I would have thought. May your G-d bless and watch over you.
--
(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix

The Innocent Have Nothing To Fear...Right?

2006-04-05T22:18:00.000-07:00

Wrong.

A Homeland Security Department spokesman was held Wednesday on felony charges of sexually preying on a detective posing as a 14-year-old girl through explicit online conversations. He was quickly suspended without pay from one of the nation's top crime-fighting agencies.

The arrest of Brian J. Doyle, 55, raised doubts about the ability of an agency responsible for safeguarding the country to ensure the security credentials of its own people.

Gee, ya think?

Of course, it can't get much worse than this, right?

Wrong.

When an Orlando mall security officer responded to a complaint about a man exposing himself to a girl in the food court, the suspect hurried out of the mall and ran through the parking lot.

The suspect was Frank Figueroa, then one of Florida's highest-ranking federal law enforcement officers and the former head of a national program formed to target child sex predators.

In a total lack of coincidence, the previous article about Mr. Doyle notes that Operation Predator is run by the Department of Homeland Security:

Homeland Security also oversees an Operation Predator unit, which investigates child predators and pornographers.

That's right, a guy who ran the DHS' anti-child-trafficking program flashed a 16 year old girl...and it may not be the first time:

Homeland Security responded in writing Dec. 5, through Pamela J. Turner, assistant secretary for legislative affairs. Turner said Figueroa had been arrested "for similar behavior" in Amherst, N.Y., in 1977.

The case was dismissed, Turner wrote, "in the interest of justice because the perpetrator was never identified."

At the time, Figueroa was an inspector with the Buffalo, N.Y., customs office.

Because of the earlier arrest, Turner wrote, ICE has initiated a review of all background investigations of employees who work on Operation Predator. She did not say whether a prior arrest would preclude work with the unit.

In Figueroa's defense, he has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyer insists that the '77 case, which was dropped, is irrelevant. Our nation is founded on laws that protect people charged with crimes. In America, we are all innocent until proven guilty.

That, however, is the very point I'm making here. These two cases raise an important question: just who is Bush talking about giving unlimited spying power to? The Bill of Rights was written specifically because men are not angels. Brian Doyle and Frank Figueroa may well be innocent of the charges they are accused of, but the simple truth is that these crimes are committed, and we know they're committed more widely than anyone really knows. What kind of havoc could a sexual predator, or a violent bigot, or a stalker looking for revenge wreak with the power of the DHS or NSA, and no one watching the watchmen?

What was that question about why people with nothing to hide might be afraid of Big Brother?

There is a reason that Congress was given the power to hold the executive branch accountable. There's a reason FISA was created. There's a reason the Founding Fathers warned their heirs -- us -- of the dangers that arise when we give leaders too much power during wartime. That reason is staring us in the face at this very moment -- whether we travel down a road paved with the best of intentions or are undermined by those whose intents are evil from the beginning, the final destination ahead is always abuse, fear, and ultimately, tyranny.
--
(/) Roland X
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."

He Said He Was A Uniter

2006-03-27T19:21:00.000-08:00

My apologies for yet another long dearth of posts; I've been focusing on Street Prophets and my local group's local blog, but I'm sharing this one around -- it's that time again -- and thought it would make a good re-inauguration of the Justice Log. It certainly fits the subtitle.

Every so often, I feel compelled to return to this issue, the heart of what shows that Bush is evil -- not just his administration, nor Bush himself merely incompetent -- but the man himself, the puppet sitting in the Oval Office. He bears responsibility, no matter how he might try to avoid it.

I know there were still a few people who remained dubious about Bush on September 12, 2001. I got into arguments with one on an email list -- so many of us became hawks briefly, it was all too easy. For me, it was personal. I'm a native New Yorker. I was born there. My father had worked at the American Stock Exchange, and my uncle was working there on the 11th. His story was harrowing, but he made it out alive.

What I remember most about that day, ironically enough, is not the hours waiting to donate blood, hours well spent with a few hundred of my closest friends, nor the fact that it is the only day I have ever simply "blown off" work, nor that I was awakened by a dear friend I had not spoken to in months if not years, calling from 3000 miles away, to tell us that the Towers had been hit. What I remember most is the shock, the sheer, unbelieving shock, as I stared at the television, still unable to process what was happening. When I woke up, there was a single tower bleeding smoke into the sky, and I tried to look around it -- yes, while watching it on a TV screen -- to find the other. It had already fallen.

Over the next few days, I was prone to wandering aimlessly. At work, I would drift into the storage room where someone had kindly set up a TV. There was, of course, constant coverage. The gaping holes in the city continued to vomit smoke for weeks. People ruminated darkly about the number of dead, wept at the sight of the bereaved survivors who would never have closure, and wondered when the news became part of the first act of a Bruckheimer disaster film.

And there was Bush, Mr. Uniter, claiming that the time for partisan division was past. Gore went to him in a show of support. New Yorkers were cheering a man most had certainly voted against. Even Falwell was unable to get away with bashing the Usual Suspects (read: us). For a brief, golden moment, it really looked like we might come together as a nation, that Bin Laden's monstrosity would become his final folly. A French newspaper declared "we are all Americans," and it seemed true. In the wake of the tragedy was hope: all things were possible, for we were America, and we had been reminded of who we really were.

For the true Axis Of Evil -- Rove, Cheney and Rumsfeld -- that simply would not do.

Rove was already plotting to use the attacks against the slender Democratic majority in the Senate (horrors! Democrats with power!), Cheney opened fire on the separation of powers with all guns blazing, and Rumsfeld started the plans to "sweep it all up, things related and not." There was no spirit of compromise, unity or bipartisanship within this cabal, only the realization that this second Pearl Harbor could also be America's Reichstag fire, if they worked hard enough at it. Of course, that would mean deliberately and viciously taking a sword to the dream of unity America found that nightmarish day.

Into this crucible came George W. Bush, widely described as Prince Hal become Henry V, at last come into his own. Here was the moment for the Cowboy President to be his own man, to do what he believed was right and unite the country as he claimed to wish all at once. All he had to do was not be irredeemably evil and hopelessly incompetent. As we have learned, that would have meant standing up to the aforementioned Axis, but no matter what came Before, Bush was -- and is -- the actual President. He could have done the right thing almost through benign neglect.

Instead, he personally spearheaded Rove's two-front war, one against al-Qaeda and the other against Democrats, particularly the Senate majority. I'm sure I don't have to list the travesties he supported with relish, but Iraq and the idiotic union-busting on the DHS were the beginning, and our warning signs. The Patriot Act was just a warm-up. Every stream of toxic rhetoric since then has started, one way or another, from the desk of President George W. Bush, and all he had to do was just say no.

He could have been remembered as a great leader if he had only tempered his greed. America could be as much a political hyperpower as it was a military one if he'd simply compromised, just a little, with other countries, other opinions. Instead, he became the Cowboy Caricature, with his blindingly idiotic lies ("they didn't let the inspectors in"?!?) and equally moronic rhetoric ("bring it on" worked great, didn't it?). Bush could be at 70% popularity right now, instead of half that, if he had just found common cause with all of America instead of trying to carve out 51% -- which is exactly what he got -- on one day in November of 2004. We could still have a nation leading the world towards something better, in a more prosperous environment, if Bush hadn't been a spoiled child with an Oedipus complex.

There are a million reasons to resist this Constitution-shredding Dominionist plutocrat, ranging from the environment to protecting the First Amendment. For me, though, this is at the heart of what Bush is: America's greatest enemy. Bin Laden wishes he could do a tenth as much damage to the country.
--
(/) Roland X
Fleeing the Chenon tyranny, the last Battleblog, Galactikos, leads a rag-tag fugitive web, on a lonely quest; a shining concept, known as Truth.

Res Ipsa Loquitur

2005-11-27T23:19:00.000-08:00

Hunter sums up our times in a single paragraph:

It's so painful, it burns. Perhaps "leaders of any group will turn out to be liberals" is indeed true, and perhaps there are a hundred perfect reasons for it to be true that are not part of an insidious secret plot by All Those That Oppose Us. Jesus McCracker McBain, it has been shown time and time again that liberalism is directly correlated to knowledge. I'm going to tattoo it onto my forehead, or paint it on my car: It's not a conspiracy, you're just stupid.

The Thing Speaks For Itself.
--
(/) Roland X
Go read the whole thing. Seriously.

Promoting Linse's Law

2005-11-14T16:34:00.000-08:00

This meme is sheer genius, so I thought I'd share:

As a corollary to Godwin's Law, I propose "Linse's Law":
As a debate between pro-war and anti-war pundits grows longer, the probability of the pro-war side accusing the anti-war side of being unpatriotic becomes 1.

I heartily recommend the rest of the post, particularly the quiz: do you know the difference between patriotism and jingoism? Well, sure, you do, but I have to wonder: do they?
--
(/) Roland X
jin·go·ism n. c.f. Republican Party.

Pegging the Hypocrisy Meter...Again

2005-11-11T17:12:00.000-08:00

You know, I think I've finally figured out what Duby'a true talent is: reaching new heights of sheer, unadulterated hypocrisy.

"The stakes in the global war on terror are too high and the national interest is too important for politicians to throw out false charges," the president said in his combative Veterans Day speech.

Yeah, no kidding, Dubya. Imagine starting a war with the wrong friggin' country based on exaggerations and outright lies. A war that virtually eliminated our ability to fight terrorists in their real centers of power and allowed enemies who have openly stated their hate and fear of America to build nuclear weapons. A war in which our leaders then compromised our moral authority (when they realized how badly they screwed up) by encouraging and possibly ordering the torture of POWs, most of whom are innocent civilians caught in poorly conducted sweeps run mostly by teenagers who don't speak Arabic. Oh, and throw melting children with phosphorous on top, and covering it up for a year.

Yeah, I think the national interest is kind of important to be letting that kind of crap happen.

Mmmaybe Bush shouldn't be talking about the stakes of a conflict he's all but conceding to the enemies who, you know, actually want to kill us.
--
(/) Roland X
Okay, this time Res Ipsa didn't quite Loquitur. Even I still need to rant about these nutjobs sometimes.

Politburo Leader Frist Backs Gulags

2005-11-10T18:27:00.000-08:00

Bill Frist (R - Siberia): objectively pro-gulag:

Bill Frist on the existence of overseas "black sites" where the Bush administration secretly holds detainees in the war on terror:
I am not concerned about what goes on and I'm not going to comment about the nature of that.

Well okay then.
--
(/) Roland X
Once again, Res Ipsa Loquitur.

Governor Girlie-Man

2005-11-09T19:03:00.000-08:00

Yeah, America's moral authority is in the toilet and the focus from the good news is rightly on our victory in Virginia. Still, I want to take a moment to do the happy dance here:

To call California a disaster for Arnold is the biggest understatement of the year. Schwarzenegger spent $50 million of taxpayer money in an election in which every single ballot initiative failed, and failed handily (the closest prop, the parental notification one, failed by over 5 percent).

Pwn3d.

The Governator now has to decide whether to follow his brain or his ego in leaving Sacramento. He can do the smart thing, declare "mission accomplished," and go back to his movie career, or he can run for reelection and be totally spanked and humiliated by whichever otherwise-unknown Democratic apparatchik ends up winning the nomination.

Either way, I'm looking forward to '06. ;-)
--
(/) Roland X
Pwn3d: to be beaten, dominated, or made a fool of in any contest, especially in a Net-related context. *eg*

Feel the Love

2005-11-04T19:31:00.000-08:00

Opera's being flaky; let's try this again.

DeLay's cronies admit the truth: they think their right-wing theocon sheep are wackos too:

How anybody could vote Republican until they do a full fumigation to get rid of DeLay and Co. is beyond me. Check out what (indicted) DeLay aide Mike Scanlon says here:
"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

As is rapidly becoming the Justice Log tag line, Res Ipsa Loquitur.
--
(/) Roland X
"Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope. The death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender." -- the Book of G'Quan

Moonbat Conspiracy Theorists

2005-11-03T16:27:00.000-08:00

...yeah, that's us:

This powerful and probing report takes a hard look at the election of 2004 and supports the contention that the election was stolen. The report has received almost no coverage in the national media.

The GAO is the government’s lead investigative agency, and is known for rock-solid integrity and its penetrating and thorough analysis. The agency’s agreement with what have been brushed aside as “conspiracy theories” adds even more weight to the conclusion that the Bush regime has no business in the White House whatever.

Almost a year ago, Rep. John Conyers, senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, asked the GAO to investigate the use of electronic voting machines in the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election. That request was made as a flood of protests from Ohio and elsewhere deluged Washington with claims that shocking irregularities were common in that vote and were linked to the machines.

...

Online Journal.com reported that the GAO report stated that "some of [the] concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes."

...

The chief executive of Diebold, one of the major suppliers of electronic voting machines, Warren "Wally" O’Dell, went on record in the 2004 campaign vowing to deliver Ohio and the presidency to George W. Bush.

Emphasis mine.

Some of the GAO’s findings are: 1. Some electronic voting machines "did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, and it was possible to alter both without being detected." In short, the machines; provided a way to manipulate the outcome of the election. In Ohio, more than 800,000 votes were cast on electronic voting machines, some registered seven times Bush’s official margin of victory.

2: the report further stated that: "it was possible to alter the files that define how a ballot looks and works, so that the votes for one candidate could be recorded for a different candidate." Very many sworn statements and affidavits claim that did happen in Ohio in 2004.

As some readers may remember from the time.

These findings are even more damning when we understand the election in Ohio was run by a secretary of state who also was co-chairman of Bush’s Ohio campaign. Far from the conclusion of anti-fraud skeptics, the GAO’s findings confirm that the network, which handled 800,000 Ohio votes, was vulnerable enough to permit a handful of purposeful operatives to turn the entire election by means of personal computers using comparatively simple software.

As a recent commenter said, "Res Ipsa Loquitur" (The Thing Speaks For Itself).
--
(/) Roland X
George W. Bush: The only two-term president to lose both elections.
Or: Worst. President. Ever.

Republicans Declare War; Democrats Strike Back

2005-11-02T21:59:00.000-08:00

As pretty much everyone who reads this blog no doubt knows, Bush nominated Scalito to replace O'Connor. Not only should this have shored up his base (though there's reason to doubt that he succeeded), it also distracted nicely from the whole Plame game scandal.

Fortunately, Minority Leader Reid was having none of it. In a brilliant piece of political theater, he forced the Senate into a closed session to discuss the virtual rape of pre-war intelligence, which ties back to the Plame scandal, the whole Iraq mess, and why we're trapped there instead of focusing on Al-Qaeda and its vile cousins.

Not that Democrats are necessarily rolling over on Alito, though the early news is discouraging. In spite of Armando's note of optimism, the article in question (warning: it's the NYT, so the link may not be good for long) isn't as promising:

"I have not heard any of my Democratic colleagues in the Gang of 14 talk of using the F-word - filibuster," Mr. Nelson said, adding that he hoped that the coalition ends up playing no role in the Alito nomination. "We would hope that the process would work without requiring anything from us."

Let's just say the article isn't about "give 'em Hell Harry."

Nevertheless, it looks like we're on the brink of total political warfare here. The theocons clearly believe they're about to break Roe v. Wade, and it's equally clear that the plethora of scandals dogging the steps of the GOP make a Democratic resurgence a real possibility in 2006. That would, essentially, put an end to their dreams of theocracy.

The last time the stakes were this high, Robert Kennedy and Rev. King were assassinated. We still won. This may be the last gasp of reactionary madness, but only if we beat it back. Otherwise, we could be looking at The Handmaid's Tale. All the commentary on the nomination indicates that this is the fight the theocons wanted, though they may be unhappy to learn that Alito's anti-choice stand is being heavily downplayed by the White House. Regardless, they got the fight they wanted. It's time to make them regret it.
--
(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix

Class Act

2005-10-28T22:04:00.000-07:00

George Takei came out of the closet today, or at least the story hit the wires today. Now, I'm one of something like three people for whom Sulu was my favorite character in classic Trek. (I imagine that's about to change. 8^) So for me, this is a bigger deal than most, though as a caveat I feel honor-bound to add that I'm also not as big a Trek fan as most Trekkies. I just have too many interests to get really involved with just one.

Still, this grabbed my attention. I love the character of Hikaru Sulu -- the quirky background character who was more D'Artangan than Bruce Lee (that would have been so easy in the 60s, but Gene had balls the size of suns), quiet and unassuming yet was in command of the Enterprise during what may have been the greatest fleet battle of their time (Organia), and surprisingly multitalented for anybody, let alone a second banana in an old TV series. However, I try to be careful not to idolize actors. While I've always liked George Takei in an abstract sense, I also tend to wait until I see some real evidence of a celebrity's integrity before making a judgement.

Well, I just saw integrity in spades today. To reveal his homosexuality in the current social climate took extraordinary courage, and this quote (found on Wikipedia, though it obviously has a separate origin) shows admirable insight:

"It's not really coming out, which suggests opening a door and stepping through. It's more like a long, long walk through what began as a narrow corridor that starts to widen."

From a personal standpoint, Mr. Takei had every reason to just continue living his life quietly -- his revelation involves considerable risk for no tangible gain. He did the right thing solely because it was the right thing to do. I can imagine no higher praise for anyone than to make such a statement about them.

On the other hand, the number of Sulu slash stories is about to explode, so it's not all good. ;^)

Kudos, Mr. Takei, and may you and your partner live long and prosper for many years to come.
--
(/) Roland X
Straight but not narrow

Let Them Eat Cake

2005-10-20T21:40:00.000-07:00

No, really.

On Aug. 31, Bahamonde e-mailed Brown to tell him that thousands of evacuees were gathering in the streets with no food or water and that "estimates are many will die within hours."

"Sir, I know that you know the situation is past critical," Bahamonde wrote. "The sooner we can get the medical patients out, the sooner we can get them out."

A short time later, Brown's press secretary, Sharon Worthy, wrote colleagues to complain that the FEMA director needed more time to eat dinner at a Baton Rouge restaurant that evening. "He needs much more that (sic) 20 or 30 minutes," Worthy wrote.

"Restaurants are getting busy," she said. "We now have traffic to encounter to go to and from a location of his choise (sic), followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you."

Seriously, this deserves to go down in history right alongside the famous encapsulation of epic, detached cluelessness in the title. I'd go on for quite a while about how horrifically this shows how little those in charge cared about the thousands of (black/poor) people suffering and dying, when it was their job to protect those people...but really, what can I add? This speaks for itself.
--
(/) Roland X
Just when I thought I couldn't be any more disgusted...

Criminalization of (Iraqi) Politics

2005-10-17T15:17:00.000-07:00

This article is on the Guardian, but as I write this, it's the top story on Excite:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq's election commission announced Monday that officials were investigating ``unusually high'' numbers of ``yes'' votes in about a dozen provinces during Iraq's landmark referendum on a new constitution, raising questions about irregularities in the balloting.

Word of the review came as Sunni Arab leaders repeated accusations of voter fraud after initial reports from the provinces suggested the constitution had passed. Among their allegations were that police took ballot boxes from heavily ``no'' districts, that some ``yes'' areas had more votes than registered voters and that supporters of the charter were allowed to vote in crucial provinces where they do not live.

American-style democracy, indeed. If it's good enough for Bush, it's good enough for the Iranian-backed politicians the Cheniacs support as well.

Honestly, does this surprise anyone? After Florida and Ohio, I find the notion that the administration's party operatives disguising themselves as advisors in Iraq would have the slightest qualm about voter fraud laughable.

The good news: this is actually being covered by the American media. Is our once-pathetic Fourth Estate finally struggling to free itself from bondage, perhaps shaking off (at last!) the Svengali-esque control of Rove and his ilk? Only time will tell.
--
(/) Roland X
Zoe: "It's a fair bet the Alliance is going to know what's coming."
Mal: "No. They're not going to see this coming."

Not Getting It

2005-10-03T22:16:00.000-07:00

Jonah Goldberg proves how completely he doesn't get it by getting it this once (linked to Washington Monthly because I try not to link directly to Wingnuttia):

We already know that lots of conservative are skeptical about Harriet Miers, but what's more interesting is the number of conservatives who are turning their guns on George Bush himself. Here's a sampler:

...

Jonah Goldberg: Bush's instincts about where his principles should be are often right. But in this case the principle seems to be that Bush's instincts are principle enough.

The last sentence is all you need to know about both George W. Bush and the rutting morons who have placed their faith in him for the last five years. "The principle seems to be that Bush's instincts are principle enough" is the defining trait of George W. Bush's vision of the presidency. He has no other principles, which is the entire gorram problem.

(Oh, and for the record, I feel compelled to add that the idea of Goldberg's statement about Bush's principles being "often right" is so laughable, given the unbroken string of policy failures this administration has presided over, as to border on self-parody. What, was this culled from the Onion or something?)

Ye gods. I was stunned by the attacks on 9/11 -- I have an uncle who works at the American Stock Exchange about a block away from the site, and my father used to work there -- and even now, I kick myself for the second chance I gave this idiot. The difference is, I learned my lesson (and fast). Liberals and conservatives alike have been making excuses for this shaved chimp for years, like battered wives saying how their abusive husband is "really a good man" and he's just doing what he has to do.

Democrats have to win in 2006 if there is to be any hope for the republic in the foreseeable future, but IMHO it would behoove Republicans to disavow this venal, corrupt administration ASAP. Then again, what do I know? Whenever movement Republicans give Democrats "advice," all I see is them throwing a drowning man an anvil.
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(/) Roland X
Which I must admit, I'm not averse to doing in this situation... *G*

Don't Mince Words

2005-09-30T00:30:00.000-07:00

Hunter of Daily Kos tells us what he really thinks of those who prostitute their minds and souls to the evil, corrupt SOBs running our country:

At Blogs For Bush, which bills itself as the Whorehouse... er, "White House" of the Blogosphere, the ever effervescent Mark Noonan writes about the DeLay indictment:
...

This is not the actions of a political Party engaged in seeking a majority - it is the action of a Party determined to destroy its opponents entirely and sieze all power for itself...it is, in short, the stuff from which civil wars are made...

I really do urge our Democrats to step back from the edge - you are sitting in a lake of gasoline and you are playing with fire. We on our side will only put up with so much before we start to pay back with usury what we have received.

...
Mark... may I call you Mark? I feel when someone has shown me the insides of their own rectum, we're pretty much on a first name basis... I have some words for you.

Whitewater. Rush Limbaugh. "Drug Dealer" Bill Clinton. Swift Boats.

Vince Fucking Foster.

Playing with fire, you say? Because the indictments ringing Tom DeLay finally reached up that one, final step from his ring of closest advisers to DeLay himself? Because the SEC has launched a formal investigation into the same behaviors by Bill Frist that put Martha Stewart recently in prison? Because one of the single most visible, highest profile Republican money men has been indicted for fraud, is being investigated for client shakedowns, and has his close business associates being investigated for a mob-connected murder?

What utter cowardice. What pathetic anti-American pedantry. What laughable protestation. The crimes of campaign money laundering, of fraud, of conspiracy, the violation of the laws of the nation, to be answered with stern visions of potential gunfire if Democrats have the audacity to pursue it.

...

Your party has set aflame the entire political landscape, and now, once burned, you warn sternly from the branches of a burnt-out tree about "playing with fire". You used the ashes of one of the great liberal cities of America, New York City, as war paint for your own sick, racist dreams. You shudder at a burning flag, yet are willing to snip-and-cut basic tenets of the Constitution as needed or convenient.

...

Welcome to the world of the politics of personal destruction, you tubthumping, chin-jutting, Bush humping gits. Welcome to the nasty and partisan world that Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Hugh Hewitt, Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, and a legion of insignificant lowest-rung toadies like yourselves nurtured into fruition daily with eager, grubby hands, and now look upon with dull-faced faux horror.

...

Step back from the edge? You poor boy, asleep in the back of the car the whole trip, finally waking up and wondering where you're at.

...

You can't even see the edge from here. You left it behind a hundred miles back.

So don't give me chest-thumping crap about civil wars, if your politicians are indicted. Don't give me visions of a lake of fire, if all those who find you loathsome refuse to suck at your teats of scientific ignorance in the name of religion, racism in the name of freedom, and corruption in the name of the New World Order.

Or, as a great playwright once put it:

"Oh? And when the last law was down, and the devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws being all flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - man's laws, not God's - and if you cut them down (and you're just the man to do it) d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"

DeLay has no place left to hide from his crimes, and the poor sods who have sold their souls to this monstrous pack of traitors have no place left to hide from the truth, except in citadels built from the mortar of their own frightened denial. They want to believe that they are righteous when they are only self-righteous, that their leaders are virtuous when they are corrupt, that their beliefs are noble when they are vile, and that all their enemies are cut from the same cloth. Wish as they might, however, John Kerry is not Osama bin Laden and George Bush is not Thomas Jefferson.

I truly do believe that we can alter what is possible through perception and will. But such power comes from wisdom, and whenever someone tries to alter reality from a place of towering hubris, Truth will repay such arrogant folly many times over. They have sown the wind, and now they decry the whirlwind as partisan?

No. This is not backstabbing, revenge, or even justice. This is simple physics: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The madmen who have hijacked the once-noble institutions of the Republican party and the government of the United States have acted with absolute contempt for honesty. The bitter harvest is clear for all with eyes to see: the death and tragedy in Iraq, the return of the drug lords in Afghanistan, the price of blindness and neglect in what was once New Orleans, $3 a gallon gasoline, a government deficit so massive it beggars the imagination and the near-universal hatred of a world that gave us nearly universal, unconditional support a scant four years ago.

And the storm is still just now breaking.

I am saddened that so many -- a full 40 percent of the American people -- still don't want to see the truth. I can't blame them, though. It is something terrible and painful to see, like watching a beloved uncle slowly dying of a cancer he refuses to admit exists. But our Uncle Sam does have a cancer, and only by confronting him with the truth can he be saved. Joining in his denial will only prolong the pain, and if we wait too long, even that mightiest of relatives may perish.

The time to awaken is upon us. Either this country chooses to face the consequences of its leaders' actions, allowing us to begin to face their mistakes, or it will remain blind and embark on a path that ends in a nation indistinguishable from Oceania.

There's just one problem for the would-be Big Brothers of God's Own Party: there is a real resistance out here. We pay attention to facts, rescue the past from the memory hole and continue to point out inconvenient truths. The simplest and most important one is this -- they are not America, no matter how much they pretend to patriotism and decry their enemies as 'anti-American.' We are all America, and their delusional, hateful Frankenstein's monster of corporate mega-greed, xenophobic bigotry, and budding theofascism is only a tiny, insignificant portion of the legendary Melting Pot.

Most Americans would be shocked if they saw it for what it is -- their dropping poll numbers are the result of a few more coming around to the truth all the time -- and the monster is coming apart at the seams. If it weren't, would they be desperately be threatening violence like Chicken Little screaming about the sky falling? Then again, for them, the sky is falling, but it's really just the ceiling of their little bubble of falsehood caving in. And really, what's one more lie among friends after so many?
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(/) Roland X
And the Truth Shall Set Us Free
(those poor bastards are on their own, though)

Rules

2005-09-18T01:06:00.000-07:00

I've thought a lot about the strain of Republicans that we oppose -- the Cheney/Rove axis that threatens both the systems and ideals that make up America. They play the rules like the worst sort of lawyers, bending them into pretzels when convenient and breaking them whenever they can get away with it, but holding their opponents to the most minute definitions whenever it can provide them an advantage. (See Clinton, William J.) And the basic definition of this sort of Republican is simple. For them, there are no rules.

To be sure, there are guidelines. Win at all costs. Never let the marks see past your image. Spin can beat any truth if you're shameless enough and persistent enough. No slander is too foul, as long as it works. (See Kerry, John F.) Loyalty is the only important trait for office holders. Hypocrisy is a virtue. "Orwellian" is an ideal, not an insult. And finally, if you do lose, never admit you lost, pretend it never happened, and immediately go back on the attack, preferably on another flank. When it comes to the "lost" issue, there's always tomorrow.

It's easy -- too easy -- to give in to anger or despair when faced with this sort of villainy. It's like being ruled by the Legion of Doom (but I'll get to that in another post :-). They must be stopped. They must be beaten. They must be driven from power, discredited, and the memory of their administration recorded solely as a lesson for future generations of the ways evil can hide behind an innocuous face.

Yet we must adhere to a higher standard than the pseudo-cons. Most of us disagree with their actual ideology, true, but that's not what makes them so poisonous. It's their lies, incompetence, cronyism, and worst of all, their sheer willingness to turn American against American. Nothing is too low for them if Rove can use it to squeeze a few more votes out, whether in the House of Representatives or among regular people.

They used the attacks on September 11, 2001 -- the single most unifying event in American history since Pearl Harbor, its one silver lining -- and used it to club their political rivals over the head. They started an unnecessary war for a variety of reasons, but one of them was for the exact same purpose. And now, with an entire city under water and massive amounts of the deepest of red states left in disarray thanks almost entirely to their incompetence in the one area they claimed as their sole bailiwick, they decry the "blame game" while playing it for all they're worth.

J'accuse!

It is our duty as Americans to cry out at this injustice. We must speak out, resist to the best of our ability, this obscenity. I firmly believe it makes the most sense, strategically and morally, to proclaim their mendacity, greed and heartlessness at every opportunity. Find decent people and run them against the vermin that walk like men (See Hackett, Paul). Decent Republicans, I'm looking at you, too -- Democrats of conscience are working to take back our party, and yours is in greater need of you.

What we cannot, must not do, however, is allow ourselves to stoop to their level. Will it make any real difference if liberals or moderates return to power if back room deals and political payback define our governance? What good will restoring balance to government finances if health care and welfare become Democrats' ways of rewarding our friends and punishing our enemies? It may be possible to bring down Bush with a lie, or an irrelevance (yeah, the bathroom note is fun, but can you imagine impeaching him over it, even if he were to lie to Congress about it?), but what would that turn us into?

The subtitle of this blog is "proud supporter of the reality-based community" because I believe that reality is far more malleable than most believe. (I find it most ironic that the "Vulcans" of the modern Republican party have done more to undermine the concept with their hubris than the flakiest New Ager ever could.) I've seen/read The Matrix, What the Bleep Do We Know, Stranger in a Strange Land, and a variety of books on the implications of quantum physics to what we think of as a hard and unyielding universe. As a result, I have a healthy respect for those who see rules with a skeptical eye, and those who break them with style can be quite noble. After all, I look forward to a day when humanity can twist the 'rules' of reality itself into proverbial knots, making of it what we will -- who am I to denigrate the honorable rogues among us?

The thing is, honor is the key. Even if we overturn every law of physics and make a game of existence itself, there must still be some codified limits to behavior for people to get along together. If anything, rules of honor and decency are far more important than mere laws, whether of government or physics. These are the rules for which the Rovians have so much contempt, and the ones we must hold on to in spite of their outrageous flaunting of them if our victory is to mean anything.
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(/) Roland X
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fail. Think of it...always." -- Gandhi

Political Emergency Management Agency

2005-09-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

So much for the defibrillator.

To paraphrase a friend of mine (who apparently takes exception to my giving Dubya the least amount of credit -- with good reason, it turns out), he's still trying to weasel his way out of admitting he screwed up. To quote COBRA's Baroness, "I take the responsibility, but not the blame! It's [his] fault!"

As others have pointed out (the brilliant Digby in particular), Bush has used liberal rhetoric before (anyone remember No Child Left Behind?) to cover up his fringe pseudo-conservative agenda, and he's doing it again now. If anything, the lies and greed are worse than ever. As Digby notes:

I missed the speech last night but I was on the road and tuned into KTALK, the liberal talk radio station here in LA shortly after it was over and heard Johnny Wendell, whom I usually quite like, saying that he hadn't heard a politician say anything like this in 30 years. And he thought that it was such good news that we should give George W. Bush the benefit of the doubt. It just proved that the era of Republican small government conservatism was over and liberalism was back, baby!

I was confused. I had read that article in the morning, after all. Then I came home and fired up the creaky computer and saw that Karl Rove was in charge of the rebuilding effort. Ah.

Read the whole thing -- Digby quotes an article on how the reconstruction effort is already being turned into one gigantic boondoggle combining radical conservative "free-market" theology and cronyism on a $200 billion dollar scale.

Okay, so he hasn't learned anything about the effectiveness of laissez-faire policy and placing spin doctors in charge of actual organization. I mean, ye gods, Karl Rove in charge of reconstruction efforts? Karl Rove?!? Given that they called it "reconstruction" in the announcement, I imagine for Southerners, even white fundamentalist men have to be twitching while they wonder what Cheniac is really up to. (Hint: expect a lot of Halliburton employees to make suitcases out of rugs.) But hey, he must realize that we have to start paying for this stuff, right?

To quote the title of another great blog, sadly, no! Read his lips, no new taxes. No old taxes, either -- don't worry about him even slowing down on tax cuts. After all, we can't hobble our brave, can-do billionaires as they feast at the trough of federal recon...er, I mean, rush in to bring that capitalist ingenuity to making money hand over fist...um, that is, creating a Brave New City built on conservative ideology and a whole new demographic. (IOW, no blacks need apply. Unless they're rich wingnuts.)

Even Prescott "The Profiteer" Bush would blush at the shamelessness of making money on the dead and destitute of a devastated American city. The debate is over: Bush is unbelievably stupid and amazingly evil. He is the front man for the Cheney/Rove axis, the living veil for a toxic stew of domestic piracy and foreign conquest. In spite of his stupidity, on some level he is clearly aware of this. It's time for Democrats to stop pussyfooting around this trained ape and wage politics with the same intensity (albeit not with the same mendacity) the Republicans do: as the small-d democratic equivalent of total war.
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(/) Roland X
Theoden: I will not risk open war.
Aragorn: Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.

Get the Defibrillator

2005-09-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

Bush admits to failure?!? I think my heart stopped:

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."

He even spins remorse -- "all levels of government" and "didn't fully do its job right" sound like he's trying to dodge as much of the "responsibility" as he can -- but this is still an unprecedented step for an administration that has remained unrepentant on even its most epic failures. Of course, even on 9/11 we didn't lose an entire city, so I guess this proves that even Rove has his limits.

On the other hand, the administration is rapidly running out of scapegoats. Gov. Blanco has been officially declared to have done her job properly by what may be the last genuinely nonpartisan government commission in DC, and Mayor Nagin is proving increasingly difficult to blame. Now Bush can't be held responsible for the actions of a bunch of racist cops in Gretna, aside from doing something about them at the time, but they messed up in so many other ways that I'm willing to chalk that up to the same incompetence they displayed everywhere else. Otherwise, it looks like nearly the whole mess ends up in their laps.

(And I hate being so cynical that I wonder about how much of the 'fewer deaths than expected' news is good, and how much of it is cover-up.)

So Bush actually took responsibility for something. Well, that is to be commended as far as it goes. Now that we've had some truth, let's start talking consequences. Responsibility means you deal with what you did. Maybe it's time to repeal a few of those tax breaks for Bush's super-rich buddies to pay for this mess. Or perhaps the administration should be forced to eat some crow by having someone with brains replace the cronies in FEMA and other emergency organizations. Ideally, Bush should be forced to resign by overwhelming outrage, but we're the reality-based community, so one step at a time. Besides, that would just leave us with Cheniac, which wouldn't improve matters anyway.

They're starting to sink. As Carville would say, time to throw them an anvil.
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(/) Roland X
Luthor/Brainiac amalgam: "I kill you, and then...Armageddon, right on schedule."

Gods Bless Newsweek

2005-09-11T13:03:00.000-07:00

We rip the media so often here on the lefty side of the blogosphere (not as bad as the right's paranoid "MSM" fantasies, but still...), so I thought I should give kudos where they are richly deserved:

It takes a hurricane. It takes a catastrophe like Katrina to strip away the old evasions, hypocrisies and not-so-benign neglect. It takes the sight of the United States with a big black eye—visible around the world—to help the rest of us begin to see again. For the moment, at least, Americans are ready to fix their restless gaze on enduring problems of poverty, race and class that have escaped their attention. Does this mean a new war on poverty? No, especially with Katrina's gargantuan price tag. But this disaster may offer a chance to start a skirmish, or at least make Washington think harder about why part of the richest country on earth looks like the Third World.

It shouldn't have taken a hurricane. America should not need a disaster of Biblical proportions to wake us up from our complacency and sloth. Other than that, Newsweek -- the source of the paragraph quoted above -- nails it on the head. This is their cover story. The text of the cover?

Poverty, Race & Katrina
Lessons of a National Shame

Now that's the so-called "MSM" doing its gorram job.

We can, of course, expect the usual suspects to scream their usual slanders. "Bias!" "Liberals!" "Bush-haters!" To which I can only say the following, courtesy of Fox News:

SMITH: They won't let them walk out of the…convention center. .. they've locked them in there. The government said, "You go here, and you'll get help," or, "You go in that Superdome and you'll get help."

And they didn't get help. They got locked in there. And they watched people being killed around them. And they watched people starving. And they watched elderly people not get any medicine..

And they've set up a checkpoint. And anyone who walks up out of that city now is turned around. You are not allowed to go to Gretna, Louisiana, from New Orleans, Louisiana. Over there, there's hope. Over there, there's electricity. Over there, there is food and water. But you cannot go from there to there. The government will not allow you to do it. It's a fact.

HANNITY: All right, Shep, I want to get some perspective here, because earlier today...

SMITH: That is perspective! That is all the perspective you need!

So anyone want to tell me that Fox News is part of the liberal media? Watching the video, watching Geraldo Rivera in tears as he held up babies gone four, five, six days with little or no water, watching Shepard Smith screaming at Sean Hannity...Smith was right. That's all the perspective you need.
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(/) Roland X
"WAKE UP!" -- Rage Against The Machine

Public Service Announcement For The Bushista Resistance

2005-09-09T19:14:00.000-07:00

I've been hoping someone would do one blog/web entry that covers all the major malfeasance of the Resident and his cronies.

http://www.bobharris.com/content/view/636/1/

Mr. Harris does it so the rest of us don't have to. I wish I could smiley this, but the reality is just too...real. Still, kudos to Bob for wading through the virtual muck to give us the rundown on the real stuff along the Gulf Coast. As he puts it:

The lies are numerous, repeated, obvious, and easily documented.

Not to mention shameless, self-serving, vile and inexcusable. I wish I had more hope that America would wake up and realize what an obscene little man is running our country, but I have a little, which is more than I've had for a while now.

It shouldn't have taken losing an entire American city, a situation in which less than ten thousand deaths is a good thing, for us to get here. And the price is too high. But that there is hope at all is a good start.
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(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix, after all. Whattaya know.

The REAL Core of Bush Loyalty: A Paper Tiger

2005-09-09T11:54:00.000-07:00

Gakked from Daily Kos, a poll from AP/Ipsos:

Overall, do you approve, disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W. Bush is handling his job as President?

Strongly Approve 20 (23)
Somewhat Approve 11 (10)
Lean Toward Approval 8 (9)
Lean Toward Disapproval 14 (13)
Somewhat Disapprove 5 (5)
Strongly Disapprove 40 (38)

Total

Approve 39 (42)
Disapprove 59 (55)

Italics theirs. Bold emphasis mine (and other boldface removed). Numbers in parentheses are from the previous poll.

Bush has dropped below 40%. He's officially tanking. The "popular wartime Preznit" BS is long since dead. (Of course, that's what you get for invading Mexico after Pearl Harbor -- I mean, Iraq after 9/11.)

More importantly, however, the strong approval rating is a mere 20%. Just half of the strong disapproval. That, my friends, is the solid, unshakeable core of the willingly deluded who continue to believe Bush anointed by God. That's it. And you can get 20% of Americans to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Hey, Democrats. You can call out the Bush Cultists for being lying, corrupt traitors. Honest. It's safe now.
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(/) Roland X
O.D. (Original Deaniac)

Now IS the Time; Now HAS To Be the Time

2005-09-07T18:08:00.000-07:00

So the adults are in charge, huh?

With everything from death to thuggery to sexual harrassment taking place at the hands of the government, give me one good reason not to play the "blame game."

I don't give a damn if Democrats go down too, if they're partly responsible for the horror that is Lake New Orleans. Now, Governor Blanco has unquestionably been slimed in an outright lie by the administration, which claimed she did not declare a state of emergency when it is a matter of record that she did on the 26th. However, criminal negligence is criminal negligence, and one slander does not an innocent make, so I reserve judgement.

Nevertheless, the evidence is overwhelming that Bush, the DHS and FEMA failed miserably. While Bush let them eat cake and fiddled, New Orleans drowned and the entire Gulf Coast was swamped.

As the entire sane blogosphere is pointing out, no one is responsible for an act of nature. They are responsible for their preparations for it (and lack thereof), criminal negligence during, and obscene neglect bordering on manslaughter afterwards. Thousands are dead because of these soulless fools. The buck stops now, or the next time will only be worse.

(/) Roland X
Bin Laden must be laughing his evil @$$ off...

9/11 Really DID Change Everything

2005-09-04T18:06:00.000-07:00

Just not the way we thought:

The killer hurricane and flood that devastated the Gulf Coast last week exposed fatal weaknesses in a federal disaster response system retooled after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to handle just such a cataclysmic event.

Despite four years and tens of billions of dollars spent preparing for the worst, the federal government was not ready when it came at daybreak on Monday, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former senior officials and outside experts.

...

"We've had our first test, and we've failed miserably," said former representative Timothy J. Roemer (D-Ind.), a member of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks. "We have spent billions of dollars in revenues to try to make our country safe, and we have not made nearly enough progress." With Katrina, he noted that "we had some time to prepare. When it's a nuclear, chemical or biological attack," there will be no warning.

Indeed, the warnings about New Orleans's vulnerability to post-hurricane flooding repeatedly circulated at the upper levels of the new bureaucracy, which had absorbed the old lead agency for disasters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among its two dozen fiefdoms. "Beyond terrorism, this was the one event I was most concerned with always," said Joe M. Allbaugh, the former Bush campaign manager who served as his first FEMA head.

...

"It's such an irony I hate to say it, but we have less capability today than we did on September 11," said a veteran FEMA official involved in the hurricane response. "We are so much less than what we were in 2000," added another senior FEMA official. "We've lost a lot of what we were able to do then."

...

"The federal system that was perfected in the '90s has been deconstructed," said Bullock. Citing a study that found that the United States now spends $180 million a year to fend off natural hazards vs. $20 billion annually against terrorism, Bullock said, "FEMA has been marginalized. . . . There is one focus and the focus is on terrorism."

...

Others who went out of their way to offer help were turned down, such as Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who told reporters his city had offered emergency, medical and technical help as early as last Sunday to FEMA but was turned down. Only a single tank truck was requested, Daley said. Red tape kept the American Ambulance Association from sending 300 emergency vehicles from Florida to the flood zone, according to former senator John Breaux (D-La.) They were told to get permission from the General Services Administration. "GSA said they had to have FEMA ask for it," Breaux told CNN. "As a result they weren't sent."

Emphasis mine in all cases.

The Washington Post has been absolutely amazing about this story. I highly recommend the entire article.

Kevin Drum, who (after a brief hiccup) has been the voice of moderates' outrage over this fiasco, has this to say about the article:

Here's the part I don't get — and I mean I genuinely don't get it, regardless of who's at fault here. Everyone suggests that part of the problem is that FEMA's focus was redirected toward terrorism after 9/11. In and of itself, this is neither surprising nor wrong. But the requirements to respond to a major terrorist attack on a U.S. city are largely identical to the requirements for responding to a hurricane like Katrina: food, medicine, maintenance of order, evacuation, and temporary shelter. So what are FEMA's plans for responding to, say, a large scale chemical weapon attack on Chicago? They'd have less warning than they did with Katrina and the requirements for aid would be largely similar. What would they do?

Exactly what they have done, Kevin -- spin for all they're worth, abandon the "poor, huddled masses" to whatever fate befell them, and send Halliburton in to profit off of the misery. (Oh, and Brown's predecessor as head of FEMA is now a lobbyist for Kellogg, Brown and Root. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.) With the obvious difference of being able to start wars over it instead of having to beg off on the whole "act of God" thing.

I understand the impulse to avoid "partisanship" during this terrible time, I really do. But with the Cheney administration desperately trying to pawn off responsibility for this fiasco on the Governor and Mayor (with outright lies in some cases), and with the clear and present dereliction of duty on the parts of the responsible parties (the DHS director and the head of FEMA in particular), we need to keep shouting this from the rooftops until the American people finally hear us -- because something has to be done about them before the next disaster.
--
(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix...
but before the phoenix can rise, first it must burn.

So Where's The Foreign Money?

2005-09-04T00:22:00.000-07:00

Right here:

By Friday, offers had been received from Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Belgium, Britain, Canada, China, Colombia, Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Greece, Georgia, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, the Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela and the United Arab Emirates.

My faith in America is shaken. Humanity in general, OTOH...after everything this country has done, especially considering these are red states...this is really heartening.
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(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix

Because I Have To

2005-09-02T22:31:00.000-07:00

...I'm still in shock over New Orleans.

I was born in New York. 9/11 is still the only day I have ever just not gone to work -- called in sick, sure, but I just couldn't move from my television, watching my beloved city scream in agony as a monster stabbed a poisoned blade through its heart.

This is worse.

The unimaginable, breathtaking corruption and incompetence of the Bush administration throughout all this has made me purely ill, but right now even their responsibility for FEMA's sorry state pales to near-insignificance in the face of the massive death, destruction and suffering in the city. Babies dying of dehydration. Bodies floating in the streets. Thousands of people trapped, stranded, with no food or water because no one can get their heads out of their butts long enough to help them.

Politically, this is the right response:

No whitewashes. Find out who fucked up. Republicans, Democrats, I don't care. Anyone who screwed up should be tarred and feathered.

Yes. Absolutely. We need to find out what went wrong and make sure it never happens again.

LATER.

(Though yes, there is a place for keeping the heat on the blood-sucking monsters who drained the defenses from the Big Easy to play God and pork with.)

Right now, however, anyone who can do something needs to do it. I don't care whether you're red, blue, purple or rutting chartreuse. Right now, you help and you're on the side of the angels as far as I'm concerned. The rest of us need to give whatever we can. While we're in sufficiently dire straits monetarily that we can't match the full Skippy challenge, we are donating what we can through my office, which has a matching fund. Best Buy has one as well, but given the rapidly increasing outpouring of donations, I suspect they'll hit their million dollar cap soon, whereas my office has not listed a donation cap of their own.

I'd ask everyone reading this to do what they can, but I'm certain that all of you already are.

That's what's really tearing me up, ironically enough. Emotionally, I don't know which way to jump. There is so much that is wrong and ugly about this horror. The government knew this disaster was coming. We knew. And the sheer callousness of so many...yeah, I expected a few epic cases of jerkus maximus, but the pure, unadulterated bile aimed at people too poor to get out and who had to salvage what they could to survive...there are no words. I won't call it stealing or looting when the city is all but destroyed, and what was taken was solely for survival; call it "salvage rights" and be done with it, considering that most of what was taken out of need would have been destroyed anyway. But some people have to blame anyone and everyone but their Dear Leaders, even if that means pointing the finger at dying infants and senile grandparents.

On the other hand...so much giving. So much caring. So much not caring who's in need, or how much, just seeing the need and filling it. It's a feeling I thought we lost when Mr. Uniter took a sword to this country and cleaved it in two. And maybe...just maybe...people are actually waking up to how badly our system is messed up. It's horrific that we had to lose an entire major American city for this to happen...and that even then, it might not be enough. But when Fox correspondents tell Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity to get a gorram clue, maybe there's hope after all. "The best of times, the worst of times" indeed.
--
(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix

President Spoiled Brat

2005-07-06T19:24:00.001-07:00

Not that I exactly have a problem with Mr. "My Pet Goat" gets into a whining contest with the psychotic far right, but this is really pathetic, even for Bush:

"I don't like it when a friend gets criticized. I'm loyal to my friends," Bush told reporters in Copenhagen, Denmark. "All of a sudden this fellow, who is a good public servant and a really fine person, is under fire. And so, do I like it? No, I don't like it, at all."

Well, gosh, I don't like it when a friend of mine gets criticized either, but you know what, I'm not nominating one to be a bloody Supreme Court justice.

And you know what else, maybe getting a nomination to the most powerful judicial body in the land shouldn't come about because you're somebody's drinking buddy or whatnot. Even if said buddy is the President of the United States.

The really sad thing is, Alberto "Captain Torture" Gonzales just might be the best we in the sanity-based community can hope for. And that, more than anything else, says all anyone needs to know about how far our great nation has fallen thanks to the W era.
--
(/) Roland X
"Blood at the polls and blood in the streets, but Scudder won the election. The next election was never held." --Robert A. Heinlein, 1952, "Concerning Stories Never Written: Postscript" in Revolt in 2100

And So It Begins

2005-07-01T16:03:00.000-07:00

This is it:

Yes, it's true:
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court and a key swing vote on issues such as abortion and the death penalty, said today she is retiring.

Well, everyone's making predictions. Here is mine:

It's all over the country. You can almost smell it. Coming off people like gas fumes. All it'd take is a match.

The story above -- Astro City's "Dark Age" -- is about an explosive conflict between the superhuman "freaks" (as well as those who believe in them) and the "normal" people who lose faith in them. The story ends with the match being thrown into the gas fumes -- the arrest of the world's most beloved hero for murder. "That's the match."

Justice O'Connor's retirement is ours. Liberal and "conservative" movements are ramping up -- the liberals trying to get Bush to not name a total wingnut, and the religious radicals trying to get a super-wingnut. As the most important swing vote on the bench, most recently highlighted by her split decisions on the church-state cases, the character of Bush's nominee will fundamentally shape the court's decisions for years to come.

Given W's history, I think it's safe to say that he'll go with the hyper-wingnut choice. With his poll numbers plummeting, his second-term agenda in tatters, the war in Iraq increasingly disastrous and Democrats more emboldened than they have been since 1994, he's going to want a victory. In his typical childish manner, he's going to want to "stick to his guns" and show everyone that he's still a "tough guy." I don't know if it'll result in real violence, but W has been steadily increasing the rift between the two sides, and this is his chance to sunder the nation entirely.

So much for the "uniter, not a divider" who was handed the most unifying moment in American history since Pearl Harbor. This is what he wants. This is what Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, and the entire corrupt, evil crowd wants. The real enemy was never bin Laden or even Hussein. It was us -- not just liberals, but the entire "reality-based community" that refused to accept their lies, their hegemony and their One True Way(tm).

I pray I'm wrong, but I doubt it. Unless a miracle happens, this is the end of the America that was, and the beginning of an all-out conflict to determine the future. Whether that future is the dominance of their Orwellian state dream, a renewed embrace of sanity and liberty, or a final sundering that began with an assault on a fort in 1861, remains to be seen.

Suffice to say I'm not hopeful.

(/) Roland X
"You have...forgotten something." --Kosh, Babylon 5

Good vs. Evil

2005-06-23T20:13:00.000-07:00

Troll repellent: Yes, Osama bin Laden is an evil SOB who needs to be brought to justice, or barring that, gunned down. Saddam was a psychopathic, merciless tyrant. Etcetera.

That doesn't make everyone who fights them good. Stalin fought Hitler tooth and nail when he had to.

Compare and contrast the Bad Guys:

Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war. Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies.

...and the Good Guys:

I am deeply disturbed and disappointed that the Bush White House would continue to use the national tragedy of September 11th to try and divide the country. The lesson our country learned on that terrible morning is that we are strongest when we unite together, that America's power is in its common spirit of democracy and freedom.

I will say this about our side -- we are often reluctant to use the language of good and evil, particularly now, when the Shrub has tainted the concept of such stark contrasts. In this case, however, it's really simple. One side has routinely attempted to put aside the partisan crap when it comes to defending our country and its ideals. The other has done everything it can to drive a wedge between Americans in the hopes of scraping a few more voters into its corner.

I leave it as an exercise to the reader which is which.
--
(/) Roland X
"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803

I almost cried...

2005-06-11T20:44:00.000-07:00

...when I read this:

Via Ivo Daadler at TPM Cafe, text from Barack Obama's recent commencement address at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois (full text of speech here):
[America is a] place where destiny was not a destination, but a journey to be shared and shaped and remade by people who had the gall, the temerity to believe that, against all odds, they could form "a more perfect union" on this new frontier. And as people around the world began to hear the tale of the lowly colonists who overthrew an empire for the sake of an idea, they started to come. Across oceans and the ages, they settled in Boston and Charleston, Chicago and St. Louis, Kalamazoo and Galesburg, to try and build their own American Dream. This collective dream moved forward imperfectly--it was scarred by our treatment of native peoples, betrayed by slavery, clouded by the subjugation of women, shaken by war and depression. And yet, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, people kept dreaming, and building, and working, and marching, and petitioning their government, until they made America a land where the question of our place in history is not answered for us. It's answered by us.
What Obama suggests is truly something that moves me. In short, he tells a narrative of American greatness in profoundly liberal terms. This is not the kind of patriotism that has been in vogue in recent years, certainly not the kind of national greatness propogated by folks on the right. Indeed, in the liberal narrative, America is great, or is special, or is an example to the rest of the world because being American is a process, it is never fixed. On the one hand, this is why America deals better with immigrants than virtually any other industrialized society I can think of, but also why the culture wars here rage so fiercely, and why liberals constantly have to hear that they are "unAmerican" or "don't love America enough." Because what being American means is fundamentally never a settled question. Much of American literature and autobiography gets to the heart of this idea: from Crevecouer's Letters from an American Farmer and Ben Franklin's Autobiography forward.

For a liberal to believe in America's exceptionalism, it can't be "America right or wrong," as conservatives were wont to say during the Vietnam era and are essentially saying again today. Hence, the divide over Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, where conservatives can't comprehend - and think even borderline traitorous - shining a light on and condemning the practices perpertrated by Americas here. For them, American exceptionalism is inherent. In this sense, the conservative version of patriotism/exceptionalism is much more like - ironically - European nationalisms. And thus, something like Abu Ghraib is essentially irrelevent.

For liberals, however, greatness is something that must constantly be created and reconfirmed. It is never a settled a matter. And indeed, it is this various unique process through which America is always/constantly defining and redefining itself that makes America exceptional, not the simply the existence of America and Americans.

I'm not sure whether the tears that formed in my eyes were at the beauty of this vision...or at how close we are to losing it completely as a significant force in America. Perhaps both.

To me, to speak of "the American Dream" is a redundancy. America is a Dream, a beautiful and glorious dream every bit the equal of Atlantis or Camelot or Shangri-La. This land we live on, the laws we live by, the flag we wave...those are the mere trappings of a mortal nation. The Dream will live forever, for it is rich and complex, yet exquisitely simple: liberty and justice for all. For all.

This means that a KKK fanatic can rant on his own time all he wants, true. It also means that the government has to leave Paul Krugman alone, and that Randi Rhodes is as inviolate as Dennis Miller. All things flow from those two basic principles. Liberty means the right to write what you want, play what you want and believe what you want, as long as you respect others' freedom in the process. And that is where justice comes in. Even though liberty is threatened now, it is justice that has come the farthest, and has the farthest to go. Slavery was a vast, horrific injustice -- but it has been undone. Equality for women and minorities is as yet unrealized, but so much has been accomplished since the revolution. We keep most of our seniors from starving, but children still die needlessly from preventable illness and treatable injury.

For all Bush's mad, idiotic hubris, for all Cheney's greed and evil, for all Rumsfeld's treachery and betrayal of our military, even they have tread lightly on this Dream. As deeply as the American people have been hypnotized, the power of the Dream that is America is enough to shake the world, and it lies within the vast, great majority of our people. It is merely quiescent in most, sleeping, waiting to be awakened and realized. Even as insane, arrogant and incompetent as these fools have proven, even they have had enough survival instinct to avoid truly waking it. And yet it stirs. The Dream sleeps uneasily, knowing it has been deeply and fundamentally betrayed.

"Ben P" strikes brilliantly on a primal aspect -- perhaps the primal aspect -- of the Dream when he says that America is the process of redefining (and in an almost alchemical sense, purifying) our nation. Ironically, what I call purification (here meant in a moral, almost spiritual sense) the most radical of our enemies call dilution or defiling. To them, allowing differing, "alien" elements weakens America, not realizing that this constant recreation is what the Dream is fundamentally about: the process of continual rebirth. Heh. Perhaps our national bird should be the Phoenix instead of the Eagle.

Hopefully, this Dream will one day encompass the world. When it does, however, it should not -- must not -- be represented by one nation's flag or people or military. Indeed, that would be to betray it at the deepest level -- which in many ways is what the Bush Administration is doing. That may be the most tragic result of the deep alienation the world is developing regarding the nation of America, as it rejects the Dream along with crude military efforts and selfish corporate gluttony. And yet, if we are ever to transcend politics of division and bigotry, foolishly pitting one ideology against another, we must embrace that Dream. To surrender it is to surrender the future, giving it to the power brokers and fanatics until they finally get us all killed.

Tomorrow can be better than that. Our legacy can be one of tolerance, freedom, opportunity and plenty. That is the very substance and promise of the Dream that is America, which is why the greedy and hateful fear it so much. No matter how badly under siege it may seem, no matter how deeply corporate machines and theocrats and Faux news outlets try to bury it, as long as one person remembers, we keep the flame alive. Even now, when I despair on a regular basis, I still believe that one day, it will light our way to a better world, and then to the stars.
--
(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix

Darth Idiot

2005-06-11T18:56:00.000-07:00

The Trade Federation:

"My lord, is that...legal?"

"I will make it legal."

Nute Gunray and Darth Sidious, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

The Coalition of the Willing:

MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.

The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.

This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action.

Sure, Iraq isn't Naboo. Still, given that our Vice President is proud of being the "evil genius in the corner," I have to wonder what it will take for the bare majority who voted for these guys -- evil and stupid, what a combination -- and the 40% who didn't vote at all to wake up and smell the fascism.
--
(/) Roland X
"Ah, arrogance and stupidity all in the same package. How efficient of you." -- Londo Mollari

Selling Their Souls

2005-06-08T19:29:00.000-07:00

Ye gods, has it been that long (again)?

Well, anyway. This bit of brilliance has been making the rounds thanks to Atrios:

It's not true that the Conservatives I know don't give a damn so much as they are terrified that they were wrong.

Deeply, primally terrified. Their whole psychological infrastructure is cobbled together out of half-baked conservative bumper-sticker ideology, gun lust, socially illiterate hatred of "welfare cheats" and other largely fictional or apocryphal lazy people (read: niggers and other swarthy folk) who want to leech off of them while they work harder and harder for less and less. Despite a lot of bluster about Freedom and Individuality they are, at heart, happiest when they are conforming to the wishes of the Strong Man; when they know exactly their place in the hierarchy.

...

But in exchange for all of this wonderfulness, they have to hand over their souls to truly evil men.

...

This is the ancient, unbridgeable and eternally hostile schism between their template for humanity and ours. This is, I believe, why sometimes we fundamentally cannot understand each other; because we are running two radically different and incompatible O/S's.

...

And because everything – their very souls – rest on the foundation of the infallibility of Dear Leader, they'll happily kill anyone in any numbers who might force them to face up to the fact that Dear Leader is a duplicitous, lying sleazebag who has played on their fear and ignorance and patriotism to turn them out like $2 crack whores.

...

The good news is, we are still 49% of the game; wake up and pick off a mere 100,000 and we can begin to turn a lot of thinks around. The more gooder news is that our O/S thrives best when saturated in pure, clean Reality, and theirs rust and rots and flies apart at the seams when the lies that insulate it are peeled away.

It was a bear choosing excerpts from this post. Go. Read.

The problem is, Reality really is fungible, albeit not nearly as much as the madmen in office would like it to be. And when you bend Reality for too long, at too arrogant an angle, it knocks you over all by itself, to steal and rework shamelessly from Santayana. Worse, their arrogant experiment in molesting an entire region threatens to knock the rest of us over with them.

There was a time when fundamentalist terrorism was on the run. After September 11, 2001, we were united as never before. All that would have been necessary for this brand of evil to be an endangered species was for the men in power to not be arrogant, greedy, psychopathic fools.

Alas, they are.
--
(/) Roland X
"Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim." -- Santayana (again)

The War On Choice

2005-04-09T17:56:00.000-07:00

I'm not talking about abortion, but rather an interesting form of a nigh-invisible double standard Orcinus brings up:

Ah yes. We've heard this line before. Because being gay is a "chosen behavior," it is undeserving of civil rights protections.

It's the same reason given by many evangelicals -- and particularly black and minority evangelicals, and people who claim they support civil rights -- for not supporting gays and lesbians in hate-crime protections: "You can't compare being gay to being black. One's immutable, one's chosen."

Well, yes, this is true when it comes to race. And even ethnicity. These are, after all, two of the three main legs of anti-discrimination and hate-crimes laws.

But it's not true of the third leg of these laws: religion. Last I checked, this too was a "chosen behavior."

Hmm. Okay, so let's review. Homosexuality is not deserving of anti-discrimination protection because it involves "choice." So does religion.

Of course, most of the anti-rights jihadists who hate gays would gleefully purge the country of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, neo-pagans, agnostics and liberal Jews and Christians – and an awful lot of them would happily turn their guns on Catholics (they're "Papists," after all) and all Jews. Can't be too careful, you know. So I guess this one isn't really about hypocrisy so much as resentment of that annoying First Amendment that protects freedom of religion. They can't legally discriminate against the heretics, but by God they can persecute the homos.

Unless they’re Republicans, that is. IOKIYAR, after all.

(/) Roland X
Who apologizes yet again for the incredibly long dearth of posts, but isn't going to waste lots of bandwidth on the subject.

Terror v. Incompetence

2004-12-07T20:45:00.000-08:00

Greetings, gentle readers. My apologies for the relatively long dearth of posts; the post-election season has been, at turns, depressing, frightening, and incredibly busy. I'm hard at work (well, maybe not too hard at work ;-) coming up with a strategy/ideological framework for our local think tank, dealing with the holidays, and trying to get my professional writing done. Still, there's always a bit of time to ruminate on the current crises, particularly when there are so many to choose from.

For now, there's the issue of terrorism -- particularly Bush's incompetence and the liberal/progressive response -- as currently being discussed in a pissing contest of sorts between Kevin Drum and Atrios, all started by a truly asinine piece of work in The New Republic, which my favorite local politician would call a "Vichy Democrat" magazine. Essentially, the article espouses a purge of people like Michael Moore and organizations such as MoveOn for being "soft" on terrorism. They are to be replaced with a grassroots Democratic force, which is interesting as almost all of the grassroots energy in the Democratic party is coming from groups like MoveOn.

The article is fundamentally McCarthyesque, particularly in its attempts to dismiss charges of McCarthyism. Yet it specifically refers to 50s purges of insufficiently hard-line liberals -- within liberal organizations of the time. It is the old song of "tougher than thou," a game no sane liberal will ever win against rabid "kill 'em all" pseudo-conservatives. Kevin, as usual, is more balanced:

Let's take first things first: it's pretty clear that a lot of liberals really don't like being told they need to "get serious" about terrorism. And I don't blame them — especially since regular readers know that I think Republicans are the ones who have trivialized terrorism by treating it more like a partisan wedge issue than a serious danger.

So let's be more precise: the charge isn't so much that liberals don't have a serious approach to terrorism, it's that liberals tend to think that terrorism and national security just aren't very important in the first place.

...

Rather, he criticizes MoveOn because they even opposed the Afghanistan war (and he criticizes Moore for flatly denying that terrorism is a real threat). This is quite a different thing, and a distinction that strikes me as pretty well justified.

The problem is, Beinart's criticism is, um, well, let's be generous and call it a generalization. There's also the issue that many who opposed the Afghanistan war did so because they saw the Bush administration's incompetence clearly and didn't trust them to run a boxing match, let alone the most important American military conflict since V-J day. (I supported the war initially, and boy, I had to eat some serious helpings of crow, let me tell you.)

Meanwhile, Atrios' response is largely on target:

The consequence of marginalizing all such sentiments, or reducing them to caricatures, is that we never have a decent conversation about what we're doing. Acknowledging that there are almost always other options than war is one way to ensure that we understand more fully the consequences of those wars. War should be the last option, not the first one, almost no matter what. I don't say this because I'm a peacenik, but because war is fucking expensive in blood and treasure and has a lot of unintended consequences.

...

Final thought: who should be considered more worthy of marginalization? Those who cautioned against a just war, or those who supported an unjust and increasingly catastrophic one. Whatever the ultimate outcome of our Afghanistan conflict (which, by the way, is still going on), I submit it's quite likely a decision to not go to war there would have had far fewer negative consequences than our decision to go to war in Iraq.

...but I'll submit that the above paragraph goes a bit far. Our problem, IMO, is not the "hards" or the "softs" but the left's tradition of self-immolation. The circular firing squad is in fine form just now, and while I sympathize greatly with the Atrioses and MoveOns here, I do believe there is a strong case to be made for a robust, nuanced, multifaceted engagement on terrorism in all its forms.

As usual, Orcinus nails it:

Over the past 15 years and more, the great generator of terrorist acts around the world has been the phenomenon that embodies the commingling of all these traits: radical religious fundamentalism. The forms this takes range from the right-wing domestic terrorists of the Patriot movement to the Al Qaeda fanatics who struck on 9/11. (A variant on this is Tim McVeigh, who was closer to a neo-Nazi than a fundamentalist; but he clearly shared their apocalyptic worldview and urge to defend "traditional" values.) All of them have one key trait in common: an abiding hatred of modernity and progressive values.

So progressives indeed have a clear and compelling interest in opposing terrorism. Central to their support, indeed, is confronting the core of what is driving the phenomenon. The left naturally will readily confront radical fundamentalism, as long as it's made clear that's what we're dealing with.

What's been missing, however, is either a recognition or at least acknowledgement of this aspect of the problem from the right and its toadies on the left. Since American fundamentalism is primarily associated with the mainstream right, it probably shouldn't surprise anyone that the Bush administration has assiduously refused to frame the modern terrorist threat (including, notably, Al Qaeda) as primarily a right-wing phenomenon -- even though that is clearly what it is. And the ever-timid "moderate" leadership of the Democratic Party has been too polite to point it out.

I highly recommend the entire post, which (like many of Orcinus' posts) is too long to quote in its entirety here. Still, none of this answers the one big question, which Kevin sums up nicely (IMO, he's better at coming up with the questions than the answers):

Maybe Islamic totalitarianism is as big a threat as fascism and communism were in their day. Maybe it's not. I'm not sure. But I would like to see liberals address the issue head on. It would be good for liberalism and it would be instructive for me.

Excuse me while I indulge in a bit of hubris here, and tackle this head-on.

The short answer to this is yes, though I'd recast the question as "fundamentalist terrorism." If we don't count the strongmen who basically serve American interests, the "Islamofascist" governments can be counted thusly: Iran and the remaining portions of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban. They're not going to be landing platoons in Arlington any time soon. Terrorists, however, might turn it into glass someday. And therein lies the problem.

Imagine if one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center had a nuclear device on board. What would the political, social and economic consequences of wiping Manhattan off the face of the Earth have been? Chemical weapons could be even more insidious, and a stupid terrorist with the right virus could wipe out the human race. Yes, religious fanatics with WMDs are a a real and unspeakable threat, and many on the left must indeed face this danger realistically.

At the same time, the disgust many liberals and progressive feel about the war on terror can be explained very simply: the Bush administration isn't taking it seriously. They use it as an excuse to conquer nations with oil and then implement various ideological theories of warfare and economics. They crack down on peaceful activists while botching enormous swathes of the battle against Islamic extremism and completely ignoring domestic terrorism. Unless you count nude environmentalists on bicycles.

But hey, it's good for beating Democrats with. Even Vietnam vets who lost three limbs in service to their country. That's what the War on Terror amounts to for Bush, Cheney and Rove -- a political advantage over their rivals. If no terrorists hit America, they've protected Our Country. If terrorists do hit America, we have to vote Republican because it's too dangerous to change horsemen in the middle of an apocalypse. And all the while, it makes a convenient tool for silencing criticism and shredding the Constitution.

It is time for an articulate progressive position on fighting terrorism. Bush's nonsense about the "failed policy of law enforcement" is laughable, and one of the most toxic effects he's had on the whole debate. The only administration that's ever failed against large-scale extra-national terrorism is his. Clinton's administration could be said to have failed in the Oklahoma City bombing, but is anyone arguing that we have to declare martial law in areas with large militia movements? The simple truth is, we need to use every tool in our arsenal to battle what is in every real sense a criminal empire. You fight al-Qaeda the way you fight the mob -- you go after their assets, you infiltrate their ranks, you raid their bases when you can, and you make being a member unpalatable by making life as a decent citizen more attractive. Given that terrorists do occasionally acquire "state sponsors," military intervention is one tool -- but it is arguably the least efficient tool, because any mistake made when using it exacerbates all the other facets of the conflict rather than relieving them.

It is vital for Democrats and progressives to come up with an alternate strategy in the battle against fundamentalist terrorism, not only because it is an essential political job, but because Bush's horribly incompetent ego-driven policy is endangering the entire world.

(/) Roland X
Getting Serious Today

A Tale of Two Memes

2004-11-20T22:12:00.000-08:00

Inspired by Oliver Willis' brilliant Brand Democrat line:

Two great memes that meme great together? We can only hope. *G*

(/) Roland X
"It wasn't about me. It's way bigger. It was about the issues I believed in, it was about Democratic candidates in the future." -- Barbara Boxer

Mrs. Roland X Is Always Right, Part One

2004-11-19T17:34:00.000-08:00

Rice Has Surgery for Noncancerous Growths.

Yeah. She's having the last remaining vestiges of her conscience surgically removed.

Stolen shamelessly from my brilliant, beautiful, wonderful wife. (No, it's not on her blog. Call it a perk. ;-)

(/) Roland X
Expecting a visit from the Secret Service any day now...

Beyond Outrage

2004-11-18T18:03:00.000-08:00

...is simply grief.

Certainly, the assault on Falluja has given the Iraqi people a lot to look at, and a lot to think about. Some 200,000 people -- the great majority of Falluja's population of some 300,000 -- were driven out of their city by news of the imminent attack and the US bombardment. No agency of government, US or Iraqi, which turned off the city's water and electricity in preparation for the assault, offered assistance. Nor did the United Nations Refugee Agency or any other representative of the international community appear. And where are the people now? And what stories are the expelled 200,000 telling the millions of Iraqis among whom they are now mixing? We don't know. No one seems to be interested.

When the attack came, the first target was Falluja General Hospital. The New York Times explained why: "The offensive also shut down what officers said was a propaganda weapon for the militants: Falluja General Hospital, with its stream of reports of civilian casualties." If there were no hospital, there would be no visible casualties; if there were no visible casualties, there would be no international outrage, and all would be well. What of those civilians who remained? No men of military age were permitted to leave during the attack. Remaining civilians were trapped in their apartments with no electricity or water. No one knows how many of them have been killed, and no official group has any plans to find out. The city itself is a ruin. "A drive through the city revealed a picture of utter destruction," the Independent of Britain reports, "with concrete houses flattened, mosques in ruins, telegraph poles down, power and phone lines hanging slack and rubble and human remains littering the empty streets."

And America is supposed to be the good guy. Right.

On one side, slaughtering Western women who spend their entire lives helping Iraqis, because that, you know, makes a point. On the other, closing hospitals because they might, you know, help people, then word gets out about all the people who needed help and then you've got (gasp) a PR problem.

Hey, who can tell all those white/brown/(insert skin color here) people apart, anyway?

The point of the article quoted above -- titled "What Happened to Hearts?" -- is that we're just trying to convince them to stop fighting with fear. When someone does that to Americans, we call it terrorism. On the other side, you've got guys like bin Laden using and excusing terrorism because, well heck, everybody does it. It almost makes me nostalgic for the days when a terrorist could make a splash by having a dozen or so athletes killed. Almost. Arafat died just in time; he was too soft for the new world chaos.

Forget leaving the country -- I want a new planet. A higher plane of existence would be even better, but I'll settle for a place to settle away from all these fanatics. Still, pretty much all thoughts of leaving have fled my mind -- if people like me don't stand and fight this madness, who will?

(On the other hand, I've got a growing boy on my hands. If there's a draft, and it lasts several years...)

(/) Roland X
This is not my America

Why Terrorists Are Still Our Worst Enemies

2004-11-16T22:19:00.000-08:00

For all Bush and his cronies have done, no horror they have yet committed competes with this travesty:

A video apparently showing the murder of aid worker Margaret Hassan seems to be genuine, says the Foreign Office.

...

"She had no prejudice against any creed. She dedicated her whole life to working for the poor and vulnerable, helping those who had no-one else."

Margaret Hassan, for those who may not know, spent her entire adult life helping the Iraqi people, and probably saved countless thousands from starvation during the sanctions. If she is dead, as it appears, these terrorists killed a genuine hero of the Iraqi people.

It is certainly relevant that by creating the "jihadi woodstock" in Iraq, our government is partly responsible for this atrocity. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of the weight of guilt for her murder belongs squarely on the evil fanatics who kidnapped and executed her. While there are certainly Iraqi rebels who are genuinely fighting for their homes, there are equally certainly monsters exploiting the ongoing tragedy to shock the world with their acts of hatred.

(/) Roland X
Beyond outrage, today

OUTRAGE OVERLOAD

2004-11-10T15:21:00.000-08:00

I thought I knew what outrage overload was, until today when the sheer righteous fury literally made my head hurt.

I am crossposting this to my LiveJournal account. Today's events have taught me that there is no more neutral ground, and no excuse for remaining silent. Never again.

First, the bad news: they're using tanks to intimidate peaceful anti-war protestors.

LOS ANGELES, November 9, 2004 - At 7:50 PM two armored tanks showed up at an anti-war protest in front of the federal building in Westwood. The tanks circled the block twice, the second time parking themselves in the street and directly in front of the area where most of the protesters were gathered.

Remember 2000, when the talking heads proclaimed our democracy superior to places like China, where they use tanks against protestors? Um...

Now, the worse news: Remember the glee most of us felt when we heard Ashcroft was out? How could they find someone worse, right? Well, how about the guy who defended Enron and Abu Ghraib? I kid you not:

Because it was Gonzales that wrote the widely-disputed legal opinion that justified Bush's rejection of the Geneva Convention protocols in the treatment of Afghan and Taliban prisoners, and he crafted an argument aimed at shielding Bush and the military command from war crimes prosecutions.

...

It also doesn't help Bush's cause that Gonzales was counsel for Enron as well. My, my, what moral values are on display now?

...

Second, what would Gonzales' confirmation as AG do to the Plame investigation, given that he has already been dragged in to testify?

Third, while serving as a justice of the Texas Supreme Court, Gonzales took money from firms with litigation pending before his court, including Halliburton.

Read the whole thing. It's not that bad -- it's worse.

Canada's starting to look good again.

(/) Roland X
Tilt...tilt...tilt...

Liberty and Justice For All: A Frame for Democrats

2004-11-09T20:29:00.000-08:00

So the early conclusion on the election is this: We Need A Coherent Message. I couldn't agree more. Now the big question is, "what is our message?"

Simple. Liberals, progressives, and Democrats as a whole can differ on various aspects of the philosophy, but the basic meme is fair play. Republicans and the conservatives who enable them (not to be confused with classic conservatives) like to say "life is not fair." We need to respond "we can make it fair." The package for this is simple: the classic phrase "liberty and justice for all." How does that fit? Again, simple.

Liberty is, hopefully, self-explanatory. Civil rights, equal rights, and most especially the basic freedoms granted by the Bill of Rights. You can say what you want, write what you want, believe what you want, and get together with any willing group you want, as long as you don't hurt anyone doing it. The modern Republican party is, basically, against this now. We need to point out the large freedom gap.

Meanwhile, justice covers the rest of our policies: there is more to justice than arresting muggers. Economic justice means those who benefit from society the most pay their fair share, and those who might otherwise be left behind by society are given help. Social justice is working to end discrimination, and goes hand in hand with civil rights. Ecological justice means protecting our basic needs -- air, water and food -- from polluters. Dumping tons of poison into the air is at least as bad as dumping your garbage into your neighbor's yard, only it's everyone's yard. Global justice means helping the weak when we can, and using military force when we must, but being humble enough to realize that using violence unnecessarily is inherently unjust.

"All" is the final, important piece of the frame. Liberty for only some is unAmerican, as the long, hard fight for equality in our great nation proves. There is no such thing as "justice for some" -- such a state is inherently unjust. The best thing is, when you say "all," you can't say "all, but," and this is where we can nail them. How just is it to throw the GLBT community into a political firefight for short-term electoral gain? How fair is it to fight minorities' right to vote? How free is a Muslim-American held in Guantanamo Bay without being charged with a crime? It also conveniently unites all the "special interests" under one unified whole: Americans who stand for every citizen's rights.

They want to make the (50s revision of the) Pledge of Allegiance sacred, word-for-word? Fine. Let's beat 'em into the ground with it. It's a simple phrase that will resonate with the vast majority of Americans, particularly those "heartlanders" so many Democrats want voting for them, and if the Republicans are foolish enough to demand we explain ourselves...we can. They say "one nation under God." We need to tell them to finish the sentence.

Their battlecry is "God, Guns, and Gays!" (It's really Greed, Guns and [hating] Gays, but we can start defining them better once we're on more solid rhetorical ground.) If ours is "Liberty and Justice For All!", who sounds more American? It recreates the frame almost entirely, helping take back patriotism, letting us fight back in a clearly principled way across the entire spectrum of Democratic causes, and allows us to talk about values in an inherently inclusive and undeniably American way. If we can succeed with this frame, I believe it will be a powerful first step in taking back our country.

(/) Roland X
"We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America." -- Barack Obama, July 27, 2004

The Long Twilight Struggle

2004-11-05T19:55:00.000-08:00

I may not be a member of the "reality-based community," but I do know how to face facts. Even if a miracle happens in Ohio or Florida, we (that is, sane Americans) must now take stock.

Let's assume, for the moment, that Ohio was stolen. (I do.) Let's even assume, for the moment, that after the mountain of Florida ballots are counted, Kerry closes significantly -- still losing, but making it a lot closer. (Obviously, if he wins Florida, everything changes.) Which would mean that Florida, too, was stolen...again.

This does not change the fact that it would take a lot of voter theft for the popular vote to go the other way. More than even I am willing to swallow. It was close, sure. It was a lot closer than George "Mandate" Bush wants to admit, and that's with the advantages of incumbency, war, a huge base of rabid religious fanatics, the Osama surprise, the most powerful spin machine the world has ever known, a compliant media, and enough lies to choke a horse.

He still won.

So America voted for pointless wars and tax cuts for the rich. It voted for gay bashing and Abu Ghraib. It voted for "moral values" when the President has shown all the morality of Machiavelli's Prince. It voted for incompetence in the war on terror and a smoothly-run war on the environment. It voted for crony capitalism and naked greed. It voted for temporary security over essential liberty and got neither. R.I.P. America, 1776 - 2004, it might seem at first glance.

Well, I won't deny it's bad. Our ability to fight back, barring a nightmare like civil war, is dependent on our ability to exercise our basic freedoms, an ability I am seriously dubious about. Nevertheless, there is reason to hope. (I wrote the linked article yesterday. What a difference a day makes.)

First of all, the greatest measure of triumphalism is coming from the theocons, those borderline-psychotics who claim to be the only true Christians while espousing the sort of beliefs that had their Savior throwing tables around in the temple. Let them. I was going to write an article on this, but the Kossacks did such a good job, why repeat the labor?

Reed, you see, wanted to not merely deliver the social conservatives' "values" votes this year, but to ensure that their pivotal role be made noted and respected -- broadcast and trumpeted, loudly and quite publicly. They didn't want to just win; they want credit and plaudits for scoring the decisive touchdown.

Awesome. The fact that this election - the first post-9/11 election, with a war in Iraq abroad and a changing economic situation at home - will be remembered by the we-need-it-simplified media as the "values" election, is Reed's great gift to us.

They've been slow, steady and patient, but sooner or later, the would-be theocrats have to make their move. Though I was wrong on November 2nd, thinking Kerry had the election, it still seems to me that these madmen have finally taken one step too far. They want this election to be their victory, fine. Time to rub the neocons' noses in it. (Is that your daughter they want to burn at the stake, Mr. Cheney? Why, I believe it is.) Time to rub the tax hawks' noses in it. (So what do you do in your spare time, Mr. Norquist?) Time to rub, especially, the (Republican) libertarians' noses in it. They've bordered on irrelevancy in the Republican party for some time now, and they need to see the devil they've sold their souls to.

Another reason to hope is that Democrats, along with the rest of the left, is taking a long, deep look at this loss to determine what must be done next. The circular firing squad seems to have come and gone with lightning speed (though I must admit to some schadenfreude at the calls for the heads of Terry MacAuliffe and Bob Shrum) and a "reality-based" attitude prevails. My take: message, message, message. We need a coherent, simple pitch. I'll blog on this soon, since I'm pretty sure I have a winner on this. As a community, however, we have to ditch our fear of oversimplifying and KISS (keep it simple, silly).

Put the two together, and we can say "The Democratic party stands for (fill in the blank). The Republican party stands for theocracy. Which do you want?" Simplistic? Yes. We're talking about one wing of the Republican party, and even many of the religious conservatives are not the Christian equivalent of jihadists. Make them explain it. Make them get into details. Then we can get into serious dialogues and kill 'em with the truth.

The truth is, however overly distilled this formula may be, it is essentially accurate: the real leaders of the Republican Party are either radical religious crusaders themselves, or tremendously beholden to them.

This is a tremendous strength for them in one way, as it provides the party with a fanatically devoted grassroots base that will work its butt off for them. It is a weakness for them as well, however. The thing is, and yes I'm simplifying, there are two types of Bush voters: the ones who know exactly what they're voting for and the ones who don't have a clue.

Bush supporters were, almost across the board, less knowledgeable about their own candidate's stands than we were. In short, they had to lie occasionally and hide constantly to win. This is why Republicans like Bush, Delay, Santorum and their ilk have to fight their battles on the dubious ground of "values," translated as (their vision of) God, Guns, and (hating) Gays. They talk in code to reach their base without scaring away moderates -- and this time, it worked. If we can come up with as basic a formula to express our views, we win -- because all we have to do is get most people to understand what we stand for.

Which brings us back, for the moment, to our basic problem -- these lunatics control all the levers of government for now. The last thing they want us to do is get our message out. Which means we are all in a lot of trouble. It's going to be a long, hard fight. If we can get fair elections and make ourselves clear, however, I firmly believe we can win.

If I hear the echo of jackboots in the streets, yeah, I'm taking my family to Canada. Until then, roll up your sleeves, fellow freedom-lovers. It's going to be a long, hard, ugly fight. This election loss will haunt our country for a generation. Still, the reason our foes are so afraid is that they know time and history are against them. The world is becoming more progressive and tolerant, and those who need hate and fear know their time is almost up. This is their last chance to consolidate what power they have left, and they're grabbing it for all they're worth.

(/) Roland X
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." --Leia Organa, princess, Senator, rebel

BELIEVE

2004-10-31T13:39:00.000-08:00

It is easy to feel lost in the storm of political rhetoric, especially in the last days of a political season as charged as this one. It is easy, all too easy, to feel irrelevant in the face of Osama bin Laden's coming out as the world's pre-eminent supervillain, in the wake of 380 tons of deadly explosives that simply vanished, in the din of multi-million dollar ad campaigns and talking points e-mailed to millions.

Don't you believe it.

I have three subscribers: two more-or-less local friends, and someone I have never met, and never known until now. She wrote to me recently. I asked for and received permission to post parts of her letter.

I am an independent Conservative who has not once seriously considered voting for Kerry. My eldest Son, a college student in Texas, recently cast his first vote ever - for Kerry. That wasn't enough to persuade me to vote for Kerry. Moore's movie had no impact on my vote, either.

...

I desperately want that "hope" realized for AMERICA. Perhaps you're right and this JFK may be the one to do this. I don't know...all I know is that Bush43 is the opposite of everything bright and beautiful that AMERICA once stood for and could be in the future.

...

I am willing to give Kerry a try.

I include these excerpts, not out of some self-congratulatory feeling of triumph, but because recently I had been feeling futile. This blog seemed like a way to feel like I was doing something without actually making a real difference. In showing me how I had touched her, helped her see hope, she gave me that gift in turn.

Never believe -- never believe -- that you cannot make a difference, reach another heart, change another mind, touch another soul. This is the fundamental gift of vision and passion and creation that is the greatest part of the human experience, the light shining in us all. That is what our enemies want to extinguish. This is not about Bush, or Cheney, or Rumsfeld, or even Ashcroft or Rove. They are only symptoms of a greater disease -- fear of our ability to connect to each other and exalt one another. If we ever truly achieve that glorious potential, those who need to have power over others to feel important fear they will have nothing. Ironically, that is the true tragedy, because if they open themselves to that same glory they can leave their fears behind with the rest of us.

This is the time. Our moment has arrived. John Kerry is merely one of many representatives. He is a starting point. If he fails, another will take his place, and another, on and on, until we can finally rise above our fears and grievances and differences.

For now, this is a holding battle, a fight to stop those who would take us backwards into ignorance and terror. But know this forever: all you have to do is reach out and persevere. Try. Use your gifts -- writing, speaking, art, song, organization, technology, it doesn't matter. Connect to your allies. Connect to the undecided. Connect to those who disagree with you. Never give up. Never surrender. And you will make a difference.

Believe.

(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix

The Last Days of the Rovan Empire

2004-10-30T01:02:00.000-07:00

Voter Suppression.

Found the following links which all seem to point to the same company that is suspected of tearing up Democratic voter registration forms in Las Vegas. It has set up registration drives in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Florida and Nevada and is accused of the same things in most if not all of these states. Sproul & Associates is a Republican consulting firm run by Nathan Sproul, former head of the Arizona Republican party and Arizona Christian Coalition.

Pledging Allegiance...to Bush.

"I want you to stand, raise your right hands," and recite "the Bush Pledge," said Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: "I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States."

Shamelessly exploiting the attacks on the Twin Towers.

On the front side, the ad asks in red print, "How Can John Kerry Lead America In A Time of War?" It adds three subsequent lines, "Kerry: Changing Positions," "Kerry: Cutting Defense" and "Kerry: Slashing Intelligence."

Following that, there are nine images of the front pages of Sept. 12, 2001 newspapers (shown below), all of which display the smoking towers of the World Trade Center before they collapsed, killing some 2,600 people. One includes the approach of the plane.

Desperation is thick in the air. With all the momentum on the side of liberty, justice and Kerry, expect every dirty trick in the book. There is no low to which they will not stoop, no ploy they will not attempt. The loyalty oaths are disturbing, the destruction of registrations outrageous, and the fliers revolting, but they all show just how terrified of losing they are right now.

The next four days will be very interesting indeed.

(/) Roland X
Kerry/Edwards 2004: Vote While You Still Can

Whatever It Takes

2004-10-29T01:04:00.000-07:00

This is the Bush campaign in a nutshell. Lying. Cheating. Stealing.

Whatever it takes, indeed.

They have a problem, you see. Facts are partisan this year. Kerry says "look at the evidence." Bush says "trust me." Problem is, Bush's record when it comes to trusting him is, um, less than ideal. So Rove has one tactic left: the Big Lie. Demonize a true American hero while pretending his miserable failure of a candidate is a strong leader -- when they have to deny responsibility for everything.

So the leaders of "God's Own Party" spin and obfuscate and deceive. They shamelessly attack the rights of likely Democratic voters, particularly minorities, invoking the long shadow of Jim Crow. They cling to power the way a drowning man clings to a life preserver. And given what they have already done, they have good reason to fear justice. And so, to win this election and avoid true responsibility for their perfidy, they will do...whatever it takes.

(/) Roland X
Kerry/Edwards 2004: Vote While You Still Can

The Once and Future President

2004-10-28T01:13:00.000-07:00

Once Upon A Time...

...there was a divided country choosing between a charismatic Democratic Senator and a powerful, divisive Republican. The Republican was known for his cunning and bag of tricks. The Democrat was known for his courage commanding a boat in combat and his Massachusetts heritage. It was the closest election since 1888.

Some guy with the initials JFK won.

Today, that brief shining moment in history is known as Camelot -- the time when American greatness seemed right around the corner, as if we had almost reached the gateway to a future undreamt of, and all we needed to do was open the door.

Instead of Camlann and Mordred, however, we had Dallas and Oswald. Vietnam, riots, a brother murdered, a nation in tailspin. The deceased president's great rival wins the White House, and ends up synonymous with political corruption. A future undreamt of becomes a half-forgotten dream from a brief shining moment.

And now, once again, America is on a cusp. Instead of a grand future, we stand on the brink of the abyss. Instead of eight years of prosperity, there have been four years of madness, hubris and folly. Instead of a war building in the background and a dream of a Great Society nearing its apex, we have a violent nexus of greed and incompetence and a nightmare of a New American Century.

In the legend of Arthur, it is said that he will return in Britain's darkest hour. Has our own leader from Camelot returned in ours?

John F. Kerry, the senator from Massachusetts, has had a much longer career in Washington than President Kennedy did. His own naval career at the command of a small attack boat was strikingly different from the other JFK's, as was the aftermath. Where Kennedy lived in a time when the wink-and-nod was acceptable, we live in an age of hyper-intense scrutiny -- at least regarding Democrats.

And yet the parallels are undeniable. Kerry has been a crusader his entire life, whether in Vietnam or after it, as a prosecutor or Lieutenant Governor in his home state, or through nearly twenty years of fighting corruption in the Senate. He is attacked routinely from the right as a flip-flopping extreme liberal, in spite of the cognitive dissonance that position should cause, and as a spineless centrist by the left, in spite of his long, dedicated service to liberal and progressive causes. Yet anything resembling a thoughtful study of his life reveals a man dedicated to principle, to honor, to duty, and to the right thing. His whole life has been an example of how to cautiously study a situation until the right moment comes, then strike boldly. Turning his boat into the fire is the perfect metaphor of his life, whether in the rivers of the Mekong Delta, the streets of Washington DC, the courts of Massachusetts, or the halls of the Senate, where he helped expose Iran-Contra, CIA drug dealing, Manuel Noriega's betrayals, and the "terrorists' bank" BCCI.

Suffice to say he compares well to his predecessor.

Today, the Red Sox swept the World Series, winning for the first time since 1918. Just as a lunar eclipse -- a red moon -- came out of totality. In Busch Stadium. Against a team owned by Bush's old friends from his Texas Ranger days.

Has the sword been pulled from the stone? Only time will tell. But that's one heck of a good vibe out there. The portents look good and the momentum is all on Kerry's side. Remember, this is the man known as "Kerry the closer."

Arthur wasn't perfect either. He was a war leader who relied on his queen to handle peacetime logistics, he had a blind spot when it came to family, and man oh man, did he have a temper. Yet his courage, vision and moral code gave us the dream of "right makes might" rather than the reverse, a Round Table where all are equals (even the king himself), and a land of freedom, justice, peace and bounty, where all are protected and cared for.

The original dream of Camelot fell to tragedy and untimely death. The promise of its renewal always holds the hope that in its return, things will be different. I believe that the JFK of our generation, the man who steps forward to lead us in a time of darkness rather than light, has come just when history and America need him most.

Sir Thomas Mallory couldn't have written it better himself.

(/) Roland X
Kerry/Edwards 2004: Vote While You Still Can

Bushymandias

2004-10-26T20:09:00.000-07:00

I have commented previously on Bush's staggering hubris. Today a parallel occurred to me.

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said -- "two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert ... near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lips, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

I thought of bringing up the Bush who cried wolf issue, but it's been done.

Win or lose on November 2nd, this is Dubya's fate. Feet of clay, a "sneer of cold command," and his deluded certainty etched into the record of history. Nothing more.

Well, okay, Cheney's the guy with the sneer. But still.

(/) Roland X
Kerry/Edwards 2004: Vote While You Still Can

Reality, Subjectivity & Hubris

2004-10-25T23:10:00.000-07:00

Regular readers (all three of you) may have noticed that I briefly included the spreading meme "proud member of the reality-based community" in my blog title. I heartily agree that the Bush cabal is delusional to the point of being a global menace. Likewise, I have no doubt that a thoughtful, nuanced approach based on facts and evidence is desperately needed in the White House and other halls of power. I was happy to join the "Reality-Based Community" so casually disparaged in Ron Suskind's now-famous article detailing the administration's staggering hubris.

And yet...and yet...

All my life, I have felt that my relationship with reality was casual at best and antagonistic at worst. I'm the kind of guy who wears buttons that say "reality is for people who lack imagination" and "subvert the dominant paradigm." Between my (layman's) interest in quantum mechanics and continuing quest along the mystical path, I too believe that reality is a matter of perception and can be altered by force of will.

To a point.

Herein lies the rub. In the cause-and-effect world of Newtonian reality, some things just are, and getting around them (when possible at all) takes cleverness, hard work, and actual study of the facts. Further, even in the more "fungible" world of sociology, imposing one's will only goes so far when the subject says "no you won't either," even in the face of propaganda, threats, guns and bombs.

In other words, altering reality, whether through science or mysticism, is something to be done mindfully, with respect and deference to the vast powers around us. Simply put, I have a nuanced view of reality.

This is one of the many reasons I consider John Kerry to be endlessly superior to the madmen pulling Bush's strings. From all the evidence, their reality is a black and white world, and the world is an Othello board -- when they take enemy forces or territory, black flips to white. Our troops are greeted with flowers and candy, the "liberated" willingly allow their nations to be turned into market-based utopias, and "average" Americans can stop thinking about "them furriners" and go back to NASCAR.

Um, no.

Still, the point is, I have never been a member of the "reality-based community," particularly as many of its current defenders describe it. Hearing talk about the evils of faith, "occultism," "magical thinking" et. al. depresses me, even in the context of Bush delusionism.

I could go on at length on this topic, but I have other places to write about esoterica. So, in short, count me as a proud supporter of the reality-based community -- but not a member.

(/) Roland X
"We need a renaissance of wonder. We need to renew, in our hearts and in our
souls, the deathless dream, the eternal poetry, the perennial sense that
life is miracle and magic." --E. Merrill Root

Roland X on DMY

2004-10-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

A three-parter, and the art they got for "Damsels in Distress" is wonderful.

Why You Should Vote Kerry, 2004-10-07

Damsels in Distress, 2004-10-18

The Betrayal, 2004-10-21

This last one is one he's been writing in his head for months, but wanted to save it for the final stretch.

Essential Liberty

2004-10-21T21:18:00.000-07:00

The authorship is in doubt, but the sentiment is rarely challenged:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

The faith vs. reason battle between Bush and Kerry has been overtly exposed of late, in a swath of articles ranging from Ellen Goodman's easily overlooked but brilliant summation of the denial-based foreign policy to Ron Suskind's now-famous demolition of their empire-based community, which can supposedly change reality on a whim. (I, too, believe in the power of will to change reality, but understand that it's "hard work," as our President puts it.)

In my fiction writing, however, I try to keep in mind the difference between theme and plot, and I see more and more evidence that the war between denial and sanity is more of a theme for this election than the meat of it. And while Bush throws lots of coded red meat to his base, ranging from cultures of life to Dred Scott (code for overturning Roe v. Wade), his entire appeal to the center is "Kerry can't save you."

Ignoring the total deceit of that conceit for the moment, let us pretend for a moment that George W. Bush would actually keep us marginally safer than John F. Kerry. (I know, it's a really big stretch, but some people believe this.) For these people, the vote is between the guy who will keep Americans "safe from terra" and the guy who will recognize basic truths and the limits of Constitutional law. Even then, they're still on the wrong side of the debate -- because they're advocating the temporary security candidate over the essential liberty candidate:

The largest and most important [reason to elect Kerry] is the protection of American democracy. It is always difficult while enjoying the comforts and privileges of taken-for-granted liberties to imagine that they could be lost; but the elements of Bush's misrule have plainly converged to form this threat.

...

The Democratic Party generally wants to defend civil liberties and does so when it dares; the Republicans, with honorable exceptions, apparently would sweep them aside. The Democrats prefer social justice, however weakly they fight for it; the Republicans would give every dollar they can find to the rich. The Democrats are inclined to limit corporate power; the Republicans are corporate power.

I believe that this is the fundamental plot of the election. Kerry is finally, at last, out in front, but even in the most wildly optimistic landslide scenario for our side, we're not likely to win more than 55% of the popular vote. Think about that.

Forty-five percent of the people who will vote are willing to give up essential liberty for temporary security. At least. And at least forty percent are so disconnected that they don't see the danger, or the difference between the candidates, or just don't care. Either way, they won't bother to get involved.

Ben would be so proud.

(/) Roland X
Kerry/Edwards 2004: Vote While You Still Can

Too Radical For PAT FREAKIN' ROBERTSON!

2004-10-20T21:12:00.000-07:00

First, a blast from the past:

"Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians."

"You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist. I can love the people who hold false opinions but I don't have to be nice to them."

"Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals -- the two things seem to go together."

"There is no such thing as separation of church and state in the Constitution. It is a lie of the Left and we are not going to take it anymore."

This cornucopia of wingnuttery is brought to you courtesy of Pat Robertson, the televangelist's televangelist, the grand high poobah of the Religious Right, the Dark Lord of American Radical Fundamentalism himself. There are few names more respected by the lockstep brigade or feared by the reality-based community. And here's what he has to say about Bush's detachment from reality:

Robertson, in an interview with CNN that aired Tuesday night, said God had told him the war would be messy and a disaster. When he met with Bush in Nashville, Tenn., before the war Bush did not listen to his advice, Robertson said, and believed Saddam Hussein was an evil tyrant who needed to be removed.

"He was just sitting there, like, 'I'm on top of the world,' and I warned him about this war," Robertson said.

"I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you better prepare the American people for casualties.' 'Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties.' 'Well,' I said, 'it's the way it's going to be.' And so, it was messy. The Lord told me it was going to be, A, a disaster and, B, messy."

The White House is calling Pat Robertson a liar. Let me repeat that for emphasis: The White House is calling the most famous and prominent fundamentalist televangelist in the world a liar:

White House and campaign advisers denied Bush made the comment, with adviser Karen Hughes saying, "I don't believe that happened. He must have misunderstood or misheard it."

"Obviously, we already had casualties in Afghanistan at the time. If you look at that, that (the comment) was not consistent with what was going on," [Hughes] said.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "Of course, the president never made such a comment."

All from the article quoted above.

Now, it would neither shock nor dismay me that one of these vile, despicable leaders is a liar. Still, it is, IMNSHO, deeply telling that a) Pat Robertson would feel a need to create potential distance between himself and Bush's Folly, and b) the White House is so scared and desperate regarding any blowback on said Folly that they're willing to risk alienating Robertson's legions of fundie sheeple by directly contradicting him.

Then again, things are already looking touchy between the political and religious lovebirds.

Influential American evangelist Pat Robertson said Monday that Evangelical Christians feel so deeply about Jerusalem, that if President George W. Bush were to "touch" Jerusalem, Evangelicals would abandon their traditional Republican leanings and form a third party.

Maybe there's some payback going on here. Maybe a rat's hearing "Nearer My God To Thee." Maybe someone's eager to try out his political muscle on his own. Regardless of the reasons, Robertson looks willing to ditch God's Own Party, or at least God's Bush...because this bunch is too whacked even for him. Bush, meanwhile, is poised to make his biggest mistake of the election season: alienating his base.

Feel the love.

(/) Roland X
Kerry/Edwards 2004: Vote While You Still Can

Why You Should Vote Kerry

2004-10-14T13:16:00.000-07:00

The latest on DemocracyMeansYou.com from Roland X:

Why You Should Vote Kerry
(Hint: He's more than just Not Bush)
(First of a three-part final push into Election Day)

It is heartening for me to see progressives -- former Nader supporters in particular -- line up behind John Kerry. No matter how much they might like Nader, Cobb, or other great leaders on our side, they see the danger of a Bush administration and want to help take our country back. And certainly, the complaining has subsided somewhat after the way Kerry demolished Dubya in the first debate.

Read the rest...

The Purity Brigade

2004-10-11T21:35:00.000-07:00

Thus Endeth Ralph Nader:

His candidacy, he argues, should be measured by the purity of his ideas and ideals, not his chances of winning.

Purity.

Pat Robertson and Ayatollah Khamenei believe in religious "purity." The Chinese government believes in ideological "purity." The KKK believes in racial "purity."

Holy Mother, haven't we had enough of purity for one species' lifespan?

(/) Roland X
Member, Non-Idiots for Kerry

The John-John Win-Win

2004-10-06T22:09:00.000-07:00

A quick look at the debates.

There's not much to say about the Kerry vs. Bush showdown. It was the Hero vs. the Chimp, and it showed. Bush got in a couple of shots, sure, and Kerry missed a couple of chances to refute a gross distortion. Overall, however, Big John obliterated the Naked Emperor.

Captain Sunshine vs. Dick Luthor was somewhat more interesting. I thought Edwards won on style but Cheney on, um, "substance" isn't the right word when so much of his defense was outright lying, but I had to admit that he did it well, and with so many lies to refute, Edwards had to pass on a lot of them. I figured Cheney would look okay.

Poll after poll has Edwards winning big time, however -- not all of them, certainly, and many of them are non-scientific blog polls -- but damn, did I see a different debate? Even not-so-crazy Andy thought Darth Cheney stank up the joint, and he punted on the Hate Amendment (the one thing I'll give Cheney props for; even the comic-book Lex loves his daughter).

On almost everything else, of course, Dick lied through his Lex Luthor sneer. But he also messed up big time on something important: fact checking.

He told viewers to check out factcheck.com for the straight dope on the bad things that mean ol' Edwards was saying about him and his old company Halliburton. Problem is, he probably meant factcheck.ORG, a site dedicated exactly to what you'd think from its name.

The people who own factcheck.com, as it happens, are not fans of the
Bush/Luthor ticket. So they redirected the link to...wait for
it...georgesoros.com.

Meanwhile, factcheck.org posted a response saying that Cheney was full of it.

At the same time, Captain Sunshine was just beaming. He was the nicest pit bull you'll ever meet. I thought he let Cheney get away with too many falsehoods at the time, but with style meaning so much he just rode his charm to victory. I now think it was a deliberate strategy to let the post-debate debate handle the lies, a strategy that seems to have worked magnificently.

So did Cheney learn not to mess with the Internet? Probably not. This is a
man who continues to push a Saddam/al-Qaida connection, mind you (while
hilariously arguing that he never made an Iraq-9/11 connection). Still, it's
nice to see someone get what they ask for. Especially when it's exactly what
they deserve.

(/) Roland X
Personally, I prefer to go straight to Daily Kos. But that's just me. *G*

Why We Must Win

2004-08-12T20:55:00.000-07:00

I turned 35 today.

Now, my birthday has nothing to do with why we have to win. It's going to take me a bit to get there, so please bear with me.

I went to work this morning fully expecting my co-workers to spring something on me, but I was totally unprepared for the outpouring I received. Several nice presents, a delicious double-chocolate birthday cake, a wonderful lunch, and decorations all around my cubicle. From the moment I arrived, my team -- my friends -- went to considerable efforts to make sure I enjoyed my day, especially with several painful changes taking place.

Unfortunately, none of us, except for our supervisor, knew just how painful one of those changes would turn out to be.

A couple of hours into the morning, we were called in to a meeting, all of us but one. We learned there that she was being laid off due to a "lack of work," as part of a mini "right-sizing" going on. No one's fault. Just business. The people upstairs felt it "had to be done."

The last time someone was laid off from our department, it was almost a blessing. She really wanted to leave. This time, though...this time, the victim was a sweet, hard-working woman who really struggled to get and keep this job. I like to think I helped her get it, but ultimately I don't know how much influence I had.

One of the others who was fired is a newlywed. Wonderful in a completely different way from my immediate co-worker, sassier but always had a smile. She wished me a happy birthday while she was literally walking out the door. Damn near broke my heart.

In spite of this very depressing period, everyone who came by was supportive and polite, and we all used the celebration to try and lift our spirits. While the day was good for me personally, melancholy and happiness switched places all day.

So, what does this have to do with November 2, 2004? Simple: our votes matter. Our choices matter. Elections matter, both in abstract terms like "chilling effects" and in the so-called real world of life in the trenches of the daily grind.

I'm not going to say that this couldn't have happened in a Democratic administration. All economies ebb and flow, and this was just a particularly odd current. Beautiful waves on the surface with a nasty undertow. Still, it was far more likely under Bush. He promotes "personal responsibility" while cutting taxes like a madman and throwing billions into corporate welfare. Exactly what "personal responsibility" does one of the hardest working women I've ever known have when she's downsized -- f*ck it, let's be honest and call it being fired -- because the company wants to run as lean and mean as possible?

Sure, if we were in serious financial trouble, I can understand the need as a last resort, but I haven't seen any indications of trouble in a while. And if our government were operating by the ideals of the Democratic party, I wouldn't be worried about her being able to pay her bills. But in Bush's world, CEOs and stockholders get a bigger bonus and people who make their livings doing the grunt work get axed. Then those same bigwigs get a tax break while the poor have less and less to scrape by with. That's the way of the modern robber barons running our country.

This is not to say that all Republicans are like that. One of the co-workers who did the most for me today is a deeply religious person who will undoubtedly be voting Republican this year for all the reasons you'd expect (though maybe not for Bush; she's made the occasional noise indicating that she sees what an incompetent fool he is). While I mourn what happened to others, I take comfort in what was given to me today, not because of the physical gifts I received but in the much more ephemeral and precious gift of friendship. There was an empathy among us today that was powerless against the grey, clanking machine of business but not in the quiet hours we were given.

Nevertheless, there is a point here. The point is, one party wants to make sure these people won't die financial deaths of a thousand cuts because of one hardship, and the other wants to give massive tax cuts to billionaires. One party will use intelligence and discretion in waging war, and the other will use invasion and death as a political tool. One party wants to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat, while the other wants to protect businesses from inconvenient regulations. One party wants to give our children a future, and one party wants to mortgage it. And one party works (imperfectly but consistently) to guarantee our Constitutional rights, while the other wants to use it to light the fire that burns our democracy to the ground.

In short, one party wants to help and lift up everyone, and one party wants to turn America into a theocratic plutocracy. Empathy and balance, however flawed, are pitted against power-hungry radical greed.

Now, I'm sure that some people will protest that there are more than two political parties in this country. That is true but irrelevant at this moment in history. Only the Big Two wield any real power in this country; members of the others are either busy trying to build the strength to play in the big leagues, or busy tearing their alliances apart in idiotic purity tests that would have given a Communist the willies. Anyone who can look at the enormous, substantive differences between the Democrats' positions and the Republicans' and say there is no difference between the two is simply beyond the reach of logic and sense. It is certainly excusable to disagree on whether or not that gap is wide enough to suit we progressives, but it is inexcusable to do Rove's work in spreading the obscene lie -- yes, lie -- that there is none.

We are facing a stark choice this year. We can choose to elect the current President for the first time, allowing him to do incalculable damage to the Republic. We can choose to elect a good man, a hero twice over in our worst war -- once as a soldier and once as an activist, fighting for his country both times -- who will be at least a good president, and maybe a great one.

Or we can choose to waste our opportunity by voting for ideological purity, or worse, not voting out of personal ideological purity.

Our choices matter, our votes matter, in the lives of real people struggling to survive, in the battles real people wage to preserve liberty and justice, in the quiet hours that define the pursuit of happiness. It is easy to turn one's nose up at a choice between the "lesser of two evils." It is much harder to admit that maybe, just maybe, we use the word "evil" too lightly, that personal purity is less important than doing what's right, that one choice isn't evil at all, merely distasteful to some.

I used to be a Green. I wanted to believe that we could make a difference, that we could break in without selling out. Well, maybe I'll rejoin the Greens again, but not today. Today, my color is blue. Blue for sadness, blue for working people, blue for my party. Blue for the "vigilance, perseverance, and justice" it represents in our flag. Blue for the only color that can return us to liberty and justice for all.

I've made my choice. Will you?

(/) Roland X
"The penalty good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves." --Plato

Big John's Grand Slam

2004-07-29T23:21:00.000-07:00

Senator John F. Kerry had to make the speech of his life tonight. He was following Barack Obama, who became the party's rising superstar in one night. He was following Howard Dean, whose energy gave Kerry the party he needs to win this fight. He was following General Wesley Clark, Al Sharpton, and John Edwards, all of whom electrified the crowd. Senator Kerry didn't just have one hell of an act to follow -- he had several speeches of a lifetime to live up to, especially Obama's, which raised the bar for everyone.

He took a hard, inside fastball and knocked it out of the park. Hell, he shattered the Green Monster -- and sent that blast flying to New York, a gauntlet delivered. Somewhere, Cheney's robotic heart is beating just a bit faster. Somewhere, Rove's shrunken soul shivers, sending him into a cold sweat. And somewhere, George W. Bush sleeps blissfully, as usual unaware of what he's about to face -- a stirring voice ringing out from a united Democratic party. Who knows when his advisors will deign to tell him that this race is now Kerry's to lose?

What has me gushing so rapturously? The "stiff, wooden" Democratic nominee, the "Brahmin" chosen for his "gravitas," the "candidate that no one likes," rocked the house even more than the brilliant and eloquent Obama. There was a genuine and undeniable energy at the convention, all the more real for the script it exploded free of. Kerry's speech was pure genius, blending a powerful progressive message with eloquent centrist language. speaking from the heart while hitting all the highlights of his stump speech. Even the wonks got their time in an hour that he had to spend making himself likeable, when he told those looking for more in-depth policy info to go to johnkerry.com, and he managed to do it in a funny, clever way. The speech, however, was aimed at convincing the fence sitters -- progressives looking for someone to stand up for them, ambivalent voters who want someone "likeable," fence-sitters who want to know if he can really protect the country, or if he's "too liberal." Kerry's aim was dead-on.

Unapologetically, he picked up the populist theme and defended it in stirring patriotic terms. Unabashedly, he stole Obama's best line -- and improved it, calling for One America, "Red, White, and Blue!" Unreservedly, he took on the mantle of an American champion, assuring viewers that he would take concrete steps to defend the nation -- and explaining them. Unashamedly, he spoke of faith on his own terms, albeit with a little legendary help:

"I don't want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side."

And then -- I can't believe he had the guts to do this -- he threw a bone to Earth-based faiths with the "cathedrals of nature" line on trees and the environment. Sure, it's ecumenical, but I have to imagine that with the diverse bunch supporting the Real Deal, something filtered along.

Indeed, there was a great deal of "coded" appeal -- red meat for we partisans that wouldn't give the undecided centrists indigestion. His defense of all minorities and treating people with respect (translation: the FMA is evil). Tying "honor thy mother and father" to protecting Social Security (translation: Bush doesn't care about your parents). Insisting that families won't have to pay for servicemen's body armor when he is president (translation: the corrupt SOBs running this war are more interested in their profits than our soldiers). All of it sheer genius.

Not that his speech was without good, solid blows. "It's time for those who talk about family values to start valuing families" was one of the best lines of the convention. Perhaps his most effective tactic, however, was calling out the Repugs' politics of division. Senator Kerry reminded us of how united we were after 9/11 without coming across as exploitative, then showed how the Bush Gang cynically leveraged that good will and unity for their own foul purposes. His language was always carefully chosen not to go too far, striking the right tenor between condemning the sins while reaching out to the sinners -- and those who believed them.

In short, one beautiful, beautiful speech. Faced with his own legendary question -- "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" -- he came up with a brilliant answer. You don't. You ask men to help correct that mistake, to redeem it, to make right what others have made wrong.

I truly believe that we could have the first unquestionably great Democratic president since that other JFK. I can't do it justice in this short space. For the full text, read the BBC's coverage -- yep, the Beeb's already on the case. Read the acceptance speech of the 44th President of the United States.

(/) Roland
"Our world is unconquerable because the human spirit is unconquerable." --Al Gore

Destroying the Spineless Dems Meme

2004-05-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

It's dead, Jim.

Pelosi stood her ground, telling reporters that "the emperor has no clothes." With the violence in Iraq threatening to overshadow all other issues in the coming election season, each party claimed to possess the moral high ground in setting the rules for debate.

"She apparently is so caught up in the partisan hatred for President Bush that her words are putting American lives at risk," said House Majority leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. "This nation cannot afford the luxury of her dangerous rhetoric."

Countered one Democratic leader: "Frankly, that's McCarthyism."

...

"Understand that when our kids are in harm's way, we are united -- it is one team, one fight. But they cannot say that anybody who criticizes their failures to be not supportive of our troops. It is the very support of the troops that provokes the candor that we must have about what's happening with this war, the cost in lives ... the cost in dollars to the taxpayer, and the cost in reputation to our country."

Now, say what you want regarding the rightness or wrongness of Pelosi's full-court press.

But can we please stop pretending that the Democrats are still the party of Clinton-esque jellyfish?

I still believe very firmly that no goal is more important in November than President Kerry. Nevertheless, the best thing we could do for our country is back Kerry up with Speaker Pelosi. We have genuinely progressive, outspoken voices in the party, and Pelosi is their leader either in name (for those in the House) or by example (for the rest of us).

Democrats. They're not just for flip-floppers any more.

(/) Roland X
And FYI, Kerry is winning.

Yep, we're still here :-)

2004-05-20T11:01:00.000-07:00

This is partly to let anyone who's still reading this know that we're still alive and well, and to test posting-by-email. If you're reading this, it worked :-).

Meanwhile, Roland has new stuff up at Democracy Means You, including his first satire article. I made my DMY debut as well, with an article on the issue of marriage.

That's it for now. Time will tell how often this blog sees further updates :-).

Update: Despite the fact that it says "posted by Roland," this post was by Morgan. I need to remember to log in under my own name when I'm going to post ;-).

Man Of Principle

2004-04-22T16:39:00.000-07:00

Everything you need to know about John Kerry's relationship with lobbyists:

"There was a certain comfort level there" meeting with the Massachusetts crowd, Kip O'Neill said. Kerry was a hard lawmaker to persuade, lobbyists said, and therefore he was not as beseeched as much as other lawmakers. "If your interests coincided he'd be a great advocate," Kip O'Neill said. "But he wouldn't carry anybody's water because he knew them or had a meeting with them."

In other words, if you're on his side, he's on yours (that's called intelligence, for those of you who might be wondering). But he's not for sale and never has been.

John F. Kerry. The Real Deal.

(/) Roland X
Deal me in.

The Sting

2004-04-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

We open to the music of "The Entertainer," by Scott Joplin.

Let's recap.

On Meet the Press, John Kerry promises to release all of his military records -- and that, in fact, they are all available through his office.

Soon after, a reporter has trouble getting said records through said office.

The blogosphere goes bananas. Radicon pundits crow about the terrible things that "must" be in his record, and defy liberal blogs to complain the way they did about Dubya's non-service. Leftie blogs, while not pleased, wonder why Kerry is doing this. There are a few hopeful mutterings about the canny Kerry campaign, but mostly "nah, they couldn't be this clever."

Just as the press starts to pay serious attention to the story, Kerry's campaign staff releases the whole shebang. Results: everyone who's paying attention knows that Kerry received glowing reviews, and was reminded of his three Purple Hearts and his Silver and Bronze Stars. The best conservatives can manage in response is "that first Purple Heart looks kinda iffy."

Gee, maybe they are that clever. Heh.

Thanks, radicons! We couldn't have done better ourselves! *VBG*

Fade out to same music.

(/) Roland X
The greedy are the easiest to con out of their money. I wonder if there's a political corollary for wingnuts...

The Bush revenge brigade hits the SCLM

2004-03-27T18:22:00.000-08:00

While we found a better permalink to this article on the Guardian, a UK paper, it showed up on our Excite feed. In Newsview: Cross Bush, Face Payback:

But Bush and his chief political adviser, Karl Rove, are essentially following the same game plan that the late Lee Atwater - an early political mentor of Rove's - used to get the first President Bush elected in 1988: define and undercut an opponent early with a fusillade of negative attacks.

"This team is tough. You cross them and they go after you and raise questions about you and your credibility rather than what you have to say," said Thomas Mann, a scholar with the Brookings Institution.

It's a really excellent article from a long time AP writer, who not only sums up their tactics, but provides a nice, fairly complete list of those brave souls who have come out against Dear Leader's miserable failures. All, naturally, have gotten the slime treatment.

These guys really don't have any shame. It's nice to see Powell backing up Clarke (as covered in other diaries). Let us hope that this marks the beginning of the end for ShrubCo. Just tell the truth and they think it's hell...
--
(/) Roland X
aka Captain ABBA

Exhibit A

2004-03-13T17:58:00.000-08:00

Quick note: this blog will now be a mirror for my diary at Daily Kos. While I am grateful to my readership sticking with my sporadic posting, you're a pretty small group, and the goal of the Justice Log is to make a difference. On to the post...

The difference between Bush and Kerry in a nutshell.

QUINCY, Ill. (AP) - In the city that saw a historic 19th century debate, John Kerry called for monthly debates with President Bush to elevate the tenor of a campaign that's opened with a relentlessly negative tone.

"Surely, if the attack ads can start now, at least we can agree to start a real discussion about America's future," said Kerry, speaking Saturday to about 500 people packed into a school gymnasium.

"America shouldn't have to put up with eight months of sniping," said Kerry. "We need to get off that detour and back into the true path of democracy."

...

"Today campaigns too often generate more heat than light, firing up partisans while leaving increasing numbers out in the cold," said Kerry. "Everyone in politics shares the blame, but I have come here today because I believe this campaign should be different."

...

"After calling Republicans crooks and liars, running 17 negative ads over 15,000 times and spending $6.3 million attacking the president, John Kerry is calling for a civil debate on the issues," said Schmidt. "John Kerry should finish the debate with himself."

Emphasis mine.

Now let's see. One of these campaigns has admitted that both sides engage in negative advertising. One campaign has attempted to change the tone. One campaign has made an effort to engage the country in real issues. One campaign was represented by its candidate.

The other campaign enumerated its opponent's negativity without even referring to its own vast slate of attacks. The other refused to even consider debate. The other campaign desperately wants to avoid issues and record because it can run on neither. The other was represented by a flunky -- not its candidate, not its chairman, not its brain, not even one of its better-known representatives.

I recognize that, to a certain point, reality is subjective. But understanding that subjectivity requires also accepting that others' realities continue to affect them no matter what one's own personal beliefs are. Facts, regardless of these subjective beliefs, remain stubborn things, and form the basis of what we call "truth."

One campaign cares about truth and reason. One cares about dogma and power. I leave it to the reader to determine which is which.

(/) Roland X
Captain ABBA

Campaign Jiujitsu

2004-02-18T17:41:00.000-08:00

It seems that some Freepers have been complaining that Dubya's AWOL problems are getting all the press, while charges that Kerry had an affair are not being investigated equally. (Strangely, some of them are levelling such charges on Calpundit, who -- to the best of my knowledge -- never claimed to be a non-partisan observer.)

Well, if they want to go into the "inconsistencies" of the right-wing slime attack, I say -- bring it on!

In a separate statement in the US, her parents, Terry and Donna Polier, dismissed the "completely false and unsubstantiated" allegations about their daughter.

The statement did not address purported quotes by Ms Polier's parents in the British tabloid The Sun that were harshly critical of Senator Kerry. But in a later statement, Terry Polier said he was misquoted by the newspaper and that his wife never talked to the reporter.

So much for the "sleazeball" quote.

Please, Freepers, do keep this story going. All of us on the left are truly eager to follow it to its actual source. Thanks muchly.

Kudos to Counterspin for keeping a spotlight on the story behind the non-story.

(/) Roland X
Look! Out in the blogosphere! It's a pundit! It's a columnist! It's...
CAPTAIN ABBA!

Intelligence Inquiry Explodes

2004-02-13T13:40:00.000-08:00

Bush is now officially in for a world of hurt:

WASHINGTON - In a blow to the Bush administration, the Senate Intelligence Committee said Thursday that it planned to investigate whether White House officials exaggerated the Iraq threat or pressured analysts to tailor their assessments of Baghdad's weapons programs to bolster the case for war.

The move puts claims made by President Bush and other senior officials in his administration squarely in the sights of the committee's investigation, and could add to the White House's political troubles as it tries to keep questions about the war from becoming a drag on Bush's reelection campaign.

Bombshell. There is simply no other word.

But Dean screamed, and Drudge said Kerry had an affair, and Gillespie went crying to mommy that the Democrats are being mean...

Oh yeah, and Edwards is a lawyer. Gasp.

This is more than blood in the water. The Rove/Cheney administration is being dismembered.

Expect indictments by the Plame grand jury soon. Is Dick Cheney Dubya's Spiro? Only time will tell. *EG*

(/) Roland X
Ah, it's good to have a press that does its job...

Drubbed Drudge

2004-02-13T11:34:00.000-08:00

Conason annihilates Drudge sludge peddling (note: Salon articles require either subscription or ad view for day pass):

"The comments attributed to me [Craig Crawford -- R.X.] are from a private email to television news associates based on conversations with Democratic campaign operatives. I did not consider any of it confirmed enough to report or publish. I can only verify that Chris Lehane's rivals in other Democratic campaigns made these claims and I have found no independent source to confirm it. Which is why we did not go with the story. But then someone sent my email to others, which is the only reason it got into the public domain." In other words, there is no proof that Lehane circulated the rumor, let alone that the rumor has any basis in reality.

...

Journalists must ask themselves why the rumor of a private peccadillo deserves their attention and resources in the 2004 campaign. The press faces a more important issue: learning from its own failure to report the false rationale and abused intelligence that drove the nation to war.

Poor Sludge. I mean Drudge. Peddling sleaze used to be so much easier. A pity for him the left woke up.

Now, about those National Guard documents...

(/) Roland X
Back to the real scandals, 'kay?

More defending Kerry

2004-02-11T11:31:00.000-08:00

Via Counterspin, this is the sort of activity the right-wing is trying to smear Senator kerry for:

I would like to talk on behalf of all those veterans and say that several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit - the emotions in the room and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

We call this investigation the Winter Soldier Investigation. The term Winter Soldier is a play on words of Thomas Paine's in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriots and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.

We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country, we could be quiet, we could hold our silence, we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out.

...

We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how monies from American taxes were used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by the flag, and blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search and destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism - and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong.

...

Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese.

Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be, and these are his words, "the first President to lose a war."

We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

This is what the right-wing slime machine is calling an "attack" on his fellow veterans -- forces he was trying to save from a horrific meat grinder he knew all too well (three Purple Hearts). Senator Kerry's courageous stand is being spun into deluded undermining of freedom in Vietnam, as if South Vietnam hadn't been ruled by one of our pet dictators. This is the man who they're trying to accuse of being a flip-flopping coward -- a man who faced not only bullets and shrapnel but the full might of the Nixon political machine. He fought for what he believed in.

You know what? He's still at it. If the Republicans try to make an issue out of his anti-war activism, my hope is for a simple answer: "Bring it on!"

(/) Roland X
Though we do still have this primary thing to run...go Dean go!

Defending Kerry

2004-02-07T20:33:00.000-08:00

Hopefully, this will help persuade my fellow Deanies to stop throwing fits about Kerry. I'd rather spend my time promoting Dr. Dean than defending Senator Kerry's reputation.

Nevertheless, as long as our front-runner is being attacked by our own -- and let's be honest, he is under attack -- I am going to defend him. Let's start with the basics: Kerry is a moderate liberal (yes, Virginia, there is such a thing) with a firm grounding in social justice and the importance of civil rights, as well as a stellar record on abortion, the environment, and education.

Unlike Bush, he's actually capable of admitting his mistakes:

Kerry has walked away from some of his 1984 campaign proposals to cancel weapons systems that have become central to the U.S. military arsenal unleashed on Afghanistan and Iraq while defending his overall record as a senator. Kerry told the Boston Globe earlier this year some of the proposed cancellations were "ill-advised" and "stupid," blaming his inexperience as a candidate and a campaign that drove him to the left politically.

Will the GOP try to use these votes against him in the general campaign? Obviously. Should we let them? You tell me.

Yes, he voted to give Bush his authority in the Iraq war. Yes, he shouldn't have done it. But do you really think that a President Kerry would do anything so dangerous, stupid, and immoral? Do you truthfully suspect that our freedoms, our environment, our justice system, and our alliances will be in nearly as much danger with President Kerry as they are now? Do you really believe that gigantic companies will be able to rape our land, endanger our armed forces, and run roughshod over our lives the way they do under this administration? Are you convinced that it's even plausible that a Kerry administration would appoint wild extremists like John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Daniel Pipes, David Hager, or pretty much anyone Bush would send to the Supreme Court given half a chance?

If so, then I guess you're not going to be voting for Senator Kerry no matter what I write. Personally, I'm with Dean for as long as he's in this thing. I hope he wins Wisconsin, and if he does, I truly believe that he can turn this thing around on Super Tuesday. But he's said that if he doesn't win Wisconsin, he's withdrawing from the race. If he drops out, I'll have to take a long second look at all the candidates, and from what I've seen of him, Kerry just might get my vote.

(/) Roland X
ABBA, dammit!

Word of the Day

2004-02-04T22:52:00.000-08:00

Demonstrably. Adverb. That which is capable of being demonstrated and/or proven.

Someone get RNC chair Gillespie a dictionary:

"This is a demonstrably false and malicious charge that would be slanderous under any ordinary circumstance."

For the record, Mr. Gillespie, you could clear this up in about five minutes by, you know, demonstrating that it's false, which you just said you could. [Edit: In case you missed it, the "malicious charge" refers to Bush's missing service time in the Air National Guard. During Vietnam. While Senator Kerry and General Clark were getting shot at -- and in Clark's case, actually getting shot.]

If he can't find attendance records, here are some other resources he can use to demonstrate how false this charge is.

Unless this isn't an ordinary circumstance because it's, you know, the truth. We certainly all understand how that would be considered extraordinary by someone with a position of authority in the Republican party.

Don't we?

(/) Roland X
Helping Republicans with their English lessons since 2003

Pass it on

2004-02-03T11:27:00.000-08:00

Kos posts the following message:

Message to Blog Community from DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe

As we get closer to the day that our Democratic nominee for President emerges from the primaries, I wanted to give you an update of what we've been building, doing and creating at the DNC to help defeat the Republicans on November 2 and win back the White House for ordinary working families.

Since the day I became Chairman in February 2001, the Democratic National Committee has been preparing for the moment that our nominee emerges.. Our No. 1 job at the DNC is to ensure that our candidate has the support he needs as he comes out of the primary battle.

A lot of what we do to accomplish that goal occurs below the media radar. These activities don't make for a compelling news story, but they are absolutely vital to our success. Here are just a few examples of what we've built to prepare for our nominee:
A Presidential Fund which will have raised $15.3 million in 441(a)d funds, which will be available to our nominee immediately. This is the earliest these funds have ever been available to the nominee.

A 2 million-strong list of email activists and donors -- up from just 70,000 names in 2000. (And if you aren't receiving our action alerts, campaign updates, and Democratic news emails, click here to sign up.)

A voter file containing 166 million voters -- Democrat, Republican, and Independent. Attached to the national voter file are powerful analytical tools that are helping us find new voters more cost-effectively than ever before. The voter file is also key to our mobilization, organization, communication and fundraising operations.

A media and research operation focusing on targeted 2004 battleground states, organizing news conferences and building media operations in state parties.

A radio operation that aggressively books Democratic surrogates (including me) on both talk radio and news stations nationwide, with an emphasis on targeted states.

A detailed review and analysis of Bush's policies and record.

Daily tracking operation that keeps comprehensive records of where he travels and everything he has said publicly, as well as the activities of the RNC and Bush campaign staff.
But the DNC is just part of the picture. Your grassroots activism will be the key to our victory in 2004. And the leadership of Kos and others like yourselves in the blogosphere has truly transformed our Party. I thank you all for helping make our Party better, stronger and more responsive to grassroots America.

The political machine may have some broken springs and loose gears, but they're the only one we've got -- unless, that is, you want to see four more years of Dubya. And they've gotten a lot better over the last several months (thanks to a house call from a doctor who shall remain nameless).

ABBA in '04. (Note: Shameless plug added by Mrs. Roland X. *g*)

(/) Roland X
Super Tuesday coverage to come

A Whitewash That Won't Wash?

2004-01-30T17:45:00.000-08:00

Well, Lord Hutton has issued his report -- full excoriation of the BBC, and full exoneration of 10 Downing Street. Blair and the warfloggers are ecstatic, and the right is attacking the BBC all-out. The rank and file of Aunt Beeb, however, are up in arms, and a full half of the British people aren't buying it:

A poll found yesterday that a majority of people thought Lord Hutton's report was wrong to lay all the blame at the BBC's door. The poll, by NOP, showed 56 per cent thought the peer was wrong to blame only the BBC; 49 per cent said the report was a whitewash, with 40 per cent disagreeing.

A whitewash. Not just unfair, or imbalanced, or biased. A whitewash.

It's important to remember that we're talking about Britain here, not America, where our use of both language and rhetoric are more free-wheeling. This is nothing less than a stunning rebuke of both Hutton's inquiry and Blair's presumptuous crowing. And the fisking of the Hutton report has already begun (the irony of the term's origins -- right-wing bloggers dissecting British reporter Robert Fisk's articles -- are particularly epic in this case). While the Blair administration and BBC try to put an end to the mess, battle lines are already being drawn, and not just on line. News organizations around the world are rallying around vulnerable Aunt Beeb, while Alastair Campbell and News Corp. (owner of Fox and Sky News) go for the jugular.

The row over Dr. Kelly, Hutton, and the BBC isn't over. Not by a long shot. In fact, I'd argue that thanks to Lord Hutton's one-sided report, the battle has just begun.

(/) Roland X
Save Aunt Beeb!

You Never Can Tell

2004-01-27T23:34:00.000-08:00

Whoa. First Iowa, and now this.

And I've gotta be honest. I'd mentally put Kerry in the coffin with Lieberman, who will (mercifully) soon lag with the other fringe candidates. How wrong I was. (Although I have to say that perhaps the best thing to come out of Iowa and New Hampshire is that maybe, finally, the Freepers will stop ranting about how Hillary is really honest-and-for-true going to run this year.)

Don't count anyone (other than Lieberman) out yet, though, Dean least of all. First of all, the Doctor's managed a neat bit of political jiujitsu with that "Dean scream" nonsense, and managed a solid second place showing. Remember, General Clark looked like he might nab that spot out from under Dean for a while there. Second, he's still got the money, the organization, and the support. This race is by no means over.

Clark and Edwards, meanwhile, both survive with their effective tie for third. Edwards may have to win South Carolina, but he just might manage it. Clark, for his part, can survive just by doing well through February, and has enough of the Dean equation -- money, organization, support -- to last through Super Tuesday.

In fact, this might prove to be one of the most exciting primaries in recent memory, resulting in the first brokered convention in decades. This could hurt the Democrats if they revert to mudslinging, but if the campaign stays relatively clean, there's nothing like a nice long primary to get that free press (as many bloggers more observant than myself have observed 8^).

Still, whatever anyone -- including Kerry, apparently -- may say, there's no question that we have a new front-runner. Against all odds, his initials are JFK. Personally, I think Edwards has more legitimate Kennedy-in-1960 mojo than Kerry does. Nevertheless, I have to say that Kerry has done what is almost certainly the most important thing a Democratic candidate can do right now: prove that he's up to the challenge of beating George Dubya Bush. He's the first named Democrat (as opposed to Bush vs. The Unknown Dem) to win outright in a "if you voted today" poll. (Ignore the article's gratuitous Dean-bashing.)

Overall, 52 percent of those polled by NEWSWEEK say they would not like to see Bush serve a second term, compared to 44 percent who want to see him win again in November. As a result, Kerry is enjoying a marginal advantage over Bush, a first for the poll. Forty-nine percent of registered voters chose Kerry, compared to 46 percent who re-elected Bush.

No matter how you slice it, that's some pretty potent mojo. And since the talking heads do have some influence left, expect them to begin blathering about how Kerry has been anointed, with the smarmy implication that they are doing the anointing. Which, for some strange reason, will probably help Kerry.

They can be safely ignored. While Kerry would unquestionably make for a tremendous improvement over the Resident, so would any of the others (even Kucinich and Lieberman). Most of Kerry's momentum comes from his ability to convince voters that he's the man to beat Bush in November. Dean, you're my guy, but here's a hint: the movement is important, but Beating Bush Comes First!!! Telling people that they can choose anyone to change presidents isn't going to get you the nomination. Once the Republicans are run by sane people instead of the Legion of Doom, then we can talk about Democrats running on changing America. Right now, changing presidents will demonstrably change America, and only the farthest fringes of the Green party (and Ralph Nader) say otherwise.

(/) Roland X
Go, ABBA, go!

Is Andrew Sullivan Leaving The Dark Side?

2004-01-21T13:11:00.000-08:00

This article starts out with the usual rah-rah cheerleading for Bush's rah-rah spinning of the "death and conquest" policy. Yawn. As Sullivan continues, however, he hits Bush hard on some glaring weak points:

But, more profound, the president revealed his deep suspicion of human freedom. Yes, he says he supports it. But in every instance--even charitable and religious institutions--he believes that government needs to get involved. He wants to maintain the Patriot Act intact; he wants to extend the war on drugs to steroids; he wants to prevent gay couples from having the ability to form their own families and be treated equally under the law. He suggests not a single government program to be cut. On social issues, he shifted to the hard right: abstinence programs rather than contraception; an assault on gay couples and families; and millions of dollars in order to subject children to mandatory drug testing in schools. This is not Reaganism. It isn't Gingrichism. It's Big Government Moral Conservatism: fiscally liberal and socially conservative.

Emphasis mine in both cases.

With the back-breaking deficit the Bush Regime's economic Voodoo II is creating, I wouldn't do them the honor of calling them fiscally liberal. Fiscally insane is more like it. That aside, Sullivan (for once) hits the mark firmly. Ironically, a man who was one of Bush's biggest boosters has outlined most of the reasons the Resident shouldn't be elected dogcatcher, let alone Commander-in-Chief: he has no concept of true liberty or justice, he wants to involve the government in almost every aspect of our personal lives, he wants to spend money we don't have and give most of it to his rich buddies, and he wants everyone to shut up about it and do as they're told.

Sure. Bush as more bad things going for him, but most libertarian conservatives want to pretend that problems like poverty and the environment aren't the government's problem. So all in all, this is an excellent start.

Can the Reactionary Right now stop pretending that Bush is freedom's Great White Hope? Probably not. But at least sane conservatives are waking up to the threat his regime poses to our future. Let us hope they stay awake long enough to kick the Mayberry Machiavellis out of the White House.

(/) Roland X
"Our lives are remembered by the gifts we leave our children."
--Preston Whitmore, "Atlantis: the Lost Empire"

Sorry, Dubya, they're not even good fake WMDs

2004-01-14T12:16:00.000-08:00

Remember those shells the Danes found? The ones with the chemical warfare agents in them? Guess what? Via Calpundit, we learn that they were just another wild goose chase:

Four initial tests by British and Danish experts came up positive for blister agents, Danish spokesman, Capt. Kim Vibe Michelsen, told The Associated Press.

But later tests by U.S. experts from the Iraq Survey Group on five of the shells have shown no trace of chemical weapons, the Danish military said.

Of course, buried twelve year old battlefield munitions aren't WMDs anyway, even if they do have some chemical agents in them. And to the warfloggers' credit, most of them didn't jump on this one as a justification for the war. Also something to keep in mind is that the "final verdict" isn't in yet, so stay tuned. All things considered, however, it looks like another Great Blight Hope turned into another wild goose egg -- Truth a thousand, Bush zero.

(/) Roland X
At least they were more dangerous than the two "trailers of doom."

Those ACLU Fascists Defend...Rush Limbaugh?!?

2004-01-13T23:14:00.000-08:00

Y'know, I'm probably going to regret this, but I'm actually going to give props to *sucks it in* Rush Limbaugh, for showing good grace as the ACLU comes to his aid:

Here's a quote from Howard Simon, the executive director of the ACLU of Florida in a statement. "It may seem odd that the ACLU has come to the defense of Rush Limbaugh but we've always said that the ACLU's real client is the Bill of Rights and we will continue to safeguard the equality, fairness and privacy of everybody regardless of race, economic status or political point of view." [AP:] "The organization said it wanted to vindicate every Floridian's privacy by making sure they complied with the law. There is a specific right to privacy enumerated in the Florida constitution. The elected state attorney had no comment with the ACLU's involvement. Spokesman Mike Edmondson said that prosecutors who protected stay laws have protected my rights throughout the investigation."

How many other suspects have had the list of medications that they have had prescribed for them at a pharmacy leafed through on worldwide television? We know who this Edmonson guy is. He is the informant in the elected state attorney's office for the Palm Beach Post as my attorney stated in the medical records hearing. So the ACLU is in on the case now. We welcome the ACLU.

Link his, emphasis mine.

Sure, I'm tempted to use this to take a shot at Limbaugh for hypocrisy. But I'm not going to. Sometimes, you need to see things for yourself to have your eyes opened to them.

Instead, I'm going to use this opportunity to take a shot at Bill O'Reilly. <EG>

I've written an article for DMY spotlighting Mr. "O'Really" and his penchant for calling the ACLU "fascist." (It isn't up as of this writing, but should be soon.) After all, there are those evil libruls they defend, they fight to separate church and state, they promote smut -- how dare they!

Yeah. They're defending the privacy rights of Rush freakin' Limbaugh. Hard to get more fascist than that, huh?

(/) Roland X
Ahhh. Irony, sweet irony.

The Final Frontier

2004-01-13T22:50:00.000-08:00

Whoa, hey, when did space become a Republican issue?

Apparently, when Bush started talking about it.

Sure, we can't trust Dubya with a program to screw in a light bulb. I concede without reservation that the Bush Regime is utterly corrupt and incompetent. The last time I believed that this administration could do something right was in Afghanistan, shortly after the September 11 attacks. After all, how could they possibly let partisan foolishness or short attention span ruin our chances there again?

Man, did I learn my lesson. There is no job so important, no task so simple, that Rove can't screw it up by pandering to the regime's base.

And yes, we have no business starting some outrageously expensive project whose benefits are years if not decades down the line when the budget is half a billion dollars in the red. (Hm. My recent DMY column aside, maybe that is why they call them red states.)

However.

Space travel is our future. Not only are there vast scientific benefits to be reaped from the endeavor alone, not only are there endless resources to be found out there, resources that can be acquired without damaging our own precious biosphere, but sooner or later mankind must take to the stars. Whether because of our own carelessness with the environment, overpopulation, or just a slowly tiring world or star, eventually humanity must leave the cradle.

And conservative rhetoric aside (sorry, Admiral), does anyone out there honestly believe that businesses today are willing to make the huge long-term investments to get serious about space? Russia's space program is in tatters, China's just getting off the ground (and be honest -- do you really want them to have space superiority), and the EU is floundering. Only one nation has the resources, the structure, and the will to get us Out There.

Yes, these things take money. That means things like (gasp!) raising taxes, just like most of the other ways we need to undo the damage the Bush Regime has done. Still, liberals can't give up on the final frontier, even if Bush is using it as his latest propaganda set-piece. Space is too important to allow the rhetoric of the moment to hold our future hostage.

(/) Roland X
Who still has his Space Shuttle poster around here...somewhere...

Human Wrongs

2004-01-12T15:32:00.000-08:00

Via Atrios, we find this stunner in the Daily News:

He didn't free the slaves.

He didn't rid the world of Hitler.

He didn't even - like his father - preside over the destruction of the Berlin Wall.

Yet George W. Bush tells New Yorker writer Ken Auletta: "No President has ever done more for human rights than I have."

With stunners like that, no wonder he spends so little time with journalists.

That sound you just heard? That was my jaw crashing through the floor.

Perhaps Resident Bush has forgotten the name George Washington, the General-turned-President whose courage and genius won freedom for America.

And Thomas Jefferson, who made such minor contributions as writing the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

And then there are the aforementioned Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Bush I, though "presiding over the destruction of the Berlin Wall" seems a bit...kind. "Happened to be in office at the time" is more how I'd characterize it.

Still, given that Dubya may be the greatest enemy of human rights ever to reside in the White House, it's certainly fair to compare his father with him favorably.

Meanwhile, the article bravely continues:

Political guru Karl Rove claims that the job of journalists is "not necessarily to report the news. It's to get a headline or get a story that will make people pay attention to their magazine, newspaper or television more."

Is it just me, or has the Daily News become the Big Apple's antidote for Die Poste?

(/) Roland X
A quote like that is beyond .sig-parodying...

Nakedly Craven

2004-01-12T15:31:00.000-08:00

Found through Buzzflash, this article from the NY Daily News:

Getting an extension could be a political headache for Bush if the final 9/11 report is issued in the summer. Kean, a Republican, has said the report will name names and point to failures in the Bush administration.

Good for him. It's nice to know there are still honest Republicans.

The White House response?

The White House proposed greenlighting the extension if the commission would agree to release the report after the November election, but then officials pulled back the offer, Newsweek reported yesterday.

Sure, we knew they were this conniving, but so openly? They can't think they can get away with it, can they?

Oh, wait. So far, they have. Never mind...

(/) Roland X
One Wing to Bring Them All and in the Darkness Bind Them
In the Land of Crawford Where the Shadows Lie

A Paul on the Presidency

2004-01-11T17:13:00.000-08:00

The bombshell:

CRAWFORD, Tex., Jan. 10 -- Former Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill charged in remarks released Saturday that President Bush began planning to oust Saddam Hussein within days of taking office and before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The response:

A senior administration official said O'Neill's "suggestion that the administration was planning an invasion of Iraq days after taking office is laughable. Nobody listened to him when he was in office. Why should anybody now?"

Naturally, my fellow pro-freedom bloggers have been all over this. Equally naturally, this looks like it'll blow over before the interview is even broadcast. Still, since we all know full well that every brain in the administration not named "Powell" wanted to invade Iraq since before the 2000 election, IMO the truly interesting element of this story is the response. Sure, the politics of personal destruction are used on anything that vaguely resembles a Democrat, but widening the circle to include a Republican who served in the Bush administration is a fascinating development.

Is this a coldly calculated attack, unconcerned about the obvious contradiction due to Americans' short attention span? Is it the legendary rage of the Bush political team (aka Karl "like he's never been f---ed before" Rove)? Is there actual desperation involved, as the opposition becomes more motivated and organized while Bush's failings become more public? Is it some combination of the above? After all, this is a man who served under Bush for some time -- if no one listened to him while he was Treasury Secretary, why in hell was he appointed to that office? And how did he keep his job for so long?

While the Bush administration is supposed to be in the driver's seat in 2004, surely men like Rove realize that once the general election campaign season begins, all of the Regime's policy failings, foreign and domestic, will be aired for public consumption. They've practically conceded this point, and are already trying to frame the election in terms of attitude over accomplishment. So every time a revelation like Mr. O'Neill's receives public attention, it's a direct threat to that second term, as well as the power and "legitimacy" the Bush team so desperately want.

So it will be interesting to see whether O'Neill's visibility is vanished, brutalized, or both (kept out of the general public's eye, while savaged by the wingnut policy hacks). While I seriously doubt that this revelation will do any real damage to the administration, their reaction will prove instructive. Coming next: [fill in the candidate] is too liberal, too Clintonian, hates America (yes, even Clark and Lieberman), and looks French.

(/) Roland X
With thanks to Hesiod

Return of the Blog

2004-01-11T16:23:00.000-08:00

Whoa, is it 2004 already? :-)

Getting serious, December just slipped out from under me (very busy month), and it was tough enough keeping up with my DMY commitment. Nevertheless, again I offer my apologies. Though I am stating for the record that the Justice Log will likely be more sporadic in the future, I will do my best to keep up on the latest from the left, and offer my observations on same, when I can (and I have more to offer than on my DMY column).

And now, a blast from the past:

Article 4       ABUSE OF POWER

The President misused and abused his office and impaired the administration of justice.

1.      The President made false and misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States;

2.      The President made false and misleading statements to members of the Cabinet and White House aides;

3.      The President frivolously asserted executive privilege;

4.      The President made perjurious, false and misleading statements to Congress (answers to 81 questions).

Clinton? Or Bush?

Then again, how on earth could anyone say that "making false and misleading public statements" to Congress, White House aides, and the American people constitutes an impeachable offense? Absurd, right? Well, not to the GOP:

Using the powers and influence of the office of President of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct that resulted in misuse and abuse of his high office, impaired the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, and contravened the laws governing the integrity of the judicial and legislative branches and the truth-seeking purpose of coordinate investigative proceedings.

Whoa. strong words. So, a president who lied to Congress and the American people to started a war on false pretenses, endangered the lives of millions of New Yorkers by covering up the damage done by post-9/11 emissions, and suppressed a commission on the intelligence failures involving that same attack, will be impeached too, right?

And of course, the good old GOP will add the betrayal of Valerie Plame-Wilson to the Articles of Impeachment, I'm sure:

ARTICLE III

In his conduct while President of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice, and has to that end engaged personally, and through his subordinates and agents, in a course of conduct or scheme designed to delay, impede, cover up, and conceal the existence of evidence and testimony...

Sure, some of the details are different. But the Republican party would never allow such piddling peccadilloes to interfere in the pursuit of justice. Surely, they won't resort to "definition of is" style of hair-splitting, will they?

Who are we kidding? Of course they will. Of course they have.

I could go on at length about the many other issues at stake -- Enron, employment, the environment, deficits that respected economists believe may endanger the entire global economy -- but if you're here, you probably know about all of that. So for now, I'll stick to this reminder of what used to constitute an impeachable offense...when a Democrat was in the White House.

(/) Roland X
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you an enemy of the state.

Apologies and Updates

2003-11-30T14:41:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know, I know, there hasn't been anything up for the last week, and the top of the blog has been an unabashed plug for Looney Tunes: Back in Action, not exactly a fate-of-the-world topic. Still, it's not always easy to keep up with the constant outrages of the administration, especially when it is at the same time a recursive loop: rampant cronyism, creeping fascism, and sheer incompetence.

The energy bill, of course, gets top marks for all of the above. If you're an outrageous polluter, system-gaming corporation, or just plain gouger, this bill's for you. For the rest of us, as always, Molly Ivins has the scoop:

This is an amazing energy bill because it does not: A) reduce our dependence on foreign oil, B) provide significant new energy sources, C) create many jobs, D) improve the grid system so we won't have more blackouts, E) promote energy efficiency or conservation or F) do anything about global warming.

BUT, it will cost at least $20 billion in subsides to fossil fuel companies. Those poor li'l oil, gas, coal and nuclear companies like Exxon/Mobil and General Electric need our help -- this is compassionate conservatism.

Then, of course, there's Medicare "reform." Of course, by reform, they mean "ways to bilk taxpayers, cheat the needy, and feed bloated megacorps." And by "they," of course, I mean Republicans. But you knew that.

From the very same article by Ms. Ivins:

The Health Reform Program of Boston University estimates that of the bill's $400 billion price tag, $139 billion will go to increase drug-company profits over eight years, a 38 percent increase in what is already the world's most profitable industry.

Personally, I find the revolt among AARP rank-and-file members over this behemoth the most interesting aspect of the Medicare controversy. Officially, the AARP backs this bill. Thousands of members are leaving the group, however, and many more are expressing their outrage. This may even result in a widespread power struggle within the enormous organization:

Card-burnings and protests were also reported in such places as Washington, D.C., Webster Groves, Mo., and San Francisco.

"We don't think AARP in the least represents seniors on this issue," said Bruce Livingston, executive director of Senior Action Network in the San Francisco area. "We're going to encourage people to quit. This is just the beginning."

Oh, and November has been the bloodiest month of the Iraq war, with Italy and Spain both taking significant casualties and reconsidering their participation. And the long, ugly stream of dead among Americans and Iraqis continues.

But who cares? Michael Jackson's been arrested! Bush spent two hours in Baghdad in absolute secrecy! Now that's news!

As an aside, I feel compelled to note that child molestation is a horrific crime, and if Jackson is in fact guilty he should spend a long time in a small cage, preferably with a big hairy cellmate. Oh, and unlike many of my fellow bloggers, I feel no particular need to excoriate Dubya for sane security precautions taken while actually doing something decent, even if it was a naked ploy to film a campaign commercial.

Fact, however, is a far more stubborn thing than mere news. If we don't convince the latter to cover the former, the facts are going to become unpleasant indeed. We had better start dealing with these facts soon, since our Dear Leaders seem so unwilling to do so.

(/) Roland X
Perhaps Dubya thinks that the facts are just "testing our will."

Did you Tune out Revolutions? Get Back In Action

2003-11-15T22:39:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know that this blog has been almost exclusively political, but this is good enough that I want to share with everyone. 8^)

Unlike most other fans I've heard and/or read, I won't utterly pan Revolutions. It was good in respectable chunks. However, I found it disappointing at times, on several levels. At other times, it was very depressing.

As a result, I was trying to keep my expectations manageable for other movies, like Looney Tunes: Back in Action, which was next on our list. (Due to finances, we've got to pick and choose when it comes to movies, though our situation could easily be far worse.) The trailer was drop-dead hilarious, however, so I figured that those laughs alone were worth the price of admission.

To paraphrase the Comic Book Guy: Funniest...movie...ever. And I say that as a HUGE fan of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit."

I saw it Friday, for opening day. I saw it again today. This movie is sheer comic genius from start to finish, as Daffy Duck grabs this movie and strolls away with it in a fashion that makes Hugo Weaving's brilliant theft of Matrix Revolutions as the delightfully evil Agent Smith look positively ham-handed. I have to imagine that, if these characters really did exist in our own world, Daffy (if he could ever have really been jealous of Bugs) would be thoroughly cured of any envy. Of course, the daffy Daffy is fantastically abetted by Brendan Fraser, who shows us what a phenomenal actor he is simply by keeping up with the little black duck. Together, they craft the most clever, outrageous, and surprisingly human "buddy flick" duo in ages.

To say that Bugs is in fine form is to say that things fall when you drop them, but his droll wit contrasts magnificently both with longtime partner Daffy as well as with Bugs' human co-star, Jenna Elfman. Ms. Elfman is a magnificent straight woman to humans and toons alike. Her slightly goofy chemistry with Fraser is perfect for Action, but for Bugs' brand of humor she proves an ideal foil, which is even more vital for a Looney Tunes movie. She even gets the better of the rabbit once (sort of) by hitting the rabbit's soft spot for a distressed dame.

Cameos abound, of course, for the denizens of the WB Looniverse -- but that's not all, folks. It seems that Director Joe Dante is a real film buff, and packs this comic masterpiece with references to film genres ranging from spy flicks to pulp adventure to cheesy 50s sci-fi to the Hollywood world itself. Steve Martin has a blast playing the over-the-top Mr. Chairman, who will never endanger Judge Doom as the most menacing villain of the cartoon cosmos, but he easily out-funnies the genuinely disturbing Judge. You never take Mr. Chairman seriously -- but you're not supposed to (though I found myself wondering with a chuckle how Marvin Acme's company had fallen so low). Rounding out the major human cast members are Heather Locklear as Bond Girl Dusty Tails, now playing in the majors (spy-wise, that is), Joan Cusack as the wacky "Mother," top genius of the nebulous spy agency at the center of the good guys' efforts, and Timothy Dalton playing himself playing James Bond playing himself. All three turn out excellent performances, particularly Dalton, who displays a surprisingly deft comic talent (I would have liked to see more of him).

There is literally too much good stuff in this movie to explain it all without providing a blow-by-blow account of the film, which wouldn't do its manic genius justice. The closest I can come is to say that it is drop-dead funny without detracting from any of the lesser plot lines at work in the movie, which are (in descending order of importance) the character interaction between DJ (Fraser), Kate (Elfman), Bugs, and Daffy; the action-adventure (which is surprisingly well-done); and the goofy-yet-wonderful romance between DJ and Kate, which could have easily felt (and become) pro forma yet didn't.

If you can't figure out why people think a rabbit and a duck are so funny, avoid this film like the plague. On the other hand, if you have ever laughed at a Looney Tunes short, go see this movie. You'll thank me, if you can stop laughing long enough for it.

(/) Roland X
An enormous fan of the little black duck who is not angry, fat, or living in a basement, and can't wait for the DVD.

Lying Liars

2003-11-14T08:54:00.000-08:00

I try to avoid engaging in blog wars, but Instapundit is the Big Dog of not only conservatarian pundits, but the blogosphere in general. And he has this to say about the nutjobs on both sides:

I've drawn the distinction repeatedly, but the fact is that the real energy in the antiwar movement comes from people who don't like America. A.N.S.W.E.R. is central to the movement. Nobody else can organize the protests or turn out the bodies. It's as if the religious right relied on Fred Phelps to do their organization, then tried to claim that they weren't like him. But they've been very careful to distance themselves from guys like him. I don't see similar care from the antiwar movement -- I see happy solidarity until someone makes an issue, followed by righteous indignation when this stuff is pointed out.

This is clear, utter, total and obvious bull.

Orcinus provides us with a few examples in a post on neofascism that probably has nothing to do -- directly -- with Instapundit's absurd bloviating:

This is not mere hyperbole; it is an exercise in eliminationism. As Buzzflash recently observed, talk like this is part of an increasing trend in conservative rhetoric: Pat Robertson wishing to "nuke" the State Department, Bill O'Reilly saying Peter Arnett should be shot, Coulter wishing Tim McVeigh had set off his bomb at the New York Times Building, John Derbyshire wishing for Chelsea Clinton's demise. Unsurprisingly, the same kind of talk is now heard on the "street" level, and it often pops up on talk radio. As we learned in Oklahoma City, eventually this kind of "hot talk" translates into all-too-real tragedy.

The religious right has mainstream leadership like Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell and Franklin Graham. The top neocon pundits are hitmen (and women) like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly. And then we have the "with us or against us" nutcases in the administration, which includes men like David "read the Bible for PMS" Hager , John "what Bill of Rights" Ashcroft, and the man himself, Dick "we don't need no steenkin' facts" Cheney.

And the best Instapundit can come up with is ANSWER? Yeah, we all know how much pull ANSWER has with the Democratic party...

(/) Roland X
They really do just make crap up

Never Mess With The Spooks

2003-11-13T13:01:00.000-08:00

The Calpundit has the slam dunk on this one:

* If the CIA report was circulated early this month, it was surely being written early last month. Reports like this take at least a few weeks to prepare.

* The report is incredibly bleak, and since facts on the ground don't change on a dime that means the situation in Iraq must have already seemed pretty dicey in early October.

* Even so, the White House went ahead with push back.

* No one is stupid enough to mount a PR campaign like this if they know that the facts on the ground are likely to make them look like idiots within a few short weeks. So the White House didn't know.
...

The problem is that trying to blame this kind of stuff on the CIA is getting less and less credible with every passing day: after all, if it really is the CIA's fault, their incompetence has now endangered the interests of the United States and badly embarrassed the president so many times that it's simply beyond belief that there haven't been wholesale firings in Langley.

Which also explains some of the sheer outrage from current and former members of the intelligence community: they're being trashed by an administration that's trying to find an excuse for the mess it's in, when they wouldn't be in this mess if they had just listened to the people they're trashing in the first place.

You know, I'd be a little peeved too. Come to think of it, I am peeved, and I'm just one of the folks watching this idiocy unfold.

You know it's bad when you're a liberal and you miss Poppy. A lot.

(/) Roland X
Too disgusted to .sig

Potential Military Installations

2003-11-08T14:00:00.000-08:00

It's getting harder to tell the parody from the real thing:

Afterward, attack helicopters cruised throughout the day over Saddam's hometown, swooping low over villages and farms as rescuers picked through the charred wreckage of the aircraft.

Late Friday, U.S. troops fired mortars and a U.S. jets dropped at least three 500-pound bombs around the crash site, rattling windows over a wide area in an apparent show of force. Other U.S. jets streaked over Tikrit after sundown.

As opposed to:

NUMBER TWO: I have declared war on the next continent.
FORD: Declared war? But there's no one even living there.
NUMBER TWO: Yes, but there will be one day. So we've left a sort of open-ended ultimatum.
FORD: What?
NUMBER TWO: And blown up some military installations.
CAPTAIN: Military instillations, Number Two?
NUMBER TWO: Yes, sir. Well, potential military installations. (pause) All right. Trees. And we interrogated a gazelle.

Still, Billmon has the best comparison of the hour:

In retaliation, American troops backed by Bradley fighting vehicles swept through Iraqi neighborhoods before dawn Saturday, blasting houses suspected of being insurgent hideouts with machine guns and heavy weapons fire.

"This is to remind the town that we have teeth and claws and we will use them," said Lt. Col. Steven Russell, commander of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment...

Compared to:

Captain Carpenter: We've been on red alert for three days sir, and still have no sign of Mr. Neutron.

General: Have we bombed anywhere? Have we shown 'em we got teeth?

Captain Carpenter: Oh yeah, sir. We've bombed a lot of places flat, sir.

The latter quote from the "Mr. Neutron" sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus. Only the joke and the real thing are virtually indistinguishable.

Aside from the fact that real people are dead, that is.

Billmon, of course, has more.

(/) Roland X
"It's all hoo-hoo, yuck-yuck, and then BAM WHAM BLAM!" --Daffy Duck, "Looney Tunes, Back In Action"

And So It Begins

2003-11-07T19:03:00.000-08:00

Tom DeLay has all but declared open war on debate:

House Democrats will get no projects for their home districts in a huge education and health spending bill because none of them voted for an initial version of the measure last summer, majority Republicans say.

...

"We're doing business as usual," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said Friday. "If you don't support a bill, you have no right to say what's in the bill."

The Republicans, of course, insist there's precedent for this. If they cited any, the article fails to mention it.

This is a really big deal, as appropriations are typically handled in a relatively bipartisan manner. The majority party gets the largest chunk of money, of course -- but not every penny. The message is unsubtle: Democratic districts -- actually, dissenting districts (the nine Republicans and one Independent who voted against are also frozen out) -- won't get federal funding. Period.

I have found comparisons to pre-Civil War America chilling, but premature. Things hardly seemed that bad yet, especially with September 11th still looming in America's recent history. No more. The Republican leadership is out to crush all opposition, and is rapidly proving that they don't care how they do it. The Democrats have clearly had enough.

War has been declared. The only question remaining is whether it can be ended before the guns come out.

(/) Roland X
Still Giving Peace A Chance...for now.

Scheer Says It All

2003-11-04T10:25:00.000-08:00

...in a nutshell:

Some pundits and politicians, even those who may have been skeptical about the war to begin with, now argue that we must "finish the job," even if it means increasing our commitment of troops or ruling Iraq indefinitely. This is, however, exactly the kind of stubborn and mushy thinking that led us into the hell of the Vietnam War and the deaths of 58,000 Americans and more than 2 million Vietnamese and Cambodians.

We must help the Iraqis rebuild their nation, both financially and politically. There is no question of that. However, the occupation is proving more convincingly with each passing day that a military solution to this problem...is no solution at all.

(/) Roland X
And that isn't even starting on Afghanistan.

Bring the Boys Back Home (when it's politically expedient)

2003-10-30T17:28:00.000-08:00

I've seen several bloggers comment on the "March Surprise;" hints that Bush may pull troops out of Iraq in the spring to boost his chances of being elected to the office he's currently sitting in. So far, though, I don't think I've seen anyone connect these stories to Atrios' comments on Mercs:

Contractors' deaths aren't counted among the tally of more than 350 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. No one is sure how many private workers have been killed, or, indeed, even how many are toiling in Iraq for the U.S. government. Estimates range from under 10,000 to more than 20,000 - which could make private contractors the largest U.S. coalition partner ahead of Britain's 11,000 troops.

...

To the consternation of U.S. lawmakers, there is little or no Congressional oversight of contractors hired by the executive branch of government - whether through the State Department, Pentagon or the CIA.

What's the best way to bring troops home while keeping someone on the US payroll in country to watch over Halliburton's interests? Hire someone who'll do their job while you look good bringing all those young men and women back to their families.

Morgan
who isn't happy that circumstances have turned her into such a cynic

The Schools Are On, But Everyone's Home

2003-10-30T12:35:00.000-08:00

A Guardian article has an interesting side comment amid the story about today's spate of attacks:

The escalating violence has unnerved many of Baghdad's 5 million people. Many parents are not sending their children to school for fear of further bombings.

"Today most of my friends did not come to school," said 18-year-old Duha Khalid at the Al-Khalisa girl's high school, located near a police station. "We heard rumors about big bombs that will go off at the start of next week."

Congratulations, Dubya, Halliburton's making millions on building schools. Too bad that they're practically empty.

The "Good News" offensive is pretty much a joke at this point. Any ideas on what Karl "Luthor" Rove has left up his sleeve?

(/) Roland X
If he had Kryptonite, he'd have used it by now. Hmm...sure, I'm a Deanie, but didn't Gen. Clark fall ill recently? ;^)

We Are All Atrios

2003-10-30T10:53:00.000-08:00

Billmon has this to say about the recent brouhaha between The Poor and Stupid Stalker and Atrios:

Luskin's mouthpiece just sent a letter to Atrios threatening him with all kinds of legal mayhem if he doesn't remove certain posts from his blog, posts which Luskin -- the mentally unbalanced right-wing blogger with a bizarre fetish about Paul Krugman -- finds objectionable.

...

And, because it's not fair for Atrios to take the heat for all of us, let me just repeat what I've already said in several earlier posts: Donald Luskin is a stalker -- in the conventional dictionary meaning of one who "follows or observes (a person) persistently, especially out of obsession or derangement."

...

Or, to paraphrase one of my favorite gladiator movies: I'm Atrios!

No, I'm Atrios!

Special kudos to the conservative bloggers, Instapundit and the Rottweiler in particular, who have come out against this idiocy.

To recap for those unfamiliar with the case: Atrios uses a term for Luskin that he used for himself in a link to one of Gollum Luskin's articles, and some people wrote things in the comments that make Luskin feel bad. So now Luskin is saying Atrios has to take the offending post down, or he'll sue. And subpoena to get his real name.

This isn't about whether Luskin's obsessive, Paul Krugman is right or wrong, or even if Atrios is a bad man or not. Anyone who reads this blog semi-regularly know what answers I would give, but that's not the point. The point is that this is a direct assault on the unprecedented freedom of the blogosphere, and if this ever happens to a conservative blogger I hope I have the guts to say the exact same thing. Today, however, we should all be Atrios.

Pass it on.

(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix

Democracy For Sale

2003-10-29T11:17:00.000-08:00

The Nation covers a frightening trend in a recent Editor's Cut column:

Can America Afford The Price Of Democracy?

...

In Colorado, Governor Bill Owens (R) cancelled the primary on March 5th, saving the state $2.2 million. The Republican-controlled Utah legislature followed suit, cancelling the 2004 primary--a measure supported by their Republican Governor. And in Kansas, Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius cancelled her state's 2004 primary, saving approximately $1.75 million next year. But critics have pointed out that partisan politics also contributed to these measures because cancellations prevent the field of Democratic candidates from getting much public attention.

Shame on Governor Sebelius for joining this trend -- but the real issue here is yet another Republican attack on the democratic process. This goes beyond mere partisan politics. Denying the Democrats in Colorado and Utah the right to participate in the most important decision their party will make next year is an attack on the right to vote itself.

Alas, Democrats are responding by selling out:

Paul Sanford, counsel for the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics, said selling space on election materials is probably legal, though he's troubled by the possibility. "I don't really think it's a good thing to commercialize the voting process." As David Donnelly of Campaign Money Watch, adds: "Imagine if South Carolina had the ballot initiative process and there was a health care question before voters, and HMOs and pharmaceutical companies contributed big money to pay for the election, and then they sponsored get-out-the vote campaigns or ran ads at polling places?"

Sure, they need the money, but is this the right way to get it? The argument for publicly funded elections is looking better by the day.

(/) Roland X
After all, a lot of Bush's campaigning is being paid for with tax dollars...

What's wrong with this picture?

2003-10-28T09:56:00.000-08:00

Good lord.

The 9/11 Commission is getting better and more complete cooperation from the Government of Pakistan, than from the Bush administration.

And lest the Justice Log simply become Counterspin West, here's another gem from our Dear Leader courtesy of Talking Points Memo and the Washington Post:

"The more progress we make on the ground, the more free the Iraqis become, the more electricity is available, the more jobs are available, the more kids that are going to school, the more desperate these killers become, because they can't stand the thought of a free society."

Free? Exactly how is an occupation-appointed council that answers to the US military related to freedom? As for electricity, jobs, and schools, I seem to recall Iraqis having all those things under Saddam Hussein. None of those aspects of society are related to freedom; on the contrary, dictators are said to "make the trains run on time." And as it isn't in any Iraqi's best interest to bomb the Red Cross, trying to pin this one on the so-called "dead-enders" is pathetic at best.

The irony is staggering, of course. The enemy that actually attacked us on September 11th is the most likely culprit, and yet mention of Al-Qaeda is rare. This really isn't all that surprising. If foreign terrorists are responsible, then these attacks are actually part of the "jihadi Woodstock" rather than desperate last-ditch insurgency.

The Post's pithy response to Bush's spin?

Experts in public opinion said it would be difficult for Bush to convince Americans that the violence was a byproduct of success.

As TPM put it, "Fresh from the Department of Sublime Understatement." Heh.

(/) Roland X
Well, we knew Bush was fuzzy on the whole "freedom" thing...

Admin note

2003-10-27T21:00:00.000-08:00

The archives have been changed from monthly to weekly. While this means smaller page load times, it also means that the permalinks have changed. So, if you have any links or bookmarks to individual posts, you'll probably need to update them.

A Hunka Hunka Burnin' Pain

2003-10-27T20:44:00.000-08:00

My apologies to all for my long absence. Between a shattered wisdom tooth and the Fire Pits of Apokolips (aka southern California), it's been a hectic (and often unpleasant) week. Still, this too(th) shall pass, and though I am less "wise," I'm much happier now that I'm short one molar appendix. Anyway, here's wisdom for ya: there's a reason the scariest torturers in spy fiction are evil dentists, though all divinity bless those who use their powers for good.

On a more serious note, the fires that are still raging through California are taking lives, destroying homes, and stretching firefighters past their limits. Despite heroic efforts (over a thousand faced the "Old Fire" alone), units were forced to abandon hundreds of homes to the several infernos. Ten of the current wildfires are considered "major," have consumed nearly half a million acres between them, and only one has been contained. (Data from an AP article; it can be found at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution among other places.)

This is the definition of a non-partisan issue. Governor Davis and Governor-Elect Schwarzenegger have admirably set aside their differences regarding this issue, splitting the work appropriately -- Davis handling the details here while Ahnold lobbies Washington for disaster relief. As tempted as I am to take a funding swipe at Dubya, there are better issues to do that with. Lives and homes are at stake, and we can point fingers later. Or better yet, not at all, though that seems unlikely.

(/) Roland X
Feeling cynical today. At least one of the fires was a case of arson, and a few of the others probably were as well.

Emulating the President -- How Patriotic

2003-10-21T13:45:00.000-07:00

Unsurprisingly, some of our troops don't want to go back to the war zone when their leaves are up. This is human nature, the survival instinct kicking in on top of any of the other reasons these soldiers might have.

But what to do about them?

Soldiers failing to return from leave on schedule is an old story for the military, but nonetheless potentially a significant problem for commanders. Soldiers could face demotion or jail time for the offense.

"We had the same problem in Vietnam," said retired Marine officer Gary Solis, who commanded a company in Vietnam and later wrote a history on military law during that war.

On the other hand, they can rightly claim that they're following the example set by their Commander In Chief.

Maybe the wingnuts were right. They claimed that having a draft dodger in the White House encouraged young people to avoid the draft (though this was all theoretical, since there wasn't one). And now, we have an AWOL reservist for a pResident, and look what's happening...

Nixon vs. McGovern, Round Two?

2003-10-21T09:28:00.000-07:00

Hesiod is a genius:

IS DEAN THE NEW MCGOVERN?: I am still trying to figure out why people think equating Howard Dean with a decent, brave, highly-respected public servant, who EVERYONE WITH A BRAIN IN THEIR HEAD wishes to God had won the 1972 election...is some kind of slur.

Note to Howard Dean -- RUN WITH IT. Actually incorporate the McGovern comparison into your stump speech, and tell people how proud and flattered you are to be compared to such a great American.

Then REMIND people who he lost to in 1972.

Then point out that WE, the American people, will not make that kind of mistake again. Because, to take the analogy to its logical conclusion, if Howard Dean is George McGovern...who does that make George W. Bush?

You rock, m'man.

Of course, the analogies don't quite fit perfectly. The so-called "McGovern slur" is meant to make Dr. Dean seem too liberal to be elected, while he's really just slightly left of center on most issues. And, of course, Bush makes Nixon look like a piker.

Still, Hesiod cuts to the heart of the issue, doesn't he? Nixon won the '72 election handily, true, but look what happened next.

(/) Roland X
My real devotion, however, is to ABBA in '04.

Go Yanks Go

2003-10-20T14:06:00.000-07:00

It's been interesting reading the political blogs of late. One thing seems to have been uniting liberal and conservative bloggers alike -- hatred of the Yankees.

Well, I'm against Microsoft, AOL, and Dubya, but I'm a lifelong Yankees fan and proud of it. I stuck with them through the lean years (Don Mattingly, one of the truly great players and gentlemen of the game, never got his ring) and knowing that they vanquished our old foes, the spiteful Red Sox, gives me most of the satisfaction I want. Most, but not all.

Though I am conflicted about the Cubs. On the one hand, I feel truly badly for Cubs fans that their team stumbled so close to the Series. On the other hand, how would they have felt if the Yankees crushed the Cubs?

As for the "Evil Empire" cracks, just remember this. No matter how much money Steinbrenner has, no matter what kind of mojo may be at work, no matter what kind of coverage or marketing or spin is at work, at the end of the day baseball games are won by the players. All the advertising, obfuscation, and high-priced contracts in the world can't buy victory. Only a team can win games. And that's exactly what the Yankees do: win. Not by buying TV time or using monopoly tactics, but by playing great baseball.

I'm predicting Yanks in six. Even if they lose, however, I'll bleed pinstripe blue until they plant me. Fair-weather fandom is for wannabes. Go Yankees.

(/) Roland X
Two-Fisted Yankee Fan ;^)

Why Does George Bush Sr. Hate America?

2003-10-20T14:04:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm glad to be back to blogging, after a long (and unintended) break due to the dreaded Real Life Attack syndrome. I went to my first protest (a truly wonderful experience, though I left when our side's wingnuts began baiting the cops), ran a lot of errands, did some other writing, and spent time with my family.

Meanwhile, however, life goes on. And sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction:

...the news from College Station, Texas, this week -- that the First Father, former President George H.W. Bush, has given his own most treasured award to Senator Edward Kennedy -- is nearly as astonishing.

When it was announced (with amazingly little fanfare) that the pugnaciously anti-Iraq war Democrat Kennedy had been awarded the 2003 George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service, so many jaws dropped all over Washington that usually voluble politicians were only heard swallowing their real thoughts.

Since the current President Bush veered away from the real war against terrorism in Afghanistan and went a'venturing in Iraq, much to his father's dismay, just about everybody close to Washington politics has known of the policy schism between father and son.

Maybe this Valerie Plame business has upset Poppy a little. Those familiar with him may recall that he has an aversion to people who betray American operatives.

Or perhaps it's his son's deceitful, unilateral war in Iraq. The PNAC crusaders who pushed this conflict are anathema to the old diplomat, as is their rude and belligerent style.

Then again, it could be the Orwellian style that the administration uses to spin facts into oblivion and shamelessly deceive the American people. Bush the First was a lot of things, but by political standards he was a pretty straight shooter.

Whatever the reason, he just threw sonny-boy over his knee and spanked him hard. Good for Poppy. It's about time someone did it.

(/) Roland X
Yeah, I'm a two-fisted liberal. Sanity first, ideology second, however.

I've Got Your Good News Right Here

2003-10-16T13:25:00.000-07:00

Oh, yeah, things are going really well in Iraq.

From the article Hesiod quotes:

A broad survey of U.S. troops in Iraq by a Pentagon-funded newspaper found that half of those questioned described their unit's morale as low and their training as insufficient, and said they do not plan to reenlist.

Now, the survey in question was not conducted with scientific accuracy. So let's conduct a little thought experiment. Let's give the survey a gigantic margin of error -- 10%. Let's say that the "librul media" (and we all know how liberal the Stars and Stripes is, right?) skewed the results positive.

Even being that friendly to the results, we're still looking at a minimum of (130,000 * 40%) 52,000 members of our armed forces who are planning on bailing once their tours are up. Given the massive manpower problems we're facing now...what is that going to do to the War on Terra?

(/) Roland X
Way to support our troops, Dubya