A Tale of Two Memes

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

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

...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

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

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

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

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