Liberal Malcontents

Step It Up 2007

2007-04-18T12:10:00.000-04:00

Step It Up 2007 Is a huge campaign to reduce carbon emissions 80% by 2050. Ok, this is giving me some hope! Here's something painless to do.

Subject: Tell Congress we need bold leadership on climate change

Hi,

I just took action on a petition asking Congress for bold leadership on climate change. We need big cuts in our greenhouse gas emissions and they have to happen soon. There were almost 1,400 events last weekend to ask for 80% reductions by 2050. You can add you voice to the call by clicking on the link below and signing the petition.

http://pol.moveon.org/stepuponclimatechange/

Thanks!

Are You Willing To Get Arrested?

2007-04-16T14:56:00.000-04:00

Garry Kasparov gave up being world chess champion to get arrested for "shouting antigovernment slogans." Any time you go to a protest, in Russia or the U.S., you run the risk of getting arrested.

During a break in a hearing at a central Moscow court on charges of shouting antigovernment slogans, according to Reuters, Mr. Kasparov said: “Today the regime showed its true colors, its true face. I believe this was a great victory for the opposition because people got through and the march happened.”

Danny Glover's Activism

2007-04-15T10:07:00.000-04:00

Here's Danny Glover on activism. This article talks about his beginnings in activism in labor unions, his belief that young people are important to activism, and his idea that he wants people to make their own choices. He believes that if people get educated and get involved in the process, they create a world based on their vision.

Maybe, but will that world be a better world? I guess I'm more skeptical and pessimistic about human nature than he is. I'm not sure we can understand the issues or even when we understand the issues (global warming for example) we can get ourselves motivated and organized to do something good about it. Of course there are examples to prove me wrong (civil rights) but overall we seem to be on an irreversible downward trend.

Glover sees the big issues faces us to be inequality, exploitation, and global poverty.

Glover explained that he does not aim to use his celebrity status to encourage people to think and act as he does but to get people thinking for themselves.

"I want people to be thoughtful, intellectual and analytical about the decisions they make as citizens, informed citizens. And that is what I am here to talk about. What is the avenue? What is the journey we take to inform citizenry?"

"I happen to be, because of my background and because of my age, I happen to come up in a time when citizenry was taken very seriously. The citizens got up and did things, profound things," Glover commented. "Whether they were celebrities or whether they were just ordinary working people, men and women, children, young people too, got up and made a profound statement about how they wanted to be included in the process. That's all I want people to do."

Glover explained that once people get involved in the important issues of today's generation they begin to develop ideas about how to resolve the issues. As they grow more knowledgeable and formulate more solutions, change occurs.

"Once they are included in the process then they begin to have ideas on how they want to shape the process. And how they shape the process reflects on how they want to shape their lives or the vision in which they want to see the world, a vision of the world they want to create," Glover explained.

Pope Criticizes Capitalism

2007-04-14T06:11:00.000-04:00

In comments to a previous post, Impenetrable One tried to defend political apathy by voicing his support for capitalism. Well you're going against the Pope now my friend. Scared?

"Confronted with the abuse of economic power, with the cruelty of capitalism that degrades man into merchandise, we have begun to see more clearly the dangers of wealth and we understand in a new way what Jesus intended in warning us about wealth."

Activism 101

2007-04-06T05:04:00.000-04:00

I'm confused. How is a busy person with a job and a family supposed to be politically active? Maybe I just need to take more vitamins, but I find it difficult. For example, you can give money, but once you give they keep asking and asking and asking and it gets depressing. You can knock on doors, but I don't really like doing that--and it's really hard work and time consuming. You can send emails, but how much good does that really do? Some I guess. Should I volunteer for Moveon? Should I volunteer for the Democratic party? Should I work on a local campaign? Should I get a job that's political and professionalize my activism? How much time should I spend on my day job versus activism? Do I just need to shut up and get busy? Everyone has to figure out their own answers to these questions I guess at their various stages of life. It would be interesting to me to hear people's stories of how they have worked these things out for themselves.

There are way too many political blogs that just repeat political news with a comment to the effect of our side--yay/their side--boo. I'd love to see a blog with stories about everyday people who are figuring out how to put some kind of activism in their lives. Anyone know of anything like this? Anyone want to be a part of starting something like this?

Ok let me answer my own question. ZNet has something like this called Inspirational Interviews. I'm going to read some of them.

2007-04-05T05:11:00.000-04:00

Senator Arlen Specter deserves a piece of your mind. Despite knowing that Pennsylvania residents want our troops out of Iraq, Specter voted again last week to give President Bush a blank check for his endless war.

This Thursday—April 5—at 7:00pm in Philadelphia, Pennsylvanians Against Escalation in Iraq are holding a town hall meeting where local veterans and concerned area residents will discuss the overwhelming support for ending the Iraq war. Media will be in attendance and a strong message will be sent to Specter to stop voting against the will of his constituents.

Pennsylvanian's Against Escalation in Iraq—Town Hall Meeting

Where: Friends Center, Martin Luther King Room (3rd floor), N 15th St & Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102.

When: Thursday, April 5, 2007—7:00pm

Below is more information on Specter's vote.

This is a tipping point in the debate around Iraq: For the first time since the war started a little over four years ago, the House and Senate have passed a deadline to end it. Senate and House negotiators will now hammer out a joint bill to be voted on in April and be sent to President Bush's desk.

Senator Specter is trying to hide his support for Bush's endless war from voters—but Thursday's town hall will discuss his vote and hold him accountable. Let's make sure he hears what voters are feeling so that in April he votes to bring our troops home.

Bullet points:

Despite knowing that Pennsylvania residents overwhelmingly want our troops out of Iraq, Senator Specter voted again last week to give President Bush a blank check for his open-ended war. He voted against binding legislation that would actually change the course in Iraq.
Senator Specter chose party politics over the views of local constituents—siding against a majority of the Senate and an overwhelming majority of the public.
Senator Specter needs to do more than talk the talk when it comes to Iraq—it's time to walk the walk. When it was time to stand up and be counted, Specter failed to stand up to the President.
For years, Pennsylvania residents have been demanding an exit strategy for the woefully mismanaged war. The longer we're in Iraq, the worse things get. The American people understand this, Senator Specter's colleagues understand this, why doesn't Senator Specter seem to understand it?
After four long years, the deaths of over 3,200 American soldiers, tens of thousands wounded and almost $400 billion spent, the people of Pennsylvania have had enough. It's simply embarrassing that Senator Specter still does not have the courage to stand up to the president on Iraq.

Obama

2007-04-04T12:36:00.000-04:00

I saw Obama has raised more money than Hilary. I'm thinking about contributing to him. Lots of politics to pay attention to, lets get back into it!

Redistricting: Home to Roost

2006-11-10T08:09:00.000-05:00

Aggressive redistricting was one of the things that infuriated me about the Republican Congress. This article, focusing on Philadelphia and its suburbs, and points out how it may have backfired on them. Suhweet.

Redistricting: Home to Roost - WSJ.com: "Redistricting, the traditionally once-a-decade process of redrawing of House districts to adjust to population trends, has always been a contentious procedure. But Republicans, under the leadership of Mr. DeLay, took the opportunity to use it as a reward or punishment to new heights in 2002.

In so doing, Republicans created two new vulnerabilities: the dangerous dilution of core voters and the nurturing of a sense of invulnerability that contributes to corruption and scandal."

Death of Rovism?

2006-11-08T06:36:00.000-05:00

First of all, YEAH! Finally, the nightmare of the past six years is coming to an end.

Analysis - how did the Dems win? This article in Slate below makes the point that the Dems didn't so much win as Bush gave it to them, from Katrina to Schiavo and of course Iraq.

But a big lesson being touted at least by the big papers is that the Dems won the center and the Rovian idea that you can win elections by focusing on your base to the exclusion of all else is over. Maybe the lesson is you can't ignore any part of the electorate forever, and oh yeah, you can't screw up really bad.

Happy Nights. - By Bruce Reed - Slate Magazine:

"Field marshals Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer ignored the virtual industry of self-help nonsense that has paralyzed Democrats' chattering classes and went back to a simple, proven formula: From the suburbs to the heartland, elections are won in the center."

"Ever since watching Rove's success in 2002 and 2004, some on the left and in the blogosphere have been trying to persuade the Democratic Party to follow suit and develop our own smashmouth politics aimed less at persuasion and more at motivating our base. As Lamont discovered, that approach wins primaries—but as Joe Lieberman showed him, that's no match for pragmatic problem solving in a general election."

‘It’s Never Been A Stay The Course Strategy’

2006-10-23T12:32:00.000-04:00

It's unbelievably Orwellian that the White House is now saying the strategy was never "stay the course." Good job by Think Progress getting the video on this.

Think Progress � Bartlett: ‘It’s Never Been A Stay The Course Strategy’: "President Bush made the same claim over the weekend. It’s not true. For years, the White House has repeatedly described their Iraq policy as “stay the course.” Here’s the video evidence:"

Call for Change

2006-10-23T12:04:00.000-04:00

For the past couple of months I've been participating in MoveOn's Call for Change program. At first we would call voters to identify how they were going to vote in November. Now we are calling to make sure they actually get out and vote. Once you are set up, it's very easy to do. You can do it at home for as long or as little as you want. It's actually kind of fun. I usually just try to make some calls every night. If you want to see the Repubs kicked out of both the House and Senate, get yourself set up with Call for Change!

Man Sues Secret Service Agent Over Arrest After Approaching Cheney and Denouncing War

2006-10-09T07:34:00.000-04:00

From the NY Times. Is this for real? Arrested for a public comment - a political comment - to a politician? I can hardly wait to get home for Christmas Holiday.

DENVER, Oct. 3 — A Colorado man who was arrested in June on harassment charges after he approached Vice President Dick Cheney to denounce the war in Iraq filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday accusing a Secret Service agent of civil rights violations. Mr. Howards, 54, said at a news conference here that he was taking his 8-year-old son to a piano lesson on June 16 at the Beaver Creek Resort about two hours west of Denver when he saw Mr. Cheney at an outdoor mall. Mr. Howards said he approached within two feet of Mr. Cheney and said in a calm voice, “I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible,” or as the lawsuit itself describes the encounter, “words to that effect.”
Mr. Howards said he then went on his way. About 10 minutes later, he said, he was walking back through the area when Agent Reichle handcuffed him and said he would be charged with assaulting the vice president. Local police officers, acting on information from the Secret Service, according to the suit, ultimately filed misdemeanor harassment charges that could have resulted in up to a year in jail.
A June 16 article in The Vail Daily quoted a spokesman for the Secret Service, Eric Zahren, as saying that Mr. Howards “wasn’t acting like other folks in the area,” and that he became “argumentative and combative” when agents tried to question him. Mr. Howards said Tuesday that he was never threatening and did not become upset until his arrest.
“This was not about anything I did — this is about what I said,” he said.
Mr. Howards said he was released on $500 bond after about three hours in jail. A state judge dismissed the charge about three weeks later at the request of the Eagle County district attorney, Mark Hurlbert.
“It was our understanding that the vice president did not want to prosecute,” Mr. Hurlbert said in a telephone interview. “The original indication was that he had pushed the vice president. Later it looked to be that he had just spoken to him.”

take a look at this.

2006-10-06T16:32:00.000-04:00

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1543199,00.html?cnn=yes

Impenetrable's Modest Proposals

2006-10-06T16:31:00.000-04:00

This is no time to sit back and relax.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1543199,00.html?cnn=yes

What we are really up against

2006-10-06T16:29:00.000-04:00

This is no time to sit back and relax.
Wanna see what we are up against?
Take a look at this article about the get out the vote machine for the Republican Party.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1541295,00.html

How awesome is this?

2006-10-04T21:06:00.000-04:00

Dick Polman's American Debate: Hastert seeks shelter with Rush, but it's raining too hard: "With top officials in the “family values” party now calling each other liars, is it any wonder that clear-headed conservatives are fearing a political debacle? Hastert might not have fared so easily if he had sat down today with Rich Lowry of the National Review:

“The fundamental problem congressional Republicans are experiencing now is that they have almost no moral capital left after the last two years. Again and again, when given the choice to reform their practices or do little or nothing, they always picked the latter. On travel, on Abramoff, on earmarking—you name it. The impression they always gave was that the integrity of the institution and the public interest had to take a back-seat to their own convenience.

“They wanted to squeak by this year on gerrymandering, negative ads, and money, and just might have succeeded—had nothing more gone wrong. Well, now it has and people feel confirmed in what they always suspected: that it is unable to police its own practices and is full of people who don't follow the same rules as the rest of us. This is deadly.'"

Why only a 9 point advantage

2006-09-28T09:14:00.000-04:00

OK, people wake up. We made a commitment to this board to address issues that are important to the liberal thinker and it is not happening. We are only up by 9 points in the latest poll and frankly, like the Philadelphia Eagles, we are prone to blowing leads. What can we do here to help get the word out; seems like messaging is our forte. What are the big messages we want to put out there? Terror, economy, the strangely rapid drop in gas prices that seem to be happening so close to election time? You gotta give me something here.

Article
Bush up, Dems still favored in November: Reuters poll

Sep 28, 7:26 AM (ET)

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush enjoyed a modest rise in public approval after his recent political offensive on Iraq and security, but voters still favor Democrats in the November 7 congressional election, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Thursday.

Six weeks before voters decide which party controls the U.S. Congress, a majority thinks the country is on the wrong track and nearly three-quarters give the Republican-led Congress negative marks for its job performance.

Democrats have an edge of 9 percentage points, 42 percent to 33 percent, over Republicans when voters were asked which party's candidate they will support in November, the poll found. But voters were evenly split when asked which party they preferred to lead Congress.

The national poll, taken Friday through Monday, found 20 percent of voters still undecided about their congressional vote, leaving room for a momentum shift in the next six weeks. Democrats must pick up 15 House of Representatives seats and six Senate seats in November to reclaim majorities in each chamber.

Public doubts about Iraq, Bush's low ratings and pessimism about the country's future have fueled predictions that Republicans will lose seats in November and are in danger of losing control of at least the House.

But Zogby said Republicans could benefit from the climb in Bush's approval, sparked by increased support among his base voters. The poll found 42 percent of voters thought Bush's job performance was excellent or good, up from 39 percent two weeks ago and 34 percent in mid-August.

"The president and the Republicans are still on the ropes, but they certainly seem to have hit bottom and bounced back," Zogby said. "This is still very competitive."

IRAQ, SECURITY, JOBS
The war in Iraq topped the concerns of likely voters, with 33 percent picking it as their most important issue. Security and the fight against terrorism were close behind with 30 percent, while 23 percent chose the economy and jobs as the top issue.
But 53 percent said the Iraq war was not worth the loss of lives, a slight improvement for Bush from an early September poll where 58 percent said it was not.

The results follow a political offensive this month by Bush and Republicans to portray Democrats as weak on security and to link the unpopular Iraq war to the broader fight against terrorism.

Other polls taken around the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks also have shown Bush and Republicans gaining ground on Democrats, elevating the security issue and bolstering confidence in their leadership on the war on terrorism.

The Zogby poll of 1,000 likely voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
The poll found a majority of voters, 55 percent, believed the country was on the wrong track, usually a reliable indicator of public mood and a bad sign for incumbents.

"There is frustration and disappointment among voters, particularly concerning the direction of the economy," Zogby said.

About one-third of voters, 34 percent, believe their personal finances are better now than four years ago, while 21 percent think they are worse and 44 percent say they are about the same.

The poll also asked which course the United States should pursue over Iran's nuclear ambitions. Nearly half, 45 percent, said Washington should join with allies on a diplomatic effort.
One in four respondents, 26 percent, said they would support sending ground troops into Iran to halt its nuclear efforts, with 70 percent disagreeing.

Asked which of the last four U.S. presidents would be judged most positively by history, 50 percent of poll respondents listed Ronald Reagan. Bill Clinton was second with 29 percent and the current president was third with 11 percent. His father, George H.W. Bush, was fourth with 6 percent.

Rumsfeld's Speech and Olbermann's Response

2006-09-03T02:34:00.000-04:00

Maybe it's a sign of the state of the main stream media or maybe I just missed the response of other journalists but MSN's Keith Olbermann (yeah, I know, he used to be on ESPN's SportsCenter) response to Donald Rumsfeld's LA Times Op-Ed and VFW speech (click here to read) is worth a minute of our time. It may be too over the top for some people but Rumsfeld's speech sets the tone for the upcoming election and the kind of rhetoric the Bush team will be using.

If you don't have time to watch the video clip here's the transcript of Olbermann's Remarks:

The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.
Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.
Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis—and the sober contemplation—of every American.
For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence -- indeed, the loyalty -- of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants -- our employees -- with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve. Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as “his” troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq. It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.

In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld’s speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril—with a growing evil—powerful and remorseless. That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld’s, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the “secret information.” It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s -- questioning their intellect and their morality.
That government was England’s, in the 1930’s.
It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England.
It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords.
It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions — its own omniscience -- needed to be dismissed.
The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.
Most relevant of all — it “knew” that its staunchest critics needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile, at best morally or intellectually confused.
That critic’s name was Winston Churchill.
Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill. History — and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England — have taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty — and his own confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts.
Thus, did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy. Excepting the fact, that he has the battery plugged in backwards. His government, absolute -- and exclusive -- in its knowledge, is not the modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis.
It is the modern version of the government of Neville Chamberlain.
But back to today’s Omniscient ones. That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely.
And, as such, all voices count -- not just his. Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience — about Osama Bin Laden’s plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein’s weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina’s impact one year ago — we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their “omniscience” as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego. But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris. Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire “Fog of Fear” which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have — inadvertently or intentionally — profited and benefited, both personally, and politically. And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer’s New Clothes?
In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America? The confusion we -- as its citizens— must now address, is stark and forbidding. But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart — that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too. The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.
And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a “new type of fascism.” As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it. This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.
Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.
But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: “confused” or “immoral.” Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:
“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” he said, in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. “We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”
And so good night, and good luck.

Big Picture Foreign Policy

2006-09-03T02:32:00.000-04:00

Former Bush official and Kerry campaign foreign policy adviser Flynt Leverett has an interesting piece in the recent issue of the American Prospect. Leverett describes the State Department's initial approach to the Middle East after 9/11:

"In the weeks following 9-11, my colleagues and I at State developed a comprehensive diplomatic strategy to support the war on terrorism. This strategy envisioned, beyond a military campaign in Afghanistan, a sustained global effort to “wrap up” bin Laden’s operational networks and affiliates in the Middle East and elsewhere. Iraq would continue to be contained. As other state sponsors of terrorism like Iran and Syria came to the United States to offer assistance against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, that help would be accepted; this tactical cooperation would then be used as a platform for persuading these states to terminate their own involvement with anti-Israeli terrorist groups in return for a positive strategic relationship with Washington. The United States would also develop a credible plan for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "

Leverett then goes on to detail the transformation of post 9/11 policy into a strategy for a "New Middle-East" with so-called democracy promotion as the key element. Although I don't agree with many of his stated premises what's interesting is how this piece, as well as commentators from across the political spectrum (from Leverett to The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel), advocate a return to the many of the basic tenets of foreign policy Realism. This is discussion of Realism as a "Progressive" foreign policy doctrine is complex and important. At times, the Neo-Cons have put many liberals/progressives in the awkward position of having to denounce the broader goal of democracy promotion in order critique the neo-con agenda. What kind of Realism should Progressives favor? Classic Kissinger style "balance of power" concerns that prevent us from speaking out for human rights and democracy? This is important since the Bush team has, in a desperation I would argue, decided in to recast the so-called War on Terror as a Cold War style global struggle against Islamo-Fascism. While Progressives have to speak out against the dangers of adopting such a position we must also be free to defend the principles that we believe in (universal human rights standards/women's rights/religious and secular freedoms) without being afraid of being cast as Neo-Con "fellow travelers." That includes denouncing something as fascism if it fits the definition. Since 9/11 the Bush team's greatest crime has been to (intentionally) conflate the sources of terrorism and to offer a tragically simplistic set of responses. Progressives shouldn't make the same mistake.

For more check out the site Washington Note

Also check out Robert Wright's essay on a foreign policy that both Realists and Idealists can support he calls "Progressive Realism." This is Wright's response the Realist/Liberal Internationalist discussion I mentioned above.

The Return of Meta D

2006-08-25T01:39:00.000-04:00

I wish I could say that it's the result of some "tear down this firewall" speech I recently made but we're again free to access Blogger from China. You know what that means......

1) Lots of HUGE PDF policy wonk files posted by Meta D
2) Yours truly howling into the cold wind of Cyberspace about the lack posts on Lib Malcontents (last post is from July?)
3)All the China related stuff I promised but never emailed. In addition, courtesy of Youtube and my digital camera, video blogging and maybe even a link to a Podcast.

I thought the following would be a good way to celebrate my return to the blogging community:

Human Rights Watch: Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship

The Human Rights Watch report, "Race to the Bottom: Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship," is finally out. The exhaustive legal and editorial review process lasted nearly two months - followed in the past few days by frantic last-minute changes and revisions because, of course, things change weekly on the Internet and some techincal analysis had to be fixed.
The report focuses specifically on the role played by Western Internet companies in collaborating with Chinese government censorship. The roles of Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google, and Skype are singled out, but the issues certainly apply to a much broader range of global Internet and wireless companies operating in China. There are specific recommendations for a corporate code of conduct and for legislation. Just to make very clear: these recommendations do not represent an endorsement of the legislation currently in the U.S. congress. As I wrote in a long post last month, I personally have some serious problems with the Global Online Freedom Act's way of dealing with the problem of corporate complicity in political censorship and surveillance. The legislation does not recognize the obvious reality that democracies, including the United States, are also vulnerable to the problem of corporate complicity in government censorship and surveillance. China is the most extreme case with the most lucrative market with a very obviously un-democratic government and thus gets the most attention. But political censorship of the Internet is a global problem, and is documented to have occurred in all kinds of political systems.

2006-07-31T08:05:00.000-04:00

"Malcontentedness may be the beginning of promise."

Five men

2006-06-22T14:39:00.000-04:00

Five men, cleared of terrorism charges, but held at Guantanamo for years until being released recently to Albania of all places. That sucks.

ABC covered the story back in May. The Wall Street Journal had something on June 1. NPR also has a bit from May 30. The Turkish Weekly has something from yesterday. But I’m surprised more Americans are not talking about this.

I found out about them through the Swedish radio program Konflikt which has run two broadcasts on these men. One on June 3 and another on June 17. One of the men has an older sister living in Sweden and they are seeking asylum there. The Swedish government refuses to give the asylum, it seems because they want the US to take responsibility for the men. Here’s a Swedish blog on that offers a different interpretation.

Svenska regeringen kritiserar USA för att de inte släpper fångarna på Guantanamo fria och när USA gör detta vill regeringen inte ta emot dem! Fem uigurer med ursprung Kina vägras inresa för att troligtvis inte störa de kinesiska handelsrelationerna, som är värt stora summor för Sverige. Mänskliga rättigheter väger lätt när man väger asylansökanmöjlighet gentemot svenska affärsmännens stora enningintressen i Kina.
“The Swedish government criticizes the US for not releasing the prisoners at Guantanamo but when the US does release some the government won’t accept them! Five Uighers from China were refused entry into Sweden presumably because the government did not want to disrupt trade relations, which are worth a lot of money for Sweden. Humans rights are not worth much when you weigh the possibility of asylum seeking against Swedish business’s big money interests in China.”

There’s a lot of odd posturing going on around these guys while they sit in limbo in Albania. The official US answer?

Question: Are the Chinese Uighur detainees in Guantanamo Bay eligible to seek asylum in the United States? If not, why?
Answer: The United States continues to explore all options regarding the resettlement of the Uighur detainees at Guantanamo. A prerequisite to seeking asylum in the United States is establishing physical presence in the United States. Further questions regarding asylum should be directed to the Department of Homeland Security.

So we can't give them asylum in the US because they aren't IN the US.

Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

2006-06-06T10:20:00.000-04:00

Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 Election Stolen?: "After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election. A review of the available data reveals that in Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 2004(12) -- more than enough to shift the results of an election decided by 118,601 votes.(13) (See Ohio's Missing Votes) "

Tax Cuts for All...Oh except you Meta

2006-05-30T17:41:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure what my view is on what the tax burden of expats should be. Should they pay no taxes because they don't live in the US? Or are they not paying enough taxes? I don't think they should pay zero taxes and I think it's ridiculous to claim they are "subsidizing" the rest of us.

Americans Living Abroad Get a Nasty Tax Surprise - New York Times: "In an effort to raise revenues, tax writers in Congress added a last-minute provision that retroactively increased taxes for Americans living abroad."

Most countries exempt their citizens overseas from income taxes, so the law will give companies an incentive to hire Australians, Britons, Canadians and other nationalities for whom they do not have to pay additional taxes.

In a furious letter to Senator Grassley, widely circulated among expatriates, Ms. Kraabel contended that overseas Americans subsidize their countrymen in the United States by helping to pay for services they never use.

"You will be hard pressed to find us on federal roads, state roads, county roads, or even to find us on the ruins of Decorah's old green bridge," she wrote. "We are your subsidy. We are your constituents, whose interests you condemn and refuse to represent."

In addition, analysts said the law did nothing about the hundreds of thousands of Americans living overseas who have illegally stopped paying income taxes.

America the Fearful - New York Times

2006-05-15T10:31:00.000-04:00

America the Fearful - New York Times: "Well, I give you fair warning. This is a road map to totalitarianism. Hallmarks of totalitarian regimes have always included an excessive reliance on secrecy, the deliberate stoking of fear in the general population, a preference for military rather than diplomatic solutions in foreign policy, the promotion of blind patriotism, the denial of human rights, the curtailment of the rule of law, hostility to a free press and the systematic invasion of the privacy of ordinary people."

Also from the Chinese Chapter of Lib Mals

2006-05-13T09:58:00.000-04:00

A good article, with an even better article linked internally. Both pretty well demolish the Demapolgist approach we sometimes see creeping onto the posts at Lib Mals.

(please note: yes, that statement was a bit over the top and inflamatory, but what else is new? And further, Meta will be very disappointed if he gets back in two years to find this site just floating aimlessly, commentless in cyberspace. So, anyone going to defend Nancy Pelosi after reading the article?)

Bush, GOP Congress Losing Core Supporters

2006-05-11T12:48:00.000-04:00

Bush, GOP Congress Losing Core Supporters: "Disaffection over spending and immigration have caused conservatives to take flight from President Bush and the Republican Congress at a rapid pace in recent weeks, sending Bush's approval ratings to record lows and presenting a new threat to the GOP's 12-year reign on Capitol Hill, according to White House officials, lawmakers and new polling data."

Message from Meta

2006-05-09T14:37:00.000-04:00

This was vaulted over the chinese firewall by Meta. I've been very busy as of late and haven't had much time for malcontentism.
VL

Is this stuff getting any play on Lib Mals? Is anyone posting? Hello?

WASHINGTON | May 9, 2006
Optimistic, Democrats Debate the Party's Vision
By ROBIN TONER
Intellectuals in the center and on the left are debating how to present a clear alternative to conservatism.

Anne Dicker for State Rep

2006-04-22T23:28:00.000-04:00

Wow, great story. I've met Anne and really liked her. I hope she wins!

Why I'm running for State Rep | Anne Dicker for PA State Representative: "But in the winter of 2003, I suddenly became politically active almost overnight – all because of the Iraq War. Gathering together in the packed upper story of the Standard Tap in April 2003, a group of mostly young, professional, and previously politically uninvolved Philadelphians met to discuss the impending invasion of Iraq and how to support Howard Dean – the outspoken presidential candidate who opposed it. Out of that gathering was born Philly for Dean, a group of newly energized and newly politically active Philadelphians dedicated to altering our country’s historical course.

Eventually, Philly for Dean became Philly for Change as we realized that our mission went beyond a single election – that our mission was to transform politics as we know it, and bring our country back to its political roots.

So here I sit today, writing this blog post about changing politics as we know it. But this is the first chapter, and I want you to be able to use these posts as a guide to transforming politics in your neighborhood, city, and country. So I’ll end here for the day.

Right now: its time to go ring door-bells in my neighborhood!

Anne Dicker
Democratic Candidate
PA State House District 175
http://www.AnneDicker.com"

Whither Lib Malcontents?

2006-04-15T23:07:00.000-04:00

Back from China and its "Great Electronic Firewall" I couldn't help express dismay that there wasn't more posted on LM about Libby's claim in court documents that Bush and Cheney gave the OK for the Plame leak. Maybe the public just doesn't care or maybe the Dems just can't craft a message the way the Right can.

On a related topic...What's the future of our blogging community and our original project?

An interesting take on immigration

2006-03-29T09:05:00.000-05:00

Angry Bear has an interesting discussion of legal and illegal immigration. In the end he's for more immigration:

This in turn relates to the still deeper question of why we allow immigration in the first place: is the goal to improve the US, or is it to improve the lives of the individuals who want to immigrate?
For me, both goals matter, at least to some degree. I'm more sympathetic toward that poor Mexican farm worker than I am toward the Nigerian doctor, but the Nigerian doctor will probably make me (and the rest of the US) a tiny bit richer than the Mexican would. To me, those two effects roughly balance out. As a result, I’m not particularly in favor of changing the rules to only allow high-skilled immigrants in to the US. I can see the logic of it (it’s really an economist’s logic, after all), but it doesn't satisfy my sense of morality.
...
Putting this all together, I find that I don't worry about illegal immigration any more than I worry about legal immigration. I'd like there to be fewer illegal immigrants, but only because I'd like more of them to be able to enter the country legally. Put another way, I could possibly favor harsher treatment for illegal immigrants, and I’d even be willing to pay for stricter border enforcement... but only if those policy changes were accompanied by a much more liberal legal immigration policy, and a policy to bring current illegal immigrants into fully legal status. Note that I am not advocating completely open borders - I think that some sort of limit on legal immigration is reasonable, simply because overly rapid population growth in the US would cause its own set of problems. However, current population growth in the US is only about 1% per year, including immigration. That is near the lowest levels of
population growth ever experienced in the US - only in the 1930s was it lower. I
think the US can handle a bit more than that.

Robert Reich was also on Market Place this morning arguing for stricter enforcement of laws against employing illegal immigrants since companies often employ illegal immigrants since they are less likely to complain about poor pay and working conditions.

Sadly, I think these types of arguments are not likely to be persuasive to middle America. Instead, immigrants will steal our jobs and rape our women.

On Beards and Malcontents

2006-03-27T12:23:00.000-05:00

The metrosexual backlash has begun.

Paul Bunyan, Modern-Day Sex Symbol - New York Times: "Whenever a countercultural trend becomes a mainstream one, there is a natural tendency to look for deeper meaning. Do beards that call to mind Charles Manson suggest dissatisfaction with 'the system'? Are broody beards, like the dark and somber mood of the fall fashion collections, physical manifestations of a melancholia in the air? Are they a reflection of the stylistic impact on mainstream fashion of the subculture of gay men known as bears, who embrace natural body hair?"

Reid Threatens Filibuster on Immigration

2006-03-23T13:27:00.000-05:00

Ok archair strategists and progressive purists. How should the Dems position themselves on immigration? Are you with the Dems on this or is what they are doing not progressive enough?

BREITBART.COM - Reid Threatens Filibuster on Immigration: "Reid said the overhaul must include heightened border enforcement, a 'guest worker' program and a 'path to citizenship' for the estimated 11 million people in the United States illegally. He called legislation by Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and John McCain, R- Ariz., a 'good place to start.'"

Poll: opposition to gay marriage declining

2006-03-23T13:09:00.000-05:00

Less people now strongly oppose gay marriage than they did two years ago. Assuming the poll is right, why and how did this change in public opinion occur?

AP Wire | 03/23/2006 | Poll: opposition to gay marriage declining: "In 2004, opponents of gay marriage were able to pass ballot initiatives banning the practice in 11 states, from Georgia to Oregon. Those gay marriage initiatives also helped conservatives rally their voters to the polls.

The number of people who say they strongly oppose gay marriage has dropped from 42 percent in early 2004 to 28 percent now. Strong opposition has dropped sharply among senior citizens and Republicans."

Harper's Magazine for March 2006 (Harpers.org)

2006-03-22T10:20:00.000-05:00

I heard Lewis Lapham on C-SPAN this morning arguing for impeachment. The article is not on the web.

Harper's Magazine for March 2006 (Harpers.org): "The Case for Impeachment
Why we can no longer afford George W. Bush
Lewis H. Lapham"

Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches - Yahoo! News

2006-03-21T16:36:00.000-05:00

Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches - Yahoo! News: "Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches"

Here's a Difference Between Dems and Repubs

2006-03-20T06:17:00.000-05:00

Last night 60 Minutes had a story on how the Bush administration has censored and altered what James Hansen, the government's leading scientist on climate change, can say about global warming. In the course of the interview, Hansen claimed that the Clinton administration wanted him to play up the dangers of global warming, whereas the Bush administration actively changes his reports to read that global warming is not occurring. Hansen gives us 10 years before global warming hits a tipping point from which we cannot turn back.

Ok so both the parties lie. I'll take the democrats lies thank you. And it does make a difference.

Rewriting The Science - CBS News: "Politically, Hansen calls himself an independent and he’s had trouble with both parties. He says, from time to time, the Clinton administration wanted to hear warming was worse that it was. But Hansen refused to spin the science that way. "

Kos C�l�bre - New York Times

2006-03-20T06:08:00.000-05:00

Daily Kos blogger interviewed in NYT.

Kos C�l�bre - New York Times

When Latvian Eyes Are Smiling - New York Times

2006-03-17T20:56:00.000-05:00

When Latvian Eyes Are Smiling - New York Times: "And here are some more glorious and sorrowful mysteries: how race and nation, faith and place, define and divide us endlessly; how ethnicity makes fast friends of strangers and also poisons the well of humanity; how religion calls us to worship and so miscalculates our Gods. If there is only one God — as all Muslims, Christian and Jews believe — then isn't the one we believe in one and the same? If there is no God, aren't we off only by one? And if there are many, aren't there plenty to go around?

Consider the shamrock. Consider those famous 40 shades of green Ireland is said to have. It's Disney, an illusion, a fake Irish bar. The world we live in is 40 shades of gray, and in each of them still 40 more.

The barkeepers know this in Milford and West Clare, in Boston and Baghdad, in Dublin and Darfur, wherever they are — it's always the same human thirst and hunger, the same longing for the shared feast and safe harbor, the home fire and known place, the common table and place at the bar. The green beer and blather, the old songs and good craic notwithstanding, until all are safe in their own place, a Great Day for the Irish, or the Americans, is just pretend."

Political Action: Democracy in Action

2006-03-16T15:50:00.000-05:00

I'm putting up $20 for any Liberal Malcontent who gets a letter to the editor published in a newspaper.

MoveOn.org Political Action: Democracy in Action: "As we hit the three year anniversary of the Iraq war, the president is trying to distract the public. We must remind the country that the Bush pre-emption doctrine has been a disaster in Iraq--making America and the world less safe. Will you write a letter to the editor to help do that? The Letters to the Editor page is often the most-read page in a newspaper. Coming on the anniversary, your letter will be very timely."

NJ assemblyman reintroduces English bill

2006-03-15T15:18:00.000-05:00

On January 10th, assemblyman John Rooney introduced another bill into the NJ State Assembly to make English the official language of the state. That’s all the bill says. I don’t know what it means. It may mean English, like the eastern goldfinch, the violet, the honey bee, the horse, the Hadrosaurus Foulkii, the brook trout, the shell of the knobbed whelk, the schooner A.J. Meerwalk, and the highbush blueberry, is simply officially designated by the government as being representative of New Jersey. I assume though that it means something more.

A bill like this has regularly been introduced every two years since at least 1996. They never go anywhere. So hopefully this one won’t either. Still, in 1999, Clifton, NJ adopted an English-only policy. It has apparently been repealed, but at the time the Bergen Record reported:

Anzaldi's sentiment is shared by state Assembly members Marion Crecco (R-Essex)
and John Rooney (R-Bergen), who have long proposed legislation making English
the official language of New Jersey. The state officials feel English provides a
cultural tie that binds diverse groups together.
''If you don't understand English, you are not going to succeed in the U.S.," said Rooney, who, like many English-only proponents, also takes issue with bilingual education. "People say I'm being prejudiced. I'm not being prejudiced. I'm trying to give them an opportunity."

I can see that attitude taking hold here.

For example, I live in Hawthorne, just across the mighty Passaic river from Paterson. The area that includes Hawthorne had been part of Paterson at one time, but Hawthorne separated from Paterson in 1898. Still the US Postal Service gives Paterson as an “acceptable city name” in the zip codes for Hawthorne: 07506 and 07507.

Paterson was once a thriving city. It was a center of textile manufacturing and the movie industry—Abbott and Costello filmed there, among others. It is the home of both William Carlos Williams, who wrote many poems about the city including an epic, and Allen Ginsburg.

Like most New Jersey cities*, Paterson is in decline. According to the 2000 census, the population is about 150,000 today. And it’s losing people (down about 6% from 1990s). About 22% of the residents live under the poverty level.

It’s also racially diverse. About 50% of the residents are Hispanic and 33% African American and 31% White. (These numbers include people who self-identify with more than one race so they don’t add up to 100%.). Also 33% are foreign-born and 56% speak a language other than English at home.

Before the white flight beginning in the 50s, Paterson had a large Italian population. Now many of them live in Hawthorne and view Paterson warily. Apparently, the river between Hawthorne and Paterson is not enough, the local weekly newspaper, the Hawthorne Press, had this in their editorial last week (March 9, 2006):

Another federal bureaucracy—the US Postal Service—already considers us part of
Paterson. Hawthorne’s two zip codes—07506 and 07507—often come up “Paterson, New Jersey” in our magazine subscriptions and on national address software programs. It’s annoying and a recent postcard to borough residents was the final
insult.

Addressed to “postal customer,” it was an announcement about an
upcoming passport fair at Paterson’s Ward Street office. It would have been
welcome news except that it’s predominant language was Spanish. The English
translation was in much smaller type, intended to be a secondary language.

Instead of a positive public information campaign, (solicita tu
pasaporte en este evento del servicio postal™ cerca de ti) it turned out to be a
public relations disaster to those of us who consider English our country’s
official language.

I got this post card and threw it out without a thought. I have a hard time understanding why this is a “public relations disaster.”

*I have a theory that New Jersey cities suffer more because of their closeness to New York. New York is like a cultural black hole, any middle class who might be interested in an urban lifestyle would much rather be in New York than a city in New Jersey.

MoveOn.org Political Action: President Bush Must be Censured for Breaking the Law

2006-03-14T15:25:00.000-05:00

Subject: Censure President Bush

Hi,

Yesterday, Senator Russ Feingold introduced a resolution to censure President Bush for breaking the law by illegally wiretapping American citizens.

When the president misleads the public and the Congress and willfully and repeatedly breaks the law, there need to be some consequences --that's how the law works for everybody else.

Censuring the president is a reasonable first step in condemning the president's actions. Now it's up to us to show broad public support for Senator Feingold's resolution. Can you sign this petition asking Congress to join the call for censure?

http://political.moveon.org/censure/

Chinese Bloggers Stage Hoax Aimed at Censorship Debate

2006-03-14T09:49:00.000-05:00

Ok we're stupid and know nothing about China, what can we say. Except the guy from Reporters without Borders, who can't resist going in to lecture mode.

WSJ.com - Chinese Bloggers Stage Hoax Aimed at Censorship Debate: "In an interview, Beijing-based journalist Wang Xiaofeng of Massage Milk says he shut his blog down to make a point about freedom of speech -- just one directed at the West instead of at Beijing. He calls the Western press 'irresponsible' and says that the hoax was designed 'to give foreign media a lesson that Chinese affairs are not always the way you think.'"

US History 101

2006-03-13T16:39:00.000-05:00

Just a reminder that it can and has happened here. For a real downer, stay with the article to find out what happens to the deportees after they've been in the Soviet Union for a while. The 20th century's a real bitch.

Palmer Raids - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The 1918's and 1921's Palmer Raids were a series of controversial raids on American citizens and resident and non-resident aliens in the United States, based on their assumed political beliefs."

SLAVOJ ZIZEK on Secularism, Europe and a Real Defense of Religious Freedom

2006-03-13T11:56:00.000-05:00

This is the kind of conversation one can only dream of in American public life:

FOR centuries, we have been told that without religion we are no more than egotistic animals fighting for our share, our only morality that of a pack of wolves; only religion, it is said, can elevate us to a higher spiritual level. Today, when religion is emerging as the wellspring of murderous violence around the world, assurances that Christian or Muslim or Hindu fundamentalists are only abusing and perverting the noble spiritual messages of their creeds ring increasingly hollow. What about restoring the dignity of atheism, one of Europe's greatest legacies and perhaps our only chance for peace?
More than a century ago, in "The Brothers Karamazov" and other works, Dostoyevsky warned against the dangers of godless moral nihilism, arguing in essence that if God doesn't exist, then everything is permitted. The French philosopher André Glucksmann even applied Dostoyevsky's critique of godless nihilism to 9/11, as the title of his book, "Dostoyevsky in Manhattan," suggests.
This argument couldn't have been more wrong: the lesson of today's terrorism is that if God exists, then everything, including blowing up thousands of innocent bystanders, is permitted — at least to those who claim to act directly on behalf of God, since, clearly, a direct link to God justifies the violation of any merely human constraints and considerations. In short, fundamentalists have become no different than the "godless" Stalinist Communists, to whom everything was permitted since they perceived themselves as direct instruments of their divinity, the Historical Necessity of Progress Toward Communism.
During the Seventh Crusade, led by St. Louis, Yves le Breton reported how he once encountered an old woman who wandered down the street with a dish full of fire in her right hand and a bowl full of water in her left hand. Asked why she carried the two bowls, she answered that with the fire she would burn up Paradise until nothing remained of it, and with the water she would put out the fires of Hell until nothing remained of them: "Because I want no one to do good in order to receive the reward of Paradise, or from fear of Hell; but solely out of love for God." Today, this properly Christian ethical stance survives mostly in atheism.
Fundamentalists do what they perceive as good deeds in order to fulfill God's will and to earn salvation; atheists do them simply because it is the right thing to do. Is this also not our most elementary experience of morality? When I do a good deed, I do so not with an eye toward gaining God's favor; I do it because if I did not, I could not look at myself in the mirror. A moral deed is by definition its own reward. David Hume, a believer, made this point in a very poignant way, when he wrote that the only way to show true respect for God is to act morally while ignoring God's existence.
Two years ago, Europeans were debating whether the preamble of the European Constitution should mention Christianity as a key component of the European legacy. As usual, a compromise was worked out, a reference in general terms to the "religious inheritance" of Europe. But where was modern Europe's most precious legacy, that of atheism? What makes modern Europe unique is that it is the first and only civilization in which atheism is a fully legitimate option, not an obstacle to any public post.
Atheism is a European legacy worth fighting for, not least because it creates a safe public space for believers. Consider the debate that raged in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, my home country, as the constitutional controversy simmered: should Muslims (mostly immigrant workers from the old Yugoslav republics) be allowed to build a mosque? While conservatives opposed the mosque for cultural, political and even architectural reasons, the liberal weekly journal Mladina was consistently outspoken in its support for the mosque, in keeping with its concern for the rights of those from other former Yugoslav republics.
Not surprisingly, given its liberal attitudes, Mladina was also one of the few Slovenian publications to reprint the infamous caricatures of Muhammad. And, conversely, those who displayed the greatest "understanding" for the violent Muslim protests those cartoons caused were also the ones who regularly expressed their concern for the fate of Christianity in Europe.
These weird alliances confront Europe's Muslims with a difficult choice: the only political force that does not reduce them to second-class citizens and allows them the space to express their religious identity are the "godless" atheist liberals, while those closest to their religious social practice, their Christian mirror-image, are their greatest political enemies. The paradox is that Muslims' only real allies are not those who first published the caricatures for shock value, but those who, in support of the ideal of freedom of expression, reprinted them.
While a true atheist has no need to boost his own stance by provoking believers with blasphemy, he also refuses to reduce the problem of the Muhammad caricatures to one of respect for other's beliefs. Respect for other's beliefs as the highest value can mean only one of two things: either we treat the other in a patronizing way and avoid hurting him in order not to ruin his illusions, or we adopt the relativist stance of multiple "regimes of truth," disqualifying as violent imposition any clear insistence on truth.
What, however, about submitting Islam — together with all other religions — to a respectful, but for that reason no less ruthless, critical analysis? This, and only this, is the way to show a true respect for Muslims: to treat them as serious adults responsible for their beliefs.
Slavoj Zizek, the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, is the author, most recently, of "The Parallax View."

On what to say as you shake George's hand

2006-03-11T10:42:00.000-05:00

Linked from the blog "allspinzone.com"

From: "Bill Hangley, Jr."
Subject: His Gift To Us
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 19:05:38 -0400

So when the President was here on July 4, I had the opportunity to shake his hand. I wasn't sure if that was a good idea or not but I did it anyway, and said to him, "Mr President, I hope you only serve four years. I'm very disappointed in your work so far."

He kept smiling and shaking my hand but answered, "who cares what you think?" His face stayed photo-op perfect but his eyes gave me a look that said, if we'd been drinking in some frathouse in Texas, he'd've happily answered, "let's take it outside." A nasty little gleam. But he was (fortunately) constrained by Presidential propriety.

But that was the end of it, until I turned away and started scribbling the quote down in my notepad, so as to remember The Gift forever. When he saw me do that he got excited and craned his neck over the rubberneckers to shout at me, "who are you with? Who are you with?" People started looking so he made a joke: "make sure you get it right." But he kept at it: "Who do you write for?" I told him I wasn't "with" anybody and pointed to one of his staff people, who knows me a little, and said, "ask him, he'll tell you." Then I split.

Half an hour later, my boss (who had helped organize the event we were at) came up to me and said, "did you really tell the President that he was doing a 'lousy fucking job'?" No way, I said, I was very polite, I just told him what I thought. Fortunately, he believed me. He wasn't happy with me, but he believed me.

But anyway, if you ever wondered if the Prez really was kind of a jerk, I'm here to tell you, he is, and I got The Gift to prove it. I'm thinking of making up t-shirts so we can share The Gift with everyone:

"Who cares what you think?"

From my inbox

2006-03-09T17:05:00.000-05:00

My liberal dad keeps sending me conservative propaganda via email. It’s not like he is trying to keep me up to date on the latest maneuvers of the enemy. He really thinks this stuff is funny. Here’s the latest one he sent:

NBA OR NFL?
36 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2
businesses
3 have done time for
assault
71, repeat 71, cannot get a
credit card due to bad credit
14 have
been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 currently are defendants in lawsuits, and
84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last
year

Can you guess which organization this
is?

Give up
yet? . . . Scroll down,

Neither, it's the 535 members of the States Congress.
The same group of Idiots that crank
out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in
line.

You gotta pass this one on!

I can’t tell if the premise of this joke is racist or not. It seems like, “everyone knows about the criminal element of THOSE people in the NFL and NBA. Wink wink.” And the facts it reports are not backed up. But the message is clear: “Politicians are criminals. Government doesn’t work.”

I could deal with the propaganda if the jokes were at least funny.

Liberal Malcontents

2006-03-08T15:14:00.000-05:00

Vermonters call for Impeachment of Bush

Very interesting grassroots suggestion which leads me to believe the Dems are simply waiting for the worm to turn and have gone silent in public in order to prep behind the scenes.

Obama moves

2006-03-06T09:27:00.000-05:00

Barack Obama is thinking outside the box.

Trying to jump-start gains in auto fuel efficiency after decades of
inaction, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is proposing an unusual swap for the Big
Three U.S. carmakers: Washington would pay some of Detroit's multibillion-dollar
health costs in exchange for it making cars that get higher gasoline
mileage.
The federal government would pay 10 percent of the $6.7 billion in
annual health costs for retirees that are weighing down General Motors, Ford and
Chrysler if they'll commit to building more fuel-efficient cars, Obama proposed
in a speech last week before a panel at the National Governors Association
conference. He called it a ``win-win proposal for the industry.''

Time to abandon the Dems?

2006-03-02T20:46:00.000-05:00

Why is it that you can't find a Dem saying this?

Fearmongering on Dubai

Holocaust denial and Muslim cartoons

2006-03-02T10:18:00.000-05:00

In the latest edition of eSkeptic, Michael Shermer has an essay on the Holocaust denier David Irving. (The article was not yet up when I posted this.) Irving was recently sentenced to 3 years in jail in Austria for denying the holocaust. Coming on the heels of the cartoon controversy he draws the obvious comparison.

“More women died in the back seat of Edward Kennedy’s car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber at Auschwitz.”
Is this line more offensive to Jews than an editorial cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad with a turban bomb is to Muslims?
Apparently it is, because the editorial cartoonists are still free, whereas the man who made this statement — British author David Irving — was sentenced February 20 to three years in an Austrian jail for violating an Austrian law that says it is a crime if a person “denies, grossly trivializes, approves or seeks to justify the National Socialist genocide or other national socialist crimes against humanity.”

I’m not sure it’s a fair comparison; I don’t know what sort of hate speech laws Denmark has. And the Austrian law is very specific to the Holocaust. As he points out, denying the holocaust is a crime in much of Europe.

Today, you may be imprisoned or fined for dissenting from the accepted Holocaust
history in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech
Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, New Zealand, Poland, Romania,
Slovakia, and Switzerland.

The Muslim cartoons were reprinted in France and Germany, so they may have more general hate-speech laws that are relevant.

You can add to that list Sweden, where hate speech laws were used to prosecute a priest for speaking out against homosexuality. Fortunately in that case, the Swedish Supreme Court overturned the verdict. It’s clear that Europeans have a different approach to free speech than Americans.

Shermer defends Irving’s rights and argues against restrictions on free speech. Of course he uses a slippery slope argument.

Freedom is a principle that must be applied indiscriminately. We have to defend
David Irving in order to defend ourselves. My freedoms are inextricably tied to
Irving’s freedoms. Once the laws are in place to jail dissidents of Holocaust
history, what’s to stop them from spreading to dissenters of religious or
political histories, or to skepticism of any sort that deviates from the
accepted canon?

It’s not clear that there is a logical leap from outlawing Holocaust denial to outlawing religious or political dissenters. But personally, I agree with him. Free speech is important enough to protect, even if it’s speech of people you disagree with. I know some of you have different tolerances for what types of speech should be protected. Either way I think it’s important to talk about and to learn from Europe’s experiences.

Secret Service agents say Cheney was drunk when he shot lawyer

2006-02-24T15:11:00.000-05:00

From Capitol Hill Blue and the Air America website (I don't know if this website is the real thing - has anyone ever heard of it?)

"Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Dick Cheney when he shot Texas lawyer Harry Whittington on a hunting outing two weeks ago say Cheney was "clearly inebriated" at the time of the shooting."

"One agent at the scene has been placed on administrative leave and another requested reassignment this week. A memo reportedly written by one agent has been destroyed, sources said Wednesday afternoon."

Fukuyama and the Neo-Cons

2006-02-22T10:22:00.001-05:00

Below is a post from Democracy Arsenal http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2006/02/francis_fukuyam.html#more that is a nice analysis of the Francis Fukuyama piece in the Sunday NY Times (see link below). I remember arguing about Fukuyama's "End of History" article at Rutgers many years ago and his views of the current Neo-Con movement are important.

Fukuyama the Liberal?
Posted by Michael Signer
On the Francis Fukuyama New York Times Magazine piece about the crack-up of neoconservatism: if you haven't read it, do. It's significant equally as an analysis of the structural flaws in modern neoconservatism (which must be distinguished, as Fukuyama argues, from original neoconservatism) and as a political event in its own right -- a more-than-public (indeed, it reads more as a cry for help) manifestation of Fukuyama's own pronouncement that the "neoconservative moment seems to have passed."
I talked with Fukuyama at a wedding a year and a half ago, and was struck then by his anguish at the Administration's failure adequately to understand and plan for the insurgency. What I want to talk about here is whether Fukuyama has erred in devising an overly complex conceptual apparatus (as political theorists sometimes do) that diagnoses as an ideological mistake what is actually an intellectual problem. Fukuyama makes these mistakes because, in trying to move away from neoconservatism, he cannot release himself from its most basic premise -- that history stems from ideas, and that the perfect idea will solve all problems.
All of this is ironic because Fukuyama seems to have embraced the basic liberal notion of America's careful, thoughtful governance of a liberalizing world community. If he could release from the neocon framework, he just might emerge (probably to his own dismay) as a progressive.
Fukuyama's essential assertion is that modern neocons erred in assuming the ineluctability of democracy in Iraq:
The war's supporters seemed to think that democracy was a kind of default condition to which societies reverted once the heavy lifting of coercive regime change occurred, rather than a long-term process of institution-building and reform.
The key question is where Fukuyama and the neocons he purports to have left behind stand on the basic question of how and why America should exert power in the world. His nut grafs are as follows:
Many people have also interpreted my book "The End of History and the Last Man" (1992) as a neoconservative tract, one that argued in favor of the view that there is a universal hunger for liberty in all people that will inevitably lead them to liberal democracy, and that we are living in the midst of an accelerating, transnational movement in favor of that liberal democracy. This is a misreading of the argument. "The End of History" is in the end an argument about modernization. What is initially universal is not the desire for liberal democracy but rather the desire to live in a modern — that is, technologically advanced and prosperous — society, which, if satisfied, tends to drive demands for political participation. Liberal democracy is one of the byproducts of this modernization process, something that becomes a universal aspiration only in the course of historical time.
"The End of History," in other words, presented a kind of Marxist argument for the existence of a long-term process of social evolution, but one that terminates in liberal democracy rather than communism. In the formulation of the scholar Ken Jowitt, the neoconservative position articulated by people like Kristol and Kagan was, by contrast, Leninist; they believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will. Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned as farce when practiced by the United States. Neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support.
Fukuyama goes to great pains in his piece to conceptualize why the Administration failed to anticipate the post-invasion insurgency. His key finding is that neocons twisted their own belief in the moral ineluctability of liberal democracy into a more forcible, will-based imperative.
As Fukuyama notes, these two contradictory principles (force vs. ineluctability) married badly in the Iraq invasion. He says we went in on the premise of preemptive war (force), but failed to plan the post-war phase because of our naive optimism in liberal democracy's power (ineluctability).
But the contradiction in Fukuyama's own analysis -- he says the Administration essentially believed two things at once (that America should change the world by force, and that democracy will always right the world on its o wn) -- leads him to get the Administration's actions wrong.
This is because the Administration's failure to plan for the post-invasion Iraq had less to do with its ideas of democracy than with its failure to appreciate the idea and art of governance.
The key question exposed by the abundant failure of today's neocons is whether we will shape the world in a way that will forward America's interests (like moral progress -- but wrapped up in American strength), or not. This is more a question of activism than realism. It involves an a priori commitment to the active management of the world, to the idea of governance, rather than simply to acting in accordance with abstract, Hegelian positions, or moral absolutes.
Governance is what conservatives -- neocon or not -- are distinctly not good at. They think it's either counterproductive, impossible, or boring. They also don't believe that America belongs to a world community, anyway, so there's really nothing to govern. There's only ruling, and being ruled. And that's where they're wrong.
Despite his attacks on his brethren, Fukuyama's piece reveals him still deeply invested in the neocon project of providing ideological frames for history. This pattern leads him to analytic errors.
Even though Fukuyama disparages the modern neocons' naive embrace of the inevitability of liberal democracy, for instance, he still can't escape ineluctability himself. He never truly escapes the self-assumed moral heroism of the traditional Straussian-trained neocon.
One example: Fukuyama reformulates his argument from The End of History by saying that modernization (rather than liberal democracy) will lead to international ideological stability. But this seems just as naive as the modern neocons he mocks. Modernization didn't work to increase either moral progress or American security in the highly educated and modern Weimar Republic, and it shows no sign of working in the increasingly modernizing China (whose unique combination of authoritarianism, communism, and capitalism should alarm us as a competitive model in an age when we have squandered much international good will).
The premise of ineluctability -- of either the Hegelian or Kantian brands -- should alarm us wherever we see it, especially when the idea of ineluctability is seized by political opportunists, those who are interested in power for its own sake.
This is why when Fukuyama sums his argument by endorsing the "formulation of a 'realistic Wilsonianism' that better matches means to ends," it doesn't quite work. Realism and Wilsonianism are almost certainly incompatible intellectually. It's a chimera -- a man-beast -- that, like a centaur, is only available in one's imagination, or in books of mythology.
The embrace of chimeras might help explain why the neocon approach tends to yaw wildly from extreme to extreme, because of the ideological rigidity and intolerance and disinterest in complexity, pragmatism, and the material facts of the world around them.
To wit: in Iraq, we went in guns ablazing with a "Shock and Awe" campaign in part because of an intoxication with the sheer unilateral application of American might. This was the worst kind of manifestation of the grandiose Straussian American self-conception. But then the neocons defaulted to happy naivete at all -- no plan, no management -- for the endgame.
In other words, the neocons' failure might be explained by negative rather than positive reasons. Fukuyama think the problem was what they had -- too many ideas, and bad ones. But the issue was instead what they didn't have: an appreciation of the good old progressive idea of governance.
To govern, you must accept that those whom you govern are in a community with you -- that they have relationships with you. You must have some sort of rule of law to which everyone has committed themselves. Most importantly, governance requires careful attendance to those around you, even the powerless (who tend to be uninteresting to conservatives).
So the Administration's mismanagement of events like Hurricane Katrina or the Medicare plan may have more to do with Iraq than we think.
To Fukuyama's credit, he recommends three steps at the conclusion of his piece, and they're all about governance: (1) demilitarizing the war on terror, (2) using international institutions, (3) establishing the rule of law and institution-building as the goal of democratization (rather than just elections).
But in the end, Fukuyama never escapes his inner neocon, because he's too bound by rigid ideological constructs. Because of this, he fails to understand that what he ultimately recommends isn't an ideology or variant of the liberal Marxist modernist teleology he now says The End of History was actually about. What he's recommending is, essentially, just a good old-fashioned progressive idea: governance, and governance done well.
So maybe Fukuyama's become a liberal after all -- and that would be the biggest news of all.

This Could Be It

2006-02-21T16:38:00.000-05:00

This could be the issue that finally brings down this corrupt administration. On CNN last night Lou Dobbs went off, and all their viewer mail was anti Bush on this. All they had was homeland security. Now they will not even have that. The Dems have really got to drive this mother of all wedge issues.

ABC News: Bush: Arab Co. Port Deal Should Proceed: "President Bush said Tuesday that the deal allowing an Arab company to take over six major U.S. seaports should go forward and that he would veto any congressional effort to stop it."

WSJ.com - Cheney Accident Triggers Jokes on Late-Night TV

2006-02-14T16:30:00.000-05:00

WSJ.com - Cheney Accident Triggers Jokes on Late-Night TV

Cartoon Politics

2006-02-07T14:35:00.000-05:00

My first reaction to current crisis involving the Mohammed-cartoons was that although it was in bad taste and maybe not the most responsible piece of journalism I defended the right of a liberal society to express bad taste and offensive behavior. Then I read this post (see below) on Danish domestic politics. The issue seems to me both complex and simple. Simple in that I believe that no religious group should exercise a veto over public discourse. Complex in that much of the Arab and Muslim worlds see themselves under attack from the West and this doesn't help. Juan Cole's blog discussed some of the violent reactions Europeans and Christians have had to religious controversy. The same Danish newspaper that printed the cartoons also is reported to have decided against printing cartoons that were viewed as offensive to Christians. The paper's editor explained that unlike the Muslim cartoons the Christian comics were not requested and as a result were rejected.

In terms of media coverage it's been as bad as you'd expect - Conservative media never mention that there are about 20 million muslims in Europe and the vast majority are not in the streets or engaging in violent protests. I also failed to hear much on the statement by Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, "Iraq's top Shiite cleric condemned the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed as angry Muslims protested across Asia on Friday. Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, however, made no call for protests and suggested that militant Muslims were partly to blame for distorting Islam's image. "

Reagarding Danish domestic politics:

"While there are riots in the Middle East my focus will be my home country Denmark and the newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which printed the cartoons. The Mohammed-cartoons was the last entry in a long path from Jyllands-Posten to discredit Muslims in general, and in seeking a confrontation with hardliners. The newspaper has sadly succeeded beyond any scope believed possible.Jyllands-Posten has historically been a solid partner with the current governing party Venstre and Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who in Danish context is like George Bush. And Jyllands-Posten can be compared to Fox News.The Prime Minister won his first election in 2001 by copying the Danish Peoples Party (Dansk Folkeparti) hard-line against Muslims.The Danish Peoples Party’s chairman has in the Danish Parliament proclaimed, that there is only one civilization in the world - the West. During the Kosovo killings of Muslims the party stated that Muslims had themselves committed war crimes - anything short of defending the killings of Muslims in Kosovo as self-defence.By the 2001 election a more conservative line was adopted by the wining Danish Primeminister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who supported NATO’s peacekeeping effort in Kosovo.Even though the hard-line confrontation from the Danish Peoples Party was silent during the election, a more conservative discredit of Muslims as a threat to the Danish welfare was stated by Anders Fogh Rasmussen.Two days before the election Jyllands-Posten printed a story about how Palestines claimed social security even though they lived in Palestine. The story was a fake designed to help the current Prime Minister win his first election.When Jyllands-Posten today is claiming, that it is defending democracy and freedom of speech, it should be remembered that the paper tried to manipulate a democratic election by printing fake stories about Muslims.Today Jyllands-Posten and the Danish Prime Minister still have strong ties. The Prime Ministers "Karl Rove" has been chief of Jyllands-Postens Parliamentary bureau. Other ministers has also recruited their spin doctors from Jyllands-Posten. And the discredit of Muslims in general is continuing. "

Barkely 08?

2006-02-03T11:10:00.000-05:00

Last night I was thinking that maybe Lakoff is wrong. Maybe the ‘nurturing parent’ model is just a loser. Maybe what Democrats need to do is to run a ‘strict father’ candidate, albeit one who has a progressive viewpoint. I thought, “when was the last time I saw a Democrat who fit the ‘strict father’ model?” I imagine LBJ may have been one. I really don’t know much about him, but he seemed like a tough guy. But in recent memory all of the Democratic presidential candidates had serious wimp problems. I mean, John Kerry couldn’t kick MY ass. Maybe what we need is a football player or something.

This morning I turned on CNN and there was Charles Barkley shilling the paperback version of his book and talking about poverty in America. Yeah, he was spouting the libertarian, “the government isn’t going to help you, you have to help yourself” line. I’ll take that if it means at least talking about poverty. This is the type of guy I was thinking about. I wonder if he’s a Democrat?

Civility schmivility

2006-02-02T13:15:00.000-05:00

My father-in-law died a couple of years ago. I still miss him, especially when I want to talk politics. We couldn’t have been more different. He was loud, opinionated and conservative. Well, ok so we were both opinionated.

Anyway, we used to get into serious pissing matches. I’d come over to the house and he’d be in the basement watching tv. Invariably he’d turn to me as I sat sown and say, “Did you hear what your President wants to do…” And no matter how many times I protested that I didn’t vote for Clinton (I was SWP all the way back then), he’d insist that he was my president and then launch into some tirade about liberals destroying the world.

At this point you might be thinking, “And you MISS this?!?” And you’re right too. But here’s the thing. No matter how much we went at it, at the end of the day we were friends—or at least as close friends as a father-in-law and a son-in-law could be.

He was a dirty arguer and he used all the tricks: straw men, personal attacks, statistics out of context, false dilemmas, etc. But in classic pissing match fashion it was never about winning me over to his side. In fact, I think he would have been disappointed if he did. Instead, it was another thing to talk about, like sports. And the conflict was simply a way to keep it interesting.
When I first met him I was pretty intimidated. I had never experienced this type of interaction. It was passionate on the one hand, but with a distance on the other. Nothing was personal. For me growing up, politics and religion were off-limits. People might disagree and disagreement was upsetting.

I’m not sure where this came from. Maybe I’m succumbing to a ‘Golden Age’ fallacy, but when I talk to my own Dad now, he tells me about growing up in a family that always argued politics. And he talks about how he had friends with lots of different political points of view and they also argued. It seems somewhere between his generation (the Korean war guys, stuck between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers) and now things changed. I like to blame the Baby Boomers for making politics personal. But I like to blame them for everything. For whatever reason, these days we seem balkanized in terms of politics. I’m sure I have very few conservative friends, if any.

I heard that in his State of the Union speech, Bush called for a return to civility in political discourse. I think he’s off the mark. Civility has never been a part of politics. What we need is a return levity. We need to stop defining ourselves by our politics. Because, when being a conservative or liberal is an integral part of who you are, then any questioning of that position can only be taken as a personal attack. Where’s the fun in that?

Kick Me, I'm a Democrat

2006-01-30T11:02:00.000-05:00

Michael Kinsley was a big part of my political education - I grew up watching him debate William F. Buckley Jr. on "Firing Line." This piece from Slate takes a refreshingly clear look at all the talk about what's wrong with the Democrats and concludes maybe not that much. There's not a lot new here but I liked the message:

The official illustration of the Kick the Democrats movement is a map of the United States, showing huge swaths of red with just a few tiny accents of blue. Of course this gives an unrealistic advantage to big states with few people. But then so does our electoral system. The deeper flaw is the assumption that everybody in red states is red and ditto the blues. A map showing red and blue people, not states, would look a homogenous purple. John Kerry got 43 percent of the vote in states that went for George Bush, and Bush got 45 percent in Kerry states. Liberals are not nearly so rare and so culturally isolated as the official map would suggest. This is little comfort to Democrats when it comes to the math of winning elections. But it does suggest that endless self-flagellation about their values and beliefs may not be the best strategy for turning things around.

This is not an argument for complacency. Obviously the party that has lost the White House, both houses of Congress, and now the courts needs some new ideas and new energy. But it seems undeniably true to me—though many deny it—that the Republicans simply play the game better. You're not supposed to say that. At Pundit School they teach you: Always go for the deeper explanation, not the shallower one. Never suggest that people (let alone "the" people) can be duped.

PARADE Magazine | The World's 10 Worst Dictators

2006-01-26T15:26:00.000-05:00

And coming in at #6. You think Bush's America is bad?

PARADE Magazine | The World's 10 Worst Dictators: "6) Hu Jintao, China. Age 63. In power since 2002. Last year’s rank: 4

Although some Chinese have taken advantage of economic liberalization to become rich, up to 150 million Chinese live on $1 a day or less in this nation with no minimum wage. Between 250,000 and 300,000 political dissidents are held in “reeducation-through-labor” camps without trial. Less than 5% of criminal trials include witnesses, and the conviction rate is 99.7%. There are no privately owned TV or radio stations. The government opens and censors mail and monitors phone calls, faxes, e-mails and text messages. In preparation for the 2008 Olympics, at least 400,000 residents of Beijing have been forcibly evicted from their homes."

The Ultimate in Self-loathing

2006-01-25T08:02:00.000-05:00

The Inquirer called this a one-stop-shop for all your self-loathing needs.

Phillysucks.com - Philly Sucks - Where suckage is a way of life....

It's them lawyers, that's the problem

2006-01-23T15:00:00.000-05:00

Today Bush said that he consulted "all sorts of lawyers" before circumventing existing laws in order to obtain wiretaps without warrants. Methinks I'm smelling a defense here. You know, it wasn't Bush's fault, it was the fault of the lawyers - he just did what they recommended. See, lawyers told him it is ok to torture prisoners. And I'll bet that some of those in the intelligence community that told him that Sadam had WMD were lawyers also. See, it's all the fault of lawyers. Lawyers told him it was ok to break the law, torture people, and lie to the American public.

The Dems, Values, Framing etc

2006-01-19T13:07:00.000-05:00

This is from The Washington Note blog regarding an article on The American Prospect that deals with a major topic of discussion on Lib Malcontents - how should the Democratic Party appeal to voters and more importantly define itself.

DIGGING DEEPER IN THE VALUES DEBATE....My professional background is marketing, and although my career was spent in smallish tech companies without access to the high-powered tools used by huge consumer-oriented firms, I have a lot of respect for those tools. They won't tell you everything, but companies spend billions of dollars a year based on what those tools do tell them, and they do it because they work.
In the American Prospect this month, Garance Franke-Ruta has a fascinating piece about Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, a pair of activists who made a name for themselves a couple of years ago with an essay called "The Death of Environmentalism" and who have now taken on a new task: using the tools of consumer marketing to try to get a better fix on the American psyche. Their goal: figuring out how to fix liberalism so that it appeals to more voters.
The Prospect article summarizes their findings and makes a couple of points that are longtime hot buttons of mine:
Liberals need to abandon the fantasy that "opinion polls show that voters agree with us!" Only the shallowest analysis of opinion polls supports this notion, and when you dig even an inch below the surface it turns out that in many cases "our issues" have a lot less salience than we think.
Although it's true that median incomes have largely stagnated over the past few decades, Americans are still pretty rich. This is why economic arguments simply don't resonate the way we think they ought to.
Nordhaus and Shellenberger's analysis suggests that the answer is to pay more attention to values — but in a subtly different way than pollsters did after the 2004 election:
They found economic changes driving changes in social values, and those, in turn, driving political preferences. Using data from Environics’ in-home consumer survey in the United States, Nordhaus and Shellenberger were able to tease apart changes in the thinking of voters since 1992 on 117 different “social values trends.” These values, such as “time stress,” “joy of consumption,” and “acceptance of violence,” are not what people normally think of as “values” — abortion, gay marriage, or other hot-button social issues.
....Nordhaus and Shellenberger arrived at what they call “social values trends,” such as “sexism,” “patriotism,” or “acceptance of flexible families.” But the real meaning of those trends was revealed only by plugging them into the “values matrix” — a four-quadrant plot with plenty of curving arrows to show direction, which is then overlaid onto voting data....Despite the increasing political power of the religious right, Environics found social values moving away from the authority end of the scale, with its emphasis on responsibility, duty, and tradition, to a more atomized, rage-filled outlook that values consumption, sexual permissiveness, and xenophobia. The trend was toward values in the individuality quadrant.
The article is too dense to excerpt it fairly, but this passage should at least pique your interest to read the rest. Roughly speaking, N&S are suggesting that although progressive policies are (mostly) fine, they need to be explained not as policies per se but as natural outgrowths of core values that resonate with working and middle class voters. That's what Peter Brodnitz found out when he started talking to focus groups in Virginia about Tim Kaine's opposition to the death penalty:
Brodnitz found that once Kaine started talking about his religious background and explaining that his opposition to the death penalty grew out of his Catholic faith, not only did charges that he was weak on crime fail to stick, but he became inoculated against a host of related charges that typically plague and undermine the campaigns of Democratic candidates. “Once people understood the values system that the position grew out of, they understood that’s he’s not a liberal,” says Brodnitz. “We couldn’t even convince them he was a liberal once we’d done that.”
There's a lot to agree and disagree with here, and it's a provocative piece. It's well worth reading the whole thing.

Dude - where's my party?

2006-01-18T14:23:00.000-05:00

Can the Democrats get any more pathetic?

They've spent the past few years failing to take advantage of the corruption of the Bush administration and transform the party into a real reform movement on issues such as election or campaign finance reform. Now in the wake of the Abramoff scandal they choose to play defense again and issue a lobbying reform package in response to the Republican initiative. Again, they offer an initiative that goes only slighly beyond the Republican plan rather than a truly bold proposal such as a publicly financed election system. Where's the leadership? The big ideas?

John Edwards' New Job: Fighting Poverty

2006-01-18T14:13:00.000-05:00

In the interest of fairness I'm posting this link to an NPR interview with John Edwards in which he describes his current position as director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina. He's touring the country in an effort to drum up support for the plight of the nation's poor. A few months back I wrote a post criticizing Edwards decision to join a private investment firm and the idea that he was, in the words of one Edwards supporter, trying to "learn more about the global economy."

I'm still waiting for Edwards to speak out on issues, such as campaign finance reform, that would allow for real change in the economic and poltical systems in the US.

Look who's talking impeachment

2006-01-16T17:21:00.000-05:00

I'm not sayin I'm just sayin.

Think Progress � Specter: If Bush Broke The Law With Warrantless Spying, Impeachment Is A Remedy

What to say to the President

2006-01-16T10:26:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about things to say to the President if I got the chance to shake his hand, not that this would ever happen. But just in case, I want to be prepared. I'll only have a few seconds, so how about this:

Hi, I'm on to your bullshit.

Outrage of the Day: The Signing Statement

2006-01-16T10:25:00.000-05:00

Did anyone see this editorial on Bush's "signing statement?" This guy is unbelievable. Worse, Alito thought this up.

The Imperial Presidency at Work - New York Times: "Mr. Bush, however, seems to see no limit to his imperial presidency. First, he issued a constitutionally ludicrous 'signing statement' on the McCain bill. The message: Whatever Congress intended the law to say, he intended to ignore it on the pretext the commander in chief is above the law. That twisted reasoning is what led to the legalized torture policies, not to mention the domestic spying program."

Reframing taxes

2006-01-16T09:46:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure if I buy everything Lakoff is selling. But he makes a point about how Republicans have framed taxes as a burden by focusing on "tax relief". So here's a way to reframe taxation as your dues to live in a decent society.

I'm sure your familiar with the slogan "Freedom isn't free." The implication is that you should be willing to give your life for the freedoms you enjoy and if you don't you need to honor those that do. This is the perfect frame for taxes.

Imagine, people are willing to give their lives for America, but balk at giving 25% of their income. What the fuck?

So here are two variations on this slogan:

Freedom isn't free--pay your taxes
Some gave all, you can give some

Feel free to use these when talking to "minimal government" types.

"Living Wage Is Our Gay Marriage"

2006-01-14T21:44:00.000-05:00

What Is a Living Wage? - New York Times: "'This is what moves people to the polls now,' Kern insists. 'This is our gay marriage.' Already, during the past few months, a coalition of grass-roots and labor organizations have begun gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures to ensure that proposed laws to increase wages are voted on in November. The first targets, Kern told me, will be Arizona, Colorado, Michigan and Ohio. Next in line, either this year or soon after, are Montana, Oklahoma and Arkansas, the home of Wal-Mart."

The Impeachment of George W. Bush

2006-01-12T09:47:00.000-05:00

The Impeachment of George W. Bush: "Finally, it has started. People have begun to speak of impeaching President George W. Bush--not in hushed whispers but openly, in newspapers, on the Internet, in ordinary conversations and even in Congress. As a former member of Congress who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon, I believe they are right to do so."

U.S. opening some private mail in terror fight - Jan 9, 2006

2006-01-11T11:46:00.000-05:00

First torture, then eavesdropping , now opening our mail.

CNN.com - U.S. opening some private mail in terror fight - Jan 9, 2006: "'One of our areas of responsibility is to inspect international mail coming into our country,' she said. 'We respect privacy and always keep that at the forefront, but at the same time we need to make sure we do our job in keeping U.S. citizens safe.'

Customs and Border Protection's Web site notes that 'all mail originating outside United States Customs territory that is to be delivered inside U.S. Customs territory is subject to Customs examination.'

Grant Goodman, an 81-year-old retired history professor, drew attention to the policy after a letter he received from a colleague in the Philippines was opened and resealed by Customs and Border Protection, and only then sent on to him."

Bush Proposes Broader Language Training

2006-01-06T21:04:00.000-05:00

Since I've often complained on this blog that the Bush adminstration hasn't paid enough attention to the importance of language training I thought I'd post this piece on the new White House initiative. The amount of money proposed in totally insufficient and I've heard in other reports that the Pentagon will receive most of the funds. Then, there is this great quote from the president:

"In order to convince people we care about them, we've got to understand their culture and show them we care about their culture," Mr. Bush said. "You know, when somebody comes to me and speaks Texan, I know they appreciate the Texas culture. When somebody takes time to figure out how to speak Arabic, it means they're interested in somebody else's culture."

Trenches full of poets

2006-01-03T22:58:00.000-05:00

Driving home today, my iPod—on shuffle—played Billy Bragg’s All You Fascists followed by The Clash’s Spanish Bombs. I took it as a sign that 2006 will be a good one, politically. So I’m helping start off the year with a local politics post.

The New Jersey legislature has a great website, where you can keep up on your legislators and any bills going through the assembly or senate. I’m digging it.

On January 13, 2004 John Rooney, proposed a bill to make English the official language of the state.  I’m not sure what status that would provide English. I’ll have to keep an eye on this one. Although it looks like it’s not particularly popular. He introduced the same bill in 1998, 2000, and 2002 and it never went anywhere.

There are also some odd ones in there. For example, in the same session, Connie Myers introduced a bill allowing parents to request the library record of their minor children:

CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
    Introduced Pending Technical Review by Legislative Counsel.

An Act concerning access to certain library records and amending P.L.1985, c.172.

    Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

    1. Section 1 of P.L.1985, c.172 (C.18A:73-43.1) is amended to read as follows:
    1. For the purposes of this act:
    a. "Library" means a library maintained by any State or local governmental agency, school, college, or industrial, commercial or other special group, association or agency, whether public or private.
    b. "Library record" means any document or record, however maintained, the primary purpose of which is to provide for control of the circulation or other public use of library materials.
    c. "Minor" means a person 16 years of age or less.
(cf: P.L.1985, c.172, s.1)

    2. Section 2 of P.L.1985, c.172 (C.18A:73-43.2) is amended to read as follows:
    2. Library records which contain the names or other personally identifying details regarding the users of libraries are confidential and shall not be disclosed except in the following circumstances:
    a. The records are necessary for the proper operation of the library;
    b. Disclosure is requested by the user; [or]
    c. Disclosure is required pursuant to a subpena issued by a court or court order; or
    d. Disclosure of the library record of a minor is requested by a parent or guardian upon presentation by a parent or guardian of a valid form of identification which identifies the parent or guardian as so named on the library record of a minor.
(cf: P.L.1985, c.172, s.2)

    3. This act shall take effect on the first weekday of the fourth month following enactment.

I’m not sure why Ms. Myers felt New Jersey needed this bill. I sent her an email asking her about it, but I don’t think she’ll respond. She is retiring from the legislature, so I doubt this law will get through.

There is, of course, a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. And one supporting the “fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children” sponsored by Gerald Cardinale and Anthony Bucco. Those two seem like a winning team.

On the plus side, New Jersey is getting a new slogan. Too bad my wife’s entry, “New Jersey, Love It or Leave It,” didn’t make the cut.

Spurring Urban Growth in Vancouver, One Family at a Time

2005-12-27T10:32:00.000-05:00

This NY Times piece points out the benefits of sound urban planning (what conservatives, and in fact this article, will no doubt term social engineering) in Vancouver. Unlike cities, Portland for example, that have experienced downtown population growth along with a loss of families with children, Vancouver has adopted mixed-use housing policies that encourage a diverse urban population. Housing prices are still high but these policies are working and should be an example of what's possible in American cities.

Meta is the new Meta

2005-12-27T07:51:00.000-05:00

What's the Meta? - New York Times: "In assessing 'Letters From New Orleans,' by Rob Walker, who writes the Consumed column for this magazine, the Times reviewer noted how the author was 'parsing irony levels' and observed, 'It can get a bit meta.' At which a reader, Alice AvRutick, wondered: 'Am vaguely aware that the sense of the prefix meta has metamorphed into metadata, but what does that stand-alone meta mean?'"

Will the Dems ever get it together?

2005-12-21T14:35:00.000-05:00

Once again we have another dose of post facto outrage (we knew about this and even wrote a letter to say so) from the Dems over the Bush FISA spying issue. It's pathetic to see their tired protests every time the Bush administration mismanages a National Security issue - will they ever get "out in front" of one of these issues? To do that they'd need some type of strategy and the ability to communicate it. The issue of the Democratic Patry being divided over the war isn't really an issue - the Republicans (like Walter Jones of NC) have dissent in their party as well - it's the creation of a narrative that gives people the impression that you have a strategy. Even a bad one. Maybe the Dems need a response to the Right's "We're tough on terrorism" that shows they can mount a smarter more effective national security startegy.

From Liberal Oasis:

Why Checks and Balances Help Fight Terror

If ABC’s The Note weren’t on holiday break, they’d probably say something like: “When will stupid Democrats learn that smart Republicans love it when they focus on terrorism, because it reinforces the Strong GOP/Weak Dem narrative.”
And they would have half a point. The Strong GOP/Weak Dem narrative, regarding national security, most certainly exists. It’s not a new problem, and there is no quick fix for it.
But the solution is not to mimic Republican foreign policy principles, if for no other reason that Republican foreign policy is bad policy. Nor is it to duck the issues and keep quiet when Republicans break the law when conducting foreign policy.

The solution, and it’s a long-term one, is to clearly and consistently articulate what Democratic foreign policy principles are, painting a positive vision of where the party would take the country and the world, and contrasting it with the GOP vision. (LiberalOasis discussed this in terms of Iraq policy earlier this month.) If you don’t do that, and you only raise your voice when civil liberties are violated, then you risk looking like you don’t have the stomach to do what it takes to protect the nation. And you give the GOP the opening to say, Dems won’t go to the mat to stop terror. It’s not enough to note that the laws were broken, or the Constitution was subverted. It can be shrugged off as mere technicality. It’s not enough to raise the prospect of people’s rights being violated. It’s too easy to think that will only happen to the “bad guys” and not to yourself. Both of those criticisms should be made, vigorously so.
But they should be put into the context of a larger, consistently articulated, anti-terror strategy.
And that is, if America is going to be a force for credible democracy, and if it's going to rally the world to isolate and suffocate Al Qaeda, we cannot allow America to lose its moral standing.
The torture, the secret prisons, the warrantless invasions of privacy, that gives our enemies ammunition. That helps them make a case that we are not on the side of average Arabs and Muslims. Terror suspects must be investigated, interrogated and imprisoned.
But we don’t wantonly invade privacy and secretly imprison people, because you can get it wrong and you can destroy the lives of innocents. Not only does that hurt individuals, it hurts the larger cause. We have checks and balances to prevent such errors and allow for mistakes to be fixed. So sensitive decisions are not made recklessly and politically. So the fight against terror is as effective as possible.
And we are savvy enough to have created systems that allow for checks and balances without sacrificing speed and efficiency.
Bush in particular has shown how power can be abused, and why checks and balances are so important, by claiming legal authority he simply does not have.
It was that same attitude about unbalanced executive power that led to the blown cover of a CIA agent and the rendition of suspects to countries that torture.
Bush and the GOP are fighting terror and conducting foreign policy the wrong way, which is why the Al Qaeda ideology has dramatically spread since 9/11.
Once it’s clear that our way is the best way to fight terror, then not only will the GOP lose its ability to claim that Dems aren’t willing to do what it takes to protect the nation, it will become clear that the opposite is true

Exit Strategy for Iraq

2005-12-20T17:38:00.000-05:00

Here's another essay on a possible exit strategy for the US in Iraq. It's from the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy - a nice site that contains opinions from the Left, Middle and Right that all agree that our foreign policy is going in the wrong direction.

Library Police

2005-12-19T08:52:00.000-05:00

I heard on the Sunday morning shows that the Dems were briefed on Bush's Secret Spying Program but offered only token resistance. Once again I'm sure we'll hear lots of "after the fact" outrage that the Dems have become so good at.

From Juan Cole's blog "Informed Comment".
The Standard Times (New Bedford, MA) December 17, 2005

Agents' visit chills UMass Dartmouth senior

By AARON NICODEMUS, Standard-Times staff writerNEW BEDFORD -- A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams andRobert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the bookthrough the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism forProfessor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out aform for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and SocialSecurity number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedfordby two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.The professors said the student was told by the agents that the bookis on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significanttime abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further."I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked forthe official Peking version of the book," Professor Pontbriand said."Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoringinter-library loans, because that's what triggered the visit,as I understand it."Although The Standard-Times knows the name of the student, he isnot coming forward because he fears repercussions should his namebecome public. He has not spoken to The Standard-Times.The professors had been asked to comment on a report thatPresident Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to spy onas many as 500 people at any given time since 2002 in this country. The eavesdropping was apparently done without warrants . .

State Department Using Ideological Litmus Tests to Screen Speakers

2005-12-15T14:15:00.000-05:00

This makes a lot of sense...send more of the people the rest of the world can't stand to be our public "face" to the world.

Guess who went to lunch?

2005-12-13T14:17:00.000-05:00

So, here's the deal. I had a bit of a surreal experience yesterday and meta suggested that I post it up here. Turns out I was able to get a ticket to W's speech at the World Affairs Council in Philadelphia. Strangely enough, my seat was right by the little barricade that separated the unwashed masses and fat cats from the man.

Surrounded by the usual array of secret service agents, handlers and media, he took the stage for his introduction and as luck would have it, happened to make eye contact at me. I winked (seriously, I did). He just kinda looked away as if I was a little strange. He was right on that score, as I am sure others who frequent the blog will attest to.

So, long story into mini novella, he starts the canned speech. First 5 minutes, I am politely listening and looking at things like the slightly wrinkled suit jacket, which I can see from the side of the lecturn (not a podium since a podium goes all the way to the floor and a lectern sits on a table, a thought which struck me while my mind began to wander, somewhere I think around the third, the world has changed since nine eleven reference). On a few occassions, the room errupts in applause, based on some anti-terror rallying cry. I choose not to clap. The guy next to me does the same. Two people I know who are sitting behind me, people I know quite well, but have never talked about politics with don't clap either. I feel kinda warm and fuzzy. Like after my third Bermuda Rum Fizz.

And by 10 minutes in, I had moved on to checking out the secret service and their rapid eye movement stuff going on about 5 feet from me.

Finally, W wraps it up and thanks the audience. Then, with narry a pause, he says he has some extra time on his hands and will answer some questions if anyone is interested.

Uh, they were. A Lot.

First up, the one about the number of Iraqi dead.
Second up, the one about the connection of 911 to Iraq.

Now remember, this room is filled with people I work with. People I very much consider conservative. They are asking the tough questions; W is parrying with some sharp wit (seriously, he was quite good). On other questions, he sidesteps with a right angle segue that would break your neck. But you know what? I found myself getting to know the guy. Didn't agree with him, could see all the pitfalls of his logic, but was forced into a couple of ah hah moments that gave me pause.

Ah HA #1: The guy has access to info I will never have and he seems from his comments to be remembering and internalizing a lot of it.

Ah HA #2: If my listening and reading of people skills are good, I actually do think he is smart. Maybe not book smart, but quick witted and a sharp opportunist of ideas he likes.

Ah HA #3: There is a tipping point when you listen to the guy. Like anyone, I first think, is he personable? And he is. Does he believe what he is saying? Then, is he in command of his opinion, yupper? Can he move people? Sadly, he can.

And I found myself at least understanding him better. Nothing new to report from what everyone else says, but seriously it is different when you are in the room with him.

So, finally. He steps down off the podium to a standing O and wouldn't you know it, he makes a Bee-Line right toward me.

So, I stick out my hand. He shakes it and as best as I can remember it, the following conversation occurs:

W: "Good to see ya".
Me: Thank you, Sir.
(We are now leaning in toward each other because of all the yelling as people try to grab his hand. I am serious. We are literally putting our heads together)
W: How are you?
Me: Fine, Mr. President. I just wanted to say that I learned more from the questions you answered than in any of the speeches you have given. You should do more Q and A's and less speeches.
W: You're right. It's just that I have too many filters between me and the people.
Me: All right, then. Good job.
And then I hit him on the shoulder the way you do with a buddy when they are taking off after downing a couple of brews after work. I shit you not, I smacked the President of the United States of America on the shoulder as if he was dumplingeater putting on his coat in my hallway. He smiled and moved on and when I looked up, I got the nastiest glare from the tall secret service agent, as if I just kicked his dog in the head.

And that was about it. The people I was with asked me what we talked about and I said I think I just gave the President communications advice. Have no idea why I did it. I know I could have said many more incidiary things, but I think I was too nervous and intimidated. So, I took the road less traveled and tried to tell him to be himself.

Did I do what was right? Did I live up to the liberal malcontents code of ethics? You tell me.

Present at the Disintegration and What Do We Owe the Iraqi Left?

2005-12-12T15:20:00.000-05:00

This interesting piece from Kanan Makiya (a professor at Brandeis University and an intellectual source for many many of the neo-con arguments for the war) in the December 11th NY Times got me thinking about the Left/liberals etc. and what, if anything, we owe Iraq.

Does that fact that most of the Left and many Liberals opposed the war in Iraq mean we have no obligation to support secular and/or progressive forces in Iraq? If we do have such an obligation what should that support look like? Does this mean we need to re-examine our views on issues such as an immediate pull-out of US forces? Most of us agree that the very presence of American troops fuels much or most of the insurgency but what are the implications of a pull-out, followed by a collapse of the "State" (outside of the Kurdish north), on secular and/or progressive Iraqi elements. This line of thinking may be too close to the Christopher Hitchens school of thought for many of us but I think it's an important discussion that I haven't seen much of on this blog. If others have interesting links or sources that cover this debate please post them.

From the New York Review of Books - The End of News?

2005-12-12T11:20:00.000-05:00

Michael Massing has two interesting articles in the NY Review of Books that deal with the crisis in the mainstream media:

The Press: the Enemy Within

The End of News?

America's Foreign Language Deficit

2005-12-12T10:31:00.000-05:00

From Huffington Post. Can't the Dems use any of this stuff?

你会不会说中国话?

Lou Dobbs Watch

2005-12-08T21:09:00.000-05:00

My new hobby is monitoring Lou Dobbs. I've noticed that any story about China is always about "communist" China.
CNN.com - Transcripts: "DOBBS: Ed Henry, thank you very much from Capitol Hill.

And communist China planning a massive new assault on American consumers. Our special report is next.

Liu Binyan, a Fierce Insider Critic of China, Dies at 80

2005-12-07T11:39:00.000-05:00

From the NY Times: "Few intellectuals in modern China were so daring or so persistent as Mr. Liu in publicly attacking and exposing corruption in the party's ranks. And what was perhaps most remarkable about his career is that he did it as something of an insider, as a party member and a writer for official party publications in a country that has a history of very little public dissent."

I had the privilege of meeting Liu Binyan at Princeton University in the early 1990s. He was generous with his time and patient with my questions. His style of "reportage" remains one of the best sources we have in attempting to understand not just corruption but all of the contracdictions, past and present, in Chinese politics. His essay "A Higher Kind of Loyalty" is a wonderful examination of an individual confronting a Party that has abandoned its principles.

Casualty of War

2005-11-29T15:35:00.000-05:00

The LA Times has a story (also on NPR's All Things Considered) detailing the death of a high ranking West Point US military official. As professor of Ethics he was responsible for the training of Iraqi troops and was outraged by the greed of military contractors.

Blogs from Around the World

2005-11-28T11:11:00.000-05:00

Global Voices is a great site that inlcludes links to interesting blogs from around the world - check it out.

President Bush, You Think That They Hate Us Because We are Free?

2005-11-28T10:56:00.000-05:00

I guess privatizing the military may not be such agreat idea after all...

From Steve Clemons and the Washington Note (a great inside the Beltway foreign policy blog):

President Bush, You Think That They Hate Us Because We are Free?

I think that they hate us for not making clear that "their" lives matter.
Read this clip in the Sunday Telegraph that only compounds the damage done by prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. It looks like private defense contractors under contract with the United States government have serial killers out just randomly shooting people.
Who is to blame for this?
It has always been under Donald Rumsfeld that these abuses have occurred. He should have been forced to resign two years ago, but he still stands strong -- giving his "aw shucks, it's not my fault" responses to these disasters.
Over the weekend, Tim Russert pushed Senator John Warner on the subject of battalion commanders' alleged requests for more troops to accomplish their missions in Iraq. Warner would not comment on what was said in a private meeting with these field commanders, but word leaked out that nearly all field commanders have been requesting more troops -- and made a major plea for such troops in August 2005.
Rumsfeld continues to say that he has not been asked by his commanding officers for more troops and would give them whatever they need. This is clearly a political optics game. Rumsfeld is lying and knows that U.S. commanders on the ground do not believe that they have the troop levels to do the job being requested -- and that their commanders in the Pentagon are not asking for more troops because Rumsfeld does not want them to.
Rumsfeld is destroying the U.S. military, its morale, and its nuts-and-bolts operations.
Because of Abu Ghraib, this Aegis Defense video, and many other incidents that have exposed immoral behavior by American operatives engaged in what appears to average Iraqis to be an occupation and not a liberation -- our soldiers cannot do much more than flounder in current circumstances. To really get hold of Iraq again would take, according to Zbigniew Brzezinski, 500,000 troops -- four times what we have currently deployed.
The situation is a genuiune mess -- where greater deployments are no longer politically acceptable, and about which Rumsfeld has been lying anyway. A gradual withdrawal -- which some are calling a "strategic redeployment" of Iraq-based U.S. troops -- will not help matters unless the mission of those forces left behind is also radically decreased.
We need new management at the Pentagon and have needed such for a very long time -- but the morale of the United States as a nation is being sacrificed because of the massive ego and constant missteps of Donald Rumsfeld.
Fire him.

Critiques of the Bush Foreign Policy

2005-11-22T11:46:00.000-05:00

Full Transcript of Former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson. A devastating "insider" critique of how National Security bureacracy and decsion-making has been distorted by the Bush team.

Here's a Podcast of George Packer talking about his book on Iraq "The Assassin's Gate." It's from the great site University Channel where you can listen to and download a variety of interesting lectures.

Think Progress quotes South China Morning Post

2005-11-21T09:01:00.000-05:00

Think Progress � Lessons of Iraq Policy: U.S.’s Loss Is China’s Gain: "Through its rash actions, the Bush administration squandered, in just a couple of years, half a century of America’s hard-earned reputation as a responsible, generally benevolent, superpower. …"

How the other half of 1% tailgates

2005-11-19T12:50:00.000-05:00

Class distinctions are on display in this New York Times article on tailgating at Yale, college of the Bushes since Prescott. Doesn't it look like they're having fun?

WSJ.com - Bush's Approval Rating Falls Again, Poll Shows

2005-11-17T16:27:00.000-05:00

WSJ.com - Bush's Approval Rating Falls Again, Poll Shows

Murtha vs. Cheney

2005-11-17T13:35:00.000-05:00

Is it just me or are Cheney and other Rs starting to sound like Daffy
Duck?

Hawkish Democrat Calls for Iraq Pullout - Yahoo! News: "Vice President
Dick Cheney jumped into the fray Wednesday by assailing Democrats who contend the Bush administration manipulated intelligence on Iraq, calling their criticism 'one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city.'

Murtha, a Marine intelligence officer in Vietnam, angrily shot back at Cheney: 'I like guys who've never been there that criticize us who've been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done.'"

This never gets old

2005-11-15T21:14:00.000-05:00

Cheney getting heckled...in Tennessee!

Chillin' with Chalabi: My Journey into the Surreal

2005-11-15T16:02:00.000-05:00

Hey, can you guys write some blog posts like this?

"Chalabi looked downright laid-back in a multi-colored sweater that can only be described as Cosby-esque.
As I said, it was a surreal night -- made even more so when my cell phone rang at 12:30 a.m. It was John Cusack, who had come with me to the Council on Foreign Relations to hear Chalabi speak earlier in the day.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm having dinner with Ahmad Chalabi," I replied (not a line I get to use very often)."

Chillin' with Chalabi

Creationist Survey Results in Newsweek

2005-11-14T16:02:00.000-05:00

Dec. 5 - Seventy-nine percent of Americans believe that, as the Bible says, Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, without a human father, according to a new NEWSWEEK poll on beliefs about Jesus.

Here is the link:

Pay Raise Politics

2005-11-11T06:12:00.000-05:00

The Inquirer has an article on the "populist uprising" about legislative pay raises. Some here have claimed that right wing groups and corporations are behind this and that it's not a progressive issue. The Inquirer mentions the group Democracy Rising. Ok so they have an eagle on their web site. And they do partner with some conservative groups, but they also partner with some non-partisan groups like Common Cause and League of Women Voters. They have an article on the site, "Silence of the Left." Might some of the issues be a point of "shared values?"

Talkin Politics

2005-11-11T06:02:00.000-05:00

"In a polarized society like ours today, it can be difficult to remember that we must engage in respectful dialogue and build on our shared values with those who disagree with us on some issues. I have traveled across the country a couple of times, and wherever I've gone, I've met people who shared certain basic values: civility, optimism, a committment to do the right thing. I've found these values just as often in states considered "conservative," like Indiana and Idaho, as in "progressive" states, like Massachusetts and California--or even more often." Peter Schurman, Executive Director, MoveOn in MoveOn's 50 Ways to Love Your Country, p. 3.

I find it difficult to talk politics with people in general, especially people who I disagree with and who have strong opinions. It just becomes a shouting match. Perhaps "building on shared values" is the right place to start.

Shocked Jordanians Protest Bombings in Their Capital

2005-11-10T14:20:00.000-05:00

Here's an example of Arab and Muslim outrage at an act of terrorism to counter the frequent claims that such outrage doesn't exist.