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For The Trees
Who is our economy FOR, anyway? About the Authors: Dave Johnson John Emerson Richard Reich Thomas Leavitt
Recent Posts: BEST OF STF: Dave's: Articles not at STF: The ATLA Speech on building a progressive infrastructure Lowering the Bar The Attack on Trial Lawyers and Tort Law Who's Behind the Attack on Liberal Professors On the Right and their communications infrastructure: Why Republicans Win Win or Lose The "Conventional Wisdom" Machine Some History of the Conservative Movement HOW TO FIGHT BACK An Amplifier Of Our Own Don't Blame the Democrats How They Do It 1 2 3 4 Getting Rolled Other: You're Gonna Get Drafted Scalia and Self-Government Who is Our Economy For? Voting Machine Story Link Collection What's Wrong with this Picture? (Voting Machines) Like Meat in the Supermarket Get Active Thin Line 1 2 3 Fixing Social Security Seeing the Forest I, II, III "Incredibly Positive News" The Breadth of It The Republican Crony Club Moon Bush Ralph Nader is a Scab John's Best Of: Kerry Smear Page Bandar Bush 9/11 Commission Report Damages Bush -- if you read it Florida Goon Squad Intimidated the Supreme Court The Use and Abuse of George Orwell Zizka's Archives (John's previous identity) Zizka Sampler News Sources: AlterNet BuzzFlash Common Dreams Cursor Drudge Retort Information Clearing House Smirking Chimp TruthOut What REALLY Happened Links to Other Weblogs: |
 10/14/2002 Really Good News From Yahoo News, An MSNBC-Zogby poll last week, after Wellstone announced he would vote against the resolution, suggests the decision not only didn't hurt his re-election chances but also might have helped them. In a major reversal, the poll showed voters choosing him over Coleman 46% to 37%. A similar poll in September had the Republican leading 47% to 41%. Other polls show Wellstone, who won his last two races with 50% of the vote, a smidgen ahead of Coleman.Voting against the President, Wellstone moves from behind 41%-41% to AHEAD 46%-37%! --- Posted at 10/14/2002 05:56:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post  
Skippy, This is How They Do It Skippy is fuming about a NY Post column. So I go look the column's author up on Google, which, 5th entry down, leads me to this page at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Now, look up FPI at Media Transparency then click on Foreign Policy Institute, and you find ... millions and millions of dollars form ... guess who ... Scaife, Olin, Bradley and Smith Richardson Foundations. The "four sisters." Why waste your time fuming, once you know that it comes from Scaife? Start here, for more details on How It's Done, and see the bottom of this piece for a bunch of links to articles about these foundations, where it says, "here, here, here" etc... --- Posted at 10/14/2002 04:26:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Why No Draft? Immediately undoing my "light blogging" pledge, I want to ask why there is no talk of reimposing the draft? We're about to enter into a major ground war against a country BECAUSE they have weapons of mass destruction. Isn't there any concern that they'll USE them? If we're not concerned that they'll use them then why are we entering into the war? And if there IS concern that they'll use them, why aren't we starting up the draft? If Iraq USES weapons of mass destruction we will need to replace the troops killed. That's why they're called weapons of MASS DESTRUCTION. So why no draft? What kind of contingency planning is that? What is going on? --- Posted at 10/14/2002 03:56:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Light Blogging I've been very busy so I won't be putting much up. It seems to be the convention among "bloggers" to post a message that they're doing "light blogging," even though it seems this would be obvious -- you go to the blog, there's very little there that's new, hence there is "light blogging" going on. Maybe people don't want to upset the readers, worried that they'll think the blogger died unless the blogger posts a message saying "light blogging." Anyway, light blogging today. I'm not dead. P.S. why doesn't Blogger Pro's spelling checker know the words "blog," "blogger," blogging," or "bloggers?" I used to own a spelling checker company and got so many letters like that... It feels good to complain about someone else's. --- Posted at 10/14/2002 03:50:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/11/2002 How to Catch the Sniper Philidelphia Daily News - WASHINGTON SNIPER HAS A FRIEND IN NRA Ballistics have long allowed police to link a bullet to a particular gun. So if they ever find this killer and his weapon, they can clearly connect rifle and crime.If I lived in the conservative suburbs around Washington, D.C. I'd be re-thinking my position on supporting these clowns. Thanks to MWO for pointing to this. --- Posted at 10/11/2002 04:24:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
VFW Endorses Chickenhawk Over War Hero! Counterspin Central pointed me to this article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The national VFW has endorsed a Republican chickenhawk over war-hero Max Cleland for the Georgie Senate. One side touts Cleland's immense sacrifice in war: he lost three limbs in a grenade explosion, and was decorated for helping wounded comrades during a 1968 rocket attack.That's right, it isn't about veterans or war heroes or who fought for the country and who didn't. The VFW has joined the Republican Crony Club and that's all that matters. When the Republican Machine wants you out of the way, it won't matter who you are or what you've done. War hero? Record of brilliant public service? Record of honesty in your business dealings? Forget it. And it doesn't even matter how long you've on their side - when you're in the way, you're in the way and you're in the way. For some reason this takes me back to what happened to well-respected, honest, conservative, war-hero John McCain in the South Carolina primary against Bush. He wasn't willing to play the crony game so the Republican Machine needed him out of the way. The crony candidate - Bush - a chickenhawk, foul-mouthed, alcoholic, drug-using, not-too-bright, spoiled rich boy with a history of failure in business and accepting bribes for his dad, and otherwise no particular resume. Military patriotism is a big deal in South Carolina, so the challenge was great. Remember what the Bush people did? Remember the rumors about McCain as being mentally deranged, being a "Manchurian Candidate", being too angry to be the leader of a country, "the fag candidate", and all that? When you're in the way, you're in the way. War hero vs. chickenhawk? VFW chooses chickenhawk. South Carolina chooses chickenhawk. --- Posted at 10/11/2002 03:35:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Easiest Way to Steal the Election The other day I wrote about the nightmare of Republicans controlling the companies that make the vote-counting machines. Today BuzzFlash links to Who makes the vote-counting machines?, another story on this topic. I used to worry that the Republicans would eventually just cancel elections. After reading these stories I worry that they won't need to. By the way, about 1/4 way down this article mentions Koch Industries. As you read this article, remember this is the same Koch that I wrote about recently - Bush just handed them the contract to supply all the oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (billions of dollars). This is the same Koch who funds a chunk of the Republican Machine. --- Posted at 10/11/2002 02:45:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/10/2002 Stimulation Republicans are holding fast to the idea that getting money into the hands of businesses and the rich "creates jobs." I ran a company for 13 years. I know a little bit about how it works. I employed exactly as many people as we needed. I did not employ extra people because I perhaps had more money in the bank account than usual. If times were slow and someone handed me a sackful of money I'd say, "THANKS!" and pocket the money. The only thing that would get me hiring more people was customers with money coming in the door. Period. And if I didn't have extra money around I would find it. Let me repeat that. Customers with money coming in the door. That is what gets companies to hire. They hire just enough employees to handle the extra customers. Period. And when there are customers with money coming in the door companies will find the money to hire them, don't you worry about that. Raise the minimum wage. Extend unemployment benefits. Launch some jobs programs. Cut the payroll tax. How to pay for that? Raise the sh*t out of taxes on the rich. Raise them till they squeal and then raise them some more. --- Posted at 10/10/2002 11:50:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Scaring People As I often say, if you want to learn what Republicans are doing, take a look at whatever they are currently accusing Democrats of doing. Their tactic is accuse the other side of doing whatever THEY'RE doing in order to "inoculate" themselves. It heads off being exposed themselves. It's a little bit complicated, but it works. According to today's NY Times, In campaigns across the country the Republicans are accusing Democrats of scaring people. Imagine, scaring people as an election strategy. "According to President George W. Bush, as well as Senators John Warner, Joseph Lieberman and many others who have spoken lately in the Capitol, there is no limit to the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. According to them, it is 1939, and we are again facing the twilight of Western civilization." --- Posted at 10/10/2002 09:18:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Why Isn't This a Major Story? White House Sides With Automakers Against California's Zero Emissions Requirement for Cars That's right, the STATES RIGHTS White House has joined in a lawsuit against California setting tough pollution and fuel economy standards. --- Posted at 10/10/2002 07:57:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
New Unemployment Claims New claims for jobless benefits fell by 40,000 last week. BUT WAIT, from the story, "While the decline offers a promising sign, Labor Department analyst Thomas Stengle cautioned against reading too much into the drop, saying it may partly reflect difficulties adjusting for seasonal factors. The unadjusted claims figures, for instance, showed an equally sharp rise."Got that? UNadjusted claims figures INCREASED by the same amount. (And the economy LAST 43,000 jobs last month.) So don't get your hopes up too high yet. --- Posted at 10/10/2002 07:52:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/09/2002 Betty Check out America's Best Christian's page, "President Bush To Use What's Left of Social Security for Multi-Billion Dollar National Demon Defense Shield" And PLEASE surf around the rest of the site! --- Posted at 10/09/2002 04:01:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Election Issue At this point there is no question that the Republicans planned this Iraq war campaign to coincide with the election. I hope that the Democrats are just waiting until the right time to make a really big noise about this. They shouldn't be subtle and let the public come to their own conclusions - they should be making it clear that without an IMMINENT threat the Republicans had no business bringing this up during the election campaign. With some help the public will come to understand this. --- Posted at 10/09/2002 10:34:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Appearance of Impropriety Imagine a world where Republicans control all the vote counting. I have worked in elections. If you use paper ballots, you have the actual ballots that can be watched and counted by enough witnesses to control chances of fraud. If we switch to paperless voting, it's all over - you're at the mercy of what the machine tells you, and machines can be rigged. --- Posted at 10/09/2002 09:48:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/08/2002 Join a Union A line in this morning's The Note, about the dock workers situation here on the West Coast, got me thinking, The lockout explodes this morning as a political issue, leading the Wall Street Journal : "The move toward intervention cast President Bush solidly with his Republican base: business groups that are often at odds with the country's big unions. And in this case, the president is taking on a union that is widely regarded as one of the best organized and best paid in the country. West Coast longshoremen can earn more than $100,000, with overtime, plus generous retirement and health plans to go along with it.Some people would read this and think, "Those guys get paid too much - way more than me - I think unions are too powerful." I think about it a different way. I would say to the complainer, "LEARN from it, bonehead! Stop complaining about unions and JOIN a union, bonehead. You'd get PAID MORE and you'd have better BENEFITS and JOB SECURITY, bonehead." I mean, you'd think people would figure it out. It's right in front of their faces. I remember hearing talk at HP of forming a union before the Compaq purchase. But noooo, not THAT. So what happened? The purchase went through and so far at least 16,800 have been laid off. Better that then, God forbid, form a union. --- Posted at 10/08/2002 09:03:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Well, Maybe One Well, maybe ONE post now... :-) I'd like to see it pointed out more often and much louder that most of the people pushing for this war are people who found something better to do when VietNam was going on (click here and here), while so many of the people against it were in combat or very close to it, or at least in the military. I've been thinking about comments I have heard about those Representatives who went to Iraq to try to prevent a war - Rep. Jim McDermott, Rep. Mike Thompson and Rep. David Bonior. The right-wing drumbeat I've heard repeated all over the place was that these three were "still stuck on protesting against the VietNam war." I heard this repeated from several sources, so I figure it must have been the official focus-group-tested Republican talking points handed out by the Heritage Foundation (or someone similar). But those guys WENT TO VietNam! And the people mocking them as "protesters" DIDN'T! How do they get away with it, without being called on it, dragged into the street and tarred & feathered by the veterans? And how do military veterans justify their continued support for these Republican clowns? At what point do they say, "Wait a minute, I went to VietNam, these guys didn't, these guys are all rich and acting like they are war heros, why am I voting for them"? It's an interesting problem of persuasion. How do you neutralize the politics of you being a chickenhawk, and your opponents being war heros - Bush vs McCain - or at least being VietNam veterans - Bush vs Gore? One way appears to be with enough loud bluster. Another way appears to be to make sure that no one involved in the debate has a child who would have to actually fight the war you're starting. --- Posted at 10/08/2002 04:55:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Sorry Sorry - very busy otherwise today, no posts. Maybe later. --- Posted at 10/08/2002 04:27:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/07/2002 Active Duty Marine Drudge is pointing to a story, "Views of an Active Duty Marine" This Marine asks, "Where was Sun Tzu's press corps? My best guest was in the grave. I'm sure he considered them to be enemy spies." Some of us might think this shows that the press should be restricted. Others of us would think this shows why the military needs to be kept firmly under civilian control. --- Posted at 10/07/2002 06:48:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/06/2002 Go Protest I won't be posting until later because I'm heading up to San Francisco to join in anti-war protests. I feel that I should add myself to the numbers. Info is here. --- Posted at 10/06/2002 12:51:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/05/2002 Ecoterrorists Zizka's Vanitysite.net has a story about the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force arresting some environmental activists for sabotaging logging trucks. You gotta go read this one. Zizka writes, "Anyone who believed that the FBI and the Bush Administration would not abuse the blank check they were given by the Patriot Act and the War on Terrorism should now realize that these new powers will be used entirely freely, whether or not the case in question has anything to do with real terrorism. Nobody should really be surprised." --- Posted at 10/05/2002 05:43:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
TBOGG Again OK, TBOGG earned a place in the Essential Links. They pointed me at what they said was the coolest website they have ever seen. --- Posted at 10/05/2002 05:32:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Funny at TBOGG Funny poem over at TBOGG. A sample, A is for Ashcroft, the Crisco-anointedGo take a read. --- Posted at 10/05/2002 05:11:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Go See Go on over to Maru's WTF and scroll down to Thursday's picture (the links aren't working right.) Then scroll down to the "With All Due Respect, Mr. President" poster. --- Posted at 10/05/2002 01:39:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Planet Swank Have I mentioned Planet Swank? I've been meaning to. Read his discussion of Christopher Hitchens and Iraq here. --- Posted at 10/05/2002 12:53:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Overwhelm as a Tactic A while back I wrote a piece called Overwhelm, in which I wrote, Some days the bad news flys at you so fast ... it seems like the Bush strategy is to overwhelm people by doing so many bad things that you lose track and give up... I've been trying to pin down what it is about this, it seems like an effective tactic. Today I saw a piece by Ted Rall, titled Permanent Revolution, that explains it. ... Bush's biggest cribbing from the Hitler playbook is "permanent revolution." Developed by socialist theorist Leon Trotsky in 1915 and applied by such totalitarian masters of control as Hitler, Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung, permanent revolution is the pinnacle of the art of mass distraction--one continually changes the subject of debate by striving for new goals that are always just beyond reach. The idea is diabolically simple: by the time people start grumbling about the problems created by your Great Leap Forward, you're causing new difficulties with your Cultural Revolution. Opposition takes time to materialize; taking the nation from one crisis to the next neutralizes your enemies by focusing them against initiatives you've already abandoned.Please go read this piece. --- Posted at 10/05/2002 12:23:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
My Faith in Economists... PART of the confusion in yesterday's employment numbers is explained at the end of this NYTimes story. Still, economists agreed that September's household survey, which showed a gain of 711,000 jobs, was far too optimistic. About half of the increase came from the survey's overestimation of the number of teenagers who would quit their jobs at the end of summer. When fewer teenagers than usual left the labor force in September — perhaps because the economy made summer jobs hard to find — the Labor Department's seasonal adjustment counted a large increase in jobs.OK, it's complicated. They measured about 350,000 fewer teenagers leaving jobs at the end of summer than usually leave jobs at the end of summer, so they chalked it up as teenagers taking 350,000 NEW jobs that opened up. What REALLY happened was that at the BEGINNING of summer 350,000 fewer teenagers than usual were able to find jobs, so they couldn't be leaving them at the end of summer. I mean, DUH! What were these people thinking? They said the numbers looked this way because 350,000 teenagers took jobs at the end of summer. What do teenagers do at the end of summer? They go back to school. But the economists didn't think of that. Not a good day for the reputation of economists. Perhaps they are more than a little out of touch with "regular people." --- Posted at 10/05/2002 11:25:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Irresponsible Here's a good one to test out the new COMMENTS capability! Today's San Jose Mercury News contains the following letter, [A previous letter writer] could not be more disingenuous. His analogy is flawed. A more accurate and truthful analogy would be:Never mind that this wild analogy falls apart in several ways. I think it is irresponsible for this newspaper to publish such a letter. You get a letter from a guy fantasizing that a guy across town means him harm, claiming this justifies his buying a weapon and shooting the man dead. You don't PUBLISH a letter like that, you take it to the POLICE! Publishing it puts the paper's credibility behind the notion that such action is justified. Nuts reading this might believe the information is correct and act on it. I think this shows what could happen to the world if Bush gets his way. A "pre-emptive strike" against Iraq tells India to go ahead and invade Pakistan, China to invade India or Taiwan, etc. --- Posted at 10/05/2002 10:28:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Comments I'm trying out comments here for the first time, so please help me test them. --- Posted at 10/05/2002 10:23:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/04/2002 Over at Eschaton Over at Eschaton they've got a good discussion going in the comments attached to the posting, talking about how the Republicans are going after Democrats as unpatriotic, and "hating America" and the rest of the stuff they're spewing. (Should I start having comments here?) Here's my contribution, posted both there and here (but spellchecked here ;-) : It's worth noting that the very core of the Republican Party now encourages & even pays good money to get this stuff out to the public. TownHall.com is part of the Heritage Foundation - go see their links to Coulter, etc. Listen to Limbaugh's vicious hate attacks on people - yet the Vice President was on his show recently. Bush put several of the nastiest anti-Clinton people into policymaking positions, and he has rewarded the people who physically attacked the vote counting in Florida. This is clearly part of their strategy. There's no way around that at this point. It must serve their purposes so they do it. It is not a lot different from the brownshirts attacking rallies of your opponents, and serves much the same purpose. But this kind of stuff encourages a violent, hateful segment of society, and encourages others in that direction. This stuff is what got McVeigh fired up - and now their star Anne Coulter says she only wishes McVeigh had bombed the New York Times building instead! The times have become rather scary. When you see your opponents using these tactics - this is way beyond Nixon - you start thinking about what might be coming if they aren't stopped. If you REALLY mean it when you say they are fascists, you need to start thinking about how to protect your family. --- Posted at 10/04/2002 02:38:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Today's Google Experiment Back in the Reagan days I used to spend time arguing online with right-wingers (on CompuServe! - I even had a back-and-forth with Limbaugh once.) I used to research budget numbers and other statistics to refute the right-wing arguments, like "tax cuts cause revenue to increase," "welfare causes women to have more babies," and of course the old Republican standard, "blacks are less intelligent than whites." (I was working on a never completed book.) Eventually I came across a website of a guy doing very similar work - Steve Kangas and his Liberalism Resurgent pages. He was even in the same town as me, although I never met him. So for today's Google experiment, let's look up Steve Kangas, author of the Liberalism Resurgent website. Scroll down and look at some of the references. Don't miss this great page. And ESPECIALLY don't miss this one and this one. --- Posted at 10/04/2002 11:08:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Huh? I need an economist to write to me and explain today's jobs report. The press is reporting good news - unemployment went DOWN to 5.6% from 5.7%, while the economy LOST JOBS. The U.S. economy shed jobs in September for the first time in five months, the government said on Friday in a report that highlighted the uneven pace of the U.S. economic recovery. Payrolls outside the farm sector fell by 43,000, in contrast to the 5,000 gain private economists had predicted, the Labor Department said. But in another unexpected development, the unemployment rate fell to 5.6 percent in September from 5.7 percent in August.I had understood that if the economy lost jobs in this report, this was the worst possible news, that we're heading for a dubya-dip recession or worse. September marked the first payroll decline since a 21,000 job loss in April. But then there's this. Offsetting some of the gloomy news in the September figure, however, was a sharp upward revision in August payrolls to a 107,000 gain from a previously reported 39,000 increase. Did YOU see any of those jobs where YOU are? Certainly not here. And one more thing. He said that recently, the household survey has been boosted by the number of teenage workers who have held on to their summer jobs, rather than leaving the workforce as many do in the fall. What ever happened to SCHOOL? --- Posted at 10/04/2002 06:38:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/03/2002 Oppo Costs Money Why is someone doing extensive opposition research on Barbara Streisand? It isn't cheap. The work required to do this kind of full-time digging into your past, your finances, etc. costs money. The message is that WHOEVER YOU ARE, if you come out publicly against Bush, the Republican Machine will commence with their world-famous character assassination. --- Posted at 10/03/2002 07:44:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Gotta Go Read You're dismissed from Seeing the Forest class early today so you can go read "Oil Be Seeing You" over at MaxSpeak. The print media have published maps showing the build-up of U.S. military bases in the 'oil patch' running from Saudi Arabia through Iraq and the "stans." What's in prospect here is a geo-strategic interest in dominating a region, not simply grabbing a concession in Iraq. No specific oil asset (or means of conveyance, like a pipeline or port) is the lynchpin for the policy. It's the whole shootin match. The world economy depends on the output of this region for the foreseeable future. There could hardly be a larger prize.We'll be checking so don't use the time to skip out and smoke a joint in the parking lot. --- Posted at 10/03/2002 03:52:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
And the Check Goes To... Not waiting for Congress to actually PASS the bill (who needs Congress, anyway), and not worried at all that the press might point out that the program is nothing more than a funding channel for the Republican Party (forget about government funding for religion - that was only the cover story), Bush has started handing out "faith-based" checks. And the first check goes to ... THE CHRISTIAN COALITION! A while back I wrote about the Cato Institute getting the HUGE government contract to provide oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve... I wonder if the Democrats in the Senate are going to hold hearings. NAH! --- Posted at 10/03/2002 01:13:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Hope You're Sitting Down A new book published by the Republican Machine accuses "Democratic operatives and journalistic naysayers" of "questioning the administration’s every move." OK, calm down. Yes, I know this exactly describes happened to Clinton, and I know that this is the thanks that the Democrat leadership gets for supporting the President after 9/11 and continuing to support him now. Never mind truth. Never mind reality. This is a tree. Don't let it get to you. See the forest - this is what the Republican Machine DOES. The trees will drive you absolutely crazy. Remember, watch what they DO, not what they SAY. And remember, when the Republican Machine accuses the Democrats of something you can bet that it's because it's something the Republicans are doing. Like when Bush said, "The Gore campaign will say anything and try to win at any cost." --- Posted at 10/03/2002 08:59:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/01/2002 Skippy Said It Skippy wrote what I was going to write. So go read it here. (Also here, an earlier story that is in the same vein.) And he even left out that auto sales dropped last month and home foreclosures are at a 30 year high. I can't bear it either. After reading Skippy, go here. --- Posted at 10/01/2002 09:31:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More Ranting I wrote earlier about a "BILLIONS of dollars spent by small cadre of ideologues." Here's what I'm saying. You open your newspaper and see an op-ed piece, and it's by a "scholar" from some "institute" somewhere, maybe the Hoover Institute. Then you read a column on the same page by maybe George Will or Mona Charen that says something similar about the same subject. Then you open a magazine and there's an article that uses the Heritage Foundation as a source. Later you watch Fox TV and see a couple of guys, one from Americans for Tax Reform and another from the Center for Security Policy. Then you change the channel and a speaker from Capital Research Center is talking. You turn on the radio and it's Sean Hannity or Rush and they're quoting from a report from Southwest Legal Foundation or Free Enterprise Partnership. You see that Congressman Delay is speaking. You buy a book published by Regenry Publishing, by a scholar from the Manhattan Institute. You get on the web and check the Drudge Report and there's a story on the UPI wire service saying the same things. All of them saying something similar on the same subject. So maybe you think you've just heard opinions from 10 or 13 different sources. Sounds like there are a lot of experts who are in agreement that something is a certain way. And after enough of this it is very hard to think that things are a different way, since so many experts from so many different directions have this opinion. Maybe they're saying, "Social Security is going broke," or "public schools are failing." These are things that have become "conventional wisdom" because everyone has heard these things over and over from so many sources over so many years that everyone KNOWS they're true. Guess what. You have just heard from Richard Mellon Scaife, maybe the Bradley Foundation and maybe one or two others. That's all. (Look them up here.) You DIDN'T hear a number of different "voices" - you heard a lot of voices all paid to say the same thing in creatively different ways, and with tons of cash put into making them seem like credible experts. --- Posted at 10/01/2002 09:24:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Non-war Scenario Picture a non-war scenario. The election proceeds with war issues masking economic problems and Republicans pick up the Senate, gaining them a majority in both houses, plus the Presidency. They continue reshaping the entire government in the libertarian vision, making the tax cuts permanent (shooting to hell any change of ever getting the government out of debt or paying the Social Security of the boomers when it comes due), get rid of any remaining environmental regulations & any other regulations that corporations don't like, get rid of Social Security, Medicare, Food Stamps, etc., pass the faith-based funding initiative giving tax funds to Republican backers. Lucrative government contracts of course continue to be awarded to key Republican funders. Etc. Meanwhile suppose U.N. inspections in Iraq find very little, or nothing & it turns out that the war thing really WAS a sham to boggle the election, with Bin Laden now forgotten and Israel-Palestine a complete mess. So there we would be with two elections now behind us where the Democrats would have won but for Republican lies and manipulations, the prior Democratic Presidency destroyed by a carefully planned and well-funded plot. There we would be with the country evenly divided but the Republicans only involving their party and their wishes, taking nothing the Democrats or the public say into account. There we would be with these "movement conservative" Republicans continuing to transform the government into a libertarian image of a country ruled by the rich, while masking their agenda from the public. As I've been documenting and will continue to research and post here, this is the result of BILLIONS of dollars spent by a small cadre of ideologues with a long-term hidden agenda. If this sounds paranoid and conspiratorial, go do your homework ("Best Of" links on the top left of this page). They really HAVE spent billions getting here, and billions buys lots. They really DO have weekly meetings to cordinate their activities. If this doesn't make you mad ... After Bill Clinton won the presidency, conservative Republicans feared that they would be reduced again to an embattled minority. To prevent this, a group of political operatives, journalists, lobbyists, and politicians began meeting in several, interconnected groups to plot a comeback. Key players included Norquist, Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition, talk show host Rush Limbaugh (who maintained a Washington office), the editors of The American Spectator and The Washington Times, Paul Beckner of Citizens for a Sound Economy, Georgia Senator Paul Coverdell, Georgia Congressman Newt Gingrich, and Texas congressmen Dick Armey and Tom DeLay. Norquist convened representatives from many of these groups--including the National Right to Life Committee--at a regular Wednesday meeting. Another group that included business lobbyists met under the auspices of Beckner and Coverdell. During Clinton's first two years, their principal aim was to block the president's proposal for national health insurance by any means necessary, including the spread of scandalous rumors.They really do meet weekly to coordinate their activities and message. The Republican Party coordinates with the NRA, Christian Coalition, Limbaugh, Washington Times and all those right-wing front groups... --- Posted at 10/01/2002 01:12:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Spelling Checkers Hey, how come Blogger Pro's spelling checker doesn't know "Blogger," "bloggers" and "blogs"? --- Posted at 10/01/2002 06:52:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Reverberating Noted in this morning's New York Times, As criticism of the weekend bombing raids around Basra, in southern Iraq, reverberated through foreign capitals, the White House today pressed ahead on multiple fronts to win United Nations support for a toughly worded draft resolution calling on President Saddam Hussein to disarm immediately or face a full-scale military attack.Reverberating through foreign capitals -- and not even barely reported in the press at all here in the U.S. Bloggers knew. But do YOU know anyone who knows that we have been conducting bombing raids on Iraq? Tell everyone you know that they should read blogs. (Especially this one.) --- Posted at 10/01/2002 06:49:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/30/2002 Vouchers I just came across "Voucher Tricksters, The Hard Right Enters through the Schoolhouse Door," a good article on vouchers, in The Black Commentator. --- Posted at 9/30/2002 10:52:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/29/2002 Pension Problem News The corporate pension problem that I've been writing about is starting to reach the mainstream press. Today's San Jose Mercury News has a story about the problem. What's going on is that companies are underfunding their pension plans, and as the article says, this is an "accounting time bomb". When stocks were rising the holdings of pension funds were sufficient to pay upcoming pensions without the companies contributing from revenue, so the companies were able to report higher profits. Now stocks are down so the will companies have to make up the difference. But they are allowed to estimate a return on their investments as part of calculating whether they have enough saved to pay for future retirees - and they are using unrealistic return estimates like 10%. Can YOU get 10% on your money these days? The companies are saying they can. And even with those estimates they are going to have to come up with a ton of cash after this year ends, which will mean they will report lower profits, which will further depress the market, which will reduce the holdings of the funds, etc. From today's story: Countless investors could be surprised when Fortune 500 companies finally acknowledge problems. ``Keep an eye out as we break past the end of the year,'' warned Adrien LaBombarde, who helped write Milliman's pension study. Pension problems ``will be 10 times bigger at the end of the year, when the financial statements start showing this.'' --- Posted at 9/29/2002 12:59:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Uh Oh I just read a scary article about abrupt climate change. The very recent freshening signal in the North Atlantic is arguably the biggest and most dramatic change in ocean property that has ever been measured in the global ocean. Already, surface waters in the Greenland Sea are sinking at a rate 20 percent slower than in the 1970s.You should read it, too. --- Posted at 9/29/2002 11:46:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Divisiveness Atrios pointed me to P.L.A., where there is an excellent piece on Bush's ("divider-not-uniter") divisiveness, plus some follow-up at Green[e]house Effect. Don't forget that the Republican Machine launched a campaign to blame clinton for 9/11. --- Posted at 9/29/2002 10:52:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
What If We're Wrong? Lately I've been hearing the Republican machine cranking out a rebuttal to the "there is no evidence" argument - as in, "there is no evidence of any imminent threat from Iraq, nothing has changed in years, why now?" They answer, "What if you're wrong?" Republican Sen. Inhofe said this today on CNN, responding to Sen. Feinstein. This is similar to the old anti-Clinton argument, "The lack of any evidence of any wrongdoing is proof of a massive cover-up." Do we start attacking countries BECAUSE there is no evidence that there is an imminent threat, because we might be wrong about that? Should even Canada be worried about us? --- Posted at 9/29/2002 10:27:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/28/2002 Jeeze 6 posts already today. Ya know, I think I forgot to specify DECAF at Peet's this morning. Can ya tell? D'ya think? Yee-haa! --- Posted at 9/28/2002 01:31:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
What They're Hearing Check out what the right-wingers are saying. As I said a few days ago, "Sometimes it is hard for me to figure out what Bush and his crowd are really trying to say. I've learned over the years that when the message isn't clear to you, it can help to find out what the listener - who the message is intended for - is hearing. I think these comments are a good indicator of what Bush's "base" is hearing." --- Posted at 9/28/2002 01:26:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Are the Natives Restless? This story about voters in mid-Michigan is backed up by a message I received from my Aunt here in California: I attended a Foothill-sponsored current events discussion yesterday and was astonished at the comments - when asked what they were there for, every single participant said things like, "because I'm scared - angry - disillusioned - about what the administration is doing". A woman with a very heavy French accent said this is going to be an "a - pok -o leepse." A Japanese American woman who grew up in Japan in the 30's said she could see the similarities between the US now and Japan then - loss of civil liberties, imperialism. Even a Texan participant was angry. The moderator said he thought we were on the verge of a breakdown of civilization! --- Posted at 9/28/2002 01:21:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
A Real Must-Read Today! Frank Rich in the NY Times just says it all today! But this administration no longer cooks the books merely on fiscal matters. Disinformation has become ubiquitous, even in the government's allegedly empirical scientific data on public health. The annual federal report on air pollution trends published this month simply eliminated its usual (and no doubt troubling) section on global warming, much as accountants at Andersen might have cleaned up a balance sheet by hiding an unprofitable division. At the Department of Health and Human Services, The Washington Post reported last week, expert committees are being "retired" before they can present data that might contradict the president's views on medical matters — much as naysaying Wall Street analysts were sidelined in favor of boosters who could be counted on to flog dogs like WorldCom or Pets.com right until they imploded. --- Posted at 9/28/2002 12:52:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Unemployment The New York Times has an important article about unemployment. Once these statistical nonpersons are counted, the labor market of today looks all too similar to those of supposedly bleaker past decades, according to a number of recent studies by economists. Even when the unemployment rate was near a 30-year low in 1999 and 2000, men from the ages of 18 to 54, as a group, spent 11 percent of the year not working, roughly the same as in the late 1970's and late 80's, according to one study.Some of the figures in the article, "Since 1990, the number of people receiving disability pay has nearly doubled, to 5.4 million..." and, "The growth of the prison population — to about 2 million today, up from 1.1 million in 1990 and 500,000 in 1980.... These people don't show up in the official unemployment rate but they are not bringing in enough money to buy those important consumer goods - bagel toasters, Cheese-Wiz, etc. - that contribute to our economic growth. So while they keep saying prosperity is just around the corner things are actually much worse than the numbers show. For example, because the government doesn't think unemployment is as bad as it is they haven't extended unemployment benefits. AND benefit extensions require a certain level of official unemployment - 7% (I think) - before they kick in anyway. Yet this article shows that 5% unemployment today is equivalent to 7% during the last recession - so things have to be much much worse than last time before the government will help out. To make matters even worse, don't forget that welfare reform means that option is less available, and runs out after (I think) 2 years. We've got the elements in place for a really, really bad situation in this country. --- Posted at 9/28/2002 12:31:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bush, Water and Fish Counterspin Central writes about Bush and the Klamath River water controversy. "It pitted a small klatch of farmers against, supposedly, "government regulators." I was working in Portland, Oregon last year so I was following this story closely. There wasn't enough water to go around, and the Dept. of Interior wanted to release water from reservoirs so fish can spawn and the fishery won't be decimated. The farmers said they should get the water instead. The Republican Machine cranked out propaganda about how this was environmentalists trying to hurt farmers. The usual... Water, logging and fishing illustrate my seeing trees vs. seeing forests metaphor. The Republicans cast it as environmentalists against businesses & farmers. In my metaphor those are just trees and are therefore a waste of your time and energy. You should try to see through it and see the bigger picture (the forest). You can go crazy arguing specifics (trees) with right-wingers - they are typically just lies and diversions. Here's what I mean. The Klamath story, as Counterspin Central shows, is really about farming vs. fishing - the water either goes to the farms or it goes to the rivers for fish to spawn and maintain the fisheries. Other times it's logging industry against fishing industry because clear-cutting forests ruins the streams so the fish can't spawn. (The history of the logging industry vs environmentalists story goes back to the S&L bailout. In the Klamath dispute it came down to a better propaganda angle casting it as liberal environmentalists hurting farmers (trees) - when it was really the fishing industry and farming industry both needing the water. And THAT's really about who is paying the The Republican Crony Club more that week. Jay Leno put it so well. In the 1996 election, Bob Dole said, "We know it (cigarette smoking) is not good for kids, but a lot of other things aren't good. Drinking is not good. Some would say milk is not good." That night Jay Leno said, "I guess the milk industry forgot to put their check in the mail." --- Posted at 9/28/2002 11:37:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Great Poster There's a great poster over at BartCop! Since I can't link directly to it, scroll down to the "Be A Good American!" poster. --- Posted at 9/28/2002 11:15:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/27/2002 Another Recent Exchange Read the previous exchange here. "Thursday, September 26, 2002 Getting Rolled" Sir, you said it all right there. Plain, simple language that any thoughtful person can read and understand. Thank you very much. I don't think there's the slightest bit of hope for "progressives" in the next 50-100 years other than to find another country to call home, but thanks for having the wisdom to write this and the courage to post it. I'll pass it on - XXXX Dear XXXX, I don't agree with you on that. There's a simple solution - do what they do. I'm talking about building up a network of "think tanks" etc, that work together, and reach the public with a coordinated "communications engine." This is why I'm always pushing people to understand how the right is making all of this happen for them - so that eventually people will suddenly say, "Duh!, Why aren't WE doing that, too?" It took time, but we have the advantage of using what they have built up as a model - they've been through 30 years of trial-and-error. Also we have the advantage of having the truth on our side. WE aren't trying to convince blue-collar workers to give up their health care and pensions so that rich white guys can have bigger private jets - THEY are. So our task is not monumental. It can be done. The money exists on our side; there are huge amounts of money for environmental groups, etc., not to mention the amounts that the Democratic and Green Parties have been able to raise every 2 years. Add to that moderate Republicans - even they are under attack from the right now and an appeal to them to join up could bring needed resources. (Check here, here, here and here.) And there are already a number of great organizations on our side. The research I've been doing is looking at the right, but I'll be researching and publishing what does exist on the moderate/progressive side. But what is missing is the coordination - the right actually has weekly coordination meetings - and the awareness that we need to work to build a "movement" just like the right has done since the early 70's. Regards, IssuesGuy --- Posted at 9/27/2002 10:25:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
If They Really Have Weapons of Mass Destruction, We'll Need the Draft If Carl Rove wants to use a war to manipulate an election, maybe the Democrats should wake up the country with a dose of reality. The Democrats should point out that if we're really going to start a war in the Middle East, we had best get the draft in place first. War is serious business and unpredictable things can happen. War is not a TV show. If things go wrong, like if Iraq really DOES have the "weapons of mass destruction" that are the justification for this war, we're going to need the draft to replace the tens of thousands of troops that could be lost. That's why they're called "weapons of mass destruction," and that's supposed to be why we're going in. If that's the reality of the reason we're going in we need to be ready for the reality of their use. Best to go in prepared, having the draft in place. (It's unspoken that this war isn't really going to be a big deal, which means it's unspoken and accepted that Iraq doesn't REALLY have or wont really use these weapons! It seems to be accepted that this is just a pretext - we certainly aren't ready for the reality.) I think that a dose of reality, and the whisper of the need for a draft, might just change the "Bush advantage" on war issues. There's a reason war used to be considered a bad thing. --- Posted at 9/27/2002 07:39:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/26/2002 Getting Rolled How often have Congressional Democrats been rolled by the Republican machine, voted for something they shouldn't have, and then been blamed by the Republicans for the drastic consequences? The events typically follow a pattern. The extremely powerful Republican media machine sets up an environment that convinces the Washington politicians that it will be very difficult politically to vote against them, and makes sure that the vote happens quickly - before opposing forces have time to realize what's going on and rally enough real people on the other side to demonstrate that there really is support for non-Republican positions. How many times have we seen this process at work? It is the careful creation of a local environment calculated to maximize pressure on the legislators at the best possible moment. The phony Republican news events, the "independent" media playing along & following their script, the AM radio 24-hour-a-day Republican drumbeat pounding out the lies, the slurry of misleading or blatantly deceitful op-ed pieces filling the editorial pages, the dittohead letters to the editor (or "astroturf" - phony grassroots letters generated by a marketing firm), the pack of columnists writing according to instructions FAXed over from the Heritage Foundation (follow the NEA smear for an example) (second NEA smear link here), pretty soon all the news stories reflect the Republican line and repeat the Republican falsehoods. It becomes a drumbeat of constant repetition of the same lines over and over and over until they become "conventional wisdom." "Everybody knows that" so-and-so is true so there's no point wasting your energy trying to say it ain't so. Polls then show that the public (deprived of any contrasting information) solidly favors the Republican position. Calls and letters flood in to Congressional offices (from Christian Coalition phone banks). Democrats start to worry about their chances of holding office if they oppose the Republicans on this one vote. Then the vote comes up in the Congress, and enough Democrats - afraid that Rush Limbaugh will say something bad about them, and mired in a Washington "bubble" environment cut off from their constituents - vote with the Republicans to get the issue through and out of the way. Tax cuts, budget cuts, right-wing judges, "compromises" on health care or welfare or energy... and Bush slides it past the voters as a "bipartisan" win for the Republicans. I call this process "The Forest." We have now seen it happen enough times that we can recognize what's happening and even predict the next move. What's unfortunate is how the Democrats in Washington fall into the same trap every time. Now it's happening on the ultimate issue - war and peace, life and death. Democrats need to remember that the judges who voted Bush into office were there because they were put onto the bench with Democratic votes. Democrats need to remember that the Judges who sent Starr after Clinton were put there with Democratic votes. Democrats need to remember that the tax cuts and policies now ruining the economy were passed with Democratic votes. The corporate domination of the media happened with Democratic votes. The erosion of constitutional liberties happened with Democratic votes. So many of the tools now in the hands of the right were handed to them with Democratic votes. Trying to get along. Trying to be bipartisan. Trying to keep them from saying too many bad things about them. I've got news for these Democrats. They might think they are being "bipartisan" and "compromising" and participating in good government but that is not what is happening here. Rush Limbaugh is going to say bad things about them anyway. In fact he's going to say worse things about the Democrats who come part way over to the other side. These guys are not about "good government" - they hate the government and they are engaged in a process of altering the power structure until the government is irrelevant and they are running the show. These guys don't even tolerate moderate Republicans. They don't even tolerate conservative Republicans like John McCain if they dare to speak out against the Party Line even once. They will make WORSE fun of you when they know you're scared of them. The Republicans today are not the same as the Republicans of the past. These are "movement conservatives." They are the Libertarians and far-far-right-wing Christians who have taken over the Republican Party of the past. The closest thing historically would be the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which they have modeled themselves after. They do not compromise. They do not tolerate differences. They rule through intimidation and bullying. They have only one place for opposition - OUT. They will say and do anything to gain and hold power - including accusing the opposition of saying and doing anything, as they did during the 2000 campaign. Anyone who speaks out even once is banished. (Please read David Brock's book, Blinded By the Right. The guy was inside of this and writes about it.) Bush comes straight out of this movement. His staff and appointees have all come from the Newt-wing of The Party. The behind-the-scenes people who specialized in smearing Clinton are now government officials making policy. There is only one way to save the country from this crowd, and that is to stand up to them and expose what they are doing. The public needs to know how this web of wealthy right-wing foundations and their think-tanks and organizations are accomplishing so much, and what their long-term agenda really is! These guys are not fooling around! Today the fight is literally over war-and-peace and it's for keeps, and tomorrow we could be at end-of-democracy. It looks like they are capable of that and it won't be the first time this has happened to a civilized country. And why wouldn't they? Running the world is the oldest prize in humanity's playbook. Here are some articles to read that trace how they have formed this "conservative movement" and how it is funded: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here (click on the links on the left of this last linked page for more). I'll keep researching and posting. As you can see there has been quite a bit written about how they have been accomplishing so much - yet the public knows almost nothing about this. I've written a few things about this. Here is a good start. Here. Here. Here. --- Posted at 9/26/2002 10:04:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/25/2002 Thin Line Between Company and Party (Part 3) (Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here.) Take a look at this story, "Major GOP Donor Receives Federal Oil Contract." This company isn't JUST a "major GOP Donor." David H Koch is one of the prime funders of the whole right-wing movement. (See my How They Do It series.) Koch played a role in founding the Cato Institute, which pumps out anti-government Libertarian propaganda. The Koch family had given Cato $21 million as of 1999. He was also involved in founding Citizens for a Sound Economy, another anti-government propaganda outlet. Contributions, again as of 1999, totaled $10 million. Koch also is a major funder of the Reason Foundation, yet another outlet for right-wing anti-government propaganda. So now the U.S. Department of Energy's has selected Koch Supply & Trading, LP, to supply oil to the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). This is a HUGE contract! This isn't just a quid pro quo. This government money will be pumped straight back into the Republican machine. Some source info here, here, here, here, here. --- Posted at 9/25/2002 12:08:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bullies Interesting story in yesterday's San Jose Mercury News about how to deal with bullies. "Bullies can't stand to be confronted," Namie said. "They usually back down."On the same subject, Senator Daschle spoke out today, demanding an apology from President Bush for Bush's remark that Democrats in the Senate are, "not interested in the security of the American people." --- Posted at 9/25/2002 11:40:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Working to Maintain the Peace - Or Not I'm reading an excellently well-written piece by John Balzar in today's LA Times, "Is Bush a Brawler or a Bluffer?" I came across this paragraph, I'm no foreign-policy scholar, but I've spent enough time overseas in trouble spots to have lost my hope in reason and goodwill. Hoping to sit down and working things out when the other fellow is drunk, whether on whiskey or fanaticism, amounts to wishful thinking. Tensions in much of the world today resemble those in a sweaty, back-alley saloon more than those in an air-conditioned conference room.Tensions in much of the world today... I've been thinking lately about tensions in the world and how they have increased. Do I remember right that at the end of 2000 tensions in the world were MUCH lower? It seems so long ago. To illustrate the difference between then and now, Clinton was even trying for a last-minute completion of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. What a difference between then and now! Then Bush came in and changed the game. He said that the U.S. would no longer act as a peacekeeper in the world, no more "nation building," would no longer mediate between Israel and the Palestinians. Then he changed the U.S. position of neutrality and sided entirely with Israel, blaming the Palestinians. It didn't take long for the who world to fall apart, did it? I thought that Israel voted for Sharon knowing full well it meant war, and they got war out of it, and they shouldn't be so surprised. I often think that maybe they'll realize that OBVIOUSLY Sharon's policies have not reduced the dangers that Israel faces. But it seems that there is a strong appeal to "it didn't work so we should do more of it." (Look at the Bush tax cuts.) Maybe we should step back and see the difference in the world and think about whether the Bush foreign policy approach is actually working, making us safer, making the world more peaceful. Maybe we should think about looking at what actually HAPPENS in the world instead of how the world would be if only people followed this or that ideology or religion. --- Posted at 9/25/2002 10:04:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Agrees With Me, Must Be Brilliant Daily Howler follows the same theme I followed in my entry yesterday on coverage of Gore's speech. He calls it "motive journalism" - speculating on the motives of the newsmaker rather than doing their job and reporting on what the person did or said. “Motive journalism” is easy and dumb. That seems to be why your pundits love it. After all, you can’t be proven wrong when you mind-read a pol’s naughty motives. But there’s an obvious downside to motive journalism. As long as you stick to mind-reading motives, you can’t help the public decide the life-and-death issues with which we are currently faced.Going after motives instead of issues happens to play right into the Republicans' favorite campaign tactic - character assassination. Attack the credibility of the opponent instead of the issues. (Motive is a tree. Credibility is a tree. See the forest.) --- Posted at 9/25/2002 09:00:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/24/2002 Bush's Message Atrios at Eschaton has posted some comments on yesterday's Gore speech from various right-wingers. Take a look at what they're saying. Sometimes it is hard for me to figure out what Bush and his crowd are really trying to say. I've learned over the years that when the message isn't clear to you, it can help to find out what the listener - who the message is intended for - is hearing. I think these comments are a good indicator of what Bush's "base" is hearing. --- Posted at 9/24/2002 02:04:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Gore Speech Most news stories that I have seen covering Gore's speech yesterday focus on the politics. As The Note put it, "The questions that arise are: 1) did he serve himself well? And 2) did he serve the Democratic party well?" (I'm aware that The Note covers politics, I'm using this quote because it sums up what I've seen of the news coverage as well. In fact, the Note is one place that does get into the content and merits.) What about the country? What about war? What about the people who are going to die, and the region that might be destabilized? What about the effect an Iraq adventure might have on our efforts to prevent terrorism at home? I think that Gore is trying to stop the country from making a serious mistake. I think that is more important than the politics of it. I think that Gore has done the country a great service. I think that any news outlet that doesn't spend time discussing the MERITS of the CONTENT of what Gore said shouldn't call itself a news outlet. I think that the people working in the news business don't even know what the word "news" means. I fear they also don't care. --- Posted at 9/24/2002 01:49:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Social Security I came across this great article responding to some Social Security misconceptions from July, 1998 in The Atlantic. Just thought I would pass this along. --- Posted at 9/24/2002 09:31:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/23/2002 Important - Read or Listen to Gore's Speech I've just read Al Gore's speech today to the Commonwealth Club, on the subject of Iraq. (Thanks to Eschaton.) It is an important speech and I highly recommend reading it. It will be broadcast tonite at 9pm (PDT) on KQED. Outside of the Bay area you can pick this up on the internet. Click on "Listen Live." --- Posted at 9/23/2002 02:59:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
What Else Are They Capable Of? As the election approaches I'm sure we all feel steamrolled by events. It's clear that the Democrats are having great difficulty coming up with a way to counter this Iraq situation arriving just exactly in time for the election. Iraq is dominating the news, the Congressional agenda and the election campaign. On top of that, the Republican "machine" of TV pundits, newspaper columnists, op-ed writers, radio talk show hosts and wholly-owned subsidiaries like the Fox Network and the Washington Times are marching at full speed in a coordinated and well-planned attack painting Democrats as obstructing the "President's war effort", less-than-patriotic and even somehow treasonous. It's also clear that the Republicans have been planning exactly this situation for some time. There is no reason for the immediacy of war with Iraq - it isn't an imminent national security emergency, there's no new news, there's nothing but the election to explain what's going on. Labor Day is the traditional start of election campaigns and Labor Day is the very day that they rolled out this "marketing campaign" as they themselves referred to it. Imagine - a war planned just in time for the election campaign - it appears that the Democrats just did not anticipate what the Republicans are capable of. The Democrats did not imagine the current scenario and consequently did not plan for it. So let's imagine another scenario. It's late October and the polls show that the Democrats are pulling out of this and appear to be ready to gain a number of seats in the House and Senate. I think we should ask the question now - What are the Republicans capable of between now and the election if it looks like they're losing? It's called an "October Surprise" and we all ought to be thinking ahead. --- Posted at 9/23/2002 01:00:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/22/2002 Who's On the News Found on Bushwatch-- FAIR has a study out, looking at network news sources. A study of ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News in the year 2001 shows that 92 percent of all U.S. sources interviewed were white, 85 percent were male and, where party affiliation was identifiable, 75 percent were Republican.Big surprise. The whole study is here. --- Posted at 9/22/2002 08:56:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Dear Economists, From now on when you do studies concluding that government regulations cost the economy please remember to factor in the costs of not having regulations, like the cost of the depression in the 30's, and the depression of the next 10 years, the S&L crisis, all the disability paid to people with carpal tunnel syndrome, the cost of (or the costs not of) cleaning the CO2 out of the air, jobs lost when all the large trees in an area get cut down in a few years, and all the other costs of this nature. Regards, Seeing the Forest --- Posted at 9/22/2002 07:22:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Everyone Should Read This Over at Counterspin Central, beginning with the words, "LET ME EXPLAIN SOMETHING." I am enough of a student of history, particularly the Roman Republic, to see this as the first step toward a troubling future for our country.And I'm proud to add Counterspin Central to my list of Essential Links. --- Posted at 9/22/2002 06:51:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/21/2002 True Cost of War TalkLeft pointed me to Daily Kos (earning both a place in my Essential Links) where there is a piece on the true costs of Gulf War I. That's the war where we had the "easy" victory. Just one example, from a Rocky Mountain News story that they reference: More than 159,000 American Gulf War veterans are receiving disability payments from the Department of Veterans Affairs.That should give us all a LOT to think about. Remember, the justification for war is that Iraq has and will use weapons of mass destruction. If we REALLY think Iraq will use them, maybe we shouldn't be so hot for war. And if we DON'T think they will use them, there goes the justification so maybe we shouldn't be so hot for war. --- Posted at 9/21/2002 09:43:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/20/2002 A Divider, Not a Uniter E. J. Dionne, Jr. in today's Washington Post: A president seeking a unified nation does himself no good by distorting the arguments of others -- or by obliquely accusing them of failing to act in the interests of the United States.As I have been saying, we learned from VietNam that it is so important for the country to be behind any military effort we must engage in. For this reason it is essential to do everything possible to keep such an important decision AWAY from the election, not schedule it to COINCIDE with the election. Forcing this decision during the election is divisive. --- Posted at 9/20/2002 02:41:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
WWMCD - What Would Mrs. Clinton Do? As soon as I finished the previous (Krugman) entry I saw the next piece by Hillary Clinton, Helping the Jobless. "In 1999, the Department of Labor found that when unemployment insurance is extended, every dollar in benefits generates $2.15 in gross domestic product. --- Posted at 9/20/2002 01:57:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Krugman Paul Krugman today on Bush and the economy. What I want to say to Bush: OK sure, Bush blame Clinton, fine. Settled. So YOU'RE President now, and here we are with this problem. What are you going to DO about it?! (Hint - WWCD.) During the presidential campaign George W Bush said that his guiding philosophy is “What Would Jesus Do?”And look when that was written. --- Posted at 9/20/2002 11:17:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/19/2002 How They Do It (Part 3) (Part 2 is here, Part 4 is here.) I came across this in a review by Jerry M. Landay, of David Brock's book, Blinded by the Right. It summarizes the process of the right-wing "conveyer belt" that I described in today's previous entry, How It's Done. They ape Leninist, Trotskyite, and Maoist tactics to undermine the left. Wealthy patrons of the radical right have copied the architecture of Stalin’s international popular front, creating a constellation of hundreds of activist front-organizations that comprise a network of right-wing activism:If you haven't read it yet, Blinded By The Right is an important book for understanding what is happening to the country. --- Posted at 9/19/2002 04:14:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
How They Do It (Part 2) (Part 1 is here, Part 3 is here) The other day I recommended this article, Lessons of Right-Wing Philanthropy, by Karen Paget, which gives some very good background information about how the right has built the "conservative movement" that has become so powerful. Paget describes how the right-wing "think tanks" crank out messages that are repeated over and over again and eventually become conventional wisdom. They use a "conveyer belt" approach. At one end is the "knowledge production" process where so-called "research" is done by "scholars" who publish in right-wing "journals." Then the marketing departments translate this into "popularized" wording using carefully researched words (like "death tax" to replace "inheritance income tax"), and the result is pumped out to the public through the media using op-ed pieces, right-wing pundits and columnists, and repeated endlessly. Examples of this process include years of pounding out messages like "Social Security is going broke - the money won't be there" or "public schools are failing, give the poor a choice." After the public is softened up the right-wingers come in with their "solutions." (These "solutions" always seem to involve schemes that make the rich richer and the poor poorer.) I just found another great article, also from The American Prospect, by Robert Kuttner, titled, "Philanthropy and Movements." Kuttner attended a right-wing roundtable where panelists bragged about what they have accomplished over the years - and how they pulled it off. And he gets into what needs to be done to balance this. The people and foundations that fund moderate- and progressive-oriented programs need to learn from what the right has done. 25-or-so years ago the right got organized and pulled together several "foundations" plus individual and corporate donors to set up the Heritage Fondation and several other of the "think tanks" described above. This can be done by moderates and progressives, using the right's success as a blueprint. Plenty of money is there on the progressive/moderate side, it just has not been used as effectively; it has not been coordinated and used as part of a long-term "movement" strategy. (See How They Do It (Part 1), about the Heritage Foundation, from a couple days ago.) --- Posted at 9/19/2002 03:54:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Deflation Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal has this, about deflation. Worth reading. --- Posted at 9/19/2002 02:39:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Scrubbing Got this from Tom Tommorrow, "According to Education Week, the Department of Education is scrubbing from its website research and statistics which do not support Bush Administration policy." --- Posted at 9/19/2002 12:24:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Great Debate There's a great debate going on over at Eschaton. Should we "liberate" the Arab countries? Click on the comments under this entry. --- Posted at 9/19/2002 08:56:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Unions Actually Mentioned in Media! I forgot to mention - I saw something in the New York Times Sunday that blew me away! There was an article about professionals joining UNIONS, and people talking about joining unions! This was the first such article I've seen in -ANY- media for YEARS! It blew me away - the NYT actually moving a little toward the center, mainstream America. Previously the NYT had not written much about unions that I have seen, which placed it squarely in the middle of the corporate-dominated Bush agenda. So I guess they really ARE a little to the left of Bush, possibly as far left as what we used to call centrist Republican. From the story: A union provides job security, which isn't a bad idea in this economy. A 1999 Hart study found that young union members are more likely than young nonunion employees to have full-time, permanent jobs (74 percent versus 49 percent), earn more than $20,000 a year (70 percent versus 38 percent), be covered by a pension plan with an employer contribution (63 percent versus 39 percent) and have an employer-provided health plan (76 percent versus 40 percent).If you set up any kind of reasonable yardstick to measure media bias -- reporting on unions and regular working people organizing unions, discussion of socialized medicine, editorials calling for capping executive compensation at a reasonable amount like, maybe, $500,000, increasing the progressiveness of the income tax and increasing the top levels to 90%... -- by ANY yardstick that takes into account left-of-center views, I do not know of a single media outlet in the United States that even comes close. But it sure felt good to see this one. --- Posted at 9/19/2002 07:37:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/17/2002 Gota Go See This! Gotta go see this! Thanks to Shadow of the Hegemon for catching this one. --- Posted at 9/17/2002 07:06:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
How They Do It (Part 1) Suppose you need to do some work involving an important issue like tax cuts, minimum wage, the environment, globalization, etc. Perhaps you'll be talking to a class or writing an article. Maybe you're in a political campaign or trying to get a law passed or just trying to build up public support for an environmental cause. Where can you get information and materials – perhaps even some coaching with the wording? If you're coming from a moderate or progressive perspective it can be quite difficult to quickly find resources – information and materials – to help you prepare. But if you are in the "conservative movement" there are very powerful resources available to assist you. I've been looking at the resources offered by the Heritage Foundation, just one of the many "think tanks" that give the conservative movement so much power. These think tanks use a process that takes supposedly "academic" research and plugs it into a marketing machine, "popularizing" the language used so that it will connect with ordinary people, and finally sending this product out through dozens of communications channels. (There's a 1998 article about these think tanks and this process here. If you really want to get started at understanding why the right seems to be just storming over everything that we - and most of the public - believe in, read this article as a starting point.) Let's pretend we're right-wingers all worked up by Rush this morning, and looking for information to help us stomp some liberals. Let's take a trip to Heritage Research. (Note - right-click and use "Open in New Window" so you can keep reading this while looking at the pages I'm referring to.) Notice the list of issues to choose from. As the page says, "All thirty of Heritage's policy issue pages feature archived research, expert contact information, and links to related interactive products." How does this work? Suppose you need information to help you argue from the right-wing perspective about taxes. Click on their Taxes research page. This page links you to to research articles, backgrounders and WebMemos, all offering the "conservative" perspective on the issue, with the implied credibility of being prepared by "experts" and "scholars". (Never mind that these so-called experts and scholars have credentials that come from other right-wing funded organizations.) On the right of the page are links to "Commentary" prepared by experts to feed you ideas, and even "Experts" for you to contact on your issue. There are links to multimedia materials, news about related events, and supporting materials like charts & visuals. Click on (because I like the title) Corporate Expatriation Protects American Jobs. The author explains how companies moving offshore to avoid taxes is good for Americans. You have a one-stop shop for all your far-right propaganda points! Click Back a few times to get to the Research page again. Click on The Candidate's Briefing Book on the right of the page. Here you get another list of issues, but these direct you to information that is useful in a campaign-type setting, presented in short, ready-to-repeat wording. (You might recognize some of this wording, because you can't turn on a TV or radio without hearing it.) Click on Briefing Book Chapter. Here you get a comprehensive briefing on the subject, with lists of "facts" – all supporting the "conservative" view – charts, and strategies. At the end of the briefing book is a list of experts you can call on, with their phone numbers. Click Back and be sure to look at the downloadable "Pocket Card" with its prepared "talking points." (Extra credit, see how many people on TV and radio, or op-ed pieces and letters-to-the-editor in the paper repeat these very points word-for-word). Click Back again and take a look at Quick Hits, with its short bursts of ready-to-spread propaganda points. Also available at Heritage are webcast lectures, media clips, speakers (for your TV or radio show), newsletters, and books (written by Heritage staff). Heritage also has a database of "2200 public policy experts by area of expertise", and "A searchable database of the conservative movement, presenting detailed information on over 300 public policy organizations in the U.S" searchable by organization type. Once you are thoroughly indoctrinated there's also a Job Bank, that "assists conservatives in finding employment with conservative Congressional Offices, faith-based organizations, other public policy organizations, lobbying groups and trade associations". Finally, Heritage offers links to "The Conservative Community" where you can find your way to The Insider, "A monthly compilation of publication abstracts, events and news from conservative policy organizations around the country." If you are a conservative, you have powerful resources available, Heritage being just one of many. It can be completely overwhelming to start digging into what's going on with the right-wing movement, and can be demoralizing as well. There are hundreds of millions of dollars each year going into this operation and it is so well-established and has vast resources. And all of this to what end? To convince blue-collar workers they should sacrifice affordable health insurance and better schools and so much more just so the rich can get more tax cuts! But don't lose heart - even with this going on for almost 30 years now Gore got more votes and Bush STILL needs to drum up a war to distract the public from their terrible (and obvious) failures. I'll have more later. Part 2 is here, part 3 is here. --- Posted at 9/17/2002 04:25:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
It's ONLY the Politics! On The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer today, Senate Majority Leader Daschle said that the Bush Administration has not actually come to Congress to request a resolution about Iraq. In other words, this all really was just a political marketing campaign to the public, to get political support before the election. It was all about going to the press and the public with a "wedge issue" to beat up Democrats with and make them look bad. "General" Rove forgot to even bother to actually approach the Congress for the Iraq resolutions - it wasn't a part of the equation! The ACTUAL resolutions didn't MATTER! --- Posted at 9/17/2002 03:27:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
A Recent Exchange (8/28/2002) Sir, Thanx for posting your web log. Your entry today, "Today's Google Experiment - Watch a Smear Spread" just floored me. I've known of this machine for quite some time and it amazes me how many of my fellow citizens either "don't get it" or who just don't care. Do you have a clue as to why this propaganda machine is so effective, why there are so many people who actually believe all this stuff? Are they hearing what they think they want to hear? Do you see any hope that things will change for the better anytime soon or do you think things will have to get a lot uglier first? Sorry to dump, but I don't see any reasons to be optimistic... Thanx - XXXXX Dear XXXX -- I'm writing because I still haven't had the time to finish and post the research I'm doing into this stuff. Can I suggest as a good starting point reading the book, "Blinded By The Right" by David Brock. He goes into such good detail and the book is causing more and more people to start being aware of the web of right-wing organizations and how they pump out this crap. A very good background article is available here. This article talks about how this right-wing web was formed. Even though it is 4 years old it lays out what was happening then and has only accelerated since. --- Posted at 9/17/2002 03:12:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/16/2002 Go Joe! Joe Conason has been poking around in Bush's book, "A Charge to Keep." He found this passage, "I also learned the lesson of Vietnam. Our nation should be slow to engage troops. But when we do so, we must do so with ferocity. We must never go into a conflict unless we go in committed to win. We can never again ask the military to fight a political war. If America's strategic interests are at stake, if diplomacy fails, if no other option will accomplish the objective, the Commander in Chief must define the mission and allow the military to achieve it."Joe writes, "I know he didn't really write his book -- politicians rarely do -- but did he read it?" To repeat, Bush (or someone) wrote, "We can never again ask the military to fight a political war." So why bring it up NOW, just before the election? --- Posted at 9/16/2002 01:35:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Democrats Growing Spines! Washington Post: Democrats are starting to question the timing of the Iraq campaign. Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser, has been photographed with the president in meetings about Iraq and has been put forward to speak publicly about the timing of the Iraq rollout. was Rove who argued earlier this year that the war on terrorism should be part of Republicans' campaigns this year. Last week, White House political aides encouraged GOP candidates to emphasize national security. Also, Andrew H. Card Jr., Bush's chief of staff, said last week that the White House held back on promoting the Iraq policy in the summer because, "from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."As I have said before - we learned from VietNam how important it is to have the country united behind major military operations. Sensible leadership would do everything they could to AVOID the divisiveness of having the war debate occur during campaign season. This was planned to occur DURING campaign season. He is a divider,not a uniter. He is using the lives of tens of thousands of our military forces and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis as his "wedge issue" to divide us before this election. --- Posted at 9/16/2002 06:35:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/15/2002 Democrat Party Sideshow points out that Dick Cheney, in his non-partisan "uniter-not-a-divider" appearance on the Rush Limbaugh show last week, talked about the "Democrat Party". Sideshow thinks the mispronunciation sounds illiterate. (I thought this about Bush using "nucular" all through Thursday's UN speech.) Actually, this particular misuse of "Democratic Party" dates back to the early-60s John Birch Society days, and those far-right-wingers that we used to call "kooks." ("Precious bodily fluids.") These are the guys who used to say "Jew York Times" but now have PR training so they say "liberal media" to cover what they really mean. In this new Republican Party it's a badge of honor to come from the farthest-possible-right-wing backgrounds, and the kooks show off by using "Democrat Party" as a code word to each other. Listen for this, you'll hear the older far-far-right guys saying it. --- Posted at 9/15/2002 03:33:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Overwhelm Some days the bad news flys at you so fast ... it seems like the Bush strategy is to overwhelm people by doing so many bad things that you lose track and give up... (See Scorecard of Evil. They list the major ones, except even they have a hard time keeping up.) Today starts with, With White House Approval, E.P.A. Pollution Report Omits Global Warming Section. Here's one - using government money to fund churches. Or how about funneling government money to help The Party recruit religious voters - vote for us, you get the money - don't vote for us, you don't get the money. Here's one about the Bush people planning the Iraq invasion even before he took office. Not only that, it's essentially a blueprint for dominating the world. (Why spend all that money on military if you don't put it to good use taking over the world?) Here they're talking about the spoils of war being the reason for the war. "The importance of Iraq's oil has made it potentially one of the administration's biggest bargaining chips in negotiations to win backing from the U.N. Security Council and Western allies..." The White House and Administration departments are not cooperating with Congressional investigations of what led up to 9/11. This isn't Bush, it's his comrades, Christian stations working to get NPR stations thrown off the air. The pharmaceutical industry will be running ads for Republicans who help them kill prescription drug bills. Those thee Moslem men who were falsely accused in Florida are no longer welcome at the hospital they were travelling to work at - even though they did nothing wrong at all. To top it off, the housing price bubble might be ready to burst. This is just a little bit of today's news. Maybe I should just stop reading the papers on Sunday mornings? --- Posted at 9/15/2002 01:28:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
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