More on Rush

Spinsanity has lots of Limbaugh, as well as lots on attacks on Daschle.

"Yet Limbaugh, especially, is guilty of extremely vicious rhetoric. Consider just a few examples from his frequent diatribes against Daschle over the last two years. On Nov. 15, he asserted that Daschle's criticism of the conduct of the war on terrorism amounted to "an attempt to sabotage the war on terrorism," called him "Hanoi Tom" and suggested that he is " a disgrace to patriotism." On other occasions, Limbaugh has suggested that "In essence, Daschle has chosen to align himself with the axis of evil" and has drawn an extended analogy between Daschle and Satan."

There are links in this, but you have to go to their site to follow them.

Rush

A lot of people tell me they never, ever listen to Rush Limbaugh. I think it is important to tune in once in a while. It's important to know what the Republicans are saying to their audience.

Daily Howler quotes Rush Limbaugh at length today, talking about Tom Daschle. It is truly worth reading, to remind us all of how Bush has "changed the tone." And as you read this, remember this is just a few minutes of the stuff Rush spews out for three hours a day, five days a week. Please go read it. Be reminded just how important it is that we get active and get other people informed and involved.

Blogger Tip Jar Controversy

Skippy has started all the bloggers talking about tip jars - asking readers to donate some money to keep the effort going. I'm going to take a different tack on this.

I think it's great if some bloggers ask for a donation. More power to ya! I don't ask readers for cash, but I don't object when others do. (Voice from wife in background, "What do you mean you aren't asking for cash. You can do that? Why aren't you doing that?")

What I want is for all of us "lefty" bloggers to more actively encourage our readers to go out and recruit more people to discover what's available online. If the country is divided down the middle politically that should mean that about 140 million people agree with us. We need to start getting them to "OUR" information sources - BuzzFlash and weblogs! It's not just to get us more readers, this is important. There really is better information here than people are getting from newspapers and TV. And jeeze, don't even mention radio!

I haven't seen other bloggers asking readers to send e-mails out to others. That's how you get people to try something - you ask them! So all you bloggers, start asking your readers to send e-mails to people they know, telling them that the mainstream information sources are not being straight with them! If you're reading these weblogs and other online sources you KNOW this is a fact!

For you bloggers who are asking for some cash, think about this. Suppose you're getting $1 a day now. Suppose that a serious outreach effort can get 100 times as many people getting their info online... do the math.

There are somewhere up to 140 million people on our side in this country - go tell them to start reading BuzzFlash and discover weblogs.

Thank You

Thank You to Ruminate This for posting this.

As I said the other day, the way to fight back is to learn how the right was so successful, and then do what they did.

More Scary

Here's some more about that scary agency.

Shadow of the Hegemon (the links aren't working right, so scroll down to the one that starts with, "I'm not sure if it's because the site popped..."), commenting on a Thinking it Through piece, comparing McCarthyism with what's going on today,

"The key, I suppose, is where small "l" libertarians will come down on this if this becomes a hallmark of the Republican party. While I'm sure they like those Republican tax cuts, the prospect of an agency whose members are politically appointed, socially conservative and damned near omniscient has got to be somewhat alarming."

THAT'S what is bothering me so much about this new agency - it will be managed by political appointees who are loyal to The Party, not the country. And the new rules allow The Party to bypass civil service rules and purge non-loyal Party members.

Doesn't anyone else out there remember Nixon? Do you remember wondering if you were being wiretapped because you opposed Nixon? Wondering if the FBI was going to break into your house? They were using the power of government to go after their political opposition.

It isn't just paranoia to think that Republicans do things like this - it's memory.

Wealth Bondage

I found the Wealth Bondage site because they are referring people to the Commonweal Institute. But can someone explain this site to me, please? What?

Blog

Check out GeekPol.

Bush the Liar

Thanks to Planet Swank for pointing to this Eleanor Clift article about Bush being such a liar.

Scary

I'm listening to Talk of the Nation on NPR. They have a guy from the Heritage Foundation on, talking about why the huge "Information Awareness" database is a good thing and nothing to worry about. This is the Pentagon database that will track everything you purchase, every bank and credit card transaction, and who knows what else.

The Heritage Foundation is the core of the far-right "movement." It's the Rush Limbaugh of think tanks. It is where the most partisan, right-wing propaganda comes from. Why would someone from the Heritage Foundation be sent out to talk up this database of info on Americans? The Heritage Foundation is about REPUBLICAN CHRISTIAN RIGHT POLITICS! The Heritage Foundation would not be interested in this if it were not about furthering the right-wing movement.

They put John Poindexter in charge of it, and they send people out from the Heritage Foundation to defend it. That tells you everything you need to know. A hard rain's gonna fall.

Rubbing Our Noses In It

John Balzar, in the LA Times today, talking about a:

"...rub-their-noses-in-it statement offered recently in a court case brought by the Center for Biological Diversity. In a feather-brained brief, the administration argued that conservationists should consider the upside of bird deaths at a remote Navy live-fire range. "Bird-watchers get more enjoyment spotting a rare bird than they do spotting a common one." Besides, the government added, Navy bombardment keeps away people who might otherwise disturb the birds."

It's GOOD to kill birds because birdwatchers get more enjoyment spotting rare birds. What's left to say here? Go read the whole thing.

How They Do It 4

Michael Finley has a piece today describing in detail one example of how right-wing propaganda is developed and disseminated. His piece also points to a CalPundit piece.

Both weblogs earn a place in Essential Links.

Recommended Read

I recommend reading William Burton's Putting People First.

An E-mail I'm Sending Out

Here is an e-mail I am sending out to friends who I know forward things like this:

Please forward this.

I have found that people who get their news from "alternative" sites on the Internet are so much better informed about what's going on in the world and the country than people who rely on newspapers and TV news.

You might agree with me that the information that most Americans receive comes from a rightist to centrist corporate perspective. Example - when is the last time you saw a labor leader interviewed on TV, talking about why people should join unions? This is because you wouldn't expect a corporate-controlled news source to give people information about the advantages of joining unions, and they don't.

20 years ago the right believed they had a similar problem with media access for their message. What they did was to set up their own channels of communication - starting with speeches broadcast on C-SPAN, and then talk radio. The was ability to widely distribute information from their perspective is part of what led to their success.

Progressives and moderates need a central place where they can get information from a progressive/moderate perspective. I suggest that we start by visiting the news website BuzzFlash. I've looked around, and BuzzFlash offers the best daily roundup of news from a variety of sources. I am not associated with BuzzFlash in any way. BuzzFlash is located on the web at http://www.buzzflash.com.

Common Dreams -http://www.commondreams.org/ and AlterNet - http://www.alternet.org/ - are other good sites, but not as news-intensive as BuzzFlash.

There is also a new phenomenon called "weblogs", or "blogs" for short. These are "diaries" where people post information and opinion, and many of them are very good. To discover these weblogs, visit The Lefty Directory at http://newleftblogs.blogspot.com/. Some good professional weblogs are Tapped at http://www.prospect.org/weblog/, and Altercation at http://www.msnbc.com/news/752664.asp.

So I recommend checking in at BuzzFlash every day, and also discovering the world of weblogs. Try it for a few days, and you will see that there is a whole other world of information available. I also recommend letting as many others as possible know about this problem and why they should check a site like BuzzFlash every day.

If you have made your way to this weblog, you are likely a well-informed person who gets a lot of info from the web. And you know there is a difference in the information you get on the web from the info that most people are getting. We need to make an effort to grow the number of people visiting progressive/moderate news-sites and weblogs. So I recommend telling people to check in at BuzzFlash every day, and helping others discover the world of weblogs. Feel free to copy the above letter and using it as a base for a letter you send to others.

A Blatant Plug for Commonweal Institute

The way to fight back is to learn how the right was so successful at moving the public toward their objectives, and then do what they did.

Job Fair

I was driving home from the dog food store yesterday and tuned in to the traffic report. They said there was a traffic jam because E-Bay was having a job fair.

Meanwhile, today, Xerox Cuts More Than 2,400 Jobs, NCR to Eliminate 1,500 Jobs, and Black & Decker Cutting 1,300 Jobs, "The company announced in January that it would spend $190 million to restructure and move manufacturing from higher-cost plants in the United States and United Kingdom to lower-cost facilities in Mexico, China and the Czech Republic, and announced plans to cut 2,400 jobs." The articles says 2400, the headline 1300, what's the difference.

Afternoon Update - Boeing to cut 5,000 more jobs in commercial group

Naturally, the stock market was way up.

Movie

We went to see the new Harry Potter movie last night. It's a great movie, and I recommend it for anyone. But before the movie we had to sit through TWENTY MINUTES of COMMERCIALS!!!! Some were commercials for other movies, but most were for video games, SUVs, things like that!

We haven't been to any movies for a while. First it was the unemployment budget. Then it was a huge amount of work with the Commonweal Institute. So it's been maybe as long as 5 months! But after this I'm not sure we'll be going to very many movies! COMMERCIALS! (And the popcorn sucked, which is even worse than the commercials.)

Like the Meat in the Supermarket

Here:

"One reason there was no trace of what happened in the Neutral Zone on those two days was that Armored Combat Earth Movers came behind the armored burial brigade, leveling the ground and smoothing away projecting Iraqi arms, legs and equipment."

This isn't about what we did, it's about how it was hidden from us, so we wouldn't know what we did. Our "government" presents us with carefully controlled information, set up so TV screens don't show us the reality. Manufactured consent instead of informed consent. Democracy is So Last Century.

Do you know that we are no longer allowed to see honor guard ceremonies for dead soldiers?

VietNam was the last time Americans were allowed to see what REALLY happens in a war. And because of the draft it happened to THEM. If you think about it, this means that no one under about 45 really understands that war is anything other than a TV show. It's like the meat in supermarkets - it comes in a nice clean package. THIS is why the public thirsts for war. Much of the public sees this as a TV show. Clean. Sanitary. No REAL death. No REAL gore. It's just another TV show. Like the meat in the supermarket.

Poindexter = Reliable

I got a note from Bellona Times, pointing me to this about John Poindexter and the new Total Information Awareness System.

You need to know that the Total Information Awareness System is not a joke. It will enable the Republican Party to track ANY of us, every activity. If you think it isn't about furthering The Party, then ask yourself why it's being set up by John Poindexter. If you didn't click on the John Poindexter yet, click on it. I want you to KNOW who this is.

How can they be SURE that Poindexter is the guy for this job? He has credentials. He has been CONVICTED of hiding from Congress the real agenda of his activities.

Today's Google Experiment

For today's Google Experiment, let's go to Google and search on the words"george bush pilly pillow". There are some interesting stories there. (Spell it differently to find this.)

Next, search on "george bush cheerleader".

This comes out of a conversation with my wife this weekend. I told her Bush was a cheerleader in college (in the East, not in Texas). She didn't believe me. So I told her that Bush carries around a pillow that he calls his "pilly." So she was sure I was in making-things-up mode. I wasn't.

Tangled Web

In a Washington Post story about Bob Woodward's book, "The president is shown to be preoccupied by public perceptions of the war, looking at polling data from Rove, now his senior adviser, even after pretending to have no interest."

Remember, Bush campaigned on the claim that he didn't pay attention to polls. Of course, the reason he made this claim was polling showed more people would vote for him if he said he didn't pay attention to polls.

Little Cat Feet

Fascism Comes On Little Cat Feet.

(There's no permanent link. If there is a different column at this address, see if you can find the November 18 column.)

BuzzFlash Editorial

I've been reading the BuzzFlash Editorial, They Brazenly Lie, Without Apology and Without Shame: You Know Who We're Talking About.

It's worth reading. However, I have a disagreement. The editorial says, "But did the Democrats take to the airwaves and scream to the high heavens that Bush was betraying the American people by accusing the Democrats of "obstructing" a Department of Homeland Security? Hell, no, that would have forced the Democrats to get angry and shout a little, which is just too uncivilized for their way of thinking. Sometimes we get the feeling that Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt think that it is just too crude to point out the relentless lying and hypocrisy of the White House."

You have to watch C-SPAN to know that the Democrats did this. The problem is not that they aren't saying things, it's that you wouldn't KNOW they are saying these things if you watch regular TV or listen to regular radio or read regular newspapers. It's a different era and we have to get used to it - the Republicans control the media. Democrats CAN'T "take to the airwaves." Get used to it.

Don't get mad at the Democrats for being shut out by the media. Instead, we need to build a "media" for people to get information! As I wrote the other day, I think the best place to start this is BuzzFlash. Tell everyone you know to check BuzzFlash every day.