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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: |
 12/11/2004 Kevin Drum Gets Shrill Kevin Drum gets shrill about the Republican drive to phase out Social Security: "It's not stock market returns these guys care about, it's an ideological drive to get the government out of the safety net business and force individuals to bear ever more risk in their daily lives. Don't ever forget that."Shrill, and good for him. He's absolutely right. And by the way - if the economy is doing well enough for the stock market to provide the returns necessary for the this Republican scheme to pay off, then it is performing WAAYYY better than needed to keep the current Social Security system solvent forever. The Right-wing claim that Social Security is in trouble -- which doesn't even start to happen until 2042 -- requires that the economy only grow a 1.9% average rate. And even if that worst-case scenario occurs only a small adjustment is needed to fix things. That's the "crisis." But if we put Social Security into stocks, and the economy only perfors at a 1.9% rate ... everyone loses their retirement! --- Posted at 12/11/2004 11:12:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post  
New Coke Democrats I read something by the evil DLC's Al From and Bruce Reed, The Road Back. It starts out great. When they aren't busy insulting other Democrats and offering "New Coke" strategies urging Democrats to become Republicans, they do have some good things to contribute: "Competing nationally -- including in the South, the Southwest, and the Rocky Mountain West -- is important for more than just tactical reasons. A national campaign would force Democrats to develop a national message that would have broader appeal to swing voters in both red and blue states. That's important, because presidential elections are won not just by pressing your advantages, but by removing obstacles that keep people from voting for you -- and often even from hearing you.Sounds just like Dean! And on "values" : "Most voters in red states think we Democrats look down on them for worrying about the moral direction of the country. They have no idea that we might be concerned about it, too.And then, BANG, they just blow it: "First and foremost, we need to bridge the trust gap on national security by spelling out our own offense against terrorism and clearly rejecting our anti-war wing, so that Republicans can no longer portray us as the anti-war party in the war on terrorism. We must leave no doubt that Michael Moore neither represents nor defines our party."They just can't help themselves. Michael Moore is a hero. I AM AN ANTIWAR DEMOCRAT. Why are fellow Democrats writing stuff like this ... intentionally working to split the party... It isn't even smart from their own perspective because MOST Democrats understand that the Iraq war is a terrible mistake. And it is the informed, activist "base" of the party that agrees with Michael Moore. So if they DO split the party they're left with very little. I don't know how many readers understand what I meant by titling this post "New Coke" Democrats. In 1985 the management of The Coca Cola Company was worried that their competitor Pepsi was gaining ground on them. They actually killed off their main product Coca Cola, the #1 brand on the planet, and replaced it with New Coke, a product that they thought tasted more like Pepsi, the #2 brand! They discovered an astonishing and shocking fact: PEOPLE WHO LIKED THE TASTE OF PEPSI DRANK PEPSI! Update - Oh yeah, I forgot to add, AND IT ALSO PISSED OFF ALL THE EXISTING CUSTOMERS ("the base," also known as the majority of the public) WHO DRANK COCA COLA BECAUSE OF THE WAY IT WAS! --- Posted at 12/11/2004 02:49:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Stranger Than Known Round the squares huddled in storms Some laughing some just shapeless forms Sidewalk scenes and black limousines Some living some standing alone --- Posted at 12/11/2004 01:07:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
President Blatantly Lies What he said. --- Posted at 12/11/2004 09:49:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
12/10/2004 Bill Moyers From The Nation's tribute: At a time when TV networks--including PBS--were bowing to commercial and ideological pressures that were antithetical to journalism, Moyers created a program that many viewers recognized as the only reason to turn on the TV in the Bush era. --- Posted at 12/10/2004 07:21:00 PM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Another One Coming Some of us feel good about that recent story where the soldier asked Rumsfeld a tough question. We might think it was good that the problem of lack of armor for the National Guard troops came to light. Well that isn't how it is playing in Peoria. The Right is turning this into a story of the liberal media "setting up Rummy," as part of a plot to undermine the war effort, and generally committing treason just by existing. Really, more of us need to listen to Limbaugh and read the right-wing news. Rumsfeld Set Up by Reporter; Liberals Lament Lack of Deaths in Iraq Update - Here. Update - The story is getting bigger. CNN just talked about how sinister it was that the soldier "had professional help" and was "coached" and how some are "defending" the reporter. One "expert" talked about how it wasn't "disclosed" to Rumsfeld that a reporter was "behind" the question, and "hiding behind someone else to ask" questions. Right-wing storm coming. Watch your backs. --- Posted at 12/10/2004 01:17:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Church/State - Stage Two The strategy enters its second phase: School censors Christmas from student performance: "An elementary school in Oklahoma pulled all references to Christmas from its holiday play at the last minute, but left in references to Hanukkah and Kwanzaa."Yep, blacks and Jews... And just who is behind this? "...Brent Olsson, an attorney in Oklahoma City allied with Alliance Defense Fund...That's the same "Christian law" organization that is pushing the "Declaration Banned" lie. They say they specialize in "strategy and coordination." There's more, though it isn't from the Alliance. This one is pushed by the Thomas More Law Center. "Nativity banned but Muslim, Jewish symbols allowed" is another headline. --- Posted at 12/10/2004 01:03:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Why Republicans Win I left a comment at Blogging of the President, after a piece by Matt Stoller about the Orlando meeting of Democratic Party State Directors. Matt is attending, and describing for us how the State Directors have new power in the coming selection of a new head of the Democratic National Committee. This choice will set the future direction of the Democratic Party. Here's my comment: Matt wrote, "No one is happy with the national party, in particular how John Kerry ran his campaign. ... complaints about either Kerry's message..." and later "... it's becoming clear that the right-wing message machine has local permutations, and that it must be fought on a national level." I'm hoping that more people in the leadership make the connection between those two concerns. The Republican machine IS the candidate's message. Let me explain. The Republican machine is a full-time, ongoing operation consisting of about 500 well-funded organizations, employing thousands of professional operatives at the national and state level. IT is what sets the Republican issue agenda and comes up with the message. Republican candidates only have to show up, and it doesn't so much matter who the candidate is. (I mean, look who they are able to run...) The machine takes care of the task of educating the public about the issues, and getting the carefully-crafted messages out, and the machine is doing it year-round, every year. Take the current Social Security "crisis". How long have they been pounding the public with that lie, just to get ready for candidates to show up and say they will "solve the problem?" Get my point - the public is prepared for their election campaigns long in advance of the election. But on our side we're always talking about finding the right candidate, and hoping the candidate can articulate an effective message. Democratic candidates are on their own. THEY have to come up with - and explain - issues, from scratch, entirely during the election cycle. And THEY have to spread the word to the public. Again, during the election cycle and with their own resources. See the difference? Republican success comes from the work done OUTSIDE of the election cycle, by organizations that are not even legally considered partisan. Our side has almost nothing in place to compete with this. By the way, I co-authored a new report on this that just came out. Here is the Table of Contents, linking to HTML versions of each section. Update - I just realized there are a lot of new readers here who might not be aware of this collection of links to articles, reports and resources for learning about the right-wing movement, its history, how it is funded and how it operates. --- Posted at 12/10/2004 10:00:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Cupertino Teachers Threatened eRiposte has posted an appeal: PLEASE HELP: Right wing threats and media silence/complicity. Also, this is a DailyKos diary. If you want others to see it, you should "recommend" it. You'll see a "Recommend this diary" button in the right column. --- Posted at 12/10/2004 09:33:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
12/09/2004 Strengthening Marriage to retain the White House and re-enslave women By Patrick O'Heffernan
Strengthening marriage to retain the White House and re-enslave women
The conservatives have sent out Bryce Christensen, a Southern Utah University English professor who moonlights as a mouthpiece for conservative anti-feminine organizations to launch the attack
Out of public view, Bryce tells conservatives something different –he lays out the real reason for the protection of marriage campaign. Writing in the ultra-conservative magazine , The Family in America, he says that he and other conservatives behind the campaign are not really concerned about same-sex marriage; they really want to force women back into submissive, trapped, traditional wife roles like those described in the Old Testament of the Bible. Their real goal is to roll back the last 40 years of the women's rights successes, end no-fault divorce so women have to stay marriage whether they like it or not, close daycare facilities, and defund all domestic and international family planning programs in order to get women back under the thumb of men where they belong . To speed up this re-enslavement of women, they advocate against pension benefits and Social Security which they claim have led to the breakdown of the intergenerational family as seniors are no longer dependent on the goodwill of their grown children and can't be exploited as baby sitters so wives can have more babies. Next, the nation’s Catholic bishops recently announced an unholy alliance with the same born-again Christians who consider Catholics “unchurched and unsaved”. They will launch a campaign remarkably similar to that of the Christian Right against “divorce, birth control, gay marriage, premarital sex, unmarried co-habitation, and deliberately childless couples. Noting that marriage has declined by more than 40% in the last 30 years”, Bishop Kevin Boland said the Church will join with evangelicals to begin parish programs and national advertising campaigns designed to rebuild the traditional Christian marriage” (He did not speculate on the notion that allowing gays to marry would also dramatically improve the marriage rate). The message to women was clear: your place is to be married, serve your husbands and have as many babies as possible; you can’t get divorced, you can’t plan your family, and you can’t complain. And in case you forgot, you can’t become a priest either. The Right Wing Infrastructure and long term strategy These messages were echoed across the conservative infrastructure. The Howard Institute, Focus on the Family ,Traditional Values Coalition, the Eagle Forum, and dozens of Christian websites and organizations – the entire web of institutions built by the religious right and conservatives over the past 30 years-- have joined the campaign. They have begun echoing its message that policies like no-fault divorce, Title IX, birth control, Social Security, and government-paid child care are destroying marriage and must be ended. So what is going on here? Is it a coincidence that so many conservative organizations have suddenly discovered marriage as something that needs fixing. Is this a genuine effort to slow down the divorce rate and encourage more couples to marry and have families. Or is there an underlying, darker strategy? There are actually three underlying – and definitely darker – strategies, all working simultaneously in the coordinated right wing marriage campaigns, each reinforcing the other. First, the Right is building on the success of the wedge issue of gay marriage to keep their Christian base engaged and active in the 2006 and 2008 elections. Second, by framing their actions as strengthening marriage, they are relying on polls and market research that shows women respond positively to words and actions seeking to improve personal relationships - especially marriage. They are betting the strengthening of marriage campaign will shift some female votes away from Democrats. And third, they are able to quietly and deceptively move on a bundle of policies designed to blunt the progress women have made on equal rights in order to force them back into second class status, a central goal of the Christian Right. How are they doing it? The “gay issue” was created by Jerry Falwell and the Christian Right after the fall of the But their electoral and legislative successes may ultimately deny the Christian right the use of gays as the new enemy. If they pass the misnamed Defense of Marriage Amendment supported by Bush and more state initiatives to ban gay marriage, they lose the issue. Barring unforeseen circumstances, with marriage “protected” from gays, history and changing demographics indicate that it will be still be hard to sell gay hate beyond the religious extremes. So where can they find an enemy that will let them keep the fear factor up and the base turnout high? They found it in marriage, specifically in the kind of diverse, nurturing, equal partnership marriages that are becoming the norm in the 21st century. Conservatives are strategically working to narrowly define the word and concept of marriage as a 1950’s style heterosexual, male-dominated, wife at home and submissive, kids obedient institution – the so-called “godly marriage”. This automatically positions today’s more accommodating and nurturing equal partnership marriages and unmarried unions as threats to “real” marriage. This gives them their fear issue – fear that marriage is being undermined, not only by gays, but by feminists, abortion , birth control, child care, Social Security, Title IX, pensions, and welfare – all perennial right wing targets. The final piece of the strategy is push for “reforms” to “strengthen” marriage. Chief among these is an attack on no-fault divorce. National Christian Right organizations are currently working to get the states to replace no-fault laws with divorce regimes that make it very difficult for a couple, and especially a woman, to end a marriage. Abstinence-only sex education programs are being pushed into public schools that teach, among other things, women should stay home and have children and be submissive to their husbands to guarantee a good marriage. The Catholic Bishops have announced their desire for legislation to restrict and eventually ban birth control. Focus on the Family has called for a roll-back on sexual discrimination laws that seek to equalize women’s and men’s’ pay and advancement, and an end to programs that make it easier for a working mother (or father) to care for a family, such as after school programs, child care support, and parental leave. A coalition of religious and conservative groups have convinced the Department of Education to circulate new regulations that would dilute Title IX and legalize single-sex schools that fundamentalists can use to track girls into weddings and away from college. The Right’s goals retain the White House and re-enslave womenThe goals of these strategies are both short and long term. In the short term, the conservatives and the Christian Right are building a bundle of issues around marriage that they can use to excite and possibly expand their evangelical base without turning off non-evangelical Christians. After all, who is against strengthening marriage? Additionally, by disguising their intentions as support for marriage, they hope to fool women, a traditionally Democratic constituency, into supporting Republicans in the 2006 and 2008 elections. The conservative communications machine is now using these messages to define marriage their way, create the “conventional wisdom” that marriage is in trouble (it is, but mostly in the red states and the Bible-belt), and that reforms are needed in government policy to protect it. In the long term, the right’s goals are more Machiavellian. Married women, especially married women in male-dominate marriages, tend to vote for Republicans somewhat more than single women do, especially if their husbands are Republican. Conservatives have calculated that narrowing women’s options and channeling them into “godly” marriages where they are re-enslaved as “submissive wives” will increase female Republican voters over the long term. And in the very long term, daughters of these marriages will be raised to forgo college and get married and have large families – the profile of Republican voting women, thus guaranteeing a growing population of re-enslaved female Republican voters A Progressive Counter StrategyWhat can we progressive do to protect partnership marriages and blunt the religious right’s drive to re-enslave women and increase female Republican vote counts? Launch a counter strategy with both long and short term objectives. First, in the short term confuse and divide the opposition with a Sanctity of Marriage Movement seeking legislation to remove the state completely from marriage, leaving it to religious organizations. Argue that the Constitution and the Bible (render unto Cesar…) requires that states should ratify only civil union contracts, (which Constitutionally should be available to everyone), and that religious organizations (including pagan, Wicca, Universal Life, etc.) are the only institutions that should be able to conduct marriage ceremonies and “bless the marriage”. This would compete with the Protection of Marriage amendment drive, set off a dogfight inside the religious right between the purists who believe that marriage is sacred and should be the purview of churches and the cynics want to use government to control marriage, and give Democrats great campaign fodder in the 2006 mid-term elections (“he voted against the sanctity of marriage - shame on him.”). Reframe the issue from strengthening traditional marriage under threat from corrupting policies and practices, to protecting the modern, nurturing partnership marriage from religious extremists who want to use it to turn back the clock to the Old Testament and re-enslave women. Market and message test the Conceptual lumping of anti-abortion, anti-birth control, anti-Title IX, pro-strict-father family, pro-marriage amendment, and pro- “godly-marriage” groups together as the re-enslavement lobby whose real purpose is to take women back to “biblical times” when they were virtual slaves. Explore themes needed to reposition “godly marriages” as “godforsaken marriages” that result in the joyless separation of husbands and wives in resentful warring camps while the outcome of a partnership marriage is a strong, loving family. Emphasize that “marriage is for men too” giving them the opportunity to enjoy child raising in partnership with their wives (why should the women have all the fun?) to undercut the Right's cold-hearted strict father message. Test and offer a marriage model that is a respite for the husbands trapped in “re-enslavement marriages” – husbands who are overworked, distant from their families, at war with their wives, and forced by re-enslavement marriage lobby to shoulder all the work and all the burdens. Aim part of the message at young Republican fathers by featuring poster men from the 3 million American men who stay at home to care for their family and love it—and whose masculinity is not threatened by doing so. Most importantly, build a long term progressive marriage infrastructure by bringing together progressive think tanks, mainline churches, spiritual organizations, and women’s and men’s groups to fashion and endlessly repeat the positive message of a partnership marriage and the threat to women and men of the re-enslavement lobby. Fund this piece of the infrastructure to launch a Partnership Marriage Campaign that uses market research, word and theme testing to flood the nation with effective books, articles, workshops, and media spokespersons on the joys and strengths of nurturing partnership marriages. Fund studies and reports on satisfaction within partnership marriages and the reduction of abortions and divorce among partnership marriages. Develop male and female spokespersons who can offer advice to married couples on radio and television and in books and advice columns on how to achieve and enjoy a partnership marriage (including sexual joys!) , and how to avoid the re-enslavement lobby which is trying to take the fun out of marriage by driving a wedge between husbands and wives. Use this message to undercut the Right’s attempt to capture the word “moral” for themselves and reduce it to gay marriage, abortion and stem cells. The linchpin of this strategy is the long term, strategic, unrestricted funding to a key core of progressive think tanks, single issue advocacy organizations, communications organizations, and progressive religious organizations. This “mini-infrastructure” would work to push back the message of the Religious Right re-enslavement lobby that has been strategically built by conservatives over the past quarter century. Key to this is strategic funding by progressive donors. Strategically placed, long term, unrestricted grants to a cluster of existing and new organizations pulled together and tightly coordinated by a critical think tank and by the donors can blunt this latest conservative assault on freedom and on women. With the correct strategy and strategic support, progressives can strengthen both marriage and the rights of women and hand the conservatives and the religious right a humiliating defeat. --- Posted at 12/09/2004 06:00:00 PM by patrick@mansworld Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Blogs vs "Journalists" Most of you read Atrios' weblog, so you know that he has been writing about a CBS story - written by their "chief political writer" - calling Atrios unethical for writing a "partisan" weblog anonymously (on his own time) while being an employee of Media Matters. Atrios pointed out that every single fact in the CBS story was wrong. It had the wrong name for his weblog, it had it wrong that he was writing anonymously while working for Media Matters, it even said he had been working for Media Matters long before the organization even existed. And, by the way, Media Matters is by law a non-partisan organization. (CBS has corrected one part of the story - without explaining that they have done this, as blogs do - but has not rescinded the accusation.) Update - A great letter from Media Matters' President to CBS. CBS got it wrong. Today at 1pm PST on the ABC hourly radio news Ann Compton gave a report on President Bush's plans to borrow one or two trillion dollars to privatize Social Security. At the beginning of the report she said that without changes Social Security is going to "run up trillions in debt," and later said that "Social Security Trustees say this shortfall will start as soon as 2018." This just isn't so, as many of you reading this already know. Social Security is completely solvent until 2042 at the earliest, and even this date is calculated using an assumption of only 1.9% average economic growth between now and then, and even then there is a very small difference between projected Social Security revenues and benefit payments! But Ann Compton didn't know this, and repeated the Right's strategic lies. I guess I shouldn't expect a reporter these days to know anything about the story she is covering, but one would think that an organization as big as ABC News would have someone on staff who knows enough about something as important - and current - as Social Security to steer Ms. Compton toward the accurate facts. ABC got it wrong. --- Posted at 12/09/2004 01:41:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Comparison Scott Rosenberg makes a comparison between the way Republicans handle accusations against Republicans, compared to their treatment of accusations against others: "Secretary Rumsfeld, meet Secretary Annan. You two gentlemen have a certain amount in common these days. Isn't it amazing, though, how differently the Republican powers-that-be view your two cases?"Republicans have absolute power now... Later he writes, "In my book -- pardon me, I should say "according to my moral values" -- corruption is bad, but torturing people and launching unnecessary wars under false pretenses is worse. (Of course, there's a theory that the Republicans are just getting Annan back for his criticisms of the Iraq war. But they're above that. Er, right?)"As far as I know, no one has even SEEN any actual evidence against the UN. Have you? So far it's just a bunch of right-wing charges. And we know ALL about right-wing charges. --- Posted at 12/09/2004 10:55:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More Mush Journalism as New Lies Spread Another story, this time in the local San Jose Mercury News about the "Declaration of Independence Banned" issue. This time the teacher is "at the center of a reinvigorated debate about the place of religion in public schools." Well, actually, if you know what this is about, it is about a claim that a school has banned the Declaration of Independence because it contains the word 'God.' What stands out in this story is this quote: "I support him,'' said Tom Forese, 30, who works in commercial real estate. "Most elementary schools are requiring the teaching of Islam, and I agree with that. But it's equally important to teach the Christian view.''This is a window into the strategy at work here. It is a window into the messages that the Right is sending to its constituents. This person has been led to believe that schools are requiring teachers to teach Islam, and are forbidden to teach about Christianity. And I mean led. Maybe he gets this from here, "they wish to transform public schools at all levels into venues for spreading Islam." Or here, "In the wake of Sept. 11 ... students must memorize many verses in the Koran, are taught to pray 'in the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful' and are instructed to chant, 'Praise to Allah, Lord of Creation.' 'We could never teach Christianity like this,' one outraged parent told ANS." Or here, "Are California seventh-graders being proselytized by the state's public schools on behalf of Islam? Yes...". Or here, "We could never teach Christianity like this. We can’t even mention the name of Jesus in the public schools." Or here, "Public Schools Indoctrinating Impressionable Youth Into Islam" Or here. Or here. Or here. Or here. Or here, "Fairfax County school district prohibits recitation of the Lord's Prayer but encourages students to pray to Allah." Are you getting the picture of what is going on here? THIS is what this is about. These are lies. There is no other word for it. This group is using this lie to spread fear, distrust and sow division in this country. They are trying to set us against each other. Other groups are spreading lies about public schools - and, by extension, "liberals" - forcing kids to reject Christianity and pray to Allah. This is the story. eReposte is also following this story, and Left I on the News. Update - I meant to add to this before by pointing out that the ACLU is one of the best organizations to help us fight this stuff -- at least to fight where they are trying to take it. The Right is going to try to make an end run around separation of church and state. The ACLU will fight it in the courts. They have an ad in the right column. --->>> --- Posted at 12/09/2004 10:16:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Payoff As someone who follows politics, I have noticed that people who speak out for the Republicans soon come into big money. (I came across that just after reading this.) --- Posted at 12/09/2004 08:31:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
"Support the Troops" One of these days I'm going to write a long piece about "Support the Troops". It's a big lie, sort of like hostage-taking: "If you say that I'm wrong, then the lives of these soldiers were wasted! And if any more are killed, that will be your fault too!" Our Commander in Chief is hiding behind the troops, who are expected not only to defeat the enemy but also to fight against Bush's domestic critics. Rumsfeld's D.C. press conferences are cute as all get-out, but his snarky responses to the troops in Kuwait don't seem quite so funny. (At least he didn't say "goodness gracious me" again. Someone probably would have shot him if he had). Rumsfeld actually believes that the troops are cannon fodder whose duty is to shut up and do their jobs, and he came reasonably close to saying so in Kuwait. (Here are some more stories about the troops, one from Bartcop and one from Kos: Veterans of the Iraq War are already starting to show up in homeless shelters. Scott Zellem, the pilot who flew Bush to the carrier photo-op, has been killed. There's been no national publicity so far. North Dakota Guardsman with doubts about the war has been killed: he felt "betrayal and abandonment" --- Posted at 12/09/2004 07:46:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
12/08/2004 Responding to the Attack on Public Education and Teacher Unions Table of Contents: Title Page Section 1 – The Goals of Those Attacking Public Education
Section 2 - The Right’s Overall Strategic Approach
Section 3 –Specific Strategies of the Right
Section 4 –Effectiveness of the Right-Wing Movement
Section 5 – Responding to the Attack
Appendix 1: Annotated Bibliography re. School Privatization Appendix 2: Examples of Anti-School and Anti-Teacher Unions Rhetoric Appendix 3: Example of Coordinated Repetition of a Framed Message through Multiple Channels Appendix 4: Examples of Right-Wing Organizations, their Funding Sources, and What they Fund --- Posted at 12/08/2004 05:28:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
New Report: Responding to the Attack on Public Education and Teacher Unions I have a new Commonweal Institute report coming out, titled "Responding to the Attack on Public Education and Teacher Unions," co-authored with Commonweal's Leonard Salle. This report describes the Right's messaging infrastructure and their strategies for privatizing public schools. It then goes into how teacher unions can respond. But this all applies more generally than just to teacher unions. All Moderate and Progressive organizations and individuals are facing the same attacks. I'll write about it soon, especially the "how to respond" part, but for now here is a press release that talks about it. You can find it here, in both PDF (1MB) and HTML versions. My previous report, "The Attack on Trial Lawyers and Tort Law," was written for trial lawyers. It described the right-wing "conservative movement," it's history, and its messaging machine. I was invited to give a talk at the ATLA (trial lawyers) national convention and you can find the speech as well as links to the report here. --- Posted at 12/08/2004 04:01:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Voting in Ohio Jay Jackman is a guy I've know for a couple of years. He was been talking about the need to revive the precinct captain system og Get-Out-The-Vote activities "before it was cool." He wrote about his experiences working in Ohio on election day: (This is toward the bottom of a long piece...) "It was at this location that we had our starkest experience with the disenfranchisement resulting from long lines. One of the poll workers put it this way. There were about 2700 registered voters in the three precincts. There were ten voting machines. Under state law, which was then in effect, if there were long lines, than each voter had only five minutes to vote, this meant that the machines could handle twelve voters an hour or 156 voters in the thirteen hours the poles were open. By 5:00 about 1300 people had voted leaving another 1200 or so expected to vote with the polls closing in 2 1/2 hours. The polling supervisor said the math was quite simple. 1200 voters. 10 machines. 120 voters per machine. One voter every five minutes. Twelve voters per hour. That meant that there were ten hours of voters to be served in 2 1/2 hours. She said that she had no doubt that they would be working past midnight, with waits of up to 5 to 7 hours. That is how disenfranchisement worked in Columbus that day. --- Posted at 12/08/2004 10:31:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
12/07/2004 Mutiny from stern to bow A self-ordained professor's tongue Too serious to fool Spouted out that liberty Is just equality in school "Equality," I spoke the word As if a wedding vow. Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now. --- Posted at 12/07/2004 08:19:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Democrats cannot win as hawks The recent TNR proposal for a hawkish Democratic party is politically wrong, and much more important, it's wrong on the issue. Politically, Beinart and the others misrepresent the state of affairs. The But we really don't need to do that. We only have to convince 2% out of Bush’s 51% to switch sides. Or else, we have to recruit enough new people from the 40+% of non-voters to tip the scale. (And if we could convince 4% out of Bush’s share to switch, we’d have a solid 53%-47% victory.....)
I do not think that the Democrats can win as a war party. Besides the reasons given above, a wartime president has a enormous power to control the agenda, and for many voters the “don’t change horses in midstream” cliché holds -- even for those who have serious doubts about the incumbent. (Kerry in fact did try to use the competence argument -- “I’ll do about the same thing, but I won’t screw it up” -- but that argument is a proven loser. Remember Dukakis?) The Muslim world is divided into twenty or more countries which are mostly enemies of one another. Muslims speak between five and ten mutually-unintelligible major languages. Religiously, they belong to two hostile major tendencies, each of which is divided into many sects. None of the Muslim countries has a significant industrial or technical base, and only a few of them have a significant financial base (which in all cases is due entirely to oil rents.) None of the Muslim militaries are powerful, and finally, most of the Muslim governments are not Islamist. And while many individual Muslims have some sympathy for the militants, many do not, and in most cases sympathy does not translate into active support. The defensive, anti-terrorist aspect is really a lesser part of the mix and is mostly important as a pretext. (The decision to begin by attacking --- Posted at 12/07/2004 06:40:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
12/06/2004 The Death Bet The Death Bet. Bet you didn't know you already shook hands on it. --- Posted at 12/06/2004 03:18:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Local Blogger Makes Good! American Street blogger Jenny Greenleaf has been elected to DNC from Oregon! See also Kos. I met Jenny at the Democratic Convention, where she was a delegate but spent time up (waaayyy up) where "the bloggers" were sitting. Update - Jenny writes about it at American Street. When you talk about "the Democrats" you're talking about Jenny now, and others like her. Go read about what this means. --- Posted at 12/06/2004 01:50:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
12/05/2004 Mush Journalism Lets The Lie Spread The New York Times, in God, American History and a Fifth-Grade Class, writes today about the Thanksgiving-week "Declaration of Independence Banned" story. They cover the story in a he-said/she-said manner, saying the teacher's contrived lawsuit, "...has single-handedly turned the Declaration of Independence into a powerful tool for the Christian right in its battle against secularist teaching of colonial history..."The Times story does not even mention that the controversy -- the reason they are covering the story at all -- only exists because of the inflammatory claim that the Declaration of Independence was banned by the school because it contained the word 'God,' and does not refute this outright lie beyond one "he said" statement. The school had not banned the Declaration of Independence, it had asked a teacher to stop giving unconstitutional "supplemental handouts" (like this, perhaps?) to students. The original story surfaced in the Right's echo chamber (Drudge, Limbaugh, Fox...) the day before Thanksgiving -- carefully timed to make it impossible to refute for several days, and to stir up emotions at family dinnertables. Now the story is widespread, which is probably the reason the Times addressed it at all. A Google search of "Declaration of Independence banned" yields 17,200 citations. (That is a search of the text in quotes, not for sites containing some mix of the words.) The Alliance Defense Fund, the "Christian law" organization responsible for the lawsuit states on their website that they use "strategy and coordination" to advance their mission to "spread of the Gospel." In this case their agitprop strategy of bearing false witness to provoke argument and division has proven successful. This lie is being repeated by blogs, discussion forums and word-of-mouth "water cooler" conversations. And the intended culture-war response is evoked in the thinking of the public: they are "fed up" with "politically correct" "domestic enemies" who are taking the separation of church and state "too far." Professional journalism again fails us. As far as I know, no "journalists" have seriously looked into the outrageous claim that a school banned the Declaration of Independence because it contains the word 'God', even though it is a major topic of discussion across the country, after Reuters allowed itself to be used to publicize and bring mainstream credibility to the lie. (Edited 10pm PST.) Update - My point is the real story that needs to be examined is not whether a teacher has a right to distribute handouts, or the limits of the use of 'God' in the classroom. The story is the strategic use and repetition of the lie (probably focus-group-tested) that the school "banned the Declaration of Independence." THIS is what is being discussed around the country, fueled by right-wing columnists like Cal Thomas. THIS is what is being repeated at 17,200 websites. THIS is the information a democracy needs so its citizens can make informed decisions. Note -- Be sure to visit eRiposte's collection of work on this story! --- Posted at 12/05/2004 09:10:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Intuitive Swing Voters
The day before the election I ran into a woman from the neighborhood whom I had met once or twice. She ran up to me and agitatedly asked, “Help me decide who to vote for! I just don’t know!” We talked for about ten minutes and I explained that I thought that Dubya might end up being the worst President in
When Air
A high proportion of Americans (mostly in the Red States) never hear a liberal opinion, ever. For a lot of them, some form of cheesy conservatism becomes the automatic default position, even though they may never have thought about it for a minute. For these people, free liberal media (even if they never listened to it closely) would give liberalism a respectability, plausibility, and reality that it hadn't had before.
--- Posted at 12/05/2004 08:49:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
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