Accountability

There is no law. There is only "The Party" and the interests of The Party.

Under Republican rule the Congress won't investigate ANY allegations of wrongdoing against ANY Republicans, the Justice Department will not, and the press will not. (But if a Democrat, like Martha Stewart...) There is no accountability, and we are witnessing (only the beginning of) the consequences of absolute power. There is no law. The Treasury has been looted. All constraints on corporations have been removed. The military is sent of on adventures to seize oil fields.

What else happens where there is no accountability? When "The Party" and its cronies are allowed free reign? Only right-wing ideological operatives are sent to administer U.S. operations in Iraq, and ideologically approved (big bucks to The Party) corporations get huge-money contracts. Here are the results: The Pictures That Lost The War:

"Some accused claim they acted on the orders of military intelligence and the CIA, and that some of the torture sessions were under the control of mercenaries hired by the US to conduct interrogations. Two "civilian contract" organizations taking part in interrogations at Abu Ghraib are linked to the Bush administration.

California-based Titan Corporation says it is "a leading provider of solutions and services for national security". Between 2003-04, it gave nearly $40,000 to George W Bush's Republican Party. Titan supplied translators to the military.

CACI International Inc. describes its aim as helping "America's intelligence community in the war on terrorism". Richard Armitage, the current deputy US secretary of state, sat on CACI's board.

No civilians, however, are facing charges as military law does not apply to them. Colonel Jill Morgenthaler, from CentCom, said that one civilian contractor was accused along with six soldiers of mistreating prisoners. However, it was left to the contractor to "deal with him". One civilian interrogator told army investigators that he had "unintentionally" broken several tables during interrogations as he was trying to "fear-up" detainees.

Lawyers for some accused say their clients are scapegoats for a rogue prison system, which allowed mercenaries to give orders to serving soldiers. A military report said private contractors were at times supervising the interrogations.

Absolute corruption does not just involve stealing money. And while this story is about torture of prisoners, we're hearing stories about insulting regular civilians by writing words like "pig" and "beer" onto the bodies of people returning to Fallujah, and about killing of Iraqi civilians at checkpoints, or when returning fire.

No, absolute corruption inevitably leads to things like this:

"In November, Frederick wrote, an Iraqi prisoner under the control of what the Abu Ghraib guards called “O.G.A.,” or other government agencies—that is, the C.I.A. and its paramilitary employees—was brought to his unit for questioning. “They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately twenty-four hours in the shower. . . . The next day the medics came and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away.” The dead Iraqi was never entered into the prison’s inmate-control system, Frederick recounted, “and therefore never had a number.”

And, back to the other article (While the following from the article details some British activities, the American activities are just as bad.)

"The British pictures show a hooded Iraqi aged between 18-20 on the floor of a military truck being brutalized. According to two squaddies who took part in the torture, but later blew the whistle, the Iraqi's ordeal lasted eight hours and he was left with a broken jaw and missing teeth. He was bleeding and vomited when his captors threw him out of a speeding truck. No-one knows if he lived or died.

One of the British soldiers said: 'Basically this guy was dying as he couldn't take any more. An officer came down. It was 'Get rid of him - I haven't seen him'.' The other whistle-blower said he had witnessed a prisoner being beaten senseless by troops. 'You could hear your mate's boots hitting this lad's spine ... One of the lads broke his wrist off a prisoner's head. Another nearly broke his foot kicking him.'

According to the British soldiers, the military police have found a video of prisoners being thrown from a bridge, and a prisoner was allegedly beaten to death in custody by men from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment."

What worries me is, at what point does "The Party" feel justified bringing this to American streets? I'm serious. After all, to these ideologues environmental groups, even teacher unions are terrorist organizations. Last night I spent time surfing the right-wing blogs and press, and what I read there was most alarming. More on that later. Watch your back.

Defeat

A year on from 'Mission Accomplished', an Army in Disgrace, a Policy in Tatters and the Real Prospect of Defeat:

"The tide is going out for the US in Iraq. They were not able to use their military strength against Fallujah and Najaf. They have very little political support outside Kurdistan. They can no longer win. It may be one of the most extraordinary defeats in history."

The Agonist: Mission Accomplished?

The Agonist: Mission Accomplished?

Fallujah

War Is The Worst Thing

I'm just back from the Santa Clara County Jefferson Jackson dinner. (Even though I live in San Mateo County... I go with my aunt who lives in the next county south...) This is a yearly Democratic Party event.

One thing I want to comment on. I talked to a lot of people. Everyone has a theory about why we are in Iraq. Some talk about Bush being swayed by neo-cons who control what he hears. Some talk about oil. Others about religious agendas like trying to start the apocalypse because the Evangelicals want to ascend to Heaven as the rest of us perish in a total war. Etc.

My comment is that WE DO NOT KNOW why we are in Iraq, and the reasons put forth by the Republicans are obviously bogus. They laid down a smokescreen, told a bunch of lies, whipped us up into a frenzy of fear and loathing, and got their war on. But no one accepts their reasons for war, and no one understands why we REALLY went to war. So we are left with rumors, conspiracy theories, people trying to piece together logic out of whispers of supposed information from possibly trusted sources... My point being that in a Democracy WE were supposed to decide after digesting all available information, with our government serving us by making that information available so we can be informed in our decision process, and the Congress was supposed to "declare war" only in response to the gravest of emergencies. But this time we were led to war, tricked into it, lied to, and manipulated by people who are masters of marketing but apparently void of basic humanity. But why? All we have to go on is rumor and speculation.

WAR. WAR. My God, we started a WAR! WAR IS THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD and we are at war, and we started it. Yes WE. You and me, our country, we started a war, and now we are starting to see it grow. We are seeing images of soldiers urinating on prisoners with hoods over their heads. We are seeing images of children burned to death, arms missing, mosques exploding, bombs ending lives, coffins returning home...

And worse, we did this while we were already occupied with Afghanistan, with finding the people who attacked us on 9/11, and eliminating their ability to attack us again. We took away from that effort to make this other war.

And NO ONE can really tell us why. THIS is what we have become.

(Yes, I know, a long night. It's late.)

Spam Record

I received 1306 spam messages today. A record, I think.

If you ever send me mail and think I'm not answering, it may have gotten lost in the deluge.

Update - 7 more in the 5 minutes since I posted that.

Update - 359 more this morning.

Bev Harris on the spot

Using the Patriot Act, the Bushies are going after Bev Harris. Another huge story that will be completely ignored by the corporate media.

Still more viewing pleasure

Avedon finds a wonderful capture of Bill Maher putting the boot up Tweetie and Bush. Just a couple minutes. You will love this, I promise.

Bush Wasn't Flying the Plane

I was just watching NBC Nightly News, and they clearly said that Bush landed the airplane on the aircraft carrier one year ago today.

Bush did not land the plane. Bush never learned to land on a carrier, and has not been allowed to fly since he refused to take his flight physical after they instituted drug testing back when he was in the National Guard.

He was a passenger. He had no need to wear the flight suit - it was all for show.

Mercenaries

Awhile back Kos caught an enormous amount of flak because of a harsh remark he made about the four mercenaries who were killed outside Fallujah.

Rather than backing down or pretending it didn't happen, he's stayed on the mercenary question. He's got a bunch of stuff up right now (April 29 and 30).

Using mercenaries is the standard kind of corner-cutting contracting-out that Republicans like to do so much in everything. The mercenaries in Iraq are as well-armed as the troops, at least as well-trained, and much better-paid. They're not under military discipline, but the U.S. is ultimately responsible for everything they do. This is certainly an issue to follow.

Kalamazoo has its doubts about Bush-Cheney 9/11 testimony

Sounds like the simple folk in Kalamazoo haven't learned how to regurgitate the received wisdom yet:

"Still, we continue to be troubled by a number of conditions set by the White House before Bush and Cheney would testify.

It was troubling that Bush and Cheney insisted on being questioned together. What did the White House fear about the two men being questioned separately? That they wouldn't get their stories straight separately? That Bush might go off the reservation and say something Cheney didn't want him to?

We also are troubled by the fact that neither Bush nor Cheney were under oath when they answered questions. Granted, it is precedent-setting that a president and vice president would testify before a legislatively created body, but the refusal to answer questions under oath certainly must leave the public wondering.

Finally, we are very troubled by the White House's demand that no recording, no official transcript, of the interview be made. Certainly we in the media live and die by the official record. Video, audiotapes, transcripts are what those who report the proceedings go on. Ditto for historians a generation from now. Even if today the testimony were classified and sealed from the public, someday an accurate record of what was said at Thursday's meeting would be invaluable for writers of history trying to understand this era.

Why would the White House make such a demand?........

And their testimony, which we hope was totally truthful, may do much to help the commission, Congress and the White House reach some concrete conclusions about how to prevent another attack on American soil."

(My emphasis).

The Kalamazoo Gazette

Republican Pedophiles, etc.

Over at my other site I sometimes try to beat the Republican creeps at their own game, for example on my Republican Sex Criminals page. I just received a link to an even better page which specializes in Republican Child Molesters -- 26 of them.

I've always wanted to do a piece on my home state's indigenous brand of Republican sex criminals, adulterers, drug abusers, and scofflaws, but I've never gotten around to it. The list starts with the well-known Sen. Bob Packwood and includes Joe Lutz of the Moral Majority (serial adultery), Multnomah County Commissioner Gordon Shadburne (a homophobe who put his boyfriend on the country payroll), Drew Davis (drugs, porn, Jesus), Kelly Clark (legislator, stalker) and Wes Cooley (no known sex or drugs, but lied under oath too often even for the Republicans).

We will now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

This is really depressing

According to the White House, major combat operations in Iraq ended a year ago.*

But this month has been the worst month so far.

And now we're hiring Saddam's generals to do the fighting for us.

*FOOTNOTE: Originally the White House simply reported that ALL combat operations had ended, but when that statement became embarrassing they doctored their website.

Accusing Nightline of TREASON!

If you think for a MINUTE that the owners of the media are not far-far-far right wing, read this. Sinclair Broadcast Group owns a bunch of TV stations. They are ordering them not to show Nightline, because Nightline is paying tribute to the soliers who have died. Here's what they say about it: Sinclair to Preempt `Nightline' on ABC Stations, Cites Politics :

"...the action appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq."

Is this extreme enough for you? Accusing Nightline of TREASON for showing the names of dead soldiers?

I missed something

[NOT POSTED BY DAVE]

So what's up with Atrios? I missed something.

He's talking about Nader voters as "greenshirts". Wonder what that is supposed to mean? We're going to be storming through the streets breaking the windows of Democrat-owned shops? Or what?

And his passionate commitment to free expression on blogs didn't last very long. He's back linking to Kerry's campaign cash register already. I assume he made some statement about the undelinking of the Kerry campaign from his site. But I can't find it. He was right the first time -- the Kerry campaign's caving to the wingnuts' false outrage in l'affaire Kos was cowardly and contemptible. (Not untypical for Democrats. Ooops, better change my shirt before I say stuff like that!)

Again

"Our military commanders will take whatever action is necessary to secure Fallujah on behalf of the Iraqi people," he [Bush] said.
- Bush: Most of Fallujah returning to "normal''

"We had to destroy the village to save the village."
- Unknown lieutenant during the Vietnam War

"That's What They Do In Their Mosques"

I just heard Rumsfield on CNN, holding up a picture of some people in a mosque with weapons, saying "That's what they do in their mosques."

Is this as bad as calling it a "crusade?" Are we going after "those people" now?

Shit is going to hit the fan.

Didn't They Use This Smear On Clinton?

Yes, they did, and it worked. So they're dragging it out and using it on Kerry, too.

$1000 HAIRCUT? KERRY FLIES IN HAIRDRESSER FOR TOUCH-UP BEFORE 'MEET THE PRESS':

"On the Friday before his MEET THE PRESS appearance, Dem presidential hopeful John Kerry flew his Washington, DC hairdresser to Pittsburgh for a touch-up, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Cristophe stylist Isabelle Goetz, who handles Kerry's hair issues, made the trek to Pittsburgh, campaign sources reveal.

'Her entire schedule had to be rearranged,' a top source explains.

A Kerry campaign spokesman refuses to clarify if Goetz flew by private jet on April 16 or on the official Kerry For President campaign plane.

The total expense for the hair touch-up is estimated to be more than $1000, insiders tell DRUDGE."

Expect another lie in an hour. It's what they do. They lie. They just lie.

Red-Baiting

Clicking through the channels (I'm male) I landed on MSNBC for a few minutes where they were having a discussion about Senator Hillary Clinton bad-mouthing Bush "in the Arab press." Since these things usually come in orchestrated patterns, I checked, and sure enough the same story is running at Scaife's NewsMax, "Hillary Blasts Bush in Arab Press". They're implying she committed treason for saying bad things about Bush to Arabs. (Remember how they accused Clinton of "protesting against his government on foreign soil"?)

This is the kind of Red-baiting that Republicans are known for, except it isn't Reds now, it's Arabs.

"Sen. Clinton delivered the unprecedented attack in an interview with the London-based Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat on Monday, with newspapers from Tehran to Islamabad picking up her harsh words almost immediately."

This "news report" concludes with

"In comments that could only encourage the Iraqi insurgency, the top Democrat complained that "the United States was in trouble because it could not abandon Iraq, nor provide enough manpower to run the country, nor gather world allies willing to provide the necessary assistance for the gigantic task," according to Mehr's translation."

OK, I'll go after some Trees for a minute, as long as we remember the Forest: They lie. They just lie. Never forget.

Trees:

1) The interview was with a London-based news organization.

2) Arabs are not our enemies. Arab newspapers are not enemy organizations. (In fact, we're "helping" the Iraqis by "freeing" them, remember?) (No, don't look a the pre-9/11 plans to seize the Iraqi oil fields, look over THERE!)

3) Arabs are completely capable of reading American newspapers, and they even have the Internet in the Middle East, too. Newspapers "from Tehran to Islamabad" can even pick up stories from the Washington Times. And Islamabad might SOUND like an enemy if you're as ignorant as the Republicans clearly expect the consumers of their lies to be -- (Islam Bad) -- but it's actually on our side. And Iran has been helping against al-Queda as well.

4) It does not "encourage the Iraqi insurgency" to state the obvious. They have eyes. They can see the mess Bush has gotten us into.

I know better, but I just can't stop myself...

More viewing pleasure

Here's another archived stream at C-SPAN you might enjoy watching. (If that direct link fails for you, go here and follow the first "WATCH" link.)

It's a panel discussion (really a debate) from last weekend's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books:

Panel: U.S. and Iraq One Year Later: Right to Get In? Wrong to Get Out?
Watch 2 hrs.

* Christopher Hitchens, "A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq"
* Mark Danner, "The Massacre at El Mozote"
* Michael Ignatieff, "The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror"
* Robert Scheer, co-author, The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq"
* Steve Wasserman, Los Angeles Times Book Review editor—Moderator

Hitchens is looking much more prosperous (and sober even) since his Big Right Turn. But of course.

Wasserman is as always somewhere between a weasel and a blowhard, but, except for some extremely long-winded (I did say it was Wasserman, right?) questions, is mercifully quiet.

Hitchens makes you want to scream and throw things at the screen. Ignatieff always reminds me of the worst sort of self-promoting academic smart-fool, and he does not disappoint here. Danner is good on our side, but Scheer simply hands Hitchens his head on several occasions, especially during the last few minutes when he suckers both Hitchens and Ignatieff into some faux outrage and then raises the stakes to such a level that they are left literally breathless and staggered. It is one of the best moments I've seen on television in years. Watch the last ten minutes or so, or watch the whole thing if such discussions appeal to you.

What America Knows III

A letter to the editor in today's San Jose Mercury News show a lot of what is going on in this election, and in America today:

"The Democrats and their sycophants in the media criticized George W. Bush for using pictures of 9/11 in his campaign ads. However, they seem to have no problem with using the issue of photographs of coffins of American soldiers in their attempt to damage the president politically for the war in Iraq. Look up hypocrite in the dictionary, and it will say, 'See Democrat, also Media.' "

The news runs pictures of coffins coming back from Iraq -- that's news, no way around it. But to this Republican, those pictures make Bush look bad, and therefore news outlets showing such pictures must be biased against Bush.

Let's go a bit deeper into what he is saying. I think this letter reflects the thinking of a typical "movement conservative." He's probably a Rush listener. Maybe he reads National Review, or visits Free Republic. To him, news is entirely about the political images that are projected to the public - entirely about whether the things told to the public help or hurt the right-wing movement. This Republican lives in a world engaged in an ideological war, so it is beyond comprehension that a news outlet would show something just because it is "news." The reality factor - the "news" - is not an issue, nor is it supposed to be, for him. Whether what is shown helps or hurts the movement is the only issue that matters. Everything is about helping move the cause forward. Anything that does not move the cause forward is an enemy.

So look at what this means for traditional news outlets. An honest news outlet is going to report, on occasion, things that do not help the cause of the Republican Party. So to these committed conservatives, this means that regular news outlets are, by definition, "against" them! If an image is shown that hurts Bush, the outlet must be "liberal," or else they wouldn't show it. (This is why we are all so surprised when a "news" outlet like Fox discusses news that might be seen as unfavorable to Bush.)

This writer KNOWS that the Republicans are lying when they say it is out of respect for the families of the soldiers that they refuse to let the media take photos and is complicit. To him it is clearly about images that harm Bush. He respects them for lying, because it furthers the movement. He understands the need to provide a cover story. He does not see it as lying and certainly there is no respect lost for those telling the cover story. He knows that it is part of the way things are done.

THIS is what is going on now in America. The "conservatives" see themselves as part of a "movement" and understand their part. Listen to Rush, as they phone in and discuss the nuances of PR strategies. It is all about furthering the cause, defeating the enemy -- which, by the way, is you and me. Watch your back.

51% of the people, all of the time

People joke that the Bush Administration has been using Lincoln's quip as their game plan, but the joke isn't very funny any more.

It's starting to look as if the Bush strategists are planning to win re-election by targeting two groups only: the fanatics of the Republican core constituency, and the people who aren't really paying attention.

A majority of Americans still believe that Saddam had MWD, actively supported al Qaeda, and was probably involved in 9/11. No evidence for any of this has surfaced.

The attacks on Kerry's supposed "anti-defense" votes don't hold water either -- Rumsfeld and Cheney held similiar views at various times in the past. As Republicans say about everything else but defense, "You can't solve a problem by throwing money at it", and some weapons systems just aren't needed. (The one person people really should be looking at in this regard is Rumsfeld, who sent an undermanned and underequipped army to Iraq).

The flap about Kerry's service records is even worse. The best you can say about Bush's military performance is that he served stateside and got permission to leave the service early with an honorable discharge. (This is the absolute minimum standard of acceptable military service). The worst you can say about Kerry is that he was a decorated combat veteran who got permission to leave the service early with an honorable discharge.

Kerry comes out far ahead by all non-pacifist standards, and people have asked why the Bush people are even raising the issue. The answer is that they are targetting people who aren't really paying attention -- airhead centrist whim voters who vote on the basis of buzz.

"Well, there were questions about Bush's military service, and there were questions about Kerry's service too, so basically it's a wash". That sounds shrewd and maybe even wise, right? Nobody's going to fool this guy! He doesn't even have to read the articles to figure out what's going on!

I blame the drug culture. During the Sixties a lot of people came to believe that they could get the real truth by intuiting vibes and reading auras, and that nit-picky left-brain attention to fact and detail is useless, if not harmful. Some of those people are still around today, and they seem to have had kids.

The present Bush campaign can only succeed if it gets active collaboration from the media. The most routine professional, fact-based coverage of the Bush campaign would blow it completely out of the water. But for whatever reason, even some non-partisan journalists have accepted a definition of "neutrality" which (like the worst forms of affirmative action that the Republicans rail against) requires equality of outcome. If, on a particular issue, the Bush people lie and the Kerry people tell the truth, the media will not tell us about it. (What they actually do is really worse than simply fake neutrality, of course -- most what we see about the election in the media is paid advertising for which ultimately do not take any responsibility at all.)

The possibility that Bush might be reelected to an irresponsible lame-duck term without the support of any well-informed voters at all is terrifyng. To me that sounds like a carte blanche to run wild and trash the place worse than he has already.

As always, I end up making a plea to people who never come to my site: the libertarians and the semi-mythical rational conservatives and moderate Republicans. None of them really have any reason to support Bush (key words: Patriot Act, little government, fiscal responsibility, and "sliming John McCain"). But it's possible that many of them will do so anyway, saying "At least he's not a Democrat!" Even the ones who don't vote for Bush will probably just slink down to the polling place and take advantage of the secret ballot.

I'm really hoping that a few of the big names will stand up in the last few weeks of the campaign and announce publicly that they're voting for Kerry. If they don't, the consequences could be appalling.

(No, I don't think that the Democrats will be able to pull it off on their own.)

Campaigns, blogs, marketing and reality

Watch this at C-SPAN.

If the link doesn't work for you, go to C-SPAN.org and search down the "LATEST VIDEO" list for "TechnologyPolitics Summit on Politics & the Internet (04/26/2004)".

The first presentation concerns progressive talk radio, but more interesting is a terrific talk by David Weinberger (a Dean Campaign Internet advisor). This starts about 57 minutes into the clip and runs for about 45 minutes.

Magic Spells

From the story referenced below, something on a completely different topic. Can anyone tell me what the difference is between this: ..."years before, Wallace was just about dead at the bottom of a swimming pool and that the only thing that brought him back to life was the power of people praying for him to live." and the belief that you can cast a magic spell?

What Americans Know II

My earlier post was obliterated by Blogger after being up for a few days. The post started with the news that most Americans STILL think Iraq was behind 9/11. Among other things I said it's crucial for us to listen to Limbaugh in order to understand what Republicans are thinking and what so many Americans think is reality. Today a Washington Post story covers this territory.

Some people get their information from the TV networks or the paper. Stein starts with the Drudge Report Web site, where he scans the headlines and clicks on one that says, "Rallying Cry For Dems: Vote Bush Out of Rove's Office." "This is the kind of stuff that pisses me off," he says. "They don't give Bush the respect he deserves. Not only because he's president, but because he's a helluva good man."

Next he goes to a Web site called WorldNetDaily.com. He clicks on an article that says, "Poll: Bush's Approval Sinking," but dismisses it as untrustworthy when he sees the poll was done by CBS. "Of course I have a suspicion of CBS," he says. "Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw -- they don't have any credibility with me."

Next he goes through a site called FreeRepublic.com, which calls itself "the premier conservative news forum," and then moves on to a site called sftt.org. "Soldiers for the Truth," he says, scrolling through another list of articles and watching a video of what the site says is a U.S. Apache helicopter targeting and obliterating three Iraqis. "Another guy moving right there," one voice on the video says, all business. "Good. Fire. Hit him," another voice says.

"It's amazing, the military, the men and women who are serving us," Stein says. "You think about the sacrifices, the idea of spending Christmas in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in West Africa, in these hellholes. In the civilian world, they get some injury, carpal tunnel syndrome, and they want to go sue their employers, and these guys . . . I'm so proud of them. I'm so glad they're on our side."

Next he goes to Military.com, where there's a photograph of an American soldier holding a wild-haired Saddam Hussein on the ground moments after his capture. "Look at the contrast," Stein says. "There's the American soldier coming to liberate the country, and there's the tyrant who ran the rape rooms and the children's prisons. That inspires me."

Next he goes to AmericanRhetoric.com, where he has listened to an "awesome" speech by Bush, an "amazing" speech by Reagan, and a "great" speech by Martin Luther King Jr. from a time before "things got so distorted," and then he goes to townhall.com, which calls itself a "conservative news and information" site, where he begins hopscotching from Pat Buchanan to Robert D. Novak to Ann Coulter.

This is how Stein gets his information, along with watching Fox News and skimming the local paper, to which he once canceled his subscription because he was so offended by an opinion column about Bush that began, "The Boy Emperor picked up the morning paper and, stunned, dropped his Juicy Juice box with the little straw attached." He recognizes that the information he seeks out reinforces his beliefs rather than challenges them, but "I feel I'm more informed than most people," he says. "Most people don't read all of this."

There's so much more in this article. Read it. Start listening to Limbaugh. Start in small, 5-minute doses. Don't break your radio. Work up to a full half hour. It is CRUCIAL to understand what Americans are being told. You will not BELIEVE what they're telling people! But this is the core of Republican thought. What you hear here is repeated in various forms and dilutions on the mainstream news. It sets the agenda. People BELIEVE that cutting taxes or the rich increases government revenue! People BELIEVE that Christians are persecuted in America. People BELIEVE that "the government" is some separate entity that takes money from regular working people and just keeps it for "themselves." They are told that Republicans are "people like us" and Democrats drive "limousines" and "drink wine and eat French cheeses" and that they hate Christians. Over and over they are told these things.

And they are told, over and over again, not to listen to mainstream media, not to trust anything "Liberals" say, not to trust their facts, not to believe anything they hear except from the far right. And it works.

Republicans understand how people get their information, and they take advantage of it. They spread little (untrue) stories about ridiculous lawsuits on music radio stations, they send out (untrue) chain e-mail stories about Kerry insulting people, they call talk shows with (untrue) stories about Kerry pushing his way to the front of lines in drug stores saying, "Do you know who I am?" They plant (untrue) stories about people (meaning Jews) persecuting Christians. Fox News reports Iraq stories under the banner "War on Terrorism" as if Iraq had anything to do with Terrorism...

Jinxed

Looks like I'm saving the data from the hard drive. It just came up again, and I'm copying everything to a new drive, hoping it lasts long enough.

Meanwhile something has screwed up the Seeing the Forest site, starting with the deletion of part of the What America Knows post, and leaving everything after that in bold. I'm leaving it alone in case Blogger fixes it...

Hard Drive Help

I've got a 30gb Quantum Fireball in my Mac G4 that suddenly won't spin up. The Drive Setup doesn't see it. Does anyone have any suggestions? Am I going to have to spend a huge amount to get the data recovered? Thanks in advance for any help.

Update - It does spin up, but the Mac won't see it. So maybe it's some kind of failure in the circuitry of the drive.

What Americans Know

You probably have seen this poll reported on other blogs. I don't tend to post things I have also seen elsewhere, but this one really, really needs repeating.

"A new poll shows that 57 percent of Americans continue to believe that Saddam Hussein gave 'substantial support' to al-Qaida terrorists before the war with Iraq, despite a lack of evidence of that relationship.

In addition, 45 percent of Americans have the impression that 'clear evidence' was found that Iraq worked closely with Osama bin Laden's network, and a majority believe that before the war Iraq either had weapons of mass destruction (38 percent) or a major program for developing them (22 percent).

[. . .] among those who say most experts agree that Iraq had banned weapons, 72 percent plan to vote for Bush."

To understand Bush's support, you have to unde


Well, I don't know where the rest of this post went. It was up for a few days, and then this happened to it. Thanks, Blogger.

An e-mail I received:

TEXAS TRUTH TOO GOOD NOT TO PASS ON

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Texas rancher (whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle), the doctor and the old man struck up a conversation about George W. Bush being in the White House. The old Texan said, "Well, ya know, Bush is a 'post turtle'." Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post turtle' was. The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road an you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle." The old man saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain, "You know he didn't get there by himself, he doesn't belong there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just want to help the dumb bastard get down!"

Bush the Post Turtle.

Bush had his chance to win it. Get him out of there before he screws up again.

Diana Moon, has pointed out that Bush and his surrogates are 100% sure to blame the Democrats for his Iraq disaster. (Tinker Bell died because we didn't believe hard enough). The title above is my first try at what I think we should be saying.

For 32 years now Democrats have been running away from the McGovern Curse, which the DLC has interpreted to mean "No Democrat ever can oppose any war anywhere". That has to change. Democrats have to suck up their guts and go on the attack.

It'll be a rough sell. Bush's rabid core constituency is 30% of the electorate, Bush's team has close to a billion dollars to blow, the media are shallow, spineless, and venal, and many "centrists" are just airheads. It will be like the Alamo or Thermopylae -- the few and the proud, defending human civilization against the ravening Republican horde. (Take that, Samuel Huntington! Take that, Victor Davis Hansen!)

As I've been saying for a couple of years, this election will be decided by the rational conservatives and the intelligent centrists (if there are any). If they stick with Bush, we are doomed. There are plenty of signs that they're starting to shift, but I'm not counting on it. George W. Bush may be allowed to run the world off a cliff just because certain people couldn't force themselves to vote for the party of unions, affirmative action, and (gasp!) gay marriage. (The horror! The horror!)

Why Chalabi?

Digby has one very good answer.

A Hero

I don't know anything about this guy, except that after 9/11 he gave up a $3.6 million NFL football contract and enlisted in the army. He was "an exceptional student with a 3.84 grade point average through college and graduated summa cum laude with a degree in marketing" who died yesterday in Afghanistan. This was just announced and there isn't much news yet about what happened.

I don't know if he was a rabid right-winger, or a Democrat, and it doesn't matter. (I guess it does matter because if he was a Democrat the Republicans are going to start smearing him now.)

Osama Bin Laden Captured!!

Not really. There's a spam email going around saying so, though. If you clink on the link in the email, you get a nice computer parasite. (Story here).

Investigators are hot on Osama's trail, though. My sources tell me is that the latest tip is that Osama has apparently figured out that if you want to disappear from view, the Texas Air National Guard is the best place to go.

Buy Books, Help Pay For STF Bandwidth

Click on the book cover, buy the book, support Seeing the Forest!

Voting Machines Story

Maryland Group Sues to Upgrade E-Voting Machines:

"A Maryland voters' group said on Wednesday it planned to force the state to add printers to electronic voting machines to ensure they can be double-checked after a disputed election, such as the 2000 presidential vote. "

The CPA Institution

Josh doesn't often crack me up, but this is funny.

Stealing an Election

Bruce Schneier offers a back-of-the-envelope estimate of what we're up against.

In 2002, all the Congressional candidates together raised over $500M. As a result, one can conservatively conclude that affecting the balance of power in the House of Representatives is worth at least $100M to the party who would otherwise be losing. So when designing the security behind the software, one must assume an attacker with a $100M budget.

Conclusion: The risks to electronic voting machine software are even greater than first appears.

Brush off the Polack Jokes

Apparently Poland is thinking of leaving Iraq and joining Old Europe.

What's the correct term for those guys, anyway -- "piroshki-eating Holocaust monkeys"?

Our club has become even more exclusive.

Update: This is a developing story, with different people saying different things, and there's a change of government coming up soon too.

Link

Chimpeach

Chimpeach

They Know

Sunday

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the administration is expected to nominate John Negroponte to be our first ambassador to postwar Iraq, to take up residence in what will be the world's largest embassy after June 30.

Monday:

In a blow to President Bush and his coalition partners in Iraq, Honduras followed Spain on Monday in announcing it will pull its troops out of the country.

The Hondurans know.

What OTHER Election-Manipulation Deals?

Woodward's book reveals that Bush made a deal with Saudi Arabia to reduce oil prices as an election-manipulation tactic. So the question is, WHO ELSE? What OTHER countries, corporations, etc. have Republicans made deals with to manipulate our elections? And in exchange for what?

When the Republicans started accusing Kerry of making deals with foreign governments, we should have known...

Bandar Bush is in the driver's seat

The two stories below are so flagrant that I have trouble believing them myself. I find it unbelievable that there has been so little media outcry, and that Bush supporters still are able to believe anything that the man says. These guys are tough when confronting France, but are meek and obedient with the Saudis.

Colin Powell was not told about our Iraq War plans until Bandar had approved them. Bandar wasn't easily pleased, but ultimately we got his approval for what we wanted to do.

More recently, when OPEC (led by the Saudis) decided to cut production and raise oil prices, Bandar kept Bush on a string for awhile before he agreed to increase Saudi production in time for the elections. I don't know what his quid pro quo was, but we can be sure that he got it.

(If you just tuned in, the 9/11 attackers and sponsors were mostly Saudis, and there was quite possibly no Iraqi involvement at all. We've spent several years now scouring the earth for little specks of evidence that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, while ignoring warehouses of evidence that high-level Saudis were implicated.)

BANDAR BUSH TELLS US WHAT WE NEED TO DO IN IRAQ

"And so Bandar, who's skeptical because he knows in the first Gulf War we didn't get Saddam out, so he says to Cheney and Rumsfeld, ‘So Saddam this time is gonna be out, period?’ And Cheney - who has said nothing - says the following: ‘Prince Bandar, once we start, Saddam is toast.’"

After Bandar left, according to Woodward, Cheney said, “I wanted him to know that this is for real. We're really doing it."

But this wasn’t enough for Prince Bandar, who Woodward says wanted confirmation from the president. “Then, two days later, Bandar is called to meet with the president and the president says, ‘Their message is my message,’” says Woodward."

Excerpt

Transcript

BANDAR PROMISES TO KEEP OIL PRICES DOWN

"Bush, who campaigned in 2000 on a pledge to persuade the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to keep oil supply plentiful, has been under fire in this election year after Saudi Arabia, the cartel's largest producer, led a push to cut OPEC output by 1 million barrels per day from April.....

Adel Al-Jubeir, foreign affairs adviser to the Saudi crown prince, told reporters in a telephone conference call that global oil inventories were at a reasonable level and blamed oil market speculators for driving up the crude price.

Joe Barnes of the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Texas said Riyadh was more than willing to help Washington balance energy prices by raising stocks in an emergency, like after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Right now, "the Saudis do not believe current oil prices are an emergency," he told Reuters.'

UPDATE:
A more recent story:

"Woodward, discussing his new book, Plan of Attack, on the Bush Administration's preparations for the Iraq war, told CBS television that Prince Bandar pledged the Saudis would try to fine-tune oil prices to prime the US economy for the election - a move they understood would favour Mr Bush's re-election.

Questioned about his claim at a time when oil prices are nearing a 13-year high, Woodward, a senior editor at The Washington Post, said: 'They're high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer or as we get closer to the election they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.'"

Update

Story I

Story II

Guardian

Bandar Bush

Democrats and Liberals

Below I've argued that if you want to be part of the mainstream establishment you cannot be a dove. This is just part of a more general rejection of "liberalism".

Steve Teles, a Brandeis political science professor, has said that the only thing all conservatives have in common is a hatred of "liberals". Many reasonably moderate voters would never vote for a Democrat because they think the Democratic Party is liberal.

If you ask them what they mean by "liberals", however, they'll often point to pot-smoking bisexual tree-hugging pacifist ecoterrorist vegans. But these people are not Democrats: they're Greens, if anything.

In other words, the people who killed Gore by voting for Nader also hurt Gore by causing moderates to vote for Bush. Everyone knows that life isn't fair, but this particular lose-lose proposition is an especially nasty one.

The Democrats have been bullied into driving away their fringe constituency, while the Republicans have succeeded in keeping theirs on board. And the Republican fringe is plenty nasty: neo-Confederates, Armageddon Christians, "nuke'em all" warmongers, and anti-tax anarchists.

In 2000 Nader got 2.7% of the vote and Buchanan and Browne combined got 0.79% of the vote. You know that there are a lot more racists and libertarians than that out there. That's only 3.5% of the vote altogether, but suppose the proportions were switched (.79% Green votes, 2.7% Buchanan and Libertarian votes).

Gore would have got almost 2% more votes, Bush would have got almost 2% fewer, and Gore (who already had a .5% advantage in the popular vote) would have defeated Bush solidly, 50.3% to 46%. The Electoral College and the Supreme Court couldn't erase that margin.

The Democrats have to stop running away from their fringe voters.

House of Bush, House of Saud

The New York Times just ran a stupid review of Craig Unger's book House of Bush, House of Saud. I strongly recommend Unger's book, but Tepperman's Times review is worth reading too, just for a glimpse at the way the establishment group mind works.

Unger points out that the Bushes have long-established ties to the Saudis and that the Saudis have donated over a billion dollars to Bush-sponsored causes. He speculates that this may have caused the Bushes to be friendlier to the Saudis than they should have been. There's nothing really extreme about this conclusion.

But Tepperman frames the book as a "conspiracy theory" in order to dismiss Unger's main points. He actually concedes many of Unger's facts (though one fact which he does not mention is that the 9/11 attack was manned, funded, and organized by Saudis.) He concludes his review by explaining that we are slaves of the Saudis and have little choice other than to do pretty much whatever they want us to do.

Tepperman is the senior editor of the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs, which makes his mediocre dishonesty (and his hopelessness about our relationship with the Saudis) seem a bit more more alarming.

More on the Bush-Saudi connection.

Would we have been better off leaving Saddam in power?

My irascible friend Diana Moon (no link, scroll to "Sunday Morning") has asked the question: "Do you think that we would have been better off leaving Saddam in power?"

This is not actually an outrageous question. What it amounts to asking is whether George Bush the First was right to leave Saddam ("a force for stability") in power after the First Iraq War. But the very fact that it can be asked at all speaks very poorly of the younger Bush's Second Iraq War. Coming up with something better than Saddam Hussein shouldn't have been that hard.

From the American point of view, we have confirmed (at a very high cost) that Iraq never had any WMD. As for the terrorist threat, it has certainly become worse: more Islamic militants have been created, whereas nothing at all has been done to reduce terrorism (and resources have even been diverted from the real war on terror.) The war has severely stressed most of America's diplomatic relationships and has also been costly both economically and in terms of casualties.

Are the Iraqis themselves better off? At this point no one in the world has any idea who will be governing Iraq in a year's time. (As far as that goes, no one in the world knows who will be governing Iraq two months from now). But the most likely possibilities are a militant Shiite theocracy, a long civil war, and an extended American occupation. None of these are necessarily better than Saddam's rule.

We're frequently told that we've liberated the Iraqi women, but that's just because you always have to talk about the ill-treatment of women when you talk about Islam. Iraqi women, per se, were better off under Saddam than they are now under the mullahs, just as they were better off in Afghanistan under Communism than they have been since the Communists were overthrown. (No, this doesn't justify either Saddam or Communism, but the secular governments were much better about educating women and letting them work).

And democracy now looks like the longest of long shots, with a real risk of getting an anti-American, anti-Israeli democracy.

This is not the war we were sold, and we will not be able to make a success of it without a long, costly, and probably brutal occupation. Hawks assure us that we have no other choice, but most of what they told us last time turned out not to be true.

Bush's war has been a complete failure unless its whole purpose was to get the U.S. involved in a longer and wider war.

Not A Political Statement

Now KPIG's playing Reggae Accident:

This is not a political statement
Nor is it a farce
In the land of the great bald bird
The rasta man is sparse

He does not like our urban jungle
Or our capitalistic nightmare
He does not believe in auto insurance
Mon I don't believe that is fair

It was a reggae accident
Four rastas in a rambler
A reggae accident
They came from out of nowhere
A reggae accident
They were smoking some spliff cigars
A reggae accident
They totaled out my car

I lost the case that sealed my fate
Last week in municipal court
The judge ruled for rasta restitution
Of a most peculiar sort

Now there's four stoned faces at my dinner table
And my wife wonders how come
She does not mind the extra mouths to feed
As much as she minds those after dinner drums

We sing was a reggae accident
Four rastas eating pasta
A reggae accident
Pass the parmesan please
A reggae accident
How does a rasta spell relief
A reggae accident
No problem mon, pass the spliff

Oh reggae down...

Now the sun shines on the isle of Jamaica
As it's done since time began
No problem says the rasta mon
When I asked to join his band

You see I sold my house I quit my job
I left that narrow-minded wife
And I moved to the island of Jamaica ya
Just to live that rasta life

Another KPIG favorite is Warren Zevon's Lawyers, Guns and Money, which is now the Bush theme song (along with "If I Only Had A Brain").

Send lawyers, guns and money
Dad, get me out of this

and

With the thoughts you'd be thinkin'
You could be another Lincoln
If you only had a brain

For a Sunday afternoon.

Why there was no moderate anti-war movement

Matt Yglesias (April 17 and 18, "Were Anti-War Arguments Wrong", no permalinks) has recently published a piece admitting that he was wrong when he initially supported the Iraq war. He distinguishes his own confession of error from the expected flood of weaselly fake mea culpas, of which David Brooks' supremely weaselly piece is presumably only the first. ("I was wrong but I was right anyway": Matt's paraphrase).

Matt, who is anti-dove, then asks why mainstream anti-war voices were so few before the war. His own answer and those of his commenters miss the point, however.

Since the end of the Vietnam War, or 1980 at the latest, not being a dove has been one of the criteria for being part of the mainstream at all. Before the decision on Iraq War II had been definitively made, there was in fact a great deal of mainstream anti-war opinion (look here and here.) But when crunch time came, those opponents all folded -- because if they had not done so, they would have become pariahs. (As Scott Ritter and, more recently, Richard Clarke have seen).

This consensus also probably accounts for a great deal of the media's writing-to-a-script, as repeatedly exposed by Bob Somerby. Up-and-coming young journalists learn what kinds of things they must say in order to continue to be up-and-coming.

Nothing has changed. The policy-makers and opinion-leaders who were wrong are still in place. No one either in the media or in government has lost his job or suffered a demotion because of his mistakes. So you should plan to see the same old opinion-leaders, in endless parade, passing the buck and covering their butts at a dollar a word.

But don't even hope to hear from the ones who were right all along.

"Bring It On"

This NY Times story includes this line: "Yet the killing will almost certainly have political consequences..."

But actions that inflame the entire Arab world have other, more immediate consequences if you are a family with someone serving in Iraq: Report: 11 U.S. Troops, Dozens of Iraqis Killed.

1952 VINCENT BLACK LIGHTNING

I'm listening to KPIG (online) and I nominate the following that they just played for Best Lyrics:

1952 VINCENT BLACK LIGHTNING
by Richard Thompson (Hear it here.)

Oh says Red Molly to James "That's a fine motorbike.
A girl could feel special on any such like"
Says James to Red Molly "My hat's off to you
It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952.
And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favourite colour scheme"
And he pulled her on behind and down to Boxhill they did ride

Oh says James to Red Molly "Here's a ring for your right hand
But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a dangerous man.
For I've fought with the law since I was seventeen,
I robbed many a man to get my Vincent machine.
Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22
And I don't mind dying, but for the love of you.
And if fate should break my stride
Then I'll give you my Vincent to ride"

"Come down, come down, Red Molly" called Sergeant McRae
"For they've taken young James Adie for armed robbery.
Shotgun blast hit his chest, left nothing inside.
Oh come down, Red Molly to his dying bedside"
When she came to the hospital, there wasn't much left
He was running out of road, he was running out of breath
But he smiled to see her cry
He said "I'll give you my Vincent to ride"

Says James "In my opinion, there's nothing in this world
Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl.
Now Nortons and Indians and Greeves won't do,
Ah, they don't have a soul like a Vincent 52"
Oh he reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys
Said "I've got no further use for these.
I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome,
Swooping down from heaven to carry me home"
And he gave her one last kiss and died
And he gave her his Vincent to ride.

Sigh. KPIG and Santa Cruz and Lighthouse Point and Steamer's Alley (it's a surfing thing)...

Update -My potty-mouth wife says, "Romanticizing a bad way of life - A bank robber on a fucking motorcycle." I MET her in Santa Cruz!

Other KPIG Best Evers:
The Road Goes On Forever By Robert Earl Keen
Illegal Smile by John Prine

Another Fact On The Ground

Sharon, thanking us for reversing decades of US policy and completely backing the policies of the Likud party while obtaining no concessions at all from Israel, has now had Hamas leader Rantisi assassinated. So this will be another "fact on the ground" for us to deal with.

You might remember last month's Israeli assassination of Yassin -- the guy in the wheelchair. That assassination directly triggered the recent events in Iraq, leading to the deaths of 82 American soldiers, and hundreds of Iraqis. THIS assassination is very likely to lead to a further increase in violence in Iraq, and across the Middle East.

We have a President who allows -- encourages -- these actions by Israel which lead DIRECTLY to increased violence in Iraq and the deaths of ever more American soldiers.

It looks more and more like this President WANTS all-out war in the Middle East.

Powerful!

The DNC has gotten it right. Go watch this powerful ad!!! DNC Video: Mistakes Were Made. Excellent.

Digby

Hullabaloo:

"There is a great big political battle going on with a bunch of guys who take no prisoners. We are not dealing with our daddy's Republican Party. They are not going to disappear and they are not going to allow us to enact a progressive agenda unimpeded. We'd best take that into account because simply reforming the Democratic Party into a fighting progressive voice for change ain't gonna get it done. We need every last person for this battle from all those awful DLC'rs and Democrats in the House and Senate to John Edwards to audacious faux Dem Wes Clark to Howard Dean. We don't have to sign any loyalty oaths but we do have to be serious and mature and understand how terribly difficult and how high the stakes are in trying to govern with the sort of opposition that puts a criminal like Tom DeLay into a leadership position. They will fight with everything they have."

Digby! Digby! Digby!

Intellectual Crisis of the Left

Over at Blogging of the President Matt Stoller is writing about "the intellectual crisis of the left." He summarizes posts on the subject by Peter Levine and Mark Schmitt of the Decemberist.

I piped in with the following, and repeat the comment here:

Levine writes (as paraphrased by you) that

"Creating a network of left-wing institutions to play hardball politics with the right as the radicals have done (such as Air America to balance Rush Limbaugh), doesn't make sense, and can only lead to a further fraying of our civic culture."

I'd like to take issue with that view of what Progressive organizations would do, if only we could get them funded. I'm much closer to Schmitt's view.

Let's step back a minute and think about what the Right's huge advocacy infostructure is and how it affects our politics. First, take a look at Jerry Landray's Media Transparency article about the huge machine backing up Bush's campaign efforts, and the recent NCRP study it discusses. (And some of my own research starting here.)

Here's how I see it: This huge infrastructure of the Right -- "the Wurlitzer" -- has spent decades softening up the public, spreading right-wing memes through the population, creating "conventional wisdom" that we need "tort reform," "tax relief," "school choice," and that "Social Security is going broke" and many more such themes. So after hearing this, over and over, the public is ready to support politicians offering solutions to these "problems."

So what these organizations do is lay the groundwork for the Republican Party to come in and harvest votes. It hardly matters who their candidate is, the election script is already written, they just repeat it, and they have this huge chorus backing them up nationwide. So come election time, the public has already been prepped.

Progressives and Moderates have very few real advocacy organizations in place -- especially not those that promote general Progressive principals out to the general public. As a result, the public is not prepped for Progressive issues. Our politicians have to educate the public about problems and issues from scratch, alone, and must do it during each election cycle. And not just alone, as in a voice in the wilderness against the huge right-wing chorus, but also they do not get the kind of marketing advice and assistance that organizations like the Heritage Foundation offer.

Mark Schmitt nails this when he writes,

"Having worked on a presidential campaign in 2000, I came to the conclusion that the hardest thing to do within a campaign, even an idea-driven campaign, is to develop new ideas, because the field operation, the message-of-the-day, the press, dealing with the candidate's time, etc., consume everyone's energy. The best a campaign can do is to pick up on and promote ideas already developed, and so I see campaigns as the moment where we measure the availability of new ideas in the larger world, and the success of other groups and people in developing the kind of visions and policy blueprints that candidates can use. If the candidates fail to do so, it is at least in part an indication of the failure of the think tanks or other institutions that are supposed to do the job.

But I don't think the problem is that our "think tanks or other institutions" are failing to do the job, I think the problem is that WE are failing to understand that this is the job of these think tanks and other institutions and not the politicians and parties. So it's really WE who are to blame for not creating and funding them.

We often complain that the "Democratic Party" is not "finding its voice" and is not explaining issues well, etc. We complain that Kerry is not voicing the issues effectively. But look at the other side. Do you think Bush is this amazing master of communications. NO! He just repeats what the right-wing machine feeds him. The Republican Party is little more than the candidate wing of this huge apparatus. So we shouldn't be blaming the Democratic Party, this is not their job. The job of politicians is to reflect the will of the public. The job of a network of advocacy organizations is to set up that background of public understanding for them.

Politicians on the Right have such an easy job! The public has been hearing decades of "what's wrong with" public schools, lawsuits, etc. AND hearing "experts" talk about how to solve those problems, so the politicians of the Right just come in and pick up on that.

THAT is the role of the Right's network of advocacy institutions. The progressive Center for American Progress is one small, small beginning towards doing something about this. But they are just one organization, and their focus is current legislative issues -- sort of trying to beat back the tide. The Right has over 500 such organizations in place. They have literally thousand of well-funded operatives. Our side needs people to step up to the plate and start funding these kinds of organizations as well.

So I think that yes, we DO need a network of left-wing institutions. But what I think they should be doing is putting out books, articles, op-ed pieces, and people to talk on the radio and TV, all advocating a return of progressive values of community, democracy, sharing, nurturance, tolerance, etc. I see this as an effort to restore civility, not to further fray our civic culture. I think that leaving the Right's institutions in charge of the megaphone is what is very, very dangerous to our civic culture. But, as I said, my vision of this is that the organizations are conducting the research into how to better our society, and doing the research on the nest ways to put the word out there, advocating progressive values of community, etc.

(Some time ago I wrote something similar in Don't Blame the Democrats.)

Facts On The Ground -- So Deal With It

I'm watching the press conference with Bush and Blair. They are talking about the decision to back Sharon's plan, and screw the Palestinians. In the press conference they are saying something along the lines of, "Well, this is the way it is NOW, and you can either look back and say, 'You shouldn't have done that' or you can look at what is happening now and get involved in the reality of today.' "

This is another example of leaders presenting us with "facts on the ground." Bush and Sharon are just going ahead and doing what they want, and getting the situation the way they want it, regardless of what the public wants or the participants want. They just go ahead and do what they want and tell us to deal with it. Since the Palestinians don't like they solution THEY propose, they are going around them, saying that they are blocking peace so they are going to go ahead and impose this WITHOUT Palestinian participation or negotiation.

This is the new style of our government -- no listening to public opinion, no votes, no legislation, just presenting us with "facts on the ground" and telling us this is the way it is now so deal with it. This is the corporate style of management. "The decision has been made." Present us with "facts on the ground" and call it "bold leadership." The format of press conference itself exemplifies this style: there will be 3 questions and no more, and forget this nonsense about leaders being accountable to the public. The decision has been made.

They have learned from the WMD situation. They made up a justification for invading Iraq -- WMDs -- and now it is causing them trouble. So forget the justifications from now on, they are just going to go ahead and make declarations and we'd best just "shut up shut up shut up" and recognize that, as Bush said in his press conference. "The decision has been made and it is not going to change."

Remember what Chalabi said about tricking the US into invading Iraq:

"When asked if he feels any unease or discomfort at the fact that some Americans feel the United States was suckered into a war under the false pretenses of disarming Saddam of weapons of mass destruction, Chalabi replies, 'No. ... We are in Baghdad now.'"

The decision has been made, and they are in Baghdad now.

The Apprentice: Guest Starring George W. Bush

The Apprentice: Guest Starring George W. Bush

Tax RELIEF??!!

Headline at the Kerry campaign site:

"John Kerry has proposed three times more tax relief for middle-class families than George W. Bush "

Tax RELIEF???!!! What's next, "Tort Reform?" You would think that SOMEONE in the Kerry campaign would be aware of Lakoff and others' work on FRAMING, since every weblog I read and most politically aware thinking people I am in contact with is. How can a national political campaign in the year 2004 make such a framing mistake? If Kerry gives in to the Right's use of language, and acknowledges their framing of this issue, why not just endorse Bush, since the "need for" tax cuts is the central message of Bush's campaign? How can Kerry now argue that the deficits are bad?

And then there's Kerry's statement on Bush's sudden, surprise reversal yesterday of decades of US progress on Mid-East peace, enraging the entire Arab world:

That Bush's move was good politics was evidenced by Democratic rival John F. Kerry's quick move not to let Bush outflank him among pro-Israel voters.

"I think that could be a positive step," the Massachusetts senator said, approving of the Bush-Sharon action regarding both refugees and Israel's borders.

I'm still going to vote for Kerry. But... I'm not going to ask if it's him or his old-style Washington Democrat campaign staff... He hired them. I'll put the Kerry donation button back up when I feel better about him.

Did Ashcroft Intimidate the 9/11 Commission?

Slate has a couple of good articles up about Bush's speech and Ashcroft's testimony. What this usually means is that we can expect to see a couple of crappy articles soon for balance, to protect Slate against the charge that they've gone all liberal and shit. (But I suppose I should be grateful and not complain so much.)

Molly Ivins summed up Bush's Texas character in three words: pious, macho, and anti-intellectual. Saletan describes a man detached from reality and perhaps borderline mentally-ill. Partly in response to his article, I ended up fearing that Bush might win the election even after all the rational conservatives (Richard Clarke, George Will) have jumped ship, leaving us with a lame-duck President who owes nothing at all to anyone who has a brain. After all, he "means what he says", and the voters seem to like that.

Kaplan's piece asks why Ashcroft was treated so gently by the 9/11 commission, which allowed him to blame various Clinton-administration people and did not confront him about his own inaction. Ashcroft, who put a low priority on counterterrorism and denied requests for more funding, is really the most vulnerable member of the Bush administration, but the commission didn't even touch him.

Kaplan speculates about various plausible reasons for this, but leaves out the possibility that the commission had been intimidated. Ashcroft will almost certainly remain Attorney General for the next nine months, and might well serve for four years after that. He's an utterly ruthless true believer who controls police powers (many of them as-yet unused) which are unprecedented in American history. Perhaps the members of the commission all decided that they didn't dare make an enemy of a man like that.

Those are two pretty chilling possibilities. Bush's support is steadily eroding, but we can expect a savage counterattack, and Bush has gotten out of the last two or three weeks a lot better off than he deserved to.

Trust, Don't Verify (Saletan in Slate)

Ashcroft Gets a Free Pass (Kaplan in Slate)

The Right Declares Absolute War On 9/11 Questions

New York Post Editorial: NATIONAL DISGRACE:

"The national 9/11 commission has been hijacked by political shills -- men and women eager to subordinate truth to partisan advantage; who hold a transitory victory on Election Day more dear than American victory in the war on terror.

Tawdry ambition has eclipsed sacred duty; all Americans are diminished, but none more than the families of the 9/11 victims -- who expect better from the commission, and certainly deserve it.

Unless it is the thousands of young Americans now under arms in Iraq and elsewhere; their bravery and devotion to duty is inspirational. How shameful that the commission attack dogs hold their sacrifices so cheaply.

And John F. Kerry, who presumes to the presidency, acquiesces. What a disgrace. "

There's more. It is incredibly divisive and intending to inflame Bush supporters to a hateful frenzy. Watch your backs.

At The Kerry Blog

Over at the John Kerry for President Blog:

"Tonight, the President had the opportunity to tell the American people what steps he was going to take to stabilize the situation in Iraq. Unfortunately, he offered no specific plan whatsoever. Rather, the President made it clear that he intends to stubbornly cling to the same policy that has led to a greater risk to American troops and a steadily higher cost to the American taxpayer."

The Press Conference II

It seems to me that after this performance tonite REAL Republicans must be REALLY pissed off at the Scaife-funded "movement conservatives" who have taken over their party, and packaged up Bush as a Product to be Marketed, and got us into this incredible mess in Iraq, and put the country into massive, massive debt.

So are they going to continue to take focus-group-tested instructions from Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, or are they going to take their party back from the Tom Delay/Pat Robertson/Newt Gingrich corporate-fascism crowd? I mean, looking back from here, compared to this crowd even Nixon seems like a reasonable, fairly-honest, moderate leader who was at least somewhat concerned about the greater good of his country when it came down to it.

Ashcroft Sets Looniness Record

Today Attorney General John Ashcroft made two of the looniest statements that any public official has ever been guilty of. Yeah, I know that that's saying something.

I don't mean blaming the Clinton administration for 9/11. We knew that the shifty-eyed, guilt-wracked Puritan with the shameful secret would do that. The looniness is in the way he did it.

"The commission cited a May 10 Justice Department document setting priorities for 2001. The top priorities cited were reducing gun violence and combating drug trafficking. There was no mention of counter-terrorism.....[Ashcroft] said the May 10 memorandum was based on goals developed by the previous administration."

In other words, almost five months after he had been selected by Bush, Ashcroft hadn't changed anything whatsoever. He was still working for Bill Clinton!

Looniness the Second: later in his testimony Ashcroft said "Our agents were isolated by government-imposed walls [and] handcuffed by government-imposed restrictions...."

I hate to tell you, John, but you aren't an outsider any more. You are the government! The Department of Justice is not an innovative private entrepreneur being crushed by the load of government regulation, or a hardworking family man being harassed by the IRS. The Department of Justice is a branch of government! You have to come up with some new cliches!

The man is afraid of calico cats. He's threatened by neoclassical marble sculptures of bare-breasted women. He has assigned trained investigators to surf for porn on the internet. He spent over a hundred thousand dollars prosecuting Tommy Chong for bongs. He spent tens of thousands of dollars finding whores in New Orleans when you practically have to fight them off, and when most guys can score for less than two hundred.

Boobs and loonies usually live out their lives in obscurity and are forgotten a few years after they die, but Ashcroft has earned himself a reputation which will last as long as the rivers flow and the grass is green. Too goddamn bad we didn't promise that to the Indians.

Story

The Press Conference

I'm watching the press conference. I'm having so many reactions... I keep wanting to write about specific things Bush is saying... The admission that he has a list to call on, his focus-group-tested statement that oceans used to protect us (he's never heard of ICBMs, or the British burning Washington DC?), his clear lie about WMDs combined with his statements that the Iraq war is really about changing the Middle-East, his bumbling, rambling manner, his inability to admit ANY kind of mistake... AND some of the reporters were asking actual questions - not tough but certainly more than they ever have.

But I'm going to See the Forest, not the trees, and say that I think I am watching history. I think there has never been a Presidential performance like this before, and I am including Reagan's rambling answer in the Mondale debates, when his Alzheimer's disease was beginning to have its effect.

I can not imagine that a reasonable adult could watch this performance without thinking that it would be best if the Republicans choose someone else as their candidate this year. Best for the country, best for the Republican Party, best for the world.

It was ON HIS WATCH! RUN SOMEONE ELSE!

What Did He DO?

Everyone is asking, "What did the President DO after seeing the Aug., 6 memo?" Thanks to Kos, here is the transcript of Bush the next day. This is on the White House's own server, by the way. Remarks by the President to the Pool. (That's press pool...)

Abraham Lincoln: Stalin or Osama?

Recently a regrettable controversy erupted when Blogger Y was accused of having compared Blogger J to Hitler.

Below our neo-Confederate friends show us how we can make our points vividly without using the Hitler comparison. At issue is an attempt to erect the first statue of Lincoln anywhere in the solid Republican South. This led to a split in the Virginia Republican Party, many of whom think of Lincoln as a hated Northern Liberal. Opposition was led by U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode (R., VA.) and Virginia Legislature Delegate Richard Black (R., Loudon), with some help from The Washington Times.

Comments from the first three pages of a 3600-signature petition:

"Absolutely Not ! I'll accept a statue of Ape Lingum in Richmond when Karl Marx and Vlad Lenin are placed in Washington, D.C. along with a statue of Bin Laden in New York City.....

Why not put up a statue of Osama bin Laden at Ground Zero?....

The only way that I would support a statue of Lincoln in Richmond would be to have him depicted in CHAINS in a kneeling position!....

Put up a Lincoln statue in Richmond ONLY after you put up a John Wilkes Booth statue at Ford's theatre....

A statue of Lincoln the war criminal doesn't deserve to be anywhere in the state of Virginia, much less in Richmond....."

There's more on this from Mac Diva here. Mac now writes at Macaronies and Silver Rights.

Al Franken

I hope you're all listening to Al Franken's show every day. It is just so FUNNY!

The Other Side of the Story: John Kerry and Martin Van Buren

Some may think that the 9/11 investigation is about George W. Bush and maybe Bill Clinton, but if you spend enough time on the internet you'll find out that it's really about LBJ, FDR, Woodrow Wilson, and every other goddamn no good Democratic President that there ever was or will be.

My friend Al at Brad DeLong has strengthened the Republicans' case, pointing out that the Democrat Martin Van Buren's performance in the 1837-1838 Caroline incident and Aroostook War on the Maine-New Brunswick border was disgraceful and cowardly.

Kerry should firmly dissociate himself from Van Buren's costly do-nothing policy in the Aroostook Valley, and explain that as a New Democrat he has renounced the failed policies of the past. Unless he does so, he cannot expect the American People to elect him to the highest office in the land.

Back Off The Bin Ladens

On the Randi Rhodes Radio Show, she just suggested going to Google and looking up the phrase "Back Off The Bin Ladens".

And always keep in mind that the President's Daily Briefing, warning of an al-Queda attack on the US, was presented to Bush the day before he started the longest vacation any President has taken.

Instructions

skippy has instructions for a President who said he needs things spelled out VERRRRRRY clearly.

Cronies

Arianna writes about the Republican Palace in Iraq.

I call it the Republican Crony Club.

Have A Nice Weekend

RADIO AUSTRALIA: "North Korea says nuclear stand-off 'at brink of war'"

Rice's testimony supports Clarke

In her testimony before the 9/11 Commission, Condoleezza Rice spoke repeatedly about "structural and legal impediments", "structiral problems", "structural inability", etc., etc. The basic idea is that the failure to respond to warnings about terrorism was because of problems in the bureaucracy, and that the Bush administration was working on these problems when 9/11 hit.

Richard Clarke knew all about structural problems. When Clinton's National Security Adviser Sandy Berger "convened the Principals [Cabinet-level officials] in crisis mode", he was taking steps to get all of the top people in the Clinton Administration to work at overcoming the structural problems of the system.

In the Clinton Administration the top people worked to overcome the structural problems. In the Bush administration, they didn't. The bureaucrats were the same in both cases.

The problem wasn't structure, but leadership. The ones responsible are Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Cheney, Bush -- and above all, Rice.

We need more partisanship

Mild-mannered Kevin Drum (now writing for the insanely-moderate Washington Monthly) has linked to a wonkish yet fluffy article which bemoans America's increasing partisanship and suggests some nice bipartisan reasons for it. (One of the reasons was people becoming more partisan in a heavily partisan environment just to fit in).

The viciousness that has won the Republicans a lot of elections during the last decade or so is not mentioned, of course, nor is the stolen 2000 Presidential election.

Here's my slightly-edited comment, which was a response to a poster named Carl:

Carl is right. The article didn't mention people becoming LESS partisan (perhaps by making remarks about "pandering to the core constituency") in order to be accepted. I mean the various counter-intuitive, DLC Democrats -- for example, the leadership of the Democratic Party.

While I have been harsh in the past about the wimpiness of the Democratic leaders, I now grudgingly admit that to a degree it is a reasonable response to a situation in which you are not the majority party and you have to work with the majority to get anything done, combined with the fact that a considerable proportion of the Dems are personally half-Republican and will cave in a showdown.

But Democratic leadership should be thinking a lot harder of ways to take back the majority, rather than resigning themselves to minority status. Their main leadership strategy that I've seen is to wait for the Republicans to move even further right so that the Dems can pick up "moderate" Republicans of the McCain type (thus moving further right themselves.)

I am also convinced that Peretz and a number of other significant voices in the party (i.e., his stable of punks) are much more intent on destroying the left wing of the party than they are in putting the Democrats in power.

The partisanship seen on the left is mostly anger at the 2000 election and the generally vicious trend of the Republicans, especially over the last decade. In other words, Democratic partisanship is a belated response to vicious Republican partisanship (a response which is replacing the DLC "submissive wetting" strategy).

Some of the demographic and other wonk explanations in the article might be partly true, but overall I think that it is fundamentally misleading.


The more partisan the Democrats get, and the more partisan Democrats there are, the happier I'll be. The two-party system only works if there are plenty of partisans, as the Republicans very well know. We have to learn to play the game the way it's played.

Time to cut some brush

The Washington Post via Josh Micah Marshall:

"Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency."

The whole Bush family has always taken the whole month of August off. If you want an image of The Bosses, forget about top hats and cigars and the other cartoonist's cliches. Just think of every member of a large family being able to say "Oh, by the way, I'm taking August off".

That's not the common American experience. Few workers can schedule their vacations whenever they want to, and few indeed get a whole month off. On my mother's 80th birthday we moved heaven and earth so that finally 20 out of 22 children, inlaws, and grandchildren were able to be there at some point during the same week.

In France, of course, because of a strong labor movement and strong labor laws, most people do get a full month off (often in August). And any good Republican can tell you how terrible a thing that is, when it's workers who are able to do it. And the Republicans have done a good job of making sure that that kind of thing doesn't happen here.

Supposedly Bush "works from home". Most people have heard that one before too. Sometimes the people working at home actually do work, and sometimes you're pretty sure they don't, but almost always you know that they're able to do it because they're the boss. As Bush says about himself, they're the boss and don't have to answer any questions.

Of course, we can also ask ourselves whether Bush has ever really been management either. Harken and Arbusto seem mainly to have been shell companies used to launder funds being transferred from one mysterious entity to another, like a Mafia-owned cafe. And with the Texas Rangers, Bush lent his name and face as a front, but otherwise was a silent partner.

Of course, there's a standard troll answer to this: "Work smarter, not harder! Look how hard Jimmy Carter worked, and look at the terrible results he got!"

Which might be fine, except that the wheels are coming off Bush's cart. The biggest job loss since Hoover, and a lose-lose war of attrition in Iraq. Bush's campaign only has two things to run on: first, smears against Kerry, and second (if things improve slightly) talk about how "He turned things around". Which amounts to running against himself, because he can't afford to compare himself to Clinton. "Things are a lot better now than they were during my first 3 1/2 years!"

Sounds like a good time for the trolls to be spending some time with their families. I bet there's a lot of brush to cut on those little troll ranches.

What Really Happened Today

What really happened today is we learned about "the memo." You're going to be hearing a lot about this memo.

Bush Administration Warned 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States' - Center for American Progress:

"Two and a half years after 9/11, the American public learned today that President Bush received explicit warnings that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack the United States -- including activities 'consistent with preparations for hijacking.' Yet, there was no domestic follow-up by the Bush administration. No high level meetings. No sense of urgency. No warnings to FBI agents across the country.

• We now know why the Bush administration has been hiding the Aug. 6, 2001, intelligence briefing for the president, called 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.' All of the 9/11 Commission members -- Republicans and Democrats -- have asked the Bush administration to declassify this document. There are precedents for releasing presidential daily briefings and the American public deserves to know what President Bush knew and when."

OK, on August 6, 2001, Bush gets a CIA briefing memo titled 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States'. It says they're going to hijack airplanes. The next day Bush left on the longest vacation any President had taken and the administration ignores the warning. (Read this one for a real kick - but look at the date first.)

I think this is going to sink in. The title of the memo makes it too easy to see that they just blew it off. And the things they have been saying - that they were never warned, even that the only things in this memo were in obscure footnotes... AND that they have been doing everything in their power to block the public from learning about this memo. Now we know why.

Meanwhile, Bush is on vacation again, while Iraq falls apart. As of the last time I turned on the news (a few hours ago) at least 41 American soldiers dead in combat so far this week.

Today may have been it for Bush.

You've Probably Heard It

An e-mail I just received:

Have you heard of the No-Carb Diet for 2004?


NO C-heney


NO A-shcroft


NO R-umsfeld


NO B-ush


and absolutely NO RICE!

Why Are We In Iraq?

A simple question. Why are we in Iraq now? There is no threat to the U.S. No weapons of mass destruction. Saddam and his sons no longer run the country.

The people in our military did not sign up and put their lives on the line to defend Iraq or to build democracy in the Middle East (a cover story for going and getting the oil -- watch what they DO, not what they SAY; putting Chalabi in charge in Iraq has NOTHING to do with building democracy. NOTHING.) These people signed up and put their lives on the line to defend America, their families, you, and me. That might sound extremely self-centered, but we're when talking about asking people to do and die I don't think America's youth signed up to lay their lives down for reasons having so little to do with the defense of America.

I think that being self-centered about lives might be a good idea. It is supposed to keep us from doing stupid things like starting wars.

So now we are in Iraq BECAUSE we are in Iraq. Now that we have invaded we can't leave. It's a fact on the ground now. As Chalabi said, with a smug smile, what happened in the past doesn't matter because we're in Baghdad now.

Bush wants to cut and run, starting June 30. Great. Leave the place a mess, like Afghanistan. Put corrupt cronies in charge to keep the oil flowing our way, and bug out, timed perfectly for the election. Elections in Afghanistan in October, troops out of Iraq by October, too. Chaos delayed until December but the past won't matter because we're in the White House for good now.

But we have a "we broke it, we fix it" situation. Now we have to stay because if we leave now the country descends into chaos -- and it will be our fault if that happens. The Geneva Convention says we are responsible because we invaded. AND the country could actually become what Bush said it was. It could become a cauldron of terrorism directed at the United States -- developing weapons of mass destruction, with terrorist training camps in the country and financing terrorist activities around the world. So we have to stay.

None of us signed up or this. I think the country is going to start realizing this. I think the people in the military are realizing it already. I think the people who were thinking of joining the military are realizing that, too -- so I think the draft is inevitable now.

I think Bush has created the terrorist nightmare. It's only just beginning now. And we can't leave.

Update - A comment I left somewhere:

A cousin's son is in the Marines. He's in Recon and went into Iraq BEFORE the war started. People with relatives or friends over there don't talk so much about the strategic benefits or higher meanings of all of this, they talk about their relatives and friends and worry that they'll be OK. Strategery and higher meaning I guess is for the country's leaders - NONE of whom have relatives at risk. I guess that's why they're our leaders? Because they can strategize and move chess pieces around the world without worrying about it hitting home.

I think about all the people in the military who signed up and put their lives on the line to DEFEND AMERICA. I don't know when there has ever been such a betrayal of them as this. It could be reasoned that Vietnam was about defending America, but not this. No way this.

Yes, it's late. I can't sleep tonite for some reason.

More here. Mindblowing.