This is Matt Motley, a trader at Enron's West Power desk, talking to another trader...
MATT: Yeah, that’s a bunch of bullshit. You know what – you know what really pisses me off?
TOM: The price caps?
MATT: The price caps! You know what -?
TOM: Fucking bullshit. It would take care of all the weak. Get ‘em out.
Another gem:
MATT: We need to get the fucking um – [...] - environmentalists on this shit.
CBS News picked up on this one:
MATT: Tell you what – you heard this here first: When Bush wins –
TOM: Caps are gone.
MATT: That Fuckin’ Bill Richardson, he’s fuckin’ gone. The fucking, ah, Clinton, he’s fuck – all these fuckin’ ah, socialists are gone –
TOM: Yeah.
MATT: And who’s the biggest, ah, single contributor to the Bush campaigners?
TOM: You.
MATT: [laughs] Enron.
TOM: Enron. What?
MATT: Enron.
TOM: Is it Enron?
MATT: Yeah.
TOM: Jesus Christ. Is it – is that true?
MATT: Yeah, I think it is.
TOM: The biggest single contributor.
MATT: Yeah, the biggest corporate contributor to the –
TOM: Holy –
MATT: [simultaneous]
TOM: Really?! That’s huge.
MATT: And number one.
TOM: That’s huge.
MATT: Ken Lay’s going to be Secretary of Energy.
TOM: Get out of here!
MATT: No.
[laughing]
MATT: But ah –
TOM: Can you imagine that? Why not, though? Why not? He could be, right?
MATT: Yeah. And why not? Who – you know, who’s to say why not? He could be.
TOM: That would be awesome, actually.
MATT: That would be - how great would that be for all the players in the market!
TOM: It’d be great. I’d love to see Ken Lay be Secretary of Energy.
MATT: He would open these markets up.
6/02/2004
Worse Yet
Every single day there is news that shocks me, makes me wonder that the effect of the Bush administration on our country is EVEN WORSE than I even imagined any given yesterday. It just gets worse and worse.
Today we learn that someone in the Bush administration told Chalabi that we have broken Iran's encryption and are listening in on their most secret communications. -- and he told Iran. So now we can't listen in on Iran anymore AND they are changing any agents, operations, nuclear activities, etc. we might have learned about. But even THIS is even worse than it sounds. You see, this also tells ALL THE REST of the world that we are probably able to listen to their communications, so now North Korea and China and all the rest are busy changing their codes, and operations, etc.
But it's even worse than that. You see, Chalabi ALSO has Saddam's secret police files, because WE gave them to him. Which likely means Iran has them, which means any new Iraqi leadership will be Iran's bitch.
Matthew Yglesias thinks Bush it's even worse, too: "The truth, hard as it is to accept, is that Bush is an Iranian agent." :-)
Today we learn that someone in the Bush administration told Chalabi that we have broken Iran's encryption and are listening in on their most secret communications. -- and he told Iran. So now we can't listen in on Iran anymore AND they are changing any agents, operations, nuclear activities, etc. we might have learned about. But even THIS is even worse than it sounds. You see, this also tells ALL THE REST of the world that we are probably able to listen to their communications, so now North Korea and China and all the rest are busy changing their codes, and operations, etc.
But it's even worse than that. You see, Chalabi ALSO has Saddam's secret police files, because WE gave them to him. Which likely means Iran has them, which means any new Iraqi leadership will be Iran's bitch.
Matthew Yglesias thinks Bush it's even worse, too: "The truth, hard as it is to accept, is that Bush is an Iranian agent." :-)
American secrets to the Axis of Evil? Who cares?
OK, so it turns out that America's main man in Iraq was sending American secrets to Iran over at the Axis of Evil, and that someone in U.S. government was illegally giving these secrets to him.
This story is (very slowly) working its way through the media, but there's no urgency or excitement. Another little Middle East scandal, tee hee. Aren't those guys funny over there?
Besides getting rid of a few people in the defense department immediately, and President Bush this fall, there really needs to be some turnover among our opinion leaders.
The Chalabi story isn't causing a buzz because practically the whole media establishment was complicit, especially the foreign-policy fatheads. The only noise you're going to be hearing about this thing is the discreet swish of ass-covering.
This story is (very slowly) working its way through the media, but there's no urgency or excitement. Another little Middle East scandal, tee hee. Aren't those guys funny over there?
Besides getting rid of a few people in the defense department immediately, and President Bush this fall, there really needs to be some turnover among our opinion leaders.
The Chalabi story isn't causing a buzz because practically the whole media establishment was complicit, especially the foreign-policy fatheads. The only noise you're going to be hearing about this thing is the discreet swish of ass-covering.
Schwarzenegger and Enron.
Thomas Leavitt has some juicy stuff from the Enron tapes down below, so I thought I'd dig out the old stuff about Schwarzenegger and Enron.
Schwarzenegger met with Enron shortly before the election. It's impossible for me to believe that he was not actively complicit in the looting of Calfornia and the fake energy crisis. There should be another recall, but there won't be.
Everyone hates Grey Davis, but (at least in the end) he actually did a fairly good job fighting Enron -- the voters just preferred to elect one of the bad guys. The Schwarzenegger election was one of the worst ever. Even without the Enron meeting, Schwarzenegger was a total fake.
And it was the moderates who elected him -- the right wing had their own wacko candidate, who got about 15%. The goddamn Kennedy family even pitched in, or some of them anyway. It was completely, completely depressing.
Greg Palast on Schwarzenegger and Enron
Meteor Blades (from Kos) on Schwarzenegger and Enron
Schwarzenegger met with Enron shortly before the election. It's impossible for me to believe that he was not actively complicit in the looting of Calfornia and the fake energy crisis. There should be another recall, but there won't be.
Everyone hates Grey Davis, but (at least in the end) he actually did a fairly good job fighting Enron -- the voters just preferred to elect one of the bad guys. The Schwarzenegger election was one of the worst ever. Even without the Enron meeting, Schwarzenegger was a total fake.
And it was the moderates who elected him -- the right wing had their own wacko candidate, who got about 15%. The goddamn Kennedy family even pitched in, or some of them anyway. It was completely, completely depressing.
Greg Palast on Schwarzenegger and Enron
Meteor Blades (from Kos) on Schwarzenegger and Enron
Chalabi's Nigerian Letter
"Hello, my name is Ahmed Chalabi. I am unable to access my funds in the oil-rich nation of Iraq. I am writing to you because I know that you are an honest and well-intended person. If you can forward me eighty-seven billion dollars I assure you that you will be richly rewarded for your generosity...."
I still don't know what's going on in Iraq. Josh Micah Marshall doesn't either, and he's really been working on the story. (Just page down for the last couple of weeks, and watch him trying).
Apparently the Iraqi Governing Council, which was supposed to be frozen out of the new government, has hijacked the process, making the UN completely irrelevant, and the US has ratified what happened (but apparently only after the fact).
The new Prime Minister, Allawi, is a cousin or something of Chalabi, whose home and office were just raided, apparently with American approval, and who is being accused of sending American secrets to Iran (which remains a member of the Axis of Evil, as far as anyone knows).
So is Allawi a rival of Chalabi's or his stooge? Does anyone know? Are the Americans who support Allawi different people than the Americans who are trying to bust Chalabi and his American friends? My reading is that nobody is on charge either in Iraq or in Washington D.C., and that anything might happen. (Sort of like a bloody situation comedy, I guess.)
One theory is that the Chalabi raids were fake, meant to give Chalabi street cred with the Iraqis. That seems unlikely to me, however -- there would have been less messy ways to do that, which would have had fewer damaging domestic (US) repercussions.
Americans, including the best and brightest, have a strong tendency to underestimate the political skills of third-worlders. Economically, technically, and militarily the third world is weak, but many of their leaders have learned how to play their weak hands very skillfully. And in fact, many of them have thousands of years of experience at playing political games.
Chalabi is an MIT-Chicago math PhD, which suggests that he's not too dumb. Iraq also has a continuous 5,000-year history of bureaucracy, which means that Iraqi skills at bureaucratic infighting, (deception, manipulation, conniving, double-crossing, etc.) are going to be highly sophisticated.
By contrast, our own representives are mere political science PhD's (also from Chicago). It's no wonder they were snookered. One of the beauties of American life is the degree to which it is actually possible to be successful while remaining straightforward and honest, but this doesn't translate well in diplomacy.
Many versions of the "Nigerian letter" scam depend on convincing previously-honest citizens that they, personally, have finally been awarded a chance to get in on some of the crime action. Maybe that's what happened in Iraq. For many, Chalabi's criminal past was actually part of his appeal.
I still don't know what's going on in Iraq. Josh Micah Marshall doesn't either, and he's really been working on the story. (Just page down for the last couple of weeks, and watch him trying).
Apparently the Iraqi Governing Council, which was supposed to be frozen out of the new government, has hijacked the process, making the UN completely irrelevant, and the US has ratified what happened (but apparently only after the fact).
The new Prime Minister, Allawi, is a cousin or something of Chalabi, whose home and office were just raided, apparently with American approval, and who is being accused of sending American secrets to Iran (which remains a member of the Axis of Evil, as far as anyone knows).
So is Allawi a rival of Chalabi's or his stooge? Does anyone know? Are the Americans who support Allawi different people than the Americans who are trying to bust Chalabi and his American friends? My reading is that nobody is on charge either in Iraq or in Washington D.C., and that anything might happen. (Sort of like a bloody situation comedy, I guess.)
One theory is that the Chalabi raids were fake, meant to give Chalabi street cred with the Iraqis. That seems unlikely to me, however -- there would have been less messy ways to do that, which would have had fewer damaging domestic (US) repercussions.
Americans, including the best and brightest, have a strong tendency to underestimate the political skills of third-worlders. Economically, technically, and militarily the third world is weak, but many of their leaders have learned how to play their weak hands very skillfully. And in fact, many of them have thousands of years of experience at playing political games.
Chalabi is an MIT-Chicago math PhD, which suggests that he's not too dumb. Iraq also has a continuous 5,000-year history of bureaucracy, which means that Iraqi skills at bureaucratic infighting, (deception, manipulation, conniving, double-crossing, etc.) are going to be highly sophisticated.
By contrast, our own representives are mere political science PhD's (also from Chicago). It's no wonder they were snookered. One of the beauties of American life is the degree to which it is actually possible to be successful while remaining straightforward and honest, but this doesn't translate well in diplomacy.
Many versions of the "Nigerian letter" scam depend on convincing previously-honest citizens that they, personally, have finally been awarded a chance to get in on some of the crime action. Maybe that's what happened in Iraq. For many, Chalabi's criminal past was actually part of his appeal.
6/01/2004
Moore Gets Distributor
Yahoo! News - Moore Documentary Gets U.S. Distributor:
"Michael Moore (news)'s award-winning documentary 'Fahrenheit 9/11' has picked up a U.S. distributor and will hit theaters June 25. "
ENRON TAPES - The ENRON Tapes and "Grandma Millie"
For the past three months, I've been working more or less full time as a research assistant for an expert witness contracted by Snohomish County P.U.D. No. 1 to testify on their behalf before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in a dispute between them and Enron.
The details of the case are available on the FERC web site, as part of case No. EL03-180-000, and can be found by visiting this URL ( http://elibrary.ferc.gov/idmws/search/fercgensearch.asp )
and doing a search for: EL03-180*
The documents in question that I helped research and prepare are available at this URL:
http://elibrary.ferc.gov/idmws/nvcommon/NVViewer.asp?Doc=10152323:0 (note: this is a 10 megabyte PDF file that will load into a Java based viewer on the FERC website - the lawyers filed this as scanned photoimages of the original documents)
These are redacted (sections relating to personal matters immaterial to the case have been removed) transcripts of 82 audio files that the team of researchers I worked with identified as particularly relevant to this case - this is out of 2600 hours of audiotape salvaged by the FBI and stored in a warehouse for several years, until Snohomish managed to pry them out of the hands of Ashcroft's Justice Department and get them transfered to digital format (the document cited below tells the story of this in detail). My sense is that, while we skimmed off the cream of these tapes, there's still a lot more that could be uncovered.
I have to be careful about what I say, given that the case in question is still pending, and that I've signed confidentiality agreements designed to protect the privacy of the individuals heard on these tapes - but: the documents above are public. And CBS News has broken the story big time...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/01/eveningnews/main620626.shtml
including posting copies of the Yoder-Hall Memo (an internal Enron document put together by their lawyers) that outline the nature of the games played by Enron traders to manipulate prices and California's energy trading system in search of profit at the expense of California ratepayers (of which I was one, seeing my utility bill soar from $120/mo. to $600/mo. before I started turning everything off in a desperate attempt to keep it down).
As the CBS News report so vividly demonstrates, the employees at Enron's West Power trading desk were arrogant, crude, and often utterly indifferent to the effects that their machinations and the California energy crisis were having on ratepayers... the Grandma Millie tape, in particular, is one of the most appalling. CBS News, given their limited time, can only give you the barest flavor of how utterly venal these folks were.
Here's the full excerpt, sourced from the FERC website (this is Exhibit SNO-224, on page 331-339 of the FERC's dynamically generated 11.3 megabyte PDF) - this is been Bob Badeer (a trader at Enron's West Power desk in Portland, CA, where all these tapes were recorded) and Kevin McGowan (in Enron's central office in Houston, TX, as he mentions in the transcript):
KEVIN: So,
BOB: [laughing]
KEVIN: So the rumor’s true? They’re fuckin’ takin’ all the money back from you guys? All those money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?
BOB: Yeah, grandma Millie, man. But she’s the one who couldn’t figure out how to fuckin’ vote on the butterfly ballot.
KEVIN: Yeah, now she wants her fuckin’ money back for all the power you’ve charged right up – jammed right up her ass for fuckin’ 250 dollars a megawatt hour.
[laughter]
BOB: You know – you know – you know, grandma Millie, she’s the one that Al Gore’s fightin’ for, you know? You’re not going to –
[laughing]
BOB: Grandma Millie –
another great excerpt (this tape is full of 'em):
KEVIN: Fuckin’ stock market and Enron, everything else, Jesus.
BOB: Oh, Enron! Oh! Oh, dude.
KEVIN: Not kidding.
BOB: Kid, it even hurts, I don’t – I guess it could hurt worse, but it doesn’t you know, holy shit, its’ that – that thing got smoked.
KEVIN: Oh, god – I can’t handle it any more.
BOB: I can’t either man.
... seriously pathetic, dude. They are moaning and groaning like you wouldn't believe.
and, of course, here's a great example of their attitude re: California consumers...
KEVIN: There was a guy he was yesterday, he’s – he’s some consultant for some fuckin’ other business we’re supposed to be starting or whatever.
BOB: Right.
KEVIN: He came in, he – and I wasn’t – I didn’t even meet the guy. I was sittin’ here, he was talking to George McLellan and George’s desk, he’s like, yeah, you know, I’m in California now and my small consulting business, my energy costs have gone from 100 to 500 dollars a month. It’s unbelievable, I don’t know what to do. I just turned from my desk, I just looked at him, I said, ‘MOVE.’
[laughter]
KEVIN: The guy was like horrified. I go, look, don’t take it the wrong way: ‘Move; it isn’t getting’ fixed any time soon,’
BOB: You know man, it’s unbelievable, it’s like at that – that’s the – that’s the best thing that [inaudible] about it. That’s so beautiful.
[laughter]
KEVIN: Oh best thing that could happen is fuckin’ an earthquake, let that thing float out to the Pacific and put ‘em fuckin’ candles.
BOB: I know. Those guys – just cut ‘em off.
KEVIN: They’re so fucked and they’re so, like totally
BOB: They are so fucked.
You have to hear it to really get it. Two good ole' boys chucklin' to each other about how fucked over California is. Just unbelieveable.
And note the politics - as CBS News reports, these guys were gung-ho capitalists and ecstatic about the idea of a Bush Administration and the possibility of Ken Lay having a major voice in national energy policy. And, as the excerpt above demonstrates, many of them had nothing but contempt for Al Gore. Kevin even says that everyone in his office is betting on Bush to win (except him - he's doing the contrarian thing).
More later... much more, as I have more time to sort through the files on the FERC website.
--Thomas Leavitt
The details of the case are available on the FERC web site, as part of case No. EL03-180-000, and can be found by visiting this URL ( http://elibrary.ferc.gov/idmws/search/fercgensearch.asp )
and doing a search for: EL03-180*
The documents in question that I helped research and prepare are available at this URL:
http://elibrary.ferc.gov/idmws/nvcommon/NVViewer.asp?Doc=10152323:0 (note: this is a 10 megabyte PDF file that will load into a Java based viewer on the FERC website - the lawyers filed this as scanned photoimages of the original documents)
These are redacted (sections relating to personal matters immaterial to the case have been removed) transcripts of 82 audio files that the team of researchers I worked with identified as particularly relevant to this case - this is out of 2600 hours of audiotape salvaged by the FBI and stored in a warehouse for several years, until Snohomish managed to pry them out of the hands of Ashcroft's Justice Department and get them transfered to digital format (the document cited below tells the story of this in detail). My sense is that, while we skimmed off the cream of these tapes, there's still a lot more that could be uncovered.
I have to be careful about what I say, given that the case in question is still pending, and that I've signed confidentiality agreements designed to protect the privacy of the individuals heard on these tapes - but: the documents above are public. And CBS News has broken the story big time...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/01/eveningnews/main620626.shtml
including posting copies of the Yoder-Hall Memo (an internal Enron document put together by their lawyers) that outline the nature of the games played by Enron traders to manipulate prices and California's energy trading system in search of profit at the expense of California ratepayers (of which I was one, seeing my utility bill soar from $120/mo. to $600/mo. before I started turning everything off in a desperate attempt to keep it down).
As the CBS News report so vividly demonstrates, the employees at Enron's West Power trading desk were arrogant, crude, and often utterly indifferent to the effects that their machinations and the California energy crisis were having on ratepayers... the Grandma Millie tape, in particular, is one of the most appalling. CBS News, given their limited time, can only give you the barest flavor of how utterly venal these folks were.
Here's the full excerpt, sourced from the FERC website (this is Exhibit SNO-224, on page 331-339 of the FERC's dynamically generated 11.3 megabyte PDF) - this is been Bob Badeer (a trader at Enron's West Power desk in Portland, CA, where all these tapes were recorded) and Kevin McGowan (in Enron's central office in Houston, TX, as he mentions in the transcript):
KEVIN: So,
BOB: [laughing]
KEVIN: So the rumor’s true? They’re fuckin’ takin’ all the money back from you guys? All those money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?
BOB: Yeah, grandma Millie, man. But she’s the one who couldn’t figure out how to fuckin’ vote on the butterfly ballot.
KEVIN: Yeah, now she wants her fuckin’ money back for all the power you’ve charged right up – jammed right up her ass for fuckin’ 250 dollars a megawatt hour.
[laughter]
BOB: You know – you know – you know, grandma Millie, she’s the one that Al Gore’s fightin’ for, you know? You’re not going to –
[laughing]
BOB: Grandma Millie –
another great excerpt (this tape is full of 'em):
KEVIN: Fuckin’ stock market and Enron, everything else, Jesus.
BOB: Oh, Enron! Oh! Oh, dude.
KEVIN: Not kidding.
BOB: Kid, it even hurts, I don’t – I guess it could hurt worse, but it doesn’t you know, holy shit, its’ that – that thing got smoked.
KEVIN: Oh, god – I can’t handle it any more.
BOB: I can’t either man.
... seriously pathetic, dude. They are moaning and groaning like you wouldn't believe.
and, of course, here's a great example of their attitude re: California consumers...
KEVIN: There was a guy he was yesterday, he’s – he’s some consultant for some fuckin’ other business we’re supposed to be starting or whatever.
BOB: Right.
KEVIN: He came in, he – and I wasn’t – I didn’t even meet the guy. I was sittin’ here, he was talking to George McLellan and George’s desk, he’s like, yeah, you know, I’m in California now and my small consulting business, my energy costs have gone from 100 to 500 dollars a month. It’s unbelievable, I don’t know what to do. I just turned from my desk, I just looked at him, I said, ‘MOVE.’
[laughter]
KEVIN: The guy was like horrified. I go, look, don’t take it the wrong way: ‘Move; it isn’t getting’ fixed any time soon,’
BOB: You know man, it’s unbelievable, it’s like at that – that’s the – that’s the best thing that [inaudible] about it. That’s so beautiful.
[laughter]
KEVIN: Oh best thing that could happen is fuckin’ an earthquake, let that thing float out to the Pacific and put ‘em fuckin’ candles.
BOB: I know. Those guys – just cut ‘em off.
KEVIN: They’re so fucked and they’re so, like totally
BOB: They are so fucked.
You have to hear it to really get it. Two good ole' boys chucklin' to each other about how fucked over California is. Just unbelieveable.
And note the politics - as CBS News reports, these guys were gung-ho capitalists and ecstatic about the idea of a Bush Administration and the possibility of Ken Lay having a major voice in national energy policy. And, as the excerpt above demonstrates, many of them had nothing but contempt for Al Gore. Kevin even says that everyone in his office is betting on Bush to win (except him - he's doing the contrarian thing).
More later... much more, as I have more time to sort through the files on the FERC website.
--Thomas Leavitt
More dirt on Judith Miller
Here are some updates on my Judith Miller post below.
Yes, I indeed do believe that malicious gossip and schadenfreude are healthy and nutritious, when part of a balanced diet of factual reporting, analysis, and advocacy. Nothing is too bad for that bitch.
Cache from the time when Miller was actually listed as an expert by Richard Pipes' Middle East Forum advocacy group(this is no longer on the web)
Did she fuck her way to the top? Nobody likes Judith!
Steve Gilliard: it's unusual for a reporter to be as thoroughly disliked as Miller is.
Perhaps her primary loyalty was not to journalism: one proposed alternative
Miller's father ran a Mafia hangout (see more below)
More on the Riviera / Marine Room Mafia hangout
Part I of a series on Miller; Part II; Part III; Part IV.
Yes, I indeed do believe that malicious gossip and schadenfreude are healthy and nutritious, when part of a balanced diet of factual reporting, analysis, and advocacy. Nothing is too bad for that bitch.
Cache from the time when Miller was actually listed as an expert by Richard Pipes' Middle East Forum advocacy group(this is no longer on the web)
Did she fuck her way to the top? Nobody likes Judith!
Steve Gilliard: it's unusual for a reporter to be as thoroughly disliked as Miller is.
Perhaps her primary loyalty was not to journalism: one proposed alternative
Miller's father ran a Mafia hangout (see more below)
More on the Riviera / Marine Room Mafia hangout
Part I of a series on Miller; Part II; Part III; Part IV.
Blog for Victory | America Coming Together
I didn't know that America Coming Together has a weblog: Blog for Victory.
While you are there, sign up for their newsletter. Maybe throw them some money. They're organizing ads and door-to-door visits with voters in 17 crucial swing states.
While you are there, sign up for their newsletter. Maybe throw them some money. They're organizing ads and door-to-door visits with voters in 17 crucial swing states.
Terror and intimidation at home...
Lori Haigh, owner of the Capobianco Gallery, has been driven out of business by insults, threats, and physical assault for showing a work of art whose subject was the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. servicepeople in the Abu Ghraib prison. I'm not terribly surprised - something not generally talked about is the flood of truly vicious hate directed at anyone who offends the American right. Fortunately, in most cases, it is all hot air - but as this incident demonstrates, it can go a lot further than that.
From the San Francisco Examiner:
[...]
The painting, titled "The Abuse" by East Bay artist Guy Colwell, shows Pfc. Lynndie England and another soldier smiling gleefully as they look upon a trio of naked, hooded Iraqi prisoners who are hooked up to electrical wires. In the background, a third American soldier is escorting a Muslim woman in a dress into the torture chamber.
[...]
Book publisher Ron Turner, whose company Last Gasp published Colwell's art, was sympathetic.
"She got threats," he said. "She is a single woman with two kids trying to be a business woman and there are crazies threatening to roast her children."
[...]
***
Here's a link to the image:
http://zekesgallery.blogspot.com/2004/05/boy-im-glad-im-here-in-montreal.html
and a reworked image posted to the San Francisco Indymedia web site:
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/05/1695105_comment.php#1695107
***
It gets worse... according to the Associated Press, someone punched her in the face on Thursday, giving her a black eye and bloodied brow (pictures on KRON 4 site and SF Gate site).
But the real concern leading her to shut down the gallery was for the safety of her children, 4 and 14 who hang out with her at the gallery on a regular basis. Quite understandable, from my point of view, as a parent.
My friend Renee Amiri videotaped the gallery's closing on Saturday, and blogged about it, in response to the limited coverage this has received in the press. Any doubt that this type of violence is the true face of the American right, aided and abetted by the vitriolic demagogues they sponsor, should be erased by the comments following Renee's posting...
"you richly deserved it"
"I was quite pleased in reading that the traitor Haigh was dealt a blow from a TRUE AMERICAN."
"you call her a hero, I call her a fuckin dumbass"
"Ahh I just love reading the comments of typical socialist kalifornians. You should all move to north korea."
note the parroting of Michael Savage's "islamofascist" meme in this posting:
"What about an art show on the Killing of Mr. Pearl or even the painting of Nick Berg getting his head sawed off by a group of islamofasist's done in human blood. Now that would be good. Wake up. Do you think that the people you support with your sympathy will allow you to just get away with a black eye? A woman with your ideas would be dragged into the street and stoned to death by the very people you support. (If you were lucky)."
Comments of this sort are not atypical. I get them on a daily basis in response to various websites I run.
It is also interesting to see how the right-wing's echo chamber tactics play out at the grassroots - on this, and numerous other forums (as a casual search of Google will reveal), wingers are doing their best to suggest that this is all just an opportunistic scam by a psychologically disturbed individual with a failing business, posting all sorts of allegations without any documentation whatsoever (she was behind on her rent, the IRS is after her for back taxes from a lawsuit settlement, etc. etc.). A search for information on Google reveals nothing about either of these items - so where are they getting this information from? A quick scan of Freeper response reveals a flood of speculation about the viability of her gallery business and whether she is faking these incidents in order to break her lease, but no hard evidence whatsoever... and this gets echoed elsewhere as "fact".
***
There are also some great comments (note the generally higher level of literacy/spelling ability and coherency), here are my favorites (wish we had more folks like this in the military... hell, running things in Washington):
I am a United States Marine. I was as shocked, disgusted, and angry as I have ever been when I heard about the abuses perpetrated by our own people on those we had come to "liberate". There is absolutely NO reason to have done what they did. To defend them is to condone their actions. NOT to scrutinize what happened is to allow it to happen again.
Americans DO NOT treat prisoners this way. They are protected by the Geneva Convention. The White House says so. If WE had been the prisoners and this was done to us, you know we would all be howling MAD it happened, and demand retribution.
I served my time in Iraq during the war, and probably will find myself back there sooner or later. I am appreciative of the time I was there for the children, women, and some men that I met. They smiled (the kids loved me), they waved (the women would peek out from the curtains in their house to get a glimpse of me), and they chatted (the men were inscrutable).
And yet I would gladly exchange my next tour of duty in Iraq to post myself at the front door, in uniform, to defend Lori and the artists she hosted.
Americans. It is amazing to me that the very concept of liberty gets so clouded in our minds. The offending piece of art must have really struck a nerve, huh? Personally, I think the ones that are struck the most by it are the ones who look inside themselves and see the potential to do the same thing lying in wait in their own hearts. Indeed, to spit in her face; to physically attack her and damage her - only lives down to the perversion portrayed in the art.
But I am with her. Do not let the obtuse, witless bully prevail. I wish her the best.
Posted by: Joan at May 30, 2004 10:42 AM
Lori,
I am sorry to hear about the hassling you have been receiving and that you felt you should close your doors.
While I think Colwell's painting is in incredibly poor taste and I feel it is more fitting as a cartoon on the opinion page of a liberal newspaper, it is his right to create such pieces and it is your right to show them.
Some of my fellow service men and women have let the rest of us down. They have violated principles they were taught in basic training/boot camp. They have forgotten lessons taught to them in their technical schools and every year after that. They have brought shame on those of us who wear or have worn the uniforms of the United States' military. They will be punished.
The people who are hassling you should direct their attention to the people who caused and committed the abuse. By attacking you, these people have shown that they are as bad or worse than the people who committed the abuse in the first place.
I have men down range and in harm's way as I write this. The actions of their fellows and consequences thereof already weigh heavily on their minds. The actions of people who threaten or attack you does a great disservice to our men and women in uniform and is even more disheartening to them--it goes against the very principles we have sworn to defend.
Respectfully,
Master Sergeant John Bloodgood
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. -- Evelyn Beatrice Hall, The Friends of Voltaire, 1906
Posted by: John Bloodgood at May 30, 2004 03:26 PM
From the San Francisco Examiner:
[...]
The painting, titled "The Abuse" by East Bay artist Guy Colwell, shows Pfc. Lynndie England and another soldier smiling gleefully as they look upon a trio of naked, hooded Iraqi prisoners who are hooked up to electrical wires. In the background, a third American soldier is escorting a Muslim woman in a dress into the torture chamber.
[...]
Book publisher Ron Turner, whose company Last Gasp published Colwell's art, was sympathetic.
"She got threats," he said. "She is a single woman with two kids trying to be a business woman and there are crazies threatening to roast her children."
[...]
***
Here's a link to the image:
http://zekesgallery.blogspot.com/2004/05/boy-im-glad-im-here-in-montreal.html
and a reworked image posted to the San Francisco Indymedia web site:
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/05/1695105_comment.php#1695107
***
It gets worse... according to the Associated Press, someone punched her in the face on Thursday, giving her a black eye and bloodied brow (pictures on KRON 4 site and SF Gate site).
But the real concern leading her to shut down the gallery was for the safety of her children, 4 and 14 who hang out with her at the gallery on a regular basis. Quite understandable, from my point of view, as a parent.
My friend Renee Amiri videotaped the gallery's closing on Saturday, and blogged about it, in response to the limited coverage this has received in the press. Any doubt that this type of violence is the true face of the American right, aided and abetted by the vitriolic demagogues they sponsor, should be erased by the comments following Renee's posting...
"you richly deserved it"
"I was quite pleased in reading that the traitor Haigh was dealt a blow from a TRUE AMERICAN."
"you call her a hero, I call her a fuckin dumbass"
"Ahh I just love reading the comments of typical socialist kalifornians. You should all move to north korea."
note the parroting of Michael Savage's "islamofascist" meme in this posting:
"What about an art show on the Killing of Mr. Pearl or even the painting of Nick Berg getting his head sawed off by a group of islamofasist's done in human blood. Now that would be good. Wake up. Do you think that the people you support with your sympathy will allow you to just get away with a black eye? A woman with your ideas would be dragged into the street and stoned to death by the very people you support. (If you were lucky)."
Comments of this sort are not atypical. I get them on a daily basis in response to various websites I run.
It is also interesting to see how the right-wing's echo chamber tactics play out at the grassroots - on this, and numerous other forums (as a casual search of Google will reveal), wingers are doing their best to suggest that this is all just an opportunistic scam by a psychologically disturbed individual with a failing business, posting all sorts of allegations without any documentation whatsoever (she was behind on her rent, the IRS is after her for back taxes from a lawsuit settlement, etc. etc.). A search for information on Google reveals nothing about either of these items - so where are they getting this information from? A quick scan of Freeper response reveals a flood of speculation about the viability of her gallery business and whether she is faking these incidents in order to break her lease, but no hard evidence whatsoever... and this gets echoed elsewhere as "fact".
***
There are also some great comments (note the generally higher level of literacy/spelling ability and coherency), here are my favorites (wish we had more folks like this in the military... hell, running things in Washington):
I am a United States Marine. I was as shocked, disgusted, and angry as I have ever been when I heard about the abuses perpetrated by our own people on those we had come to "liberate". There is absolutely NO reason to have done what they did. To defend them is to condone their actions. NOT to scrutinize what happened is to allow it to happen again.
Americans DO NOT treat prisoners this way. They are protected by the Geneva Convention. The White House says so. If WE had been the prisoners and this was done to us, you know we would all be howling MAD it happened, and demand retribution.
I served my time in Iraq during the war, and probably will find myself back there sooner or later. I am appreciative of the time I was there for the children, women, and some men that I met. They smiled (the kids loved me), they waved (the women would peek out from the curtains in their house to get a glimpse of me), and they chatted (the men were inscrutable).
And yet I would gladly exchange my next tour of duty in Iraq to post myself at the front door, in uniform, to defend Lori and the artists she hosted.
Americans. It is amazing to me that the very concept of liberty gets so clouded in our minds. The offending piece of art must have really struck a nerve, huh? Personally, I think the ones that are struck the most by it are the ones who look inside themselves and see the potential to do the same thing lying in wait in their own hearts. Indeed, to spit in her face; to physically attack her and damage her - only lives down to the perversion portrayed in the art.
But I am with her. Do not let the obtuse, witless bully prevail. I wish her the best.
Posted by: Joan at May 30, 2004 10:42 AM
Lori,
I am sorry to hear about the hassling you have been receiving and that you felt you should close your doors.
While I think Colwell's painting is in incredibly poor taste and I feel it is more fitting as a cartoon on the opinion page of a liberal newspaper, it is his right to create such pieces and it is your right to show them.
Some of my fellow service men and women have let the rest of us down. They have violated principles they were taught in basic training/boot camp. They have forgotten lessons taught to them in their technical schools and every year after that. They have brought shame on those of us who wear or have worn the uniforms of the United States' military. They will be punished.
The people who are hassling you should direct their attention to the people who caused and committed the abuse. By attacking you, these people have shown that they are as bad or worse than the people who committed the abuse in the first place.
I have men down range and in harm's way as I write this. The actions of their fellows and consequences thereof already weigh heavily on their minds. The actions of people who threaten or attack you does a great disservice to our men and women in uniform and is even more disheartening to them--it goes against the very principles we have sworn to defend.
Respectfully,
Master Sergeant John Bloodgood
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. -- Evelyn Beatrice Hall, The Friends of Voltaire, 1906
Posted by: John Bloodgood at May 30, 2004 03:26 PM
2004 Democratic National Convention Blog
The new 2004 Democratic National Convention Blog needs a name. Go participate!
Corporation Say No
Doc Searls has a story about Clear Channel buying up a patent on musicians making CDs of their concerts to sell at the end of the concert. Now only Clear Channel can make the money from that.
5/31/2004
Open source voting
The New York Times has it right on electronic voting. It's not the editorial page, or even an op-ed. But at least the Times Magazine's "Idea Lab" section plugs one of the two neglected requirements for genuinely trustworthy electronic voting systems: open source software. (The other is extensive exit polling, and the third requirement -- that gets all the press -- is a voter-verifiable paper trail.)
Ditch the private sector, indeed. The mechanism by which I vote is not anybody's fucking trade secret. Make a profit somewhere else, like torturing muslims. But leave me my vote. It's pretty much just ceremonial at this point, but, please.
(Via Slashdot.)
First off, the government should ditch the private-sector software makers. Then it should hire a crack team of programmers to write new code. Then -- and this is the crucial part -- it should put the source code online publicly, where anyone can critique or debug it. This honors the genius of the open-source movement. If you show something to a large enough group of critics, they'll notice (and find a way to remove) almost any possible flaw. If tens of thousands of programmers are scrutinizing the country's voting software, it's highly unlikely a serious bug will go uncaught. The government's programming team would then take the recommendations, incorporate them into an improved code and put that online, too. This is how the famous programmer Linus Torvalds developed his Linux operating system, and that's precisely why it's so rock solid -- while Microsoft's secretly developed operating systems, Linux proponents say, crash far more often and are easier to hack. Already, Australians have used the open-source strategy to build voting software for a state election, and it ran like a well-oiled Chevy. A group of civic-minded programmers known as the Open Voting Consortium has written its own open-source code.
Ditch the private sector, indeed. The mechanism by which I vote is not anybody's fucking trade secret. Make a profit somewhere else, like torturing muslims. But leave me my vote. It's pretty much just ceremonial at this point, but, please.
(Via Slashdot.)
Win or Lose
This is Part II of The Right Will Fight Dirty.
Major league baseball teams use the minor league teams as a place to "farm" new baseball players. These minor league teams plant seeds by hiring hundreds of young "wannabe" players, providing them with a place to make a living while they train and gain experience, and eventually some of the best players rise up to "the majors." Hence the term "farm teams."
In The Next Generation, Atrios linked to Right On, a piece by Matthew Yglesias, which links to a piece by Laura Rozen describing how the right-wing American Enterprise Institute enthusiastically recruits young interns. They are discussing how the Right has a "farm team" system in place to provide internships, training, materials, etc. to a next generation of right-wingnuts to be political candidates at all levels, Congressional staffers, pundits, speakers, activists, etc. The Right has farm teams to recruit young people who are interested in politics, train them, give them a place to grow and learn. Moderates and Progressives do not.
In Political Entrepreneurs vs. Political Managers John Emerson talks about the differences between businesspeople and academics as being behind some of this problem, and moderate/liberal philanthropic foundations keeping their grantees on short leashes, and writes, "Eric Alterman noticed early in his career that his conservative friends all had cushy jobs, and he didn't." Finally, Jesse at Pandagon writes from a perspective of having interned (for free) at some liberal outfits.
This "farm team" system is just one part of the massive "infrastructure" that the Right has in place. This infrastructure consists of hundreds of organizations, all designed from scratch to change public opinion and the resulting political environment. This infrastructure was developed by a core group of funders who have, in effect, taken over the Republican Party and the "conservative movement" for their own ends. This money has built a network -- an infrastructure -- of over 500 organizations, centrally funded and coordinated and designed to market to the public. Because it is infrastructure for their movement, these organizations and the people in them are available to act on any issue at any time. What they sell is the Republican Party -- not the honorable GOP of the past, but the new monolithic, cultish, far-right, secretive, post-Bircher, Nixonian, elitist, warlike, corporate Party, hawking a strange mixture of anarchic libertarian fantasy economics, money-worshiping, and desiring a one-party corporate/theological governance ruled by a behind-the-scenes aristocracy of inherited wealth. This sales job goes on 24 hours a day, every day, through every channel by which information reaches people.
A 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 is available here. It is so important to our future that we understand just who is behind this right-wing movement and how they have been able to accomplish what they have, so I encourage you to visit this site and read the articles and studies it links to.
You've probably heard of the value of "early money" in elections. The influential "Emily's List" is named after this concept. "EMILY" stands for "early money is like yeast." The idea is that money that comes to a campaign very early is the most important because the earlier a candidate is able to campaign and start advertising, contacting the press and community groups, explaining positions, establishing an identity, etc., the more likely the campaign will be successful.
What the Right has is even better than that. Their network of organizations is like an early money tree -- pumping out the benefits of early money years and years before any election, during elections, and the day after an election, getting started on the next one. The Right's machine is not oriented around the election cycle, it is constant, yet this is why they win elections. Their organizations provide a drumbeat of propaganda all year, every year, working with the latest PR and marketing techniques, utilizing the latest research into the psychology of persuasion, exploiting the latest trends, etc. Because its marketing is constant, their politicians have it easy -- they just show up and echo the ideology that this machine has been pumping out and ride along on the rest of the resulting public opinion. Their politicians are almost interchangable, their work having been already done for them by the organizations, they have only to show up and say the right things and they have an automatic base of support.
Moderate and Progressive politicians, on the other hand, have to develop their positions each election cycle largely on their own, and communicate their ideas themselves. Everyone blames the Democratic Party for lack of vision, lack of marketing, etc. when the problem really is that there is not a comparable network of moderate and progressive ADVOCACY MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS organizations that are OUTSIDE of the party apparatus, supporting it, feeding it ideas, foot soldiers and voters.
Organizations on the Right, like the Heritage Foundation provide talking points, training, media skills, and most important, farm teams -- EMPLOYMENT for thousands of "foot soldiers" for the Right! Almost everyone on the Right is paid, and paid well (which serves to buy their loyalty to the core group of funders, their ideology and their goals.) They follow a long-term approach, which is why recruiting lots of young people and finding them paid positions as foot soldiers is an important part of their operation. Eventually these people will become activists, candidates, etc. And by having an employed stable of professional pundits, speakers, activists, etc., they are able to bring their "wurlitzer" to bear on any issue at any time, as necessary.
So the question here is why doesn't "our side" have a similar infrastructure in place? I've spent a lot of time studying this problem and have developed some theories. And I have some ideas about how to begin to counter what the Right is doing.
Yglesias hits the nail on the head when he writes, "It's the attitude of an arrogant, bloated, dominant movement that would have been appropriate in 1967 or 1977 but was clearly outdated by 1997 and will be simply pathetic by 2007." This jibes with my own theory about why things are the way they are, that is similar to evolution: adapt to changing environments or die.
Here's what I mean. Look back at the origins of this right-wing network. (See also here.) The "liberal establishment" used to be the only game in town. Growing up from the roots of modern philanthropy at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the system of philanthropic foundations and non-profits that was in place by the 1960s consisted of scholarly issue-oriented think tanks, and program-oriented public-service organizations that operated from a base of public agreement over common goals. In other words, in the 60's there was universal agreement that it was a good thing to help the poor, protect the environment, provide universal education, etc.
And one of the things this system depended on was that not only the public was in agreement about their mission, but that the resulting political environment was supportive of it as well. Because the public environment already shared and was already supportive of its values and ideals, the "liberal establishment" was not designed to have organizations that work to change the underlying public environment and the resulting political environment. In fact, this was AND IS strongly considered to be against the rules!
Well, the leaders and funders of the far Right didn't agree with this, and started building institutions of their own, designed from the start to fight against this "liberal establishment" and change that public consensus. The key is that their organizations grew from an effort to fight against liberal organizations and change public thinking. So they designed advocacy organizations with a marketing and communications focus. And over time they became more and more effective at accomplishing their mission, changing the way more and more people think, and discrediting who they saw as their opponents and enemies.
So while the organizations of moderates and liberals kept plodding along as if nothing had changed, the reality is that now there is no longer a public consensus that it is good to help the poor, protect the environment, provide universal education, etc. And, most important, the result of the Right's efforts is that the political environment is now hostile to the goals of the major philanthropic foundations and the non-profit organizations they support. Like the proverbial frog in water that is heating to boiling, the UNDERLYING environment has changed without the "liberal establishment's" organizations and their methods changing in response to the new environment. The Right's entire system was designed from the beginning to change the public and political environment and undermine the effectiveness of the system. "Our side's" organizations pre-existed this so they are not designed to respond, and have not yet adapted.
Here's my usual example of what this means. Suppose you are a philanthropist supporting programs to protect a redwood grove. What you might do is spend money on a biologist, and on programs to have the public learn about the grove, and on lawyers for the occasional lawsuit, etc. And that always used to be an effective way to use your money. But in today's evolved political environment an elected official can say that to fight forest fires we need to cut down the trees, or a judge can say that the "public good" is the market system so trees should be used for corporate profit. And, you might even face public protests and ridicule for your efforts to protect the environment (often led by the local far-right radio station...) So just like that the redwood grove is gone, and your entire philanthropic investment wasted.
The changed public environment means that traditional methods of philanthropy are a waste of money. In TODAY'S environment the battle must be to change underlying public attitudes, and with them the resulting political environment. The Right has worked to change this underlying public and political environment, and the moderate and progressive establishment still consists largely of organizations that are not designed at their core to fight to change underlying public attitudes and the resulting political environment. They are designed to implement programs that depend on an environment in which the public-at-large supports their goals.
The organizations of the Right are designed from scratch to work against the ideals and values that we all (reading this) cherish. Moderates and Progressives urgently need to build a number of powerful advocacy organizations designed from scratch to affect the underlying public and political environment. They need to explain to the public the value and benefit to them of ideals of nurturing, supporting each other, caring for the environment, even democracy. They need to build a "farm team" system that trains large numbers of young people to become activists, political candidates, writers, educators, commentators, filmmakers, etc., all working to restore support for progressive values and ideals.
The failure on the part of mainstream moderate and progressive philanthropy -- the larger foundations -- to recognize the seriousness of the threat from the Right AND to respond by developing a long-term plan and build a comparable infrastructure of hundreds of advocacy marketing/communicating organizations, recruit thousands of young foot-soldiers, etc. -- has had disastrous consequences. It has led to the current emergency of the Bush administration. The photos of torture in Iraqi prisons tell us that it does not overstate matters to say that America has been transformed into a hostile, aggressive, warlike, brutal nation that few of us recognize. Democracy itself is being undermined.
This is beginning to change. Moderates and Progressives are beginning to understand the need to develop new organizations designed to respond to those of the Right. And many are beginning to understand the need to change the way their philanthropy is organized. For example, see the new GiftHub. And, last week, Alternet had a good article on this subject, Building the Countermovement
by Laurie Spivak.
The new organization Center for American Progress is an example of what we need to build. David Brock's new organization Media Matters is another such organization, designed to counter the Right's media, and it is already having an impact. Commonweal Institute has been building an organization to work on language and communication of ideas. Those of us in the blogging universe see the effects of these organizations. So it is easier to understand that many more such organizations would begin to seriously counteract the effect of the Right's machine, and start taking the country back.
But these are only three, where the Right has over 500 such organizations, built over the last 30 years! We need to work to move the thinking of "our" leaders and "our" philanthropists toward understanding the need to build a permanent long-term progressive infrastructure. This is where my research has been focused. I've been on this like a drumbeat for a couple of years now, and I see more and more people coming to see this need as well.
We need to start building our own "machine" to take back the country -- and save the world. Literally. If Kerry manages to win, all the better, but what if this means that this wonderful energy we see around us leading to a revival of progressive spirit, campaign contributions and volunteers then goes back into hibernation as it did after Clinton's election? The Right only grew stronger during the Clinton years. And if Kerry loses, we MUST change our strategy and start working to bring the public back to understanding the benefits of sharing, community, democracy and caring for the environment. We MUST begin long-term efforts to return to the majority. WIN OR LOSE it is time to start building a moderate/progressive advocacy marketing infrastructure to fight back against the powerful organizations of the Right.
Major league baseball teams use the minor league teams as a place to "farm" new baseball players. These minor league teams plant seeds by hiring hundreds of young "wannabe" players, providing them with a place to make a living while they train and gain experience, and eventually some of the best players rise up to "the majors." Hence the term "farm teams."
In The Next Generation, Atrios linked to Right On, a piece by Matthew Yglesias, which links to a piece by Laura Rozen describing how the right-wing American Enterprise Institute enthusiastically recruits young interns. They are discussing how the Right has a "farm team" system in place to provide internships, training, materials, etc. to a next generation of right-wingnuts to be political candidates at all levels, Congressional staffers, pundits, speakers, activists, etc. The Right has farm teams to recruit young people who are interested in politics, train them, give them a place to grow and learn. Moderates and Progressives do not.
In Political Entrepreneurs vs. Political Managers John Emerson talks about the differences between businesspeople and academics as being behind some of this problem, and moderate/liberal philanthropic foundations keeping their grantees on short leashes, and writes, "Eric Alterman noticed early in his career that his conservative friends all had cushy jobs, and he didn't." Finally, Jesse at Pandagon writes from a perspective of having interned (for free) at some liberal outfits.
This "farm team" system is just one part of the massive "infrastructure" that the Right has in place. This infrastructure consists of hundreds of organizations, all designed from scratch to change public opinion and the resulting political environment. This infrastructure was developed by a core group of funders who have, in effect, taken over the Republican Party and the "conservative movement" for their own ends. This money has built a network -- an infrastructure -- of over 500 organizations, centrally funded and coordinated and designed to market to the public. Because it is infrastructure for their movement, these organizations and the people in them are available to act on any issue at any time. What they sell is the Republican Party -- not the honorable GOP of the past, but the new monolithic, cultish, far-right, secretive, post-Bircher, Nixonian, elitist, warlike, corporate Party, hawking a strange mixture of anarchic libertarian fantasy economics, money-worshiping, and desiring a one-party corporate/theological governance ruled by a behind-the-scenes aristocracy of inherited wealth. This sales job goes on 24 hours a day, every day, through every channel by which information reaches people.
A 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 is available here. It is so important to our future that we understand just who is behind this right-wing movement and how they have been able to accomplish what they have, so I encourage you to visit this site and read the articles and studies it links to.
You've probably heard of the value of "early money" in elections. The influential "Emily's List" is named after this concept. "EMILY" stands for "early money is like yeast." The idea is that money that comes to a campaign very early is the most important because the earlier a candidate is able to campaign and start advertising, contacting the press and community groups, explaining positions, establishing an identity, etc., the more likely the campaign will be successful.
What the Right has is even better than that. Their network of organizations is like an early money tree -- pumping out the benefits of early money years and years before any election, during elections, and the day after an election, getting started on the next one. The Right's machine is not oriented around the election cycle, it is constant, yet this is why they win elections. Their organizations provide a drumbeat of propaganda all year, every year, working with the latest PR and marketing techniques, utilizing the latest research into the psychology of persuasion, exploiting the latest trends, etc. Because its marketing is constant, their politicians have it easy -- they just show up and echo the ideology that this machine has been pumping out and ride along on the rest of the resulting public opinion. Their politicians are almost interchangable, their work having been already done for them by the organizations, they have only to show up and say the right things and they have an automatic base of support.
Moderate and Progressive politicians, on the other hand, have to develop their positions each election cycle largely on their own, and communicate their ideas themselves. Everyone blames the Democratic Party for lack of vision, lack of marketing, etc. when the problem really is that there is not a comparable network of moderate and progressive ADVOCACY MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS organizations that are OUTSIDE of the party apparatus, supporting it, feeding it ideas, foot soldiers and voters.
Organizations on the Right, like the Heritage Foundation provide talking points, training, media skills, and most important, farm teams -- EMPLOYMENT for thousands of "foot soldiers" for the Right! Almost everyone on the Right is paid, and paid well (which serves to buy their loyalty to the core group of funders, their ideology and their goals.) They follow a long-term approach, which is why recruiting lots of young people and finding them paid positions as foot soldiers is an important part of their operation. Eventually these people will become activists, candidates, etc. And by having an employed stable of professional pundits, speakers, activists, etc., they are able to bring their "wurlitzer" to bear on any issue at any time, as necessary.
So the question here is why doesn't "our side" have a similar infrastructure in place? I've spent a lot of time studying this problem and have developed some theories. And I have some ideas about how to begin to counter what the Right is doing.
Yglesias hits the nail on the head when he writes, "It's the attitude of an arrogant, bloated, dominant movement that would have been appropriate in 1967 or 1977 but was clearly outdated by 1997 and will be simply pathetic by 2007." This jibes with my own theory about why things are the way they are, that is similar to evolution: adapt to changing environments or die.
Here's what I mean. Look back at the origins of this right-wing network. (See also here.) The "liberal establishment" used to be the only game in town. Growing up from the roots of modern philanthropy at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the system of philanthropic foundations and non-profits that was in place by the 1960s consisted of scholarly issue-oriented think tanks, and program-oriented public-service organizations that operated from a base of public agreement over common goals. In other words, in the 60's there was universal agreement that it was a good thing to help the poor, protect the environment, provide universal education, etc.
And one of the things this system depended on was that not only the public was in agreement about their mission, but that the resulting political environment was supportive of it as well. Because the public environment already shared and was already supportive of its values and ideals, the "liberal establishment" was not designed to have organizations that work to change the underlying public environment and the resulting political environment. In fact, this was AND IS strongly considered to be against the rules!
Well, the leaders and funders of the far Right didn't agree with this, and started building institutions of their own, designed from the start to fight against this "liberal establishment" and change that public consensus. The key is that their organizations grew from an effort to fight against liberal organizations and change public thinking. So they designed advocacy organizations with a marketing and communications focus. And over time they became more and more effective at accomplishing their mission, changing the way more and more people think, and discrediting who they saw as their opponents and enemies.
So while the organizations of moderates and liberals kept plodding along as if nothing had changed, the reality is that now there is no longer a public consensus that it is good to help the poor, protect the environment, provide universal education, etc. And, most important, the result of the Right's efforts is that the political environment is now hostile to the goals of the major philanthropic foundations and the non-profit organizations they support. Like the proverbial frog in water that is heating to boiling, the UNDERLYING environment has changed without the "liberal establishment's" organizations and their methods changing in response to the new environment. The Right's entire system was designed from the beginning to change the public and political environment and undermine the effectiveness of the system. "Our side's" organizations pre-existed this so they are not designed to respond, and have not yet adapted.
Here's my usual example of what this means. Suppose you are a philanthropist supporting programs to protect a redwood grove. What you might do is spend money on a biologist, and on programs to have the public learn about the grove, and on lawyers for the occasional lawsuit, etc. And that always used to be an effective way to use your money. But in today's evolved political environment an elected official can say that to fight forest fires we need to cut down the trees, or a judge can say that the "public good" is the market system so trees should be used for corporate profit. And, you might even face public protests and ridicule for your efforts to protect the environment (often led by the local far-right radio station...) So just like that the redwood grove is gone, and your entire philanthropic investment wasted.
The changed public environment means that traditional methods of philanthropy are a waste of money. In TODAY'S environment the battle must be to change underlying public attitudes, and with them the resulting political environment. The Right has worked to change this underlying public and political environment, and the moderate and progressive establishment still consists largely of organizations that are not designed at their core to fight to change underlying public attitudes and the resulting political environment. They are designed to implement programs that depend on an environment in which the public-at-large supports their goals.
The organizations of the Right are designed from scratch to work against the ideals and values that we all (reading this) cherish. Moderates and Progressives urgently need to build a number of powerful advocacy organizations designed from scratch to affect the underlying public and political environment. They need to explain to the public the value and benefit to them of ideals of nurturing, supporting each other, caring for the environment, even democracy. They need to build a "farm team" system that trains large numbers of young people to become activists, political candidates, writers, educators, commentators, filmmakers, etc., all working to restore support for progressive values and ideals.
The failure on the part of mainstream moderate and progressive philanthropy -- the larger foundations -- to recognize the seriousness of the threat from the Right AND to respond by developing a long-term plan and build a comparable infrastructure of hundreds of advocacy marketing/communicating organizations, recruit thousands of young foot-soldiers, etc. -- has had disastrous consequences. It has led to the current emergency of the Bush administration. The photos of torture in Iraqi prisons tell us that it does not overstate matters to say that America has been transformed into a hostile, aggressive, warlike, brutal nation that few of us recognize. Democracy itself is being undermined.
This is beginning to change. Moderates and Progressives are beginning to understand the need to develop new organizations designed to respond to those of the Right. And many are beginning to understand the need to change the way their philanthropy is organized. For example, see the new GiftHub. And, last week, Alternet had a good article on this subject, Building the Countermovement
by Laurie Spivak.
The new organization Center for American Progress is an example of what we need to build. David Brock's new organization Media Matters is another such organization, designed to counter the Right's media, and it is already having an impact. Commonweal Institute has been building an organization to work on language and communication of ideas. Those of us in the blogging universe see the effects of these organizations. So it is easier to understand that many more such organizations would begin to seriously counteract the effect of the Right's machine, and start taking the country back.
But these are only three, where the Right has over 500 such organizations, built over the last 30 years! We need to work to move the thinking of "our" leaders and "our" philanthropists toward understanding the need to build a permanent long-term progressive infrastructure. This is where my research has been focused. I've been on this like a drumbeat for a couple of years now, and I see more and more people coming to see this need as well.
We need to start building our own "machine" to take back the country -- and save the world. Literally. If Kerry manages to win, all the better, but what if this means that this wonderful energy we see around us leading to a revival of progressive spirit, campaign contributions and volunteers then goes back into hibernation as it did after Clinton's election? The Right only grew stronger during the Clinton years. And if Kerry loses, we MUST change our strategy and start working to bring the public back to understanding the benefits of sharing, community, democracy and caring for the environment. We MUST begin long-term efforts to return to the majority. WIN OR LOSE it is time to start building a moderate/progressive advocacy marketing infrastructure to fight back against the powerful organizations of the Right.
A rabid lame duck?
I doubt that Josh Micah Marshall's post or this article by Dana Milbank and Jim Vandehei will tell anyone here much of anything that they don't already know, but it might be evidence that this year the media won't be quite as willing to carry water for Bush as it was in 2000. Milbank has always been more willing than most to tell it like it is, and success-worshippers who support Bush for that reason alone might be figuring out that the guy is turning into a loser.
As Marshall points out, Bush has virtually nothing positive to run on, and has to run entirely by stressing's Kerry's negatives. But negative campaigning has worked in the past, so we can hardly be complacent.
In a negative campaign, the Nader factor becomes more important, since the Bush people can sit back and let the Nader campaigners do a lot of their work for them. Bush's core constituency of hard-core rightwingers seems to be at least 30% of the electorate, so Kerry needs almost three-quarters of the remainder.
If Nader gets a significant chunk of the vote, he could make it possible for Bush to win with a plurality even if most independents and non-insane moderate Republicans desert him. (And as I keep saying, centrists and independents aren't necessarily all that smart -- some of them are just random airheads).
So Bush could be elected by a plurality without the vote of anyone whatever except fanatics and airheads. The lame duck we'd end up with would be a rabid one.
As Marshall points out, Bush has virtually nothing positive to run on, and has to run entirely by stressing's Kerry's negatives. But negative campaigning has worked in the past, so we can hardly be complacent.
In a negative campaign, the Nader factor becomes more important, since the Bush people can sit back and let the Nader campaigners do a lot of their work for them. Bush's core constituency of hard-core rightwingers seems to be at least 30% of the electorate, so Kerry needs almost three-quarters of the remainder.
If Nader gets a significant chunk of the vote, he could make it possible for Bush to win with a plurality even if most independents and non-insane moderate Republicans desert him. (And as I keep saying, centrists and independents aren't necessarily all that smart -- some of them are just random airheads).
So Bush could be elected by a plurality without the vote of anyone whatever except fanatics and airheads. The lame duck we'd end up with would be a rabid one.
5/30/2004
Lincoln
See Sam Waterston deliver Abraham Lincoln's 1860 speech at Cooper Union. It's brilliant -- both the speech and the recreation. If only...
Chalabi story spins out of control
I don't think anyone knows what's going on in Iraq right now. Seeing the Forest isn't normally an up to the minute newsblog, but this is getting so weird that I can't help myself.
Nobody really knows who ordered the raids on Chalabi. No one really knows who chose Chalabi's cousin Alawi to be head of state, either. Don't ask me.
UPDATE: It seems now that Alawi was the American candidate, and that the Iraqis and the UN were presented with a fait accompli. The relationship between the raids on Chalabi and the Alawi nomination still remains unclear: Washington Post.
Chalabi is apparently still in the driver's seat in Iraq; one of his cousins is in line to be come head of state
Chalabi seemingly in control
Chalabi's office raided a second time by someone or other
Among the charges against Chalabi is implication in blatant corruption
Raid apparently was by private contractors hired by the State Department
Cheney and Chalabi were very tight buddies, but Chalabi was smarter
Chalabi's dupe Michael Ledeen of the National Review spins furiously in Chalabi's defense
An unbelievable performance by David Ignatius: He praises Bush for trying feebly to clean up the mess he made
Nobody really knows who ordered the raids on Chalabi. No one really knows who chose Chalabi's cousin Alawi to be head of state, either. Don't ask me.
UPDATE: It seems now that Alawi was the American candidate, and that the Iraqis and the UN were presented with a fait accompli. The relationship between the raids on Chalabi and the Alawi nomination still remains unclear: Washington Post.
Chalabi is apparently still in the driver's seat in Iraq; one of his cousins is in line to be come head of state
Chalabi seemingly in control
Chalabi's office raided a second time by someone or other
Among the charges against Chalabi is implication in blatant corruption
Raid apparently was by private contractors hired by the State Department
Cheney and Chalabi were very tight buddies, but Chalabi was smarter
Chalabi's dupe Michael Ledeen of the National Review spins furiously in Chalabi's defense
An unbelievable performance by David Ignatius: He praises Bush for trying feebly to clean up the mess he made
Glorious Leader Bush -- ON HIS WATCH!
The President: Paying the Price:
Why does Bush get the credit for being a leader because the Democrats acted patriotically? If Gore were President do you think he would have failed to try to calm the country, instead of stoking the fear ever since, as Bush has? Do you think he would have failed to ask all of the diverse groups that make up America to join together? Do you think he would have politicized 9/11 and divided the country in HALF, as Bush has? And do you think FOR A MINUTE that the Right would have partriotically united behind Gore?
So Bush gets credit as a leader because the Democrats did the right thing. 9/11 happened ON HIS WATCH. Maybe he should be getting some credit for THAT.
[After 9/11] "At first, Bush did a masterful job of pulling the country together. Democrats as well as Republicans joined him at the ramparts. "We will speak with one voice," Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle declared on 9/11. Bush's decision to go to war in Afghanistan won support across the political spectrum because it seemed an entirely appropriate response to an attack on our country by terrorists harbored by that nation's government.""Bush did a masterful job of pulling the country together?" BULLSHIT! Yes, the Democrats acted patriotically, pulling together behind the President. This piece, oddly crediting Bush, says right in it that it was DASCHLE, not Bush, declaring that we will speak with one voice. But do you remember Bush acting to bring the country together and hold it together? Do you remember Bush calling for setting aside political differences? Tell me what Bush did to bring us together. What I remember is The Party immediately trying to pass yet another tax cut because they had a political advantage.
Why does Bush get the credit for being a leader because the Democrats acted patriotically? If Gore were President do you think he would have failed to try to calm the country, instead of stoking the fear ever since, as Bush has? Do you think he would have failed to ask all of the diverse groups that make up America to join together? Do you think he would have politicized 9/11 and divided the country in HALF, as Bush has? And do you think FOR A MINUTE that the Right would have partriotically united behind Gore?
So Bush gets credit as a leader because the Democrats did the right thing. 9/11 happened ON HIS WATCH. Maybe he should be getting some credit for THAT.
5/29/2004
Digby! Digby! Digby!
REAL bloggers post on Memorial Day weekend. In All The News The GOP Sees Fit To Print , Digby writes,
"After twelve years of blown story after blown story, it is time for the press (and not just The NY Times) to either declare that they are extensions of the Republican Party or expose their sources when they've shown themselves to be purposefully passing incorrect information (which Okrent endorses as proper journalistic ethics.)But you gotta go there to read the whole thing.
Judith Miller undoubtedly believes she is being unfairly scapegoated, but she is not. Blair and Bragg were fired for offenses that didn't lead to any real consequences other than a lot of journalistic navel gazing. Yet Miller, more than anyone, was a willing tool for certain political friends and sources and used her prestige and position on the paper of record to further their agenda to take this country into a war. That is inexcusable. However, The New York Times has decided to excuse her and others like Patrick Tyler and Jill Abrahamson and is allowing them to keep their jobs. "
Everything you need to know about Judith Miller, including nasty gossip
Judith Miller of the New York Times played an enormous role in promoting Ahmed Chalabi's lies. She was at one time listed as an expert by Middle East Forum, a think tank run by Daniel Pipes and William Kristol, and has coauthored a book with Laurie Mylroie, an anti-Saddam obsessive no longer taken seriously by much of anybody. She has been represented by the literary agent Eleana Banador, whose clients are almost without exception neocons. She really should never have been allowed to work for the Times.
She's been under fire for inaccurate, dishonest, and biased reporting for some time, and recently the New York Times has very timidly started to acknowlege that maybe her reporting wasn't really all that hot.
She is married to Jason Epstein, one of the founders of the New York Review of Books (though no longer active there), and judging by her bio pic she's a reasonably hot second wife. Epstein's first wife remains an editor at TNYRB, which recently published a devastating article about Miller's shoddy work for the Times.
One of the oddest things about Miller is that when she first came to Washington she was working for The Progressive, the weeniest of weeny liberal magazines. She moved to the Times in 1977.
As much as any single American outside the government, Miller deserves the blame for our disastrous Iraq incursion. It will be interesting to see whether there will be any real consequences.
Cache from the time when Miller was actually listed as an expert by Richard Pipes' Middle East Forum advocacy group(this is no longer on the web)
Did she fuck her way to the top? Nobody likes Judith!
Steve Gilliard: it's unusual for a reporter to be as thoroughly disliked as Miller is.
Perhaps her primary loyalty was not to journalism: one proposed alternative
Miller's father ran a Mafia hangout (see more below)
More on the Riviera / Marine Room Mafia hangout
Part I of a series on Miller; Part II; Part III; Part IV.
LINKS:
Most Recent NYT Mea Culpa
Previous NYT Mea Culpa
Official Judith Miller Bio
LA Times on Miller
Massing's New York Review of Books Article exposing Miller
Miller's Husband's Ex-wife is an Editor of the New York Review of Books
Editor and Publisher on Miller
Columbia Journalism Review on Miller
Schafer of Slate on Miller
Miller and the Middle East Forum
Who is The Middle East Forum?
Miller published in the Middle East Forum
Benador Associates, Laurie Mylroie, and Judith Miller
Miller even offended her colleagues at the Times
She's been under fire for inaccurate, dishonest, and biased reporting for some time, and recently the New York Times has very timidly started to acknowlege that maybe her reporting wasn't really all that hot.
She is married to Jason Epstein, one of the founders of the New York Review of Books (though no longer active there), and judging by her bio pic she's a reasonably hot second wife. Epstein's first wife remains an editor at TNYRB, which recently published a devastating article about Miller's shoddy work for the Times.
One of the oddest things about Miller is that when she first came to Washington she was working for The Progressive, the weeniest of weeny liberal magazines. She moved to the Times in 1977.
As much as any single American outside the government, Miller deserves the blame for our disastrous Iraq incursion. It will be interesting to see whether there will be any real consequences.
Cache from the time when Miller was actually listed as an expert by Richard Pipes' Middle East Forum advocacy group(this is no longer on the web)
Did she fuck her way to the top? Nobody likes Judith!
Steve Gilliard: it's unusual for a reporter to be as thoroughly disliked as Miller is.
Perhaps her primary loyalty was not to journalism: one proposed alternative
Miller's father ran a Mafia hangout (see more below)
More on the Riviera / Marine Room Mafia hangout
Part I of a series on Miller; Part II; Part III; Part IV.
LINKS:
Most Recent NYT Mea Culpa
Previous NYT Mea Culpa
Official Judith Miller Bio
LA Times on Miller
Massing's New York Review of Books Article exposing Miller
Miller's Husband's Ex-wife is an Editor of the New York Review of Books
Editor and Publisher on Miller
Columbia Journalism Review on Miller
Schafer of Slate on Miller
Miller and the Middle East Forum
Who is The Middle East Forum?
Miller published in the Middle East Forum
Benador Associates, Laurie Mylroie, and Judith Miller
Miller even offended her colleagues at the Times
5/28/2004
The Right Will Fight Dirty
I’ve been trying for three weeks to write about what happens after the election, and I keep getting hung up on the things the Right will do to stay in power. Beyond just the loss of power, any honest Justice Department or Congressional examination of their activities since January 2001 is likely to land many of them in prison for a very long time. So maybe I need to get that subject out of the way before I can write about AFTER the election.
We’ve all heard each other's paranoid talk that there will be an “October Surprise,” or that the voting machines will refuse to count Democratic votes, or that the Republicans might just cancel the election. Unfortunately there is reason to fear. In 1968, fearing an end of the Vietnam War would mean a Humphrey victory, the Republicans sabotaged the pending peace agreement, and by 1972 they had turned the IRS, FBI and CIA into little more than arms of The Party, with the government acting as a pay-to-play contractor to large corporate contributors. Fortunately there was still an independent press and a Congress willing to investigate such matters when they became visible, and Nixon had to resign.
In 1980 there is every reason to believe the Republicans made a campaign deal with the terrorist government of Iran to keep the American hostages -- and keep Carter looking bad -- in exchange for post-election arms shipments. A few years later, after the Iran/Contra arms scandal investigation began, Lawrence Walsh wrote about the nature of The Party apparatus that had infiltrated the government and obstructed his efforts to find out for us what had happened. The following is from The Impeachment Conspiracy by Robert Parry:
And, finally, the 2000 election. The Supreme Court demonstrated the extent and power of Party operatives, positioned within the mechanisms of our government, whose loyalty is to an ideology and a Party rather than the country.
These years of this Bush's hands on the controls mean that our government is now infested with ideological operatives, waiting for their opportunity to prove that their loyalty lies with The Party, not American democracy.
So yes, it's hard to write about what to do if Kerry wins. But I'm working on it. Win or lose, we have to come to understand how the Right managed to become so powerful, and what we must do to counter this before we lose what is left of the America we knew.
We’ve all heard each other's paranoid talk that there will be an “October Surprise,” or that the voting machines will refuse to count Democratic votes, or that the Republicans might just cancel the election. Unfortunately there is reason to fear. In 1968, fearing an end of the Vietnam War would mean a Humphrey victory, the Republicans sabotaged the pending peace agreement, and by 1972 they had turned the IRS, FBI and CIA into little more than arms of The Party, with the government acting as a pay-to-play contractor to large corporate contributors. Fortunately there was still an independent press and a Congress willing to investigate such matters when they became visible, and Nixon had to resign.
In 1980 there is every reason to believe the Republicans made a campaign deal with the terrorist government of Iran to keep the American hostages -- and keep Carter looking bad -- in exchange for post-election arms shipments. A few years later, after the Iran/Contra arms scandal investigation began, Lawrence Walsh wrote about the nature of The Party apparatus that had infiltrated the government and obstructed his efforts to find out for us what had happened. The following is from The Impeachment Conspiracy by Robert Parry:
“The North case reached the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1990 and the Poindexter case followed in 1991. Iran-contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, a Republican himself, encountered what he termed "a powerful band of Republican appointees [who] waited like the strategic reserves of an embattled army."Then came the election of Clinton! How much do I have to write about The Party’s activities to bring down the Clinton administration and cause every attempt at governing to fail, never mind the good of the country? With The Party’s Federalist Society judges in place every special prosecutor appointed to investigate Republican wrongdoing was a right-wing Party operative, and those appointed to investigate Democrats was … a right-wing Party operative. Every motion before the Courts went against Clinton and the Democrats. Just one example of Party infiltration of the mechanisms of government was Gary Aldrich. That a far-right sleazebag operative like Gary Aldrich was in the FBI at all, not to mention assigned to the Clinton White House, speaks volumes about the nature of The Party’s takeover of the apparatus of government for its own ends – as well as to the Clinton Administration’s understanding of what it was up against.
Walsh recognized that many of the appeals judges held a "continuing political allegiance" to the conservative Federalist Society, an organization dedicated to purging liberalism from the federal courts.
"It reminded me of the communist front groups of the 1940s and 1950s, whose members were committed to the communist cause and subject to communist direction but were not card-carrying members of the Communist Party," Walsh wrote. [For details, see Walsh's Firewall.]
A leader of this partisan faction was Judge Laurence H. Silberman, a bombastic character known for his decidedly injudicious temperament. Silberman had served as a foreign policy advisor to Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign and had joined in a controversial contact with an emissary from Iran behind President Carter's back. [See Robert Parry's Trick or Treason.]”
And, finally, the 2000 election. The Supreme Court demonstrated the extent and power of Party operatives, positioned within the mechanisms of our government, whose loyalty is to an ideology and a Party rather than the country.
These years of this Bush's hands on the controls mean that our government is now infested with ideological operatives, waiting for their opportunity to prove that their loyalty lies with The Party, not American democracy.
So yes, it's hard to write about what to do if Kerry wins. But I'm working on it. Win or lose, we have to come to understand how the Right managed to become so powerful, and what we must do to counter this before we lose what is left of the America we knew.
I'm irritable for a reason
OK, Ashcroft's smear ("Al Qaeda wants Kerry to win") made it to CNN (look for "Gohel"), and now we're protesting.
That's all well and good, but basically the Republican story is out there now, and we're just responding. Where's the Democratic story? Everybody should know that Bush flubbed the War on Terror, because that's what he did. We should have had the word out there already, but we don't. As long as the bad guys have the initiative, they win.
Supposedly Kerry is biding his time. That's OK for now, but unless Kerry gets his message out there loud and clear well before the election, during the last six weeks or so he'll be batting down one smear after another, and he'll lose. He needs to be on the attack and keep one step ahead of the Republicans; he can't afford to sit back and respond.
I was just involved in a disagreement with some very nice, genteel liberals who were worried that the Democrats would stoop to making nasty remarks about the Bush twins. I had to confess that this particular problem was not anywhere on my list of things to worry about, and that I might actually end up sometime making a few snarky remarks about the little drunken sluts myself.
What is on my list of things to worry about? I mostly worry about seeing a lame, ever-so-professionally-run Kerry campaign getting blindsided during the last month. I also worry about Kerry ending up being a one-term president because Bush's mess proves to be impossible to clean up. And finally I worry about Kerry continuing Bush's Iraq policy because he's worried about being called a dove.
Liberals and Democrats spend too much time reading Orwell and worrying about turning into Stalinists. What they should be worrying about is disappearing entirely the way the Whigs did. Liberals remind me of the cartoon of the 98-lb. weakling promising never to use his martial arts powers for evil purposes.
The Democrats don't have any goddamn superpowers to misuse. Let's quit worrying about it.
That's all well and good, but basically the Republican story is out there now, and we're just responding. Where's the Democratic story? Everybody should know that Bush flubbed the War on Terror, because that's what he did. We should have had the word out there already, but we don't. As long as the bad guys have the initiative, they win.
Supposedly Kerry is biding his time. That's OK for now, but unless Kerry gets his message out there loud and clear well before the election, during the last six weeks or so he'll be batting down one smear after another, and he'll lose. He needs to be on the attack and keep one step ahead of the Republicans; he can't afford to sit back and respond.
I was just involved in a disagreement with some very nice, genteel liberals who were worried that the Democrats would stoop to making nasty remarks about the Bush twins. I had to confess that this particular problem was not anywhere on my list of things to worry about, and that I might actually end up sometime making a few snarky remarks about the little drunken sluts myself.
What is on my list of things to worry about? I mostly worry about seeing a lame, ever-so-professionally-run Kerry campaign getting blindsided during the last month. I also worry about Kerry ending up being a one-term president because Bush's mess proves to be impossible to clean up. And finally I worry about Kerry continuing Bush's Iraq policy because he's worried about being called a dove.
Liberals and Democrats spend too much time reading Orwell and worrying about turning into Stalinists. What they should be worrying about is disappearing entirely the way the Whigs did. Liberals remind me of the cartoon of the 98-lb. weakling promising never to use his martial arts powers for evil purposes.
The Democrats don't have any goddamn superpowers to misuse. Let's quit worrying about it.
Political Entrepreneurs vs. Political Managers
Matt Yglesias has posted a piece contrasting the right wing's strong infrastructure for encouraging young conservatives to the weak support that the Democratic Party gives its own next generation. This gives me a rare opportunity to agree enthusiastically with Matt, and leads into a piece which I've been planning to write for some time.
Conservatives and liberals come from very different backgrounds. Conservatives tend to come more from the business world, whereas most liberals have a history in academia, public administration, non-profits, unions, and other large bureaucratic organizations. While there are strengths that come from this institutional background, there are weaknesses too, and at the moment I find the weaknesses the most striking.
Businessmen are entrepreneurs, gamblers, opportunists, and sometimes lowlifes, and they are always looking for an edge. Many are semi-educated, uncredentialed, and self-taught, and they're always on the outlook for talent. They don't usually care about someone's credentials if they're able to do the job.
By contrast, academics and administrators are always worried that someone might be hired or promoted who is Not Fully Qualified. In many cases, the administrators see their job as maintaining normality, following standard operating procedures, and keeping things on an even keel. They strongly favor team players who don't rock the boat, and are often quite indulgent of staff who are part of the family, even if they're not pulling their full share of the load. In many organizations positive performance standards are unclear, so avoiding problems becomes the goal, and the fail-safe position is to hire a credentialed, experienced worker with no history of innovation.
This sounds like the generic libertarian stump speech, but I think that this is an issue on which liberals should listen to libertarians. I don't push my argument nearly as far as they do -- they think that it destroys the whole liberal program down to the roots -- but I believe that they do have a major point.
There was something out awhile back saying that liberal foundations keep people on a short leash, demanding tons of documentation and placing a swarm of miscellaneous conditions on every grant. This is true in academia too -- grantwriting has become a profession in itself. Without a good grantwriter (who doesn't really need to know much about the field), many scientists would never be able to do their work at all.
Kos believes that the Democratic Party is dominated by timid people who do well whether the party wins or loses -- he really can rant on that subject (no link, sorry). To call the Democratic bureaucracy risk-averse is a vast understatement. Their practices are the standard bureaucratic ass-covering, and the fact that these practices haven't really been working very well is no skin off their ass. They still have their jobs, right?
Eric Alterman noticed early in his career that his conservative friends all had cushy jobs, and he didn't. Conservatives often say that you can't solve problems by throwing money at them, but they're more generous to young conservatives than liberals are to young liberals, and they're also more willing to take chances. Ann Coulter has supported herself in style for more than a decade by cranking out freelance stuff which is shoddy and nasty, but effective. At the beginning of her career someone just said, "Give her a chance", and she came through for them. Liberals do not work that way.
"But... but... you're not saying that we should get down to their level and hire the liberal equivalents of Ann Coulter, are you?"
Well, maybe I am. I'm sort of sick of seeing liberal Democrats bragging about the Miss Congeniality booby prize we get for losing all the time. But at least, the Democrats should take their chances, spread some money around, and give a bunch of relatively untested and relatively uncredentialed young guys like Matt, Jesse at Pandagon, et. al., the chance to show what they can do.
(Also, they should avoid ageism and shovel some cash my way too. The party needs to mend its fences with its paranoid fringe elements.)
(This is Part II of the piece on competition I promised here. Part I will appear later, since this piece is more or less timely now.
Conservatives and liberals come from very different backgrounds. Conservatives tend to come more from the business world, whereas most liberals have a history in academia, public administration, non-profits, unions, and other large bureaucratic organizations. While there are strengths that come from this institutional background, there are weaknesses too, and at the moment I find the weaknesses the most striking.
Businessmen are entrepreneurs, gamblers, opportunists, and sometimes lowlifes, and they are always looking for an edge. Many are semi-educated, uncredentialed, and self-taught, and they're always on the outlook for talent. They don't usually care about someone's credentials if they're able to do the job.
By contrast, academics and administrators are always worried that someone might be hired or promoted who is Not Fully Qualified. In many cases, the administrators see their job as maintaining normality, following standard operating procedures, and keeping things on an even keel. They strongly favor team players who don't rock the boat, and are often quite indulgent of staff who are part of the family, even if they're not pulling their full share of the load. In many organizations positive performance standards are unclear, so avoiding problems becomes the goal, and the fail-safe position is to hire a credentialed, experienced worker with no history of innovation.
This sounds like the generic libertarian stump speech, but I think that this is an issue on which liberals should listen to libertarians. I don't push my argument nearly as far as they do -- they think that it destroys the whole liberal program down to the roots -- but I believe that they do have a major point.
There was something out awhile back saying that liberal foundations keep people on a short leash, demanding tons of documentation and placing a swarm of miscellaneous conditions on every grant. This is true in academia too -- grantwriting has become a profession in itself. Without a good grantwriter (who doesn't really need to know much about the field), many scientists would never be able to do their work at all.
Kos believes that the Democratic Party is dominated by timid people who do well whether the party wins or loses -- he really can rant on that subject (no link, sorry). To call the Democratic bureaucracy risk-averse is a vast understatement. Their practices are the standard bureaucratic ass-covering, and the fact that these practices haven't really been working very well is no skin off their ass. They still have their jobs, right?
Eric Alterman noticed early in his career that his conservative friends all had cushy jobs, and he didn't. Conservatives often say that you can't solve problems by throwing money at them, but they're more generous to young conservatives than liberals are to young liberals, and they're also more willing to take chances. Ann Coulter has supported herself in style for more than a decade by cranking out freelance stuff which is shoddy and nasty, but effective. At the beginning of her career someone just said, "Give her a chance", and she came through for them. Liberals do not work that way.
"But... but... you're not saying that we should get down to their level and hire the liberal equivalents of Ann Coulter, are you?"
Well, maybe I am. I'm sort of sick of seeing liberal Democrats bragging about the Miss Congeniality booby prize we get for losing all the time. But at least, the Democrats should take their chances, spread some money around, and give a bunch of relatively untested and relatively uncredentialed young guys like Matt, Jesse at Pandagon, et. al., the chance to show what they can do.
(Also, they should avoid ageism and shovel some cash my way too. The party needs to mend its fences with its paranoid fringe elements.)
(This is Part II of the piece on competition I promised here. Part I will appear later, since this piece is more or less timely now.
5/27/2004
Media ads becoming less effective
Kos has a post up arguing that political advertising in the big media has become less effective.
This ties in with one of my pet ideas: the Democrats' media-heavy campaign strategy has been suicidal. To begin with, big media buys serve to fatten up big media, and big media showed in 2000 that it will ultimately support the Republicans. So we're giving tons of money to some of our worst enemies.
Second, expensive media campaigns force the party to focus too much on fundraising. And the need to raise more and more money forces the Democrats to make more and more deals with the big potential donors, with the result that the less affluent of the traditional Democratic constituencies come to have less and less influence within the party (especially since the party seems to have resigned itself to a low rate of electoral participation).
I'm not an expert on all this, but I know that there have recently been successful candidates (Paul Wellstone was one) who primarily relied on feet on the ground and grass-roots campaigning. Perhaps the national party should think of moving in that direction.
P.S. Since this is just a blog, I think I can shoehorn in another pet idea of mine. My experience has been that the Democrats' paid staff tends to be heavy with bright and shiny recent college grads (often from Ivy League schools) for whom the job is just an easy, low-paid break between college and their real career. For local outreach work in non-middle-class areas, at least, wouldn't it be better to hire people from the community for whom the job might actually be a good job? Didn't the Democrats use to work this way?
This ties in with one of my pet ideas: the Democrats' media-heavy campaign strategy has been suicidal. To begin with, big media buys serve to fatten up big media, and big media showed in 2000 that it will ultimately support the Republicans. So we're giving tons of money to some of our worst enemies.
Second, expensive media campaigns force the party to focus too much on fundraising. And the need to raise more and more money forces the Democrats to make more and more deals with the big potential donors, with the result that the less affluent of the traditional Democratic constituencies come to have less and less influence within the party (especially since the party seems to have resigned itself to a low rate of electoral participation).
I'm not an expert on all this, but I know that there have recently been successful candidates (Paul Wellstone was one) who primarily relied on feet on the ground and grass-roots campaigning. Perhaps the national party should think of moving in that direction.
P.S. Since this is just a blog, I think I can shoehorn in another pet idea of mine. My experience has been that the Democrats' paid staff tends to be heavy with bright and shiny recent college grads (often from Ivy League schools) for whom the job is just an easy, low-paid break between college and their real career. For local outreach work in non-middle-class areas, at least, wouldn't it be better to hire people from the community for whom the job might actually be a good job? Didn't the Democrats use to work this way?
5/26/2004
Mayfield False Arrest Under Patriot Act
Brandon Mayfield, an American-born Portland lawyer and convert to Islam, has just been released and exonerated after having been held for about two weeks as a material witness under provisions of the Patriot Act. The basis for his arrest was a fingerprint match, which turned out to be erroneous, connecting him with the big recent bombing in Spain.
People who say that worries about the Patriot Act are exaggerated should look at this case. Mayfield was released only because Spanish police working on the case (who had doubted the FBI identification from the start) finally connected the fingerprint to a different man. Otherwise the guy would probably be in jail indefinitely.
The FBI found several fingerprint matches (perhaps by setting their computers to pull in as many matches as possible: my guess) and then zeroed in on Mayfield after they found that he was a Muslim convert who had represented a convicted terrorist in a non-political case. At first they represented the match as much closer than it really was, even though the Spanish police had their doubts.
Problems with Fingerprint Identification
From the Case Transcript
Talkleft on Mayfield
Oregonian Links
People who say that worries about the Patriot Act are exaggerated should look at this case. Mayfield was released only because Spanish police working on the case (who had doubted the FBI identification from the start) finally connected the fingerprint to a different man. Otherwise the guy would probably be in jail indefinitely.
The FBI found several fingerprint matches (perhaps by setting their computers to pull in as many matches as possible: my guess) and then zeroed in on Mayfield after they found that he was a Muslim convert who had represented a convicted terrorist in a non-political case. At first they represented the match as much closer than it really was, even though the Spanish police had their doubts.
Problems with Fingerprint Identification
From the Case Transcript
Talkleft on Mayfield
Oregonian Links
Best Blog Line of the Week
In The Smirk, Stirling Newberry writes,
"We have just had a three trillion dollar experiment in 'does it matter who is president'."
They Just Lie 2 (or is it 3 or is it 45 ... lost count)
Here is the Republican Party's official response to Al Gore's call for Rumsfeld and others to resign because of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. G O P.com :: RNC Communications Director Statement on Al Gore's Comments Today at MoveOn.org Rally:
So just as President Bush said in his speech the other night that we are in Iraq in response to 9/11, the Republican Party responds to Gore's call for accountability for the Iraqi prison scandal by accusing him of being responsible for 9/11! AND the Republican Party says that Gore asks for accountability because he "does not understand the threat of global terror."
As if the prison scandal had anything to do with global terror, and as if people who do understand the threat of global terror would excuse what happened.
Here we have an entire political party that bases its positions on outright lies. What's left to say? How does one respond to this level of deceit? How does one protect oneself from this level of deceit? And most importantly, how do we protect the country from this level of deceit?
But wait, there's more.
Rush Limbaugh gave a longer version of the same statement today when he responded today to Gore's call for Bush to condemn Limbaugh's incredibly offensive statements on the torture at Abu Ghraib. Here is some of Limbaugh's response:
Limbaugh is a spokesman for the Republican Party, no way around it. And in case there is any question whether he diverges from the official position of The Party, we have seen the Party's statement that says pretty much the same things Limbaugh says here. Limbaugh says Gore is "perverse" for objecting to the treatment that we saw in those photos -- The Party says Gore "does not understand the threat of global terror." Limbaugh says those people in the Iraqi prison "seek to murder millions of Americans" -- The Party says Gore should not ask for accountability in Iraq because when Gore was in office "Osama Bin Laden declared war on the United States five times and terrorists killed US citizens on at least four different occasions including the first bombing of the World Trade Center, the attacks on Khobar Towers, our embassies in East Africa, and the USS Cole."
Limbaugh IS The Party.
One more thing. Limbaugh also equates "our adversaries in Europe" with "our enemies in the caves of Afghanistan and the allies of Iraq." This is not "fringe" Republican thought, it comes up over and over. Here, for example. (Ledeen is one of the architects of the Iraq war.) It comes up in The Party's treatment of France and the United Nations, as well as Bush's threats against Mexico.
It's just lies, which they try to cover by accusing Gore of being the liar.
The question is, how far these people will take this? The question is, what are they capable of doing to achieve and hold on to power? Remember, they have taken it all the way to war in Iraq. Watch your backs.
"Al Gore served as Vice President of this country for eight years. During that time, Osama Bin Laden declared war on the United States five times and terrorists killed US citizens on at least four different occasions including the first bombing of the World Trade Center, the attacks on Khobar Towers, our embassies in East Africa, and the USS Cole.Here we have the Republican Party officially blaming Clinton and Gore for the 9/11 attacks -- and doing so in response to Gore's call for accountability for what happened in the prison in Iraq.
Al Gore's attacks on the President today demonstrate that he either does not understand the threat of global terror, or he has amnesia."
So just as President Bush said in his speech the other night that we are in Iraq in response to 9/11, the Republican Party responds to Gore's call for accountability for the Iraqi prison scandal by accusing him of being responsible for 9/11! AND the Republican Party says that Gore asks for accountability because he "does not understand the threat of global terror."
As if the prison scandal had anything to do with global terror, and as if people who do understand the threat of global terror would excuse what happened.
Here we have an entire political party that bases its positions on outright lies. What's left to say? How does one respond to this level of deceit? How does one protect oneself from this level of deceit? And most importantly, how do we protect the country from this level of deceit?
But wait, there's more.
Rush Limbaugh gave a longer version of the same statement today when he responded today to Gore's call for Bush to condemn Limbaugh's incredibly offensive statements on the torture at Abu Ghraib. Here is some of Limbaugh's response:
"Algore, this whole speech, he went nuts. He's flailing around wildly there. Not just me, he's attacking everybody who has led the nation through 9/11, the war on terrorism, and he's making statements that are flat out lies in this speech. For example, the Geneva Conventions. I don't know how many of you know this, the Geneva Conventions do not protect terrorists. They protect soldiers who serve under a nation who wear uniforms who carry their weapons openly, and with the kind of threat that we're facing today with terrorist cells in the U.S. plotting an even bigger attack than 9/11. I mean, it says a lot about Gore. It says he's perverse, that he would be argue to go confer greater rights on those who seek to murder millions of Americans and calling for even tougher actions to seek them out and destroy them before they destroy us, and this is what is truly puzzling to me about the left, and this is what's disarming about these prison photos.Remember, he's talking about the treatment of people in a civilian prison in Iraq, where there is no question that every single person is covered by the Geneva Conventions. Every single person in Iraq is covered by the Geneva Conventions. (AND we are covered by OTHER treaties and laws banning torture of ANYONE, ANYWHERE, as well as our own ethics as Americans.)
What really troubles me about these photos, above and beyond what's in them, is how they're being used to undermine our war effort. Now we have the former vice president, a man who was thisclose to becoming president of the United States, speak out in this speech. We haven't played you the bites, but he was flailing around on the Geneva Convention. He starts talking about conferring more rights on the kind of people who want to murder tens of thousands more Americans than he does seem interested in dealing with the people who want to commit those murders. He has succeeded in giving our adversaries in Europe and our enemies in the caves of Afghanistan and the allies of Iraq a message that they'll take to heart, and that is that we are not a united nation, that we do not have the will to win this war, and that we are weak and indecisive. That's the message that Gore sends today, and it's the wrong message, because it's a lie, and beyond that it is an outrage.
I don't think anything of this kind has ever been done by a former vice president during a war, but our adversaries and our enemies would be badly mistaken if they actually believe that Gore speaks for this nation, because he doesn't. I speak for more of this nation than Algore does, and I will say it on this program. Otherwise, why is he bothering to mention my name? He speaks for the radical fringe in his party who have become more and more the mainstream of his party. They are the Hate-America First radical left, and I hope the American people get to hear all of this speech. I hope it's played over and over again, for this is how low Gore and his crowd are willing to go to undermine the war effort and our troops and this president to promote themselves and their own agenda and get themselves back into power. Lest we forget, Algore and his boss, Bill Clinton, stood by while the enemy was plotting and planning to murder thousands of Americans.
They did nothing serious to stop bin Laden. They did nothing serious to fight terrorism. They degraded or military. They slashed our troop levels, undermined our intelligence services. Today calls for civil rights for terrorists in his speech while opposing the Patriot Act which helps us find and stop terrorist cells right here in our country, and Gore has said nothing about how he would fight this evil because he's obsessed with hatred not for the enemy but for George W. Bush -- and that's what identifies MoveOn.org. That's what identifies most of the fringe, radical left in this country. They actually think Bush is a greater threat to the people of this world and this country than any thug dictator, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong ll, anybody. They think Bush poses a greater threat, and as misguided as that is, this is what animates them. It is what motivates them and inspires them.
In this speech today he actually makes the case for civil rights for terrorist cells in these prisons under the Geneva Convention when the Geneva Convention does not even cover terrorists. But more importantly, the idea that this guy -- who didn't say anything about terrorism in his presidential campaign."
Limbaugh is a spokesman for the Republican Party, no way around it. And in case there is any question whether he diverges from the official position of The Party, we have seen the Party's statement that says pretty much the same things Limbaugh says here. Limbaugh says Gore is "perverse" for objecting to the treatment that we saw in those photos -- The Party says Gore "does not understand the threat of global terror." Limbaugh says those people in the Iraqi prison "seek to murder millions of Americans" -- The Party says Gore should not ask for accountability in Iraq because when Gore was in office "Osama Bin Laden declared war on the United States five times and terrorists killed US citizens on at least four different occasions including the first bombing of the World Trade Center, the attacks on Khobar Towers, our embassies in East Africa, and the USS Cole."
Limbaugh IS The Party.
One more thing. Limbaugh also equates "our adversaries in Europe" with "our enemies in the caves of Afghanistan and the allies of Iraq." This is not "fringe" Republican thought, it comes up over and over. Here, for example. (Ledeen is one of the architects of the Iraq war.) It comes up in The Party's treatment of France and the United Nations, as well as Bush's threats against Mexico.
It's just lies, which they try to cover by accusing Gore of being the liar.
The question is, how far these people will take this? The question is, what are they capable of doing to achieve and hold on to power? Remember, they have taken it all the way to war in Iraq. Watch your backs.
Ashcroft's smear
Immediately below, Dave comments on Ashcroft's new terror alert, which implicitly claims that al Qaeda wants to see Kerry elected.
Obviously any terror attack between now and the election will be given a Republican spin by the administration. Ashcroft's announcement sets that up, while also trying to immunize the administration against any negative interpretations, should a new terrorist attack occur during Bush's watch.
In other words, the next terrorist attack hasn't even happened yet, and it has already been politicized. Kerry's campaign team needs to start preparing the ground for their own response to the next attack, when and if it occurs. Pre-emptively pointing out loudly and often that Bush has so far done nothing much to protect the US against terrorism (and in particular, that the Iraq War hasn't helped) would be a great place to start.
Beyond that, they should have a response ready for immediate release as soon as an attack take place. (You can be sure that the Republicans have one.) The various possible scenarios should all be prepared for, with a string of followups in the can ready to go. If the Kerry people sit around strategizing for a day when and if something happens, Bush will have won the election by the time Kerry says a word.
The Republicans have framed it this way: if al Qaeda attacks, it's because they want Kerry to win; if al Qaeda doesn't attack, it's because Bush has been effective. The Kerry team has to break that frame, and the time to start is now. Bush has not been effective.
Obviously any terror attack between now and the election will be given a Republican spin by the administration. Ashcroft's announcement sets that up, while also trying to immunize the administration against any negative interpretations, should a new terrorist attack occur during Bush's watch.
In other words, the next terrorist attack hasn't even happened yet, and it has already been politicized. Kerry's campaign team needs to start preparing the ground for their own response to the next attack, when and if it occurs. Pre-emptively pointing out loudly and often that Bush has so far done nothing much to protect the US against terrorism (and in particular, that the Iraq War hasn't helped) would be a great place to start.
Beyond that, they should have a response ready for immediate release as soon as an attack take place. (You can be sure that the Republicans have one.) The various possible scenarios should all be prepared for, with a string of followups in the can ready to go. If the Kerry people sit around strategizing for a day when and if something happens, Bush will have won the election by the time Kerry says a word.
The Republicans have framed it this way: if al Qaeda attacks, it's because they want Kerry to win; if al Qaeda doesn't attack, it's because Bush has been effective. The Kerry team has to break that frame, and the time to start is now. Bush has not been effective.
5/25/2004
Isn't That Conveeeeenient!
U.S. Warns Of Al Qaeda Threat This Summer:
The information was obtained a month ago, but released today. And we happen to know that "al Qaeda operatives are pleased with the change in government resulting from the March 11 terrorist bombings in Spain." Except that the change in government was NOT the result of the attack, it was the result of the government LYING ABOUT the attack. And everyone in the world knows that except people who get their new from U.S. sources.
Isn't that conveeeeeenient!
Roger Ailes notices, too.
"The concerns are driven by intelligence deemed credible that was obtained about a month ago indicating an attack may be planned between now and Labor Day.Right. They want Bush out. So if you are a Kerry supporter then you're also a supporter of al-Queda. Isn't that conveeeeeenient!
That information dovetails with other intelligence 'chatter' suggesting that al Qaeda operatives are pleased with the change in government resulting from the March 11 terrorist bombings in Spain and may want to affect elections in the United States and other countries.
'They saw that an attack of that nature can have economic and political consequences and have some impact on the electoral process,' said one federal official with access to counterterrorism intelligence. "
The information was obtained a month ago, but released today. And we happen to know that "al Qaeda operatives are pleased with the change in government resulting from the March 11 terrorist bombings in Spain." Except that the change in government was NOT the result of the attack, it was the result of the government LYING ABOUT the attack. And everyone in the world knows that except people who get their new from U.S. sources.
Isn't that conveeeeeenient!
Roger Ailes notices, too.
Presidents falling off of things
Hasn't George W. Bush now passed Gerald Ford in the Presidential Falling Off Of Things stats? As I recall, Ford stumbled twice getting off planes, but I don't remember any visible marks. Bush has fallen off a couch, a Segway, and a bicycle, and two of those three times he had some hickeys to explain.
The Presidential Vomiting On Allied Prime Ministers record is still held by the elder, smarter Bush.
The Presidential Vomiting On Allied Prime Ministers record is still held by the elder, smarter Bush.
I Told You So
US intelligence fears Iran duped hawks into Iraq war:
"An urgent investigation has been launched in Washington into whether Iran played a role in manipulating the US into the Iraq war by passing on bogus intelligence through Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, it emerged yesterday.Not to mention, getting Iraq's oil fields. Ha Ha I Told You So!
Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbour, and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq. "
"It's pretty clear that Iranians had us for breakfast, lunch and dinner," said an intelligence source in Washington yesterday. "Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the US for several years through Chalabi."Jeeze. These stupid, incompetent, ideologically insane, hateful, arrogant, cultish, corrupt, right-wing, ignorant CLUCKS got duped, sold us out, made fools of us, betrayed us, destroyed our honor, besmirched our good name, bankrupted us, sold us up the river, destroyed our reputation, undermined our integrity, and killed thousands.
Larry Johnson, a former senior counter-terrorist official at the state department, said: "When the story ultimately comes out we'll see that Iran has run one of the most masterful intelligence operations in history. They persuaded the US and Britain to dispose of its greatest enemy."
Bush The Liar
From his speech last night, AGAIN saying Iraq is a war against the 9/11 terrorists:
"In the last 32 months history has placed great demands on our country and events have come quickly. Americans have seen the flames of Sept. 11, followed battles in the mountains of Afghanistan and learned new terms like orange alert and ricin and dirty bomb. We've seen killers at work on trains in Madrid, in a bank in Istanbul, in a synagogue in Tunis and a nightclub in Bali. And now the families of our soldiers and civilian workers pray for their sons and daughter in Mosul and Karbala and Baghdad.
We did not seek this war on terror. But this is the world as we find it. We must keep our focus. We must do our duty. History is moving and it will tend toward hope or tend toward tragedy.
Our terrorist enemies have a vision that guides and explains all their varied acts of murder. They seek to impose Taliban-like rule country by country across the greater Middle East. They seek the total control of every person and mind and soul. A harsh society in which women are voiceless and brutalized. They seek bases of operation to train more killers and export more violence. They commit dramatic acts of murder to shock, frighten and demoralize civilized nations, hoping we will retreat from the world and give them free reign. They seek weapons of mass destruction to impose their will through blackmail and catastrophic attacks. None of this is the expression of a religion. It is a totalitarian political ideology pursued with consuming zeal and without conscience."
The Agonist: Justice Must Be Seen To Be Done
The Agonist: Justice Must Be Seen To Be Done:
"We must face the facts, the cold, hard facts. We illegally invaded another nation, engaging in war crimes to do so, in that we lied to the UN as to the causes for war. We did so without pressing necessity to invade - or to lie at all, since our target was an individual who could have been legally indicted for war crimes by merely stretching forth our hand. We invaded solely because of the electoral time table of George W Bush Jr, and for no other reason. This is worse that a crime, it is worse than a mistake, it is a blot against that most precious object of a free people - our willingness to comply with our own laws."Stirling says it all for us -- go read.
5/24/2004
Judith Miller off the NYT Chalabi beat
The Times has finally come up with a pretty good piece about the Chalabi spy story. It mentions that the information had to have come up from someone high up on the totem pole, probably in the Defense Department.
Oddly enough, Iran, William Safire, and Chalabi himself all deny that Chalabi was an Iranian spy. Safire is becoming loonier and slimier by the minute.
At the moment Judith Miller, the Times reporter who eternally disgraced herself and the Times by reporting Chalabi spin as fact, is nowhere to be seen.
Johnston and Oppel on Chalabi
Safire on Chalabi
Miller's errors have still not been acknowledged by the Times
Oddly enough, Iran, William Safire, and Chalabi himself all deny that Chalabi was an Iranian spy. Safire is becoming loonier and slimier by the minute.
At the moment Judith Miller, the Times reporter who eternally disgraced herself and the Times by reporting Chalabi spin as fact, is nowhere to be seen.
Johnston and Oppel on Chalabi
Safire on Chalabi
Miller's errors have still not been acknowledged by the Times
5/23/2004
Guardian on rape/abuse of female prisoners in Iraq by American guards
[This is horried and repulsive enough... especially the fact that these women are being released without any protection or follow up (resulting in disappearances, murders, suicides, etc.)... but what really gets my goat is this:
"Invented by the Bush administration..."
"indefinite detention without charge..."
WHY ARE WE TOLERATING THIS? WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE ON CAPITOL HILL?
Our ancestors fought a REVOLUTION a little bit over two hundred years ago precisely because King George was engaging in this type of behavior. One of the outcomes of that experience was the Constitution of the United States and the accompanying Bill of Rights, along with a lot of jurisprudence (such as Habeus Corpus) designed to translate those nobel words into tangible reality. These rules were put into place for a REASON, and our new King George and his cabal of neo-conservative nogoodnicks are busy demonstrating exactly what that reason was - and sullying the good name of our country, our heritage, our government and each of us as American citizens. I take this very personally. Bastards!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,3604,1220673,00.html
[...continued at URL above]
--Thomas Leavitt
Like other Iraqi prisoners, all five are classified as "security detainees" - a term invented by the Bush administration to justify the indefinite detention of prisoners without charge or legal access, as part of the war on terror. US military officials will only say that they are suspected of "anti-coalition activities".
"Invented by the Bush administration..."
"indefinite detention without charge..."
WHY ARE WE TOLERATING THIS? WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE ON CAPITOL HILL?
Our ancestors fought a REVOLUTION a little bit over two hundred years ago precisely because King George was engaging in this type of behavior. One of the outcomes of that experience was the Constitution of the United States and the accompanying Bill of Rights, along with a lot of jurisprudence (such as Habeus Corpus) designed to translate those nobel words into tangible reality. These rules were put into place for a REASON, and our new King George and his cabal of neo-conservative nogoodnicks are busy demonstrating exactly what that reason was - and sullying the good name of our country, our heritage, our government and each of us as American citizens. I take this very personally. Bastards!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,3604,1220673,00.html
The other prisoners
Most of the coverage of abuse at Abu Ghraib has focused on male detainees. But what of the five women held in the jail, and the scores elsewhere in Iraq? Luke Harding reports
Thursday May 20, 2004
The Guardian
The scandal at Abu Ghraib prison was first exposed not by a digital photograph but by a letter. In December 2003, a woman prisoner inside the jail west of Baghdad managed to smuggle out a note. Its contents were so shocking that, at first, Amal Kadham Swadi and the other Iraqi women lawyers who had been trying to gain access to the US jail found them hard to believe.
The note claimed that US guards had been raping women detainees, who were, and are, in a small minority at Abu Ghraib. Several of the women were now pregnant, it added. The women had been forced to strip naked in front of men, it said. The note urged the Iraqi resistance to bomb the jail to spare the women further shame.
Late last year, Swadi, one of seven female lawyers now representing women detainees in Abu Ghraib, began to piece together a picture of systemic abuse and torture perpetrated by US guards against Iraqi women held in detention without charge. This was not only true of Abu Ghraib, she discovered, but was, as she put it, "happening all across Iraq".
[...continued at URL above]
--Thomas Leavitt
CHALABI WAS AN IRANIAN SPY!!!!!!!!
So far you're not seeing that kind of headline -- there's not much excitement at all. A Google News "Chalabi" + "Iran" search gets more responses and cover stories from Iran and from Chalabi himself than it gets stories. The always-reliable Evan Bayh doesn't want to hear about it -- he thinks that the American people are tired of hearings. (Was Evan one of the big Chalabi suckers? You sort of guess so, don't you?)
Chalabi appeared on national TV three times today and is getting the kind of fair treatment in the media that I wish Scott Ritter had gotten. From reading by the tea leaves it seems clear that the hawks and their friends in the media are completely unembarassed and are fighting back -- so far, very successfully. (The New York Times, whose Judith Miller was the single biggest journalistic offender, didn't mention the story at all today.)
Whenever it seems that we've finally come to the last straw, it blows away in the wind. My worst nightmare is the same as Karl Rove's fondest dream: George W. Bush might end up being reelected entirely by the combined votes of the proto-fascists of his core constituency, and the airhead centrists who don't know, don't care, and can't be bothered. If you follow the Bush campaign at all closely, you'll see that that's exactly what Rove's strategy is, and the frightening thing is that it might very well work.
Chalabi appeared on national TV three times today and is getting the kind of fair treatment in the media that I wish Scott Ritter had gotten. From reading by the tea leaves it seems clear that the hawks and their friends in the media are completely unembarassed and are fighting back -- so far, very successfully. (The New York Times, whose Judith Miller was the single biggest journalistic offender, didn't mention the story at all today.)
Whenever it seems that we've finally come to the last straw, it blows away in the wind. My worst nightmare is the same as Karl Rove's fondest dream: George W. Bush might end up being reelected entirely by the combined votes of the proto-fascists of his core constituency, and the airhead centrists who don't know, don't care, and can't be bothered. If you follow the Bush campaign at all closely, you'll see that that's exactly what Rove's strategy is, and the frightening thing is that it might very well work.
What can you get away with saying?
As long as I've been on the internet, I've been dealing with the question "What can you get away with saying?" My solution has been to confess to being a paranoid conspiracy theorist and then say my piece. By making a joke of it, I can slip past some people's radar, and when what I say turns out to be pretty well grounded, people are pleasantly surprised. (Sometimes.) But I pay a price for this, and for most people I'll probably always be in the extremist niche.
The reason I have to play this game is that a lot of Americans, and I'm especially thinking of the Democratic leadership and the vaguely-liberal members of the media, just don't want to hear certain kinds of ideas. One way or another doves, "populist" Democrats, and "conspiracy theorists" are just tuned out.
This comes up because recently Jonathan Alter of Newsweek was criticized for dealing with the same problem ("What's OK to say?") rather differently. When Atrios excerpted Alter calling the Bush Administration a "bunch of clowns" on Air America, Kevin Drum pointed out that Alter's Newsweek writing during the same period was much milder. Kevin wondered why Alter didn't say the same things on the pages of Newsweek that he did on Air America, and Brad DeLong pitched in, basically endorsing what Kevin said.
You really don't have to wonder. Alter has an editor who will let him go only so far. The media are big business, and people who want careers learn what they can say and what they can't. Significantly, one of the very few major-media people who lets it all hang out is Paul Krugman, who has a successful career of his own and is actually slumming when he writes for the New York Times. (In not-completely-unrelated news, Josh Micah Marshall and Matt Yglesias have both recently admitted that they are to the right of most of their readers. Not that they aren't entirely sincere in every word they say, but they are certainly aware that moving to the left would not be good for their careers).
This is normally explained in terms of "what people want to hear". That would be a doubtful explanation even if it were true -- since sooner or later the truth bites you on the ass, whether you want to hear it or not. But it's not the real explanation anyway. There are certain things the commercial media don't you want to say, and professionals learn what those things are.
It gets worse. As we know, the right wing has learned the game of "working the refs", so besides the publishers and editors, there's an enormous, well-funded, conservative "media watch" goon squad ready to jump on any evidence of "liberal media bias". And so Krugman, who is intellectually and ethically head and shoulders above almost all of his peers (e.g., William Safire and George Will), has been under fierce, unremitting attack ever since he figured out how bad the Bush Administration really is.
I should probably stop now, but then I'm a paranoid ideologue. The centrist (i.e. right) wing of the Democratic Party, possibly including some of the bloggers named, has played its own part in this. During the runup to the Iraq war, even most Democrats put the doves outside the pale. Prudential anti-war arguments were allowed, but dovish ones were not. The same could be said of things like free trade and welfare reform. Refusing to "pander" to its own constituency (except for social liberals, natch) seems to have become Rule One for many Democrats. Unfortunately, once the Democratic center had destroyed the Democratic left, the Democratic center in its turn became the "left", and the vicious right-wing attacks continued without interruption. Appeasement never works.
During the 2000 election, the Republican right wing -- a frightening group of Armageddon Christians, exterminationists, anti-Government anarchists, and neo-Confederates -- stayed within the party, whereas the heavily-reviled Democratic left was driven out. (That was what Lieberman was for, right?) Buchanan got .7% of the vote, and Nader got 2.7%. Switch those percentages, and Gore would have won in a near landslide, 50%-46%.
Atrios excerpts Alter.
Kevin Drum compares Alter on AA and in Newsweek.
Brad De Long pitches in.
Kevin's followup
Yglesias is more conservative than his readers
Marshall is more conservative than his readers
The reason I have to play this game is that a lot of Americans, and I'm especially thinking of the Democratic leadership and the vaguely-liberal members of the media, just don't want to hear certain kinds of ideas. One way or another doves, "populist" Democrats, and "conspiracy theorists" are just tuned out.
This comes up because recently Jonathan Alter of Newsweek was criticized for dealing with the same problem ("What's OK to say?") rather differently. When Atrios excerpted Alter calling the Bush Administration a "bunch of clowns" on Air America, Kevin Drum pointed out that Alter's Newsweek writing during the same period was much milder. Kevin wondered why Alter didn't say the same things on the pages of Newsweek that he did on Air America, and Brad DeLong pitched in, basically endorsing what Kevin said.
You really don't have to wonder. Alter has an editor who will let him go only so far. The media are big business, and people who want careers learn what they can say and what they can't. Significantly, one of the very few major-media people who lets it all hang out is Paul Krugman, who has a successful career of his own and is actually slumming when he writes for the New York Times. (In not-completely-unrelated news, Josh Micah Marshall and Matt Yglesias have both recently admitted that they are to the right of most of their readers. Not that they aren't entirely sincere in every word they say, but they are certainly aware that moving to the left would not be good for their careers).
This is normally explained in terms of "what people want to hear". That would be a doubtful explanation even if it were true -- since sooner or later the truth bites you on the ass, whether you want to hear it or not. But it's not the real explanation anyway. There are certain things the commercial media don't you want to say, and professionals learn what those things are.
It gets worse. As we know, the right wing has learned the game of "working the refs", so besides the publishers and editors, there's an enormous, well-funded, conservative "media watch" goon squad ready to jump on any evidence of "liberal media bias". And so Krugman, who is intellectually and ethically head and shoulders above almost all of his peers (e.g., William Safire and George Will), has been under fierce, unremitting attack ever since he figured out how bad the Bush Administration really is.
I should probably stop now, but then I'm a paranoid ideologue. The centrist (i.e. right) wing of the Democratic Party, possibly including some of the bloggers named, has played its own part in this. During the runup to the Iraq war, even most Democrats put the doves outside the pale. Prudential anti-war arguments were allowed, but dovish ones were not. The same could be said of things like free trade and welfare reform. Refusing to "pander" to its own constituency (except for social liberals, natch) seems to have become Rule One for many Democrats. Unfortunately, once the Democratic center had destroyed the Democratic left, the Democratic center in its turn became the "left", and the vicious right-wing attacks continued without interruption. Appeasement never works.
During the 2000 election, the Republican right wing -- a frightening group of Armageddon Christians, exterminationists, anti-Government anarchists, and neo-Confederates -- stayed within the party, whereas the heavily-reviled Democratic left was driven out. (That was what Lieberman was for, right?) Buchanan got .7% of the vote, and Nader got 2.7%. Switch those percentages, and Gore would have won in a near landslide, 50%-46%.
Atrios excerpts Alter.
Kevin Drum compares Alter on AA and in Newsweek.
Brad De Long pitches in.
Kevin's followup
Yglesias is more conservative than his readers
Marshall is more conservative than his readers
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