Dogma Dogged

Pure Presidential Bigotry

2006-04-29T08:57:00.000-04:00

Okay, upfront confession - I'm one who always thought America the Beautiful should be our national anthem. The Star Spangled Banner can be inspiring on the rare occasion it is sung well, but it says little about our country. I think asserting we're proud, free, and brave is about as far as it goes.

Having said that, I am proud that anyone would honor our anthem by translating it (even loosely) into their native tongue. A vulgar or obscene version notwithstanding, for me it is nothing short of bigotry to think a foreign language rendition of it is offensive.

Free expression means free expression, and George Bush yesterday went a step further in voicing his authoritarian feelings. Why in the world should the national anthem be sung only in English? It was written at a time when we were at war with the English, but I think that fact may support the contrary argument.

I ordinarily don't like name calling, but I feel compelled to say Bush is an ethnocentric bigot.

Note to intelligence agencies: Please apologize to 'Dub' for my tendency to use big words. I have security issues of another kind.

Oh, No! Limbaugh is Right!

2006-04-22T07:37:00.000-04:00

This administration may actually know what way it is heading, but it isn't the American way. I know this because yesterday I found myself in agreement with Rush Limbaugh. He called Dr. Wang Wenyi, the woman who spoke out to Hu Jintao at the White House, a freedom fighter.

Rush, also like me, wondered out loud why the media in America was not highlighting the fact that the President apologized to the Chinese communist dictator because someone in America excercised the freedom to speak openly to the powerful.

Not only was Dr. Wang hauled away by the Secret Service, now she has been charged seemingly with everything the law could find on the books.

I was discussing with acquaintances the obvious hypocrisy of Bush speaking about the need for China to improve its human rights position - mentioning freedom of speech and of religion specifically; then, permitting someone to be physically dragged from his presence for daring to speak. One friend, I think facetiously, mentioned he thought it was probably a left-wing conspiracy. I agree.

There is a conspiracy afoot to introduce freedom into our capitalism. I hope and pray it isn't too late.

Still with me, Rush...Rush...Ru...

The Dumbing Down of Network News

2006-04-05T17:44:00.000-04:00

Just when you (okay, I) think the corporate media is at the bottom. When some in media finally hear the Bush bandwagon so out of tune they are beginning to take a newly objective look at the world around them.

CBS confirms the awful rumor.

Katie will be anchoring the network news - in the evening - during the week. I can't count, at least not on my hands alone, the number of women more qualified to host than Couric.

Yes, she is still attractive. She's even reasonably articulate. I have watched her for years, though, and can't imagine why she wants the job. She has never seemed really interested in world affairs. Social issues and entertainment events, sure, she has taste and a certain dated style, but national politics and international messiness have never seemed to have an appeal for her.

She can't tell the difference between a political talking point and a substantive position statement. She demonstrated as much in a recent interview with Howard Dean when she wanted to insist that Democrats in congress had taken money from the Abramoff lobbying machine. This because the Republican talking point for the issue has been that Abramoff's tribal clients had donated to Dems, and she bought it. Equating the clients he victimized with the crimes of the lobbying firm was base if she knew she was doing it; otherwise, she was just plain ignorant.

That's just one example of her lack of depth and substance. She has talent and personality, but she is not what the American public needs on what should be one of the bulwarks of history's first draft, The Evening News.

No Longer Boss, DeLay Quits!

2006-04-04T17:51:00.000-04:00

I've heard he quit to 'save the majority' for Republicans in the House. Former Congresswoman Susan Molinari just insisted on Hardball that there is no other reason.

I've heard he's worried about pending charges in Texas.

I've heard he's worried about the spillover from criminal operations run from his Congressional office.

I've heard he saw a tough re-election campaign ahead with no certainty of winning.

What I haven't heard is why I think he quit. He is not in charge anymore. Plain and simple, DeLay cannot stand seeing someone else in his leadership post with no immediate prospect of returning to power. That's why he won't finish out his term and retire.

He's just going to take his ball go somewhere to try and be in charge of something.

Poor wittle Tommy...sniff...sniff.

Chris Matthews, the Poor Persecuted Zealot

2006-03-29T19:45:00.000-05:00

Chris Matthews said on Hardball tonight, in agreement with Tony Perkins, that he believes there is a campaign against religion in this country.

Excuse me. The religious fundamentalists in this country have attacked our science and our secular government. They are introducing bigotry and intolerance into our social fabric and our legal framework.

When people of reason stand up or complain, then the oppressors scream: "Our religion is under attack!" I say it is their bigotry and intolerance that are rightfully being defended against.

Theirs is a cry from fanatics desperate to rally their base by claiming a bogus status as victims.

The claim is ten pounds of bullshit in a five-pound bag.

My Current Hero

2006-03-22T11:03:00.000-05:00

Russ Feingold speaks for a lot of people in this country. Especially we Democrats that don't carry a pantload of political cover around with us.

His call for censure of the President was a dead-on position in light of the aimless N.S.A. hearings and virtually non-existent investigation. I am a member of the opposition party in this country, and I will proudly stand with Senator Feingold in opposition to illegal wiretapping.

Check out an excellent discussion here of what it's all about.

For Us and Against Them

2006-02-02T13:32:00.000-05:00

I listen to a lot , my wife says too much, of political gab on cable TV. Frequently what happens is the pundit d'jour will end up conceding the Republicans have made a terrible mess of things; then, immediately proceed to a variation of "but the Democrats don't offer any alternative".

That's pure, unadulterated manure from your least favorite barnyard animal! Here's an example of how to stand up for us.

Rather than argue the media's deafness, or the natural pulpit the Repubs get from the White House and both houses of Congress, I'll point to Rahm Emanual on HardBall the other night.

Seemingly to Chris Matthew's chagrin, when asked for alternatives to current Republican policy Rahm instantly reeled off the following:

Change to priorities that put our fiscal house in order, and reinvest in America‘s future. That is by making sure that if you work, you have health care. In the 21st century, college education is universal, as high school was in the 20th century. That—ensure that we create an institute for science and engineering to marvel the NIH for health care. To make sure we create a hybrid economy for our energy and cut our dependency on foreign oil in half. And to make sure that the next Congress, when the 9/11 Commission comes back, you don‘t get an F, the president of the United States and the Congress, for not implementing what should be done to protect Americans.

I say that's not bad straight off the cuff, and it's only one example of Democrats saying what we stand for and presenting an alternative. We just have to keep saying it over, and over, and over again.

But I'm not saying we should not preach against them as well. Again, the cable guys hand out some good advice every now and then. This from the conservative talker, Joe Scarborough:

Hammer home these three themes over the next ten months.

1. There is a culture of corruption in Republican-run washington.
2. There are record deficits, record debts and record government waste in Republican-run Washington.
3. Soldiers are dying across the world for reasons that are still not clear three years later.

These are examples of the bipolar way I want to proceed this year.

Positive and straightforward in putting forward Democratic values and policy proposals.

Negative and blunt in describing the disaster the Republicans have created at home and abroad.

Carville and Begala

2006-01-24T18:45:00.000-05:00

I recently completed the new book by James Carville and Paul Begala, Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future. I would like to highly recommend you read it early this election year. I, also, want to share a few of my thoughts on its contents.

Take It Back provides a pretty comprehensive outline of the current political landscape. Begala and Carville headline most of the principle Democratic causes and where we fail in making them winning political causes.

The book also includes a couple of extended sermons (those on the right would probably say rants) on critical points that diverge from the overall systematic coverage of issues. The invasion of Iraq and the administration response to hurricane Katrina get this ‘special’ treatment, and I say deservedly so.

I found myself, not surprisingly, nodding in the affirmative and murmuring, “Exactly!”, “Yes!” , and “I’ve been saying that, too!” frequently as these practical professionals tie their dearly held values to the actions necessary to see them validated in today’s political environment.

Topics covered include, but are not limited to: faith, the environment, healthcare, patriotism, energy policy, patriotism, and corruption in Washington. These masters of progressive political strategy offer both wit and wisdom on each subject.

The simplest stated advice, and something I would love all of us to follow, is to stand firm and proud in what we believe. No matter how we may differ in opinion from the current powers-that-be, we are not wrong. We should say what we mean and mean what we say without apology. They quote Bill Clinton’s assertion that the public would rather their leaders be “strong and wrong than weak and right”. Carville and Begala insist we can be both strong and right and call on us to be the party of “family, faith, and flag”.

This leads directly to what is potentially the authors' most powerful conclusion.
We have to have a message the public can digest and point to as what we represent. We have been too subtle and complex in defining ourselves and our values. We must identify, rally around, and drive home a clear and unified Democratic message.

These guys are proven winners and we would be wrong not to a least hear what they have to say as we fight to do just what they suggest: take it back.

The Fear of Freedom

2006-01-04T09:35:00.000-05:00

Bob Young at Centerfield recounts some history of America's reaction in times of crisis, and reminds us that

Courage doesn't have to mean joining the military. Sometimes it just means refusing to live in fear of 19 men in stolen commercial airliners. It means not subverting hard won liberty to protect ourselves from a couple of dozen men.

I say again, the extent to which we change our lives and laws in reaction to 9/11 is the extent to which we hand victory to Bin Laden and his gang. Everytime the president direly recounts "September 11th" in support of his latest grab for power I see a man proclaiming the fear of living free.

Risk is a cost of freedom. If we want to live in a society without risk, we need to quit pretending we want to be free.

Reality Resolution

2005-12-29T12:50:00.000-05:00

I came across a Jonathan Chait piece from The New Republic back in '03 that details the ridiculously unreal public image George Bush tries to foist upon us. In closing, Chait describes a state of mind I have repeatedly experienced over the last five years.

...[T]o feel as though you've been transported into some alternative universe in which a transparently mediocre man is revered as a moral and strategic giant. You ask yourself why Bush is considered a great, or even a likeable, man. You wonder what it is you have been missing. Being a liberal, you probably subject yourself to frequent periods of self-doubt. But then you conclude that you're actually not missing anything at all. You decide Bush is a dullard lacking any moral constraints in his pursuit of partisan gain, loyal to no principle save the comfort of the vry rich, unburdened by any thoughtful consideration of the national interest, and a man who, on those occasions when he actually does make a correct decision, does so almost by accident.

I continue to be bombarded with media reports assuming that Bush is something more than my intellect and senses tell me. The mid-term election campaigns will bring smokescreen after smokescreen as Republicans try to deny reality, refuse to accept responsibility for the status quo, or seek to distance themselves from the administration.

I resolve to continue to look through the fog of hardspun rhetoric to the truth. I resolve to trust my senses, my judgment, and my democratic/Democratic values. I resolve to stay real.

Happy New Year

The Irony Never Ends

2005-12-20T11:08:00.000-05:00

I'm noting a couple of quotes from the Bush presser yesterday out-of-context (provided here) because in real-time they hit me right in the ironic bone.

1) When asked about his seeming excercise of unchecked power;

'To say "unchecked power" basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the President, which I strongly reject.'

He pointed his finger as he said this with peevish (dictatorial?) authority.

2) When asked about skipping the safequards of the courts when seeking wiretaps;

"I swore to uphold the laws. Do I have the legal authority to do this? And the answer is, absolutely."(emph. added)

A beautifully Freudian choice of word is it not?

This guy could put satire writers out of business. Why make anything up?

Bush is Playing at Candor

2005-12-19T09:14:00.000-05:00

The irony was almost overwhelming for me when Bush said in his primetime speech last night:

"To retreat before victory would be an act of recklessness and dishonor and I will not allow it."

Ironic because Bush's reckless invasion has brought dishonor on our country in the eyes many of our allies and most of the world.

Even in his newfound "candor" he hasn't acknowledged that fact. Probably because he is only as candid as opinion polls and political pressure on his agenda force him to be. I just can't give him much credit for offering come-lately crumbs of honesty when so many of us have been aware of the truth in real time.

Now about those illegal wiretaps...

President's Power from What War Declaration?

2005-12-18T09:36:00.000-05:00

Bush continues to claim powers consistent with the commander-in-chief in war time. Now insisting it is both necessary and legal to order eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without involving the courts because "we are at war".
Since he is framing this in a legal context, I would first like to know what Congressional declaration vests him with this power and, second, just whom that declaration was against.

I have not heard that these are Iraqi "terrorists" he is investigating without oversight from either the Judicial or Legislative branches. If he isn't referring to the resolution authorizing him to disarm Saddam Hussein in support of U.N. resolutions, I am unaware of any legally declared war in progress, and I think we need to seriously question the legality of Bush's action.

King George? Indeed.

Hypocrisy's Hero

2005-12-16T12:55:00.000-05:00

The Washington Posts reports.

During an interview Wednesday on the Fox News Channel, Bush was asked whether he believes DeLay is innocent of the charges of money laundering and conspiracy that led to his indictment in Texas and resignation from the House Republican leadership in September. "Yes, I do," the president replied.
...
"The president was asked a question and he responded to that question in the interview yesterday, and made very clear what his views were," McClellan said. "We don't typically tend to get into discussing legal matters of that nature, but in this instance, the president chose to respond to it. Our policy regarding the Fitzgerald investigation and ongoing legal proceeding is well-known and it remains unchanged."

"Call it a presidential prerogative," he added.

I call it self-serving hypocrisy.

We're Still Giving Al Qaida Gifts

2005-12-03T14:55:00.000-05:00

Learning of our scheme to pay for good news stories in Iraqi newspapers makes it seem ever more evident American values end at the waters edge. I know this used to be said of partisan politics, but that is clearly no longer the case.

According the some at the Pentagon and folks like Pat Buchanan, it's okay to lie and cheat if your enemy is doing it too. Or, as Pat said on Hardball, "We're at war, war!" This is yet another reversion of war supporters on the right to schoolyard ethics. Whatever we do is okay 'cause "they started it". Also, I'm a little murky on just what war we've declared against whomdo . What, if any, values we hold as inviolate? Maybe those are separate discussions.

What comes through to me is these people think it's okay to do whatever we want due to the fear and anger lingering from 9/11. We continue to pay tribute directly from the treasury of our collective soul to Bin Laden and his ilk when we compromise our values and lash out in our insecurity. We are still giving the terrorists exactly what I imagine they wanted when they first plotted to strike us.

We tilt forward in our war against a violent tactic afraid to get on with our lives while seeking justice from the individuals that harmed us.

Fools, fools, we are led by cowards and fools.

Best Press Money Can Buy

2005-12-01T11:38:00.000-05:00

This is how we practice our most precious values in Iraq.

Even as the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development pay contractors millions of dollars to help train journalists and promote a professional and independent Iraqi media, the Pentagon is paying millions more to the Lincoln Group for work that appears to violate fundamental principles of Western journalism.

Read the really ugly details in the NYT (reg. req.).

This Mind is Closed

2005-12-01T10:07:00.000-05:00

John Warner indicated to Chris Matthew's last night that we are trapped in Iraq. The Senior senator from Virginia refused to hear or say anything other than we have no option besides staying the course in Iraq.

To Matthew's suggestion that Congressman John Murtha had just offered an alternative on the very same show, Warner replied "No, no, no." Chris let it go at that.

I have noted this exact same response from my three-year-old granddaughter anytime anyone suggest something she doesn't want to hear. Then, she is supposed to be selfishly self-centered.

Working For Peace Works

2005-11-22T11:51:00.000-05:00

Gareth Evans, the former prime minister of Australia says in the LA Times:

Contrary to what just about everybody instinctively believes, there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of conflicts, down 40% since the early 1990s. There were just 25 armed secessionist conflicts underway in 2004, the lowest number since 1976, according to the meticulously documented Human Security Report 2005, a new multi-government study (www.humansecurityreport.info).

Why the decrease?

Peacekeeping forces help keep the peace. Go figure.

BushCo's New Drumbeat

2005-11-22T09:07:00.000-05:00

Anyone that paid even passing attention to the evening news from the Summer of 2004 through the Winter of 2005 heard a steadily increasing drumbeat of rhetoric setting the stage for an invasion of Iraq. One administration official after another proclaimed glum and doom if Saddam were not disarmed immediately.

The rhetoric escalated even as news on the ground was at least mitigating of Iraq's offensive potential. Inspectors in Iraq were finding no evidence to support the world intelligence community claims of WMD even though an always stubborn Saddam was granting unprecedented access.

Now the administration is attacking anyone who questions their motives during the run up to the ill-fated invasion using adjectives like irresponsible, dishonest, and reprehensible when as a matter of fact such questions are simply logical. It just makes sense to question a group of people who were wrong on virtually every assertion they made prior to the invasion and in its immediate aftermath.

They have held none of their own responsible or accountable in any way, yet the same type rhetorical bombardment is beginning against anyone naturally curious about what could have led to so many mistakes.

Do not believe Cheney or Rumsfeld. They are the architects of a growing disaster and will say virtually anything to deflect attention and accountability.

Believe what you saw and heard back during the buildup to the invasion. Compare that to what we now know to be reality. It is the honest and responsible thing to do.

Wrong Without Any Lies

2005-11-17T09:53:00.000-05:00

Setting aside everyones'lies and exaggerations, the administration's whining alone is getting monotonous. No matter how long and how hard they defend the reasons for their mistakes, in the end, they're just wrong.

The worst is pointing to Clinton era warnings about the threat of Saddam's weapons programs. Would you use five year old intelligence to go to war? How about three year old intelligence?

If not, what do Clinton's 1998 statements about IraqiWMD's have to do with going to war in 2003?

These folks can't admit even a reasonable mistake. They sure aren't going to own their falsehoods.

Cheney and Bush Go Even More Negative

2005-11-17T09:43:00.000-05:00

The darkest of pots are calling some kettles black. Bush and Cheney are calling critics of their use of pre-war intelligence liars and irresponsible.

What do they possibly hope to accomplish by going negative against politicians that are in agreement with a large majority of the American people? Maybe it's a campaign style snow job in the hope folks never dig out from the under the drifting piles of deceit, or just blasting the noise machine endlessly to numb the populace to any truth or reason?

Whatever it is, let's not buy it this time, please.

Josh Marshall is providing a place to document the lies of Darth Cheney and Gee Dubya. Most of us saw and heard the lies and exaggerations, and I pray we cannot be convinced to deny the history we witnessed with our own senses.

Salute, To All Our Veterans

2005-11-11T16:14:00.000-05:00

There really is no greater love than to lay down one's life for another. Today we remember the hundreds of thousands that have done so for all of us. We salute, also, the millions more who served willing to do the same.

God bless the families, friends, and loved ones of those who have made, and still make, such sacrifice. Love like that is never truly in vain.

Bush Enabled Terrorists Strike Jordan

2005-11-11T15:53:00.000-05:00

We didn't invade Iraq with sufficient troops to impose our will on the country. We left unsecured weapons and ammo all over the place. We didn't anticipate or react quickly enough to a growing insurgency, and ultimately allowed al Qaida to establish itself solidly among the Sunnis and Baathist remnants.

Now one of our best allies in the region has paid a dear price for the Bush administration's incompetence. Jordan was struck violently from a growing base of terrorism that did not exist before we invaded Iraq. If we weren't already, we should now be ashamed.

Robertson Proves My Point

2005-11-11T08:25:00.000-05:00

If anyone was unsure that the goal of the intelligent design propagandists was to slip creationism through the side door, Robertson, for his part, dispels any doubt.

“I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected him from your city,” Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia, “The 700 Club.”

Now why could he possibly be so upset unless his goal is to insert his religion into our kids curriculum.

History really tries to remind us that when religion ruled the world it was a dark, dark age. I thank God that the people of Dover, PA, seem to remember.

Democrats, Unite and Fight - Now!

2005-11-01T15:03:00.000-05:00

That pretty much says it. Alito has the record to oppose. Oppose it! Win or go down on principle and run ('06 & '08) on the fallout.

Grassroots, State Organizations, DNC, and Congress: we have the cause(s)and now's the time.

This Quibble is a Lie

2005-10-26T09:11:00.000-04:00

When a decision is pending to send America's young men and women to die in combat a quibble is as bad as a lie. We now know Dick Cheney lied in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

Cheney at least quibbled when claiming to Tim Russert in September 2003 that he did not know Joe Wilson. He further said he did not know who sent Joe Wilson to Niger. Which, according to yesterday's report that Cheney ID'd Wilson wife as CIA and that she was involved in sending him on the trip. The later seems more like an outright lie by any definition.

According to the Washington Post, the white house is quibbling hard.

McClellan said Cheney has always been honest with the American people. He dismissed as "ridiculous" a question about whether Bush stood by Cheney's account of his role in the matter. In an interview in September 2003, Cheney told NBC's Tim Russert he did not know Wilson or who sent him to Africa. Officials said Cheney was careful to distance himself from Wilson in the interview without telling a lie about what he knew about the diplomat and his wife.

I'm sorry but, here in the Bible Belt of East Tennessee, if you have to work that hard to claim the truth, you're lying!

I realize most of the folks we are talking about never served in the military much less attended West Point. They do know a lot of people who went to the military academy though, and I'm just guessing that any of them could explain to Mr. Cheney, et al, how an honorable person defines a quibble.

I'd bet the explanation would include the word lie.

Miers, The Better Devil?

2005-10-11T15:16:00.000-04:00

This Miers nomination really presents a quandry for me. First, I'm relieved that Miers' unproven positions on key issues leaves a chance for moderate-which could be swing- votes.

But...I worry about the institution itself if Miers really is the crony of mediocre talent she seems-and gushing sycophant comes to mind. A swing vote is one thing, simply being blown about by the most overwhelming wind is something else.

Lastly, I am selfishly concerned that as an alternative to Miers we would get a fire-tested, fire-breathing conservative.

I reflexively issued a sigh of relief when Bush announced Miers, and trusting that instinct, I still think she's the best (least bad) we can hope from from Bush.

And, yes, that's a sad thing.

*Disclosure: this is slightly edited from my comment at TPMCafe.

Wal-Mart Still Sucks

2005-10-10T11:03:00.000-04:00

My wife and I don't want to shop at Wal-Mart, but the prices really can be seductive. We are at a place where we feel we can bite the bullet and spend a little more to shop elsewhere, but it is hard.

After reading Leo Hindery's short piece, I will try harder. I understand a lot of Wal-Mart's negative impact on many, if not most, communities it infests with a Super(?) Center, but I wasn't aware of how much better Costco's business model works, apparently for everyone involved.

Good to know.

The Prez is in on Terrorist Strategy

2005-10-07T08:29:00.000-04:00

I guess the new level of "detail" White House hacks promised in GeeDub's "major" speech yesterday is the degree to which the President is privy to the goals and strategy of the "Islamic radicals".

Bush said Islamic radicals are seeking to establish a “radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia” with Iraq serving as the main front. He singled out Iran and Syria as “allies of convenience” for Islamic radicalism.

How would he know? You'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind to not realize our intelligence can't find the al Qaeda leadership much less know their geographic objectives. This from the guy who proudly asserts he doesn't read the papers, who had to be given a composite DVD of newcasts four days after Katrina hit to "catch up" on the storm's impact?

Get real.

Miers. I'll wait and see, but...

2005-10-03T14:02:00.000-04:00

Okay so the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend, but we on the left of the political center could have come off a lot worse. I'd almost say we "dodged a bullet" with the Harriet Miers nomination if the recent New Orleans connotation of the phrase weren't so fresh.

That Harry Reid likes Miers and conservatives are already somewhat uncomfortable is not bad news for me. My principle concern about a second Bush term, albeit among many, was the SCOTUS appointments he would be in line to make. Time will tell just how lacking in agenda Roberts will be and, assuming confirmation, how much like other stealth appointments Miers will be; yet I can't honestly help feeling relieved for the liberals, Democrats, progressives, and the rest of the country come to think of it.

Whew!...so far.

Forgotten?...But Not Gone.

2005-09-30T09:16:00.000-04:00

I'm back from an unannounced blogging hiatus and multiple business trips so without further ado...

The Bill Bennett bruhaha is a distant second place shame to Scooter Libby leaving Miller out to dry for nearly three months. Yeah, yeah he signed the blanket waiver long ago. It has also long been known the journalists involved were citing possible coercion as motive for signing these waivers as grounds to suspect them.

I'm sure it's pure coincidence this story broke on the day the news was dominated by the Roberts confirmation (free registration). I'm sure.

Bush Has Admitted Nothing

2005-09-14T08:47:00.000-04:00

I'm tired, already, of seeing and hearing everywhere that George Bush has taken blame or admitted fault. Headlines like this are flat out lying.

Bush has said he is "responsible" for the actions of the federal government. He is finally confessing that he has a clue about his job description. He has not been held to account or said he did anything wrong. Maybe Thursday night, just maybe, he will be honest. I'm not optimistic.

Come on people! The constitution tells us that the President is responsible for the operation of the Excecutive Branch.

Move along. There's no news here.

Farewell to a Thoughtful Moderate Blogger

2005-09-13T16:06:00.000-04:00

Drop in to The Yellow Line and say goodbye to an insightful writer with three first names. Alan Stewart Carl is leaving this calling to heed a call to action. We might all consider how we balance the two - talk v. action that is.

I will miss you Alan.

Brown Resigns

2005-09-12T15:10:00.000-04:00

It's breaking news here, and elsewhere, that it finally dawned on Mike Brown when a political appointee loses the confidence of his patron he's supposed to resign.

My guess is that'll be that as far as accountability from the administration. For this bunch, a resignation in the same calendar quarter as a culpable action equates to a Saturday night massacre.

Brown did the right thing, finally, but the man at the top of the heap was the one really on snooze control in the early hours/days of the disaster.

Katrina Timelines for Information and Perspective

2005-09-12T14:28:00.000-04:00

I read a couple of interesting timelines today that really helped crystallize my frustration with government response to the Katrina disaster.

The first is a living document being edited under the direction of Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo. It comes close to presenting just the facts, and has been updated pretty regularly. I do realize that something of a point of view can come through by just which facts are chosen for presenting, but there is a lot of good data to be gleaned from this effort.

The second is chock full of Evan Thomas perspective, but Newsweek lays out a pretty plausible, to me, sequence of how things went down from the administration's vantage point. Yeah, I know this is actually an article, but the timeline is embedded.

A NEWSWEEK reconstruction of the government's response to the storm shows how Bush's leadership style and the bureaucratic culture combined to produce a disaster within a disaster.

Check'em out.

Majority rules! Majority rules, na-ne na-ne na-na!

2005-09-09T14:20:00.000-04:00

I remember in grade school when a class would win a free party for foisting the most overpriced chocolate bars on friends, neighbors, and relatives. The group would get a choice of say an ice cream party or a pizza party, and it would have to vote to decide between them.

Invariably losers of the vote would complain and winners would taunt them by chanting, "majority rules; majority rules!", over and over again. You would think most folks would outgrow such childish gloating. Apparently the majority party in Congress has not.

We should not have, nor should we allow, rulers in our democracy. The "tyranny of the majority" was something the founding Fathers were careful to guard against, and it is something to guard against today. Leaders we need. Leaders, even by the military definition, are those that can influence people in such a way that they willingly follow. Rulers say "The election's over willingness be damned."

Sadly, leaders are in short supply.

Katrina's Aftermath Exposes Priorities

2005-09-05T10:01:00.000-04:00

I noticed a couple of things when I had more time yesterday to watch the talking pundit shows and continuting news coverage. I wanted to express my frustration about them but found that Lance Mannion had said it earlier and better than I could.

One thing I noticed was how blatantly the responsible authorities were shifting blame and avoiding accountibility, big surprise there, right.

Anyone saying that now is not the time to play politics, now is not the time to look for people to blame is either consciously or unconciously helping to shield politicians from responsibility for their failures. You can’t criticize a political leader without it being a political act. Tell me that no political leaders here deserve criticism.

The second point Larry made eloquently, just for me I'm sure, was:

The raving calls from Right Wing bloggers for shooting the looters on sight and worrying more about stolen television sets than about the people in the Superdown wading through their own shit to stand in line to get MREs for their hungry children—well, I don’t know how you can begin to qualify the moral failures of people who have no other morality but loyalty to George W. Bush.

Check out the rest of this insightful piece over at American Street.
The Emperor and his toadies have been without clothes from the beginning folks. Please, let's all keep our eyes open despite the reflex to cringe.

We Knew and He Failed Us

2005-09-02T09:22:00.000-04:00

Arianna has the scoop. It may be stinkin' thinkin' to talk about what might have been, but I don't think it's too early to start learning the lessons we don't want to repeat. Many people in the Gulf region saw this coming and tried to say so.

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness. On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

- Editor and Publisher

There's specifics on the numbers too. It could have been worse if Bush had gotten his way completely.

Bush Quotes Before Leaving for Gulf Coast

2005-09-02T09:05:00.000-04:00

He really does speak in clipped phrases that sound like platitudes to me.

"There's a lotta aid surging towards those that are effected." - Why haven't we been shuttling supplies in and people out by squadrons of Black Hawk and Sea Stallion helicopters for days?

"Tryin' to get food and water to the convention center." - Why not yesterday?

"Lotta people workin' hard." - Effectively?

"The results are not acceptable." - Duh, doh...really?

"We'll get on top of the situtation." - It's been days why aren't we already on top of the situation?

"We're going to help people that need help." - You mean the ones that are still alive, obviously.

A Democrat with an Iraq Strategy

2005-08-26T09:22:00.000-04:00

Wes Clark is laying it out there in his op/ed today for the Washington Post.

First he lays out where he thinks we went wrong in Iraq. Yes, including the first mistake , the invasion. He includes errors of all varieties including. diplomacy, politics and military operations.

Then, he proposes alternative strategies. Not that I agree with all of them. Like - he still wants a military commitment of indefinite duration, but he does say we should renounce permanent bases. But there are specifics here and its a brief but fairly comprehensive proposal.

Read what he has to say that leads to this conclusion:

The growing chorus of voices demanding a pullout should seriously alarm the Bush administration, because President Bush and his team are repeating the failure of Vietnam: failing to craft a realistic and effective policy and instead simply demanding that the American people show resolve. Resolve isn't enough to mend a flawed approach -- or to save the lives of our troops. If the administration won't adopt a winning strategy, then the American people will be justified in demanding that it bring our troops home.

Clark may not be an officeholder (yet), but he made enough noise in '04 to be a major voice in the debate. Now it is time for the Decocrats that are "in" to pick up the gauntlet; 'fess up to mistakes if necessary; then, lead the way out of the bungled mess over there.

Chuck Hagel still says it most concisely and directly. "Stay the course is not a strategy".

My Personal Healthcare Cost Saga

2005-08-23T16:13:00.000-04:00

While on vacation July 5th in Virginia Beach , my youngest son fell from a piece of playground equipment and broke both bones in his right forearm. First I want to thank Virginia Beach General Hospital, Dr. Williamson, a great orthopedic trauma doc, the ambulance and EMT techs that responded, and most certainly my employer. All of the above performed in the most exemplary and professional manner I could ever hope for or imagine. My son, Isacc, is almost fully recovered. His cast came off last week and he is a third of the way through his three week "sling" period.

Then came the medical bills. This is not going to be a sob story about how I got shafted. Quite the contrary, as my gratitude, expressed above, may indicate, my employer provides generous medical benefits. They came through for me with flying colors. My company is self-insured and the coverage is administered by one of the best known providers of such services in the industry.

But those bills! I will describe the hospital charges as the prime (largest) example, but the bills for the other services were handled in a similar manner. Isaac's hospital stay was roughly 20 hours from about 5pm on Tuesday to about 1pm on Wednesday. The stay included emergency room, X-ray services, an operating room since the arm was set, mercifully, under general anesthesia, recovery room, and patient bed for the night (morning, really). The bill was a little over $7300. Ouch, but not unexpected. I made a mental note that with deductible and coinsurance I was looking at a $1000 share of the total cost , but what followed was really unexpected - at least as a matter of degree.

I know these bills are negotiated downward by the insurance companies, but when I recieved the final bill from the hospital the insurance adjustment was over $5400! My employer and I were now being asked for just 26% of the original invoiced charges. Whoa! Needless to say I can hardly wait to write the check for my share of that after what I was prepared to pay.

I am grateful.

I also feel guilt-fed anger. What I realize is a Wal-mart part-time employee without benefits experiencing a similar situation could easily spend years paying off what ultimately amounted to nearly $10,000 in initial charges. A laborer in our booming residential construction industry could lose their car, their credit, or worse if suddenly facing such a large debt. What else I realize is I am a pink slip and a few months continuing benefits away from being just like them.

Unemployed and/or uninsured I could have been liable for 40 times the money I am paying now.

All I can think is something has to be WRONG with this situation! My whole life I have heard we live in the U.S.of A., the richest country in the world.

How can that be when so many must give so much for something so essential? And but for the grace of God...

Binary Bush Attacks New Straw Man

2005-08-22T16:13:00.000-04:00

George is attacking another straw man-in-the-mirror. Maybe every issue and decision is binary to GeeDub because he can only keep two things in his mind at once.

In his Utah rally 'round the war talk today, Bush said the alternative to staying the course in Iraq would be the "retreat and isolation" policy voiced by, by,...well, by Bush I guess. I haven't heard anyone else propose it. But then, no one other than the Karl Rovian du jour has voiced a "cut and run" policy either.

We need a pack of flying monkeys to take these straw folks apart politically, and their mirror images as well.

Hagel Like a Bad Democrat

2005-08-21T14:53:00.000-04:00

Chuck Hagel sounded for all the world like one of the Democrats the right side of the media likes to rail against in his appearance today on This Week. He made good sense about why he thinks Iraq is a mess, but offered little in terms of an alternative strategy.

He reiterated his "we're not winning position", but when asked directly about a strategy to get out he mumbled general phrases about six months, elections, police, Iraqi military without any concrete suggestions.

George Allen sounded more eloquent, without expressing an original thought, by just spouting administration mantras on standing up Iraqis and Iraq being the central front, etc.

I think the country needs a voice like Hagel's on the inside of the Republican regime, but he needs to do a better job of thinking through his position or do a better job of articulating it.

Feingold Hits My Bull' s Eye

2005-08-21T14:06:00.000-04:00

Russ Feingold made a great point on Meet the Press today that was so logical it left me feeling numbly dumb.

He really put the lie to one of the administration's favorite mantras of late. The one that says we can't set a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq or the insurgents would simply wait until we leave and take over.

If that's the case, says Feingold, why don't they just quit fighting right now and wait for us to leave, then take over?

Kind of highlights the fault in the talking point's faulty logic, doesn't it.

Made me go duh, doh, and well...yeah.

Embracing Complexity and Ambivalence

2005-08-20T09:37:00.000-04:00

My latest look in Johari's window revealed a couple of things to me about me. Fiscally, economically, and in terms of foreign policy views I am solidly, though only slightly, left of center. Socially I tend towards the far left. I come up short only in that I'm not a fan of in-your-face displays of individual lifestyle choices. Live and let live, for me, does not include the flaunting of differences for the sake of provoking response (offense?).

All that is the long way of saying I have to periodically take stock of my views and positions. They change. I don't think it's because I'm wishy-washy, or that I'm somehow deficient of moral clarity. I think it is because my education continues. I read. I observe. As Paul (Saul) of Taursus suggests in his letter to the Romans (I think), I test everything, and try to keep what's good.

As a consequence of being open, I see shades of gray everywhere. I don't think that means there are no absolutes. Gray cannot exist without black and white, can it? It does mean that I don't have to be certain in order to trust my perceptions and conclusions. It also means I can be wrong and adjust to what I've learned from my error.

But enough about me. This stream of thought came from a reference by amba at AmivaBlog that led me to Radical Middle where Mark Satin, whose words title this piece, turned me on to Robert Karen and Terrence Real. What they're writing about is where this all started so read Mark's piece.

Gray is beautiful.

In & Out of Net(s)

2005-08-15T21:54:00.000-04:00

Work has me on the road this week (Chicago), so I'll only be intermittently wired and/or wireless.

I'll probably miss you more than you'll miss me.'

Ciao, for now.

Cutting our Losses; Not Cutting and Running

2005-08-12T15:35:00.000-04:00

I looked and commented on posts at both TPMCafe and ChargingRINO before coming across a heavyweight voice on my side of the get-out-of Iraq-now argument.

I took offense at Gee Dubya's remark yesterday that we can't leave because it would signal the bad guys "all we've got to do is intimidate and they'll leave."

First, if all they were doing was intimidating I would not have a huge issue. They are killing. To me, that's at least one giant step beyond intimidation.

Second, I think it is just as likely that the insurgent-terrorists are thinking "all we've got to do is keep killing a few Americans a week, and they'll keep sending more for us to kill - indefinitely." I think it's more than plausible because it seems a whole generation of jihadists, minted just for the purpose, are making their bones at our expense.

I think it is time to start a staged withdrawal based on the political timetable already in place. Once and for all, we'll know what the Iraqi people really want their country to be. I don't think cutting our losses is the same thing as cutting and running at this point.

But all that's just me. Read what Ronald Reagan's head of the National Security Agency, William E. Odom, has to say about it, here.

Intelligent Discussion of Intelligent Design

2005-08-10T10:12:00.000-04:00

Robert Vanasse's op-ed is the most clear and concise discussion of the great evolution/ID/creationism controversy I've read to date.

It speaks for itself right here.

White House Indicates Americans Hysterical

2005-08-09T20:43:00.000-04:00

Dan Bartlett responded to David Gregory's question (Hardball) about two-thirds of Americans thinking the Iraq war/insurgency/struggle had made us less safe more directly than I expected.

Instead of misdirecting to the usual global war/insurgency/struggle talking points, Dan insisted, twice, that Americans merely found the recent spike in Americans killed in Iraq unsettling. Unsettling, unsettling...let me think...oh-oh-oh, I get it now. We're hysterical!

As a group, over sixty percent of the American population is unsettled by some kind of temporary misfortune mistaking their moodiness as actual bad news. He went on to insist the President had repeatedly explained in Social-Security-crisis detail just how well things were really going over there.

David! Oh my Gawd! How can you let it pass and sleep? Really.

Discovery's Safe - Whew!

2005-08-09T09:21:00.000-04:00

I let out a deep sigh of relief when the shuttle touched down this morning; though, I was briefly surprised at the degree to which I had been concerned.

Then it occurred to me I had felt much the same way the other day when I heard the Russian rescue submarine had been freed from the ocean floor.

I think in both cases I was conscious on some level that my fellow human beings were out, or down, there on the edge of the survival envelope, and I cared. Seems like we (I) could do more to exploit this reflexive empathy for each other. Hmmm...

Healthcare Woes Hitting (My) Home

2005-08-08T14:14:00.000-04:00

We moved my mother-in-law in with us a week ago yesterday. The plan was for her to move in temporarily in a couple of weeks, but that plan went quickly astray.

It was a 10 PM trip to extract her from the bed where, we had just learned, she had been for going on three days except for excruciatingly painful hobbles to the bathroom. See both her knees are shot, and she has had to wait to afford the replacement surgery she needs. She had to wait to save enough from her part-time door greeter job - yes, at Wally World - to buy private health insurance, and then wait out a waiting period for the benefits she needed to be covered by her policy.

While she was waiting, what was left of her left knee joint wasted away. The final deterioration had occurred literally overnight. Now when she moves her left leg she gets a jolt of needless bone-on-bone agony.

I say needless because she was told over two years ago she needed the surgery, but she had no means to pay for it. She is 67 years old and the widow of a veteran of two wars, WWII and Korea. She had enough income from his Social Security and her part-time paycheck to subsist, but only just subsist. She wasn't eligible for Medicaid or TennCare as we call in the Volunteer State because she was self-reliant and wouldn't just quit and throw herself on the mercy of the state.

She could well have died at home alone unable to move with a known and correctable condition. We were in a position to take her in and help her make it just by chance and proximity. She is scheduled for the first of her two planned knee replacements in two weeks. We are hopeful she will be able to walk pain free again someday.

I can't help but feel angry over the pain she has felt for the last two years, and the agony she is in today.

She deserves better from this society, as do millions of others.

This Truth Hurts Worse Than Roses

2005-08-04T22:35:00.000-04:00

I think it was Oscar Wilde that said something to the effect that there are two things in life one has to be careful with, the truth and roses.

Well, over at The Poor Man Cafe you'll find a distinct, and overdue, lack of care with some thornful facts.

Be prepared to really read because this one is really written. MUST READ!

This One Made Me Go, "Hmmmm..."

2005-08-04T12:35:00.000-04:00

I found a lot of food for thought in Amba's piece on Generation Liberaton at Ambivablog. I had never thought about age grading and how it could impact relationships over a lifetime, and it really has my wheels turning. Not going anywhere yet, but definitely turning. First I'll share a slice, then a thought.

For thousands of years of human history-- and in many parts of the world today-- children were raised in the meaning-rich context of family and community. They interacted constantly with children of various ages, and spent much of their time apprenticing to meaningful tasks alongside their parents, other adults, and older children. They were often responsible for the care of younger siblings. . . .

Industrialization, however, by removing work from the community, pushed children into schools where they interacted more exclusively with their same-age peers, and often apprenticed to abstract tasks instead of practical ones. And the bonds of family and community began to fray:

That's the slice; here's the thought. My wife and I have a modular family of eight children. It includes a wide ranging constellation of ages from 7 to 27. The youngest three are separated by two gaps of 6 years each. The fighting and rivalry are worse with this disparity of age than they ever were with the older siblings born closer together.

The wheels are still turning about what this may, or may not, have to do with "age grading", but I really am going, "hmmmm..."

The Science of Creationism?

2005-08-03T19:32:00.000-04:00

Kevin Drum and Atrios do a great job of expressing the wry amusement I feel over Bush's willingness to see intelligent design taught alongside evolution in public school science classes. I won't try to top their research and commentary - check it out.

The amusement in my case, though, conceals a cold clutching fear in the pit of my stomach.

Emotion aside, what are the scientific aspects of creationism that would be taught? Would there be any pretense of applying actual science scholarship to its presentation?

More likely it just opens the barn door for abuse by faith driven proseletizers.

"Quick - The Antidote!"

2005-08-02T14:57:00.000-04:00

Whoa! I’m heavy on the negative vibes today. From depressed to disgusted in two short posts…gotta…get…some…good…news.

Never mind.

MLB, Palmeiro, Bush - Disgusting

2005-08-02T14:47:00.000-04:00

The level of my disgust with Major League Baseball can only be explained by the depth of my former love of the game.

I once shattered a light fixture above my parents’ bed jumping for joy over a Henry Aaron grand slam. I’m still certain it was against the Astros even though the final score, and any significance of the game in the standings, is long forgotten. I really was a Braves’ fan “even through the rotten years”. I loved the game for all the poetic and intangible reasons Ken Burns and Bob Costas have spelled out for posterity.

Now it disgusts me. Not baseball, but the MLB brand of athletes, leagues, and owners all disgust me.

Rafael Palmeiro and his defense by no less than the President of the United States disgust me. Raffy is a cheat and Bush is a blindly loyal fool (proof of which this is only the latest example).

Disgusting.

Bye-Bye, Blue, Blue Monday

2005-08-02T13:23:00.000-04:00

Not only was Monday the day Dubya chose to shove John Bolton down the throat of the U.S. Senate and the world, but my beloved home state of Tennessee chose it to cut 200,000 from its health care rolls.

Judy's "wacky-assed piece"

2005-08-02T13:05:00.000-04:00

James Moore over at The Huffington Post did what I would call the definitive "Judy" story, at least to this point.

He exhaustively details the specifics of why Ms. Miller should be no one's hero. You'll have to read it to see why even one of her Times colleagues has described her work as "wacky-assed".

First the Media then the Utilities

2005-07-29T09:51:00.000-04:00

The business fascists are closing in on their next huge target. Media conglomerates are proliferating as they slide to the right under loosened public protections, ah, er...I mean freedom from regulation.

Now, the energy bill is seeking to unleash the Titans of consolidation on our public utilities. Check out what the repeal of the Public Utilities Holding Company Act (yeah it's in the same pork barrel) could mean to just plain us. Meteor Blades explains it here.

Scarborough's Dishonest Argument on Profiling

2005-07-27T10:27:00.000-04:00

Joe Scarborough supported profiling of young Muslim men in screening public transportation passengers for potential terrorists this moring on The Today Show.

Never mind that instituting such a policy narrows the focus of security folks while telegraphing to terrorist planners what not to do. The analogy he drew for the argument's sake wasn't even an honest attempt at justification.

Basically, he compared profiling by screener's to investigators focusing on white christian males after an abortion center bombing.

Wut???? Investigating a crime is the same as screening to prevent one? He said it straight-faced and seemingly sincere. Surely Joe knows the difference between facts in an actual investigation and assumptions (which make an ass out of Joe) to determine who gets screened.

I believe he knows the difference and was just making an unrelated point. One which allowed him to raise up a white Christian perpetrator conceivably to camoflauge an arab Muslim prejudice.

Patriot Act Redux

2005-07-22T14:40:00.000-04:00

The House of Representatives has rubber stamped the rush-to-judgment Patriot Act again.

That's really sad. To think they could have rushed out just the right legislation in the emotion-laden days following 9/11 is preposterous, but it's nothing new for this government.

Especially not surprising was the number of Reps using the recent London violence in literally scaring up support. That's just the way this crowd operates, and just the way the jihadists say they want it.

The administration and its congressional lackeys want us panting after material gain all the while whipped with fear and prodded by anger to give them all the power, political and monetary, they can wield.

To date, they're pretty much having it their way.

Reason at the Navy War College

2005-07-21T10:28:00.000-04:00

There are some right minds in the military talking sense to future senior officers. Just check out what Odysseus at TPMCafe turned me on to.

Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson speaking at the College layed out enough wise nuggets to fill an entire article. I'm quoting many. Check out the many others.

“The center of gravity, the decisive terrain in this war is the vast majority of people who are not directly involved but whose support, willing or coerced, is necessary to insurgent operations around the world,” he said. “Hearts and minds are more important than capturing and killing people.”

“We don’t have enough ammunition to kill all the terrorists that the enemy can run at us,” Gregson said. “We have to start working on the population from which the terrorist foot soldiers are recruited.”

“We have a chance to start winning this war here and walk it back into the Middle East, but we can’t just continue to admire the problem,” Gregson said. “We have to start doing something and we have to start walking the propaganda back in the other direction and get ourselves on the right side of this issue.”

Providing doctors, engineers, dentists, veterinarians and other aid to enhance the lives of people living in very troubled parts of the world is “often far more important than projecting some type of force,” Gregson said.

Michael Vlahos of Johns Hopkins University added some common sense of his own to the mix. Read it all. I found it at least somewhat encouraging.

Rove et al Large and Small

2005-07-18T12:33:00.000-04:00

I'm staying Corn fed on the gist of the Karl Rove lie fest. David sums up the least of what we know nicely.

...Rove, through his lawyer, has not told the truth, that the White House falsely denied he was involved, and that at least two of the most senior Bush White House aides (wittingly or not) shared with reporters classified information that disclosed an undercover CIA official and threatened operations conducted by the CIA's anti-WMD unit. At the end of the day, Fitzgerald may not be able to prove a crime, but his investigation has already produced evidence that incriminates White House officials as liars who certainly said more than they should have.

The bottom line there, of course, is just spelling out the latest symptoms. eRobin at Fact-esque provides a concise description of the disease.

"This is the crime for which BushCo should be going to jail - politicizing terrorism and using it as a wedge to divide the country."

Read her whole case. She makes a good one.

Good Rove Stuff Micro-Index

2005-07-15T15:14:00.000-04:00

We've all said a lot, and the same things a lot, and a lot of times in the same places, but a couple stand out to me.

David Corn's yeoman's job of slogging through the BS and keeping the directing sign on the straight and narrow. His blog has even more examples of his diligence. Catch the whole piece if you can, but his closing sums up the bottom line.

...(T)he Bush White House, Rove and his comrades in the conservative media cannot argue Rove did nothing wrong--unless they want to claim it's fine to leak classified information that reveals the identity of a covert CIA officer (who was working to prevent the spread of WMDs) in order to undermine a critic. That's the spin-free reality.

What's it all about? Paul Krugman makes things pretty clear to me right here. He doesn't fail to make the link we all should make, every time, to the seat of ultimate responsibility.

Ultimately, this isn't just about Mr. Rove. It's also about Mr. Bush, who has always known that his trusted political adviser - a disciple of the late Lee Atwater, whose smear tactics helped President Bush's father win the 1988 election - is a thug, and obviously made no attempt to find out if he was the leaker.

Home Grown Terror a Shock?

2005-07-14T19:47:00.000-04:00

Many Londoners are shocked that most or all the bombers who struck a week ago were British citizens.

Maybe that's a trait of Western democrats. I know I've felt the same way a number of times in the not too distant past.

I said earlier today in a comment to a post at The Moderate Voice (link above) that one price of the freedom we enjoy, and it really isn't free, is that willful acts of terror can sometimes occur. Waco, OKC, and the once spreading militia movement are home-grown examples that hit me hard in the past.

Unfortunately, the solution, as far as there is one, is not instantly gratifying. It takes vigilance, sure. It also takes education and equity in the political, social, economic, and even spiritual realms to promote peaceful co-existence. And still, there is no panacea, and someone sometime will exact the price again for some reason or no reason.

The Theology of Me

2005-07-13T11:40:00.000-04:00

For no other reason than I've been obsessively posting on politics lately, I'd like to profess (confess?)how I keep things simple enough for my own stupidity.

I'm like the bumber sticker says, "Christian by choice - Democrat by the grace of God".

I follow the Bible in a nutshell as described on an old episode of that most holy of sitcoms, Dharma and Greg, and I paraphrase, " The first part is all about don't mess around with God*. The second part says be nice to people."

*the less monotheistic could substitute, "...don't tempt fate" or "...keep your pride in check" for similar ethical results.

There's much more and it's ever evolving, but that's the gist...today.

Why I Feel Obliged to Post on Rove

2005-07-12T19:23:00.000-04:00

I believe what Duncan Black said about us in his Corn post today.

The fact is the Democrats really are, on their own, unable to create a sustained political shitstorm (though they of course could be better at it if they tried a bit harder). Absent the center-right mainstream media deciding to sustain an issue on its own, it just won't happen. This story, in so many ways, is about them - about how their confidential sourcing was abused to smear political opponents, how they've been carrying water for the lies of Scotty and Karl, and their overall gullibility.

So, I'll keep stirring what tempests I can in what teapots I have.

Obligatory Rove Post

2005-07-12T19:00:00.000-04:00

The obligation is only to me, because I at least want to feel like I'm making noise about this.

I've been thinking about George Bush's famous loyalty in light of the roiling Rove row (there goes that obsessive alliteration again). With recent history to guide me, I'm guessing his loyalty to someone as close as Karl Rove is pretty much blind.

Randi Rhodes put what I was thinking into excellent metaphorical context for me. She was spot on hilarious in relating the Bush White House clan's in-house rules to those of the Mob. I would specify "B" movie grade Mob rules.

Bush probably feels some kind of macho pride in standing by his "guys". He may not think beyond this juvenile code to realize he is putting his clanship above the truth, and more importantly above his word to all of us.

No, no, no, no...David Gregory to Scott McClellan

2005-07-11T18:59:00.000-04:00

Way to go David, finally some real backbone. I' ve been worried for a while that your reporting tone at times tettered on worship of this presidency. Today it seemed you finally had enough of the Scotty shuffle and called it like you saw it, at least in the briefing. The video is also available.

You're back on my OK list Mr. Gregory, and OK is my top rating for members of the MSM right now.

Blogs Roiling over Rove

2005-07-11T09:32:00.000-04:00

Sorry about the title, I obviously suffer a weakness for alliteration. Isikoff's Newsweek piece has the week off to a noisy start, and Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice has done an insightful piece and included a healthy cross section of reaction. It would be a great one stop to get the scoop and the buzz.

My persuasion being no secret I tend to agree especially with this among Joe's major conclusions.

No matter what happens, it boldly underlined Rove's role as what analysts in the 1960s used to call a "political hatchet man," a hands-on operative who will seek to overtly and, even moreso, covertly discredit and destroy anyone who stands in the way of his boss' objectives

Now let's all hold our breath while we wait to see what consequences Karl suffers.

My Heart to London

2005-07-09T09:09:00.000-04:00

I offer belated but heartfelt sympathy to all citizens of London, the United Kingdom, and all lovers of peace and justice everywhere.

My thoughts and prayers are with the injured and the families, friends, and loved ones of the dead.

For perspective and meaning, I lean toward Thursday's post by Brad DeLong.

Gone Fishin', Drivin', Campin'

2005-07-09T08:31:00.000-04:00

Gone and back again actually. The family and I had a last minute opportunity to leave early for our extended 4th of July weekend, and, for shame, I did not post a notice of my break here as I intended.

For those that arrived looking for new content, I apologize for the lack of warning, to both of you. We are back now from what my wife suggested was not quite the vacation from hell, but we sure got a glimpse of there from where we were.

I'm catching up on what all my more diligent blog-mates have posted in my absence and hope to weigh in with new content shortly.

Howard Dean and I are Getting Better

2005-06-30T09:54:00.000-04:00

All Democrats, LISTEN UP! Get off Howard's back, and stay on his side. He is our Chairman, and, unless we want to switch to automatic weapons in our circular firing squad, we need to support him.

We all need to get better at expressing ourselves when angry, because we have reason to be angry a lot. We need to be productive in our anger, or we'll lose a lot of valuable time.

The Chairman was much improved on Hardball last night. Chris Matthews baited Howard pretty hard. "Come'on Governor, didn't the Veep sound like a wack-o with his over-the-top criticism." (not a direct quote, but exactly how it felt to me). Dean smiled knowingly, but didn't go after Cheney. I'll say it though, yeah, Chris, I agree with you. The Veep sounded exactly like the crazy fox he is.

Adam McKay covers our anger management problem really well over at the Huffington Post.

Seeing Dems descending on Dean for his comments was like seeing cops making fun of a mugging victim because he yelled "Help, Police!" in a weird high pitched voice. Dean didn't start a bogus war based on lies and Dean didn't dismantle the regulatory system and try and flood the courts with Nazis, uh...pardon me, fledgling fascists. So lay off! He'll get the hang of it.

I'm working on it, too, but I'm still human and still a Democrat ... but I repeat myself.

We Have a Timetable in Iraq

2005-06-28T08:54:00.000-04:00

John Kerry is finally succinct and, to me, totally reasonable about the situation in Iraq. His op-ed piece in today's NY Times spells out the problem.

The reality is that the Bush administration's choices have made Iraq into what it wasn't before the war - a breeding ground for jihadists. Today there are 16,000 to 20,000 jihadists and the number is growing. The administration has put itself - and, tragically, our troops, who pay the price every day - in a box of its own making. Getting out of this box won't be easy, but we owe it to our soldiers to make our best effort.

Kerry then lays out what Bush should tell the American people about the situation and the steps needed to get "out of this box". A key point goes to the Administration's recent hysterics about the dangers of setting a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

If Iraqis adopt a constitution and hold elections as planned, support for the insurgency should fall and Iraqi security forces should be able to take on more responsibility. It will also set the stage for American forces to begin to come home.

There is already a political timetable in Iraq, and tying the handover of security to the Iraqi government, especially the one scheduled to be elected in December, is not only logical, but should be up to that government not ours.

John, John, John well said. It makes me think of what might have b..., oh never mind.

What's in it for America (W.I.I.F.A)

2005-06-26T08:06:00.000-04:00

One of the nuggets of modern management wisdom, at least as it is taught in business courses, is that employees respond to leadership directives in proportion to the what's in it for me? (W.I.I.F.M.) factor. It's usually pronounced as wiff-em. Sounds kind of selfish when laid out directly, but it is also an honest acknowledgement of human nature.

I want to relate human nature in the same way to the ongoing conflict in Iraq and ask what's in it for America. Not just in purely selfish ways like oil, influence in the region, and business profits for highly connected corporations, but in terms of American democratic ideals and the desire we as a people have to spread those ideals globally?

First, American democratic ideals are far from clearly defined right now. Michael Ignatieff provides a great description of how and why that's the case in his piece today in the NY Times Magazine.

American democracy has ceased to be the inspiration it was. This is partly because of the religious turn in American conservatism, which awakens incomprehension in the largely secular politics of America's democratic allies. It is partly because of the chaos of the contested presidential election in 2000, which left the impression, worldwide, that closure had been achieved at the expense of justice. And partly because of the phenomenal influence of money on American elections.

Simply put, the American people are seriously divided about just what freedom and democracy actually mean to us, much less what of it we need to spread around.

Second, the cost in the bodies and lives of our servicemembers is just too dear when the outcome in terms of Iraqi political variables is so unclear. A structured withdrawal of our troops tied to the timetable we have already set for the development of an Iraqi government is not cutting and running as, of all people, a chicken-hawk like Karl Rove would say. It is acknowledging the realistic limits of what one people can do to free another.

The regime has been changed in Iraq at the cost of thousands of American lives. It is now both reasonable and natural to ask what's in it for America to continue indefinitely the present level of military involvement there. The falling support of the American public should be accepted and understood by the Bush administration for what it is, the political equivilent of a bottom line assessment in business. The cost now outweighs the perceived benefit, so there's not enough in it for America.

Karl Rove Can Keep His Apology

2005-06-25T18:49:00.000-04:00

If Karl Rove apologized, it would not be sincere, so he can keep it. I believe Senator Durbin was sorry for any offense he may have given our American servicemembers, and he expensed his remorse emotionally when he apologized on the floor or the Senate.

Any emotion coming from Karl Rove would seem pure artifice to me because I've never seen him express anything I would call genuine feeling.

If his words had not been so divisive, I even be glad he was openly showing his true colors. I can't express those colors as well as James Wolcott, though I have had similar thoughts, so here's a taste of his take on Rove's desperation.

What amazes me is that more Americans now blame Bush for provoking the war with Iraq than blame Saddam Hussein. That's not an argument I've heard anyone make on cable talk or on the op-ed pages. Somehow Americans drew that conclusion all on their own! The tide of popular opinion turning against the war is washing away walls we didn't even know were there.

But, read the whole piece. It's a good one.

Bush, Al-Jaafari Let Truth Slip

2005-06-24T14:33:00.000-04:00

I'm guessing I heard a couple of things in the Bush al-Jaafari presser today that won't make it to the evening news. Both men let slip more of the grimness of the situation in Iraq than the overall talking points optimism of the event probably intended.

Al-Jaafari thanked Americans for standing with Iraq during these "terrible times". Not those terrible times, these. That was telling to me regarding what the Prime Minister really thinks of the present state of security in Iraq.

For Bush's part, when he was asked to reconcile Dick Cheney's assertion that the insurgency was in its "last throes" with General Abizaid's report to Congress that the insurgency was growing faster, and was no weaker, than six months ago Bush rambled on about the willingness of insurgents to die for their cause and how hard it was to stop them. Without saying he agreed with Abizaid, his response convinced me that he did.

Generally he was his indirect and inarticulate self. I'm curious to see how the MSM portrays his performance.

Rove Offensively Defensive

2005-06-23T12:59:00.000-04:00

Karl is at his lowest, meanest, and most hateful in New York.

As I commented at Fact-esque, is it too paranoid to think Rove is trying to provoke a witch-hunt against the left of McCarthy-like proportions?

For Karl, there may even be thoughts of generating an internal American crisis that would require the administration to seize control of our government for good, pure, and patriotic reasons.

It's starting to scare me, and that makes me mad. How do we stop such anti-American divisiveness?

Bennett Upfront About Social Security Scam

2005-06-22T19:10:00.000-04:00

I just heard Senator Bennett admit to David Gregory on Hardball that he is introducing a Social Security bill without private accounts to attract Democrats, aka the bait. He is also introducing another bill with private accounts, aka preparation for the switch.

I'm thinking the Republicans are welcome to any Democrat foolish enough to bite this bait.

Stem Cell Research Needs Support

2005-06-22T16:29:00.000-04:00

I think it's time for our government to actively support stem cell research. One of the pioneers in the field, James Thomson, sees a lot of promise at the end of a lot of hard work. Here's his prediction for the future of embryonic stem cells.

It will be a pervasive research tool that anybody interested in understanding the human body will use. And that will lead to knowledge, for the development of new drugs or whatever, that has absolutely nothing to do with transplantation. This will change human medicine in ways that don’t make the front pages. And people will not even realize it’s happened.

It is time for Bush-Rove to quit playing politics with emerging science. If they really believed what they say about fertility clinic cytoblasts, they would shut down the clinics rather than see excess cells destroyed or grow old in storage. Stem cell research would seem a more humane option (at least an option with prospects of helping humanity) for the culture of (some) life crowd.

Of course I know they don't believe it, it's just another carrot they have to keep dangling in front of the religious right.

Durbin Apologizes for How Others Feel

2005-06-21T19:00:00.000-04:00

Now that Senator Durbin has apologized for hurting the sensitive feelings of assorted (right)wingnuts, who'll address the ugly behavior the FBI reported in the memo he quoted?

You would think such obvious attack-the-messenger misdirection would be transparent to the media and public alike, but Americans' capacity for gullibility is seemingly limitless.

Sorry, I have to just sit here be disappointed for a while.

Fair Draft is Better Than Predatory Recruiting

2005-06-16T14:02:00.000-04:00

Bob Herbert is all over the recruiting techniques being using to sell our kids on the military.

Let the Army be honest and upfront in its recruitment. War is not child's play, and warriors shouldn't be assembled through the use of seductive sales pitches to youngsters too immature to make an informed decision on matters that might well result in their having to kill others, or being killed themselves.

On Al Franken's show today he even readily admitted his support for a draft ---if we are to continue engaging in wars like Iraq. That's what I'm talking about.

I see a fair draft as the only way to get a fair idea of who in America really supports our military actions. Unless the human sacrifice is spread broadly throughout the population, we can never have a true measure of how we feel about a particular military conflict. How we feel deeply and personally because our family, friends, neighbors, and we ourselves will never be far removed from intimate contact with the death and injury war inflicts, war's human cost.

The Open-Minded Dick...Cheney

2005-06-16T13:26:00.000-04:00

Is it fair to say if you don't agree with administration policy Dick isn't listening?:

"Those who are most urgently advocating that we shut down Guantanamo probably don't agree with our policies anyway," Mr. Cheney said.

Rumsfeld and Cheney are Losing the War

2005-06-15T12:26:00.000-04:00

Cheney and Rumsfeld do a good job of defining the administration's high ground on Gitmo. It seems to be that denying due process to a majority is okay if you catch some "bad guys" in the minority.

It jibes pretty well with the history of their might-makes-right regime. Put simply,if anything positive can be rationalized in the end; then, of course, the means were justified. They don't want to be that way you understand, but the unconventional nature of the enemy requires it.
Whut?

I still insist that the extent to which we lower our moral, ethical, and legal standards in response to this enemy, is the extent to which they are victorious. The same is true of the extent to which we act out of our of fear and anger. We lose our moral position in the eyes of each other and the world. Bush and company don't seem to understand how that costs us the PR battle, and how that, in terms of terrorist recruitment alone, can cost us this "war".

Don't get me started on how this attitude contributes to the loss of our national moral clarity! (I like that phrase, moral clarity, so I kind of forced it in here)

war powers, War Powers, WAR POWERS

2005-06-13T09:43:00.000-04:00

Congress, please repeat. Over,and over, and over again. "The power to wage war is mine; the power to wage war is mine, the power..." Keep your war powers. The Bush administration was complacent about deciding to invade Iraq months (years?) in advance because they knew Congress could be pressured into giving the President the power to pull the trigger.

Here's a constitutional option for you. Let Congress keep, and guard jealously, their power to declare war, and not pass it off to the executive as soon as the heat comes on in the kitchen. Heck, then there might even be a 'war on terror', the congressional declaration of which is real foggy to me.

War powers for Congress. Say it, and mean it.

A Tale of Two Directions

2005-06-10T16:03:00.000-04:00

Direction #1: Paul Krugman gives us a good look at how and why the middle class is sucking wind right now:

Baby boomers like me grew up in a relatively equal society. In the 1960's America was a place in which very few people were extremely wealthy, many blue-collar workers earned wages that placed them comfortably in the middle class, and working families could expect steadily rising living standards and a reasonable degree of economic security.
But as The Times's series on class in America reminds us, that was another country. The middle-class society I grew up in no longer exists.
Working families have seen little if any progress over the past 30 years. Adjusted for inflation, the income of the median family doubled between 1947 and 1973. But it rose only 22 percent from 1973 to 2003, and much of that gain was the result of wives' entering the paid labor force or working longer hours, not rising wages.
Meanwhile, economic security is a thing of the past: year-to-year fluctuations in the incomes of working families are far larger than they were a generation ago. All it takes is a bit of bad luck in employment or health to plunge a family that seems solidly middle-class into poverty.
But the wealthy have done very well indeed. Since 1973 the average income of the top 1 percent of Americans has doubled, and the income of the top 0.1 percent has tripled.
Why is this happening? I'll have more to say on that another day, but for now let me just point out that middle-class America didn't emerge by accident. It was created by what has been called the Great Compression of incomes that took place during World War II, and sustained for a generation by social norms that favored equality, strong labor unions and progressive taxation. Since the 1970's, all of those sustaining forces have lost their power.
Since 1980 in particular, U.S. government policies have consistently favored the wealthy at the expense of working families - and under the current administration, that favoritism has become extreme and relentless. From tax cuts that favor the rich to bankruptcy "reform" that punishes the unlucky, almost every domestic policy seems intended to accelerate our march back to the robber baron era.
It's not a pretty picture - which is why right-wing partisans try so hard to discredit anyone who tries to explain to the public what's going on.
These partisans rely in part on obfuscation: shaping, slicing and selectively presenting data in an attempt to mislead. For example, it's a plain fact that the Bush tax cuts heavily favor the rich, especially those who derive most of their income from inherited wealth. Yet this year's Economic Report of the President, in a bravura demonstration of how to lie with statistics, claimed that the cuts "increased the overall progressivity of the federal tax system."
The partisans also rely in part on scare tactics, insisting that any attempt to limit inequality would undermine economic incentives and reduce all of us to shared misery. That claim ignores the fact of U.S. economic success after World War II. It also ignores the lesson we should have learned from recent corporate scandals: sometimes the prospect of great wealth for those who succeed provides an incentive not for high performance, but for fraud.
Above all, the partisans engage in name-calling. To suggest that sustaining programs like Social Security, which protects working Americans from economic risk, should have priority over tax cuts for the rich is to practice "class warfare." To show concern over the growing inequality is to engage in the "politics of envy."
But the real reasons to worry about the explosion of inequality since the 1970's have nothing to do with envy. The fact is that working families aren't sharing in the economy's growth, and face growing economic insecurity. And there's good reason to believe that a society in which most people can reasonably be considered middle class is a better society - and more likely to be a functioning democracy - than one in which there are great extremes of wealth and poverty.
Reversing the rise in inequality and economic insecurity won't be easy: the middle-class society we have lost emerged only after the country was shaken by depression and war. But we can make a start by calling attention to the politicians who systematically make things worse in catering to their contributors. Never mind that straw man, the politics of envy. Let's try to do something about the politics of greed.

Direction #2: Regarding empire building and robber barons, here's an example of why the wealthy and corporate elite are doing victory laps right now:

JOHN PERKINS: Well, the company I worked for was a company named Chas. T. Main in Boston, Massachusetts. We were about 2,000 employees, and I became its chief economist. I ended up having fifty people working for me. But my real job was deal-making. It was giving loans to other countries, huge loans, much bigger than they could possibly repay. One of the conditions of the loan–let's say a $1 billion to a country like Indonesia or Ecuador–and this country would then have to give ninety percent of that loan back to a U.S. company, or U.S. companies, to build the infrastructure–a Halliburton or a Bechtel. These were big ones. Those companies would then go in and build an electrical system or ports or highways, and these would basically serve just a few of the very wealthiest families in those countries. The poor people in those countries would be stuck ultimately with this amazing debt that they couldn’t possibly repay. A country today like Ecuador owes over fifty percent of its national budget just to pay down its debt. And it really can’t do it. So, we literally have them over a barrel. So, when we want more oil, we go to Ecuador and say, “Look, you're not able to repay your debts, therefore give our oil companies your Amazon rain forest, which are filled with oil.” And today we're going in and destroying Amazonian rain forests, forcing Ecuador to give them to us because they’ve accumulated all this debt. So we make this big loan, most of it comes back to the United States, the country is left with the debt plus lots of interest, and they basically become our servants, our slaves. It's an empire. There's no two ways about it. It’s a huge empire. It's been extremely successful.

Anyone think the Beltway Boys and Girls Club, in cahoots with their corporate cousins, aren't capable of this kind of , er, um..., business plan?

Thanks to eRobin at Fact-esque for putting me onto Perkins.

The Great Commission and Government

2005-06-09T10:24:00.000-04:00

I have always thought evangelism, spreading the gospel message, is at its best a personal responsibility. In action, day-to-day, I think of it as striving to make that little part of the world I individually encounter somehow better by my compassion. My goal is feeling and showing compassion towards everyone I deal with each day -- though I most often fall short.

Thinking this way, I naturally appreciated the piece Buzzmachine turned me on to in the Christian Examiner. Jordan Ballor, speaking from an evangelical position, warns of the danger lurking when we try and wield the government as an instrument of morality.

Invoking the Great Commission,

All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world (Mt. 28:18-20 ASV).,

he reminds me of my duty to profess my beliefs rather than trying to impose them.

A far better way than coercing others to adhere to objective standards of morality is to convert them to those standards. It is ultimately only through proclamation of the gospel that the culture and the nation will be redeemed. For the church is to engage the world not with the sword of the government, but with “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”

.
Amen, Jordan, in me you have a witness. Check out the whole piece for a reasonable Christian perspective on today's political milieu.

Warm Words, Empty Gestures Club

2005-06-08T09:46:00.000-04:00

Welcome, Africa, our latest member. The Scotsman reported yesterday that BushInc's latest lip service to African aid was met with something less than enthusiasm.

"Africa doesn't need yet more warm words followed by empty gestures," said a spokeman for Oxfam.

But gee, why should they be any different than our veterans, our seniors, our school children, our teachers, our environment, our unemployed, and I really could go on.

This administration's motto could and should be "warm words followed by empty gestures" in reference to any social or moral context not somehow perceived as business friendly.

Bush Losing Ground on Iraq, Terrorism

2005-06-08T09:02:00.000-04:00

People are seeing through the smoke. The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll numbers show a comprehensive and significant decrease in support for the Iraq war, and increasing pessimism about its effect on our security. I'll quote here from the MSNBC summary since it doesn't require registration.

Perhaps most ominous for President Bush, 52 percent said war in Iraq has not contributed to the long-term security of the United States, while 47 percent said it has. It was the first time a majority of Americans disagreed with the central notion Bush has offered to build support for war: that the fight there will make Americans safer from terrorists at home. In late 2003, 62 percent thought the Iraq war aided U.S. security, and three months ago 52 percent thought so.

I think another number is even more ominous, however. It remains to be seen whether for President Bush or for the American public.

While Bush has shelved his routine speeches about terrorism, and Congress has turned to domestic issues, fear of terrorism has receded from the public consciousness. Only 12 percent called it the nation's top priority, behind the economy, Iraq, health care and Social Security.

I'm not so sure I want this administration to think we're not scared. In the past, our fear and anger has opened the door for their belligerence and aggression. They seemed to relish it and thrive on it. Since only "12 percent called it the nation's top priority", don't be surprised if something fearful happens soon.

I'm not saying it will; just that I won't find it surprising.

Drumming on the Downing Street Memo

2005-06-07T15:50:00.000-04:00

Repetition strengthens and confirms. At least, it is strengthening my conviction that the 'memo' should be bigger news, and confirming my view that the administration's march to war was outrageous.

There are some drum beats from Congress. John Kerry is holding forth. John Conyers is weighing in.

Tim Russert stuck NBC's toe in the water on Meet The Press on Sunday.

Are you out there Network News? CNN? MSNBC?

United Airlines, General Motors, and All of Us

2005-06-07T14:06:00.000-04:00

The writing is on the wall and everywhere else. We have to do something about healthcare costs in this country. It has been sinking the un- and under-employed for years, and now it's rapidly sinking businesses.

United Airlines has dumped its pension liability on the public in bankruptcy. GM announced today it will close plants and lay off 25,000 due largely to the $1500 a vehicle it spends on healthcare.

We have to do something. Sandra Lilley at NBC inludes some options in a timely piece today.

It is no longer if, but when; not just when, but how, are we going to address the real number one crisis in our nation, the runaway cost of our healthcare system.

Correction for Alan Stewart Carl

2005-06-06T18:41:00.000-04:00

Attention in the interest of full disclosure, I have corrected a post from earlier today. I also want to publicly apologize to Alan for having previously transposed his name(s)in my post, The Center's Case Stated. It has been edited, so if you missed it; you missed it.

Keep up the good work at The Yellow Line, Alan.

Beware the Juggernaut of Wealth and Privilege

2005-06-06T15:57:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Melanie Mattson at Judging the Future for turning me on to this 'fire'em up' talk by Bill Moyers. Bill calls for progressives to protect our democracy from the "juggernaught of wealth and privilege". Here's just a taste.

So what do you do? What do you do? Well, progressives have to be like the Irishman who was walking down the street and saw a brawl and said, is this a private fight or can anybody get in it? (Laughter, cheers.) Well, you’ve got to go home and jump in. You’ve got to tell the truth about the other side. You’ve got to fight the corruption of the system. But don’t stop with reporting how bad they are. It’s not enough to say how bad they are. Show us a new vision of globalization with a conscience. Stand up for working and middle class people and those in the middle and those who can’t stand alone. Don’t be cowed, intimidated, or frightened. You may be on the losing side of the moment, but you’re on the right side and winning side of history.

Fired me up anyway.

The Center's Case Stated

2005-06-06T14:33:00.000-04:00

Alan Stewart Carl over at The Yellow Line does all political discourse proud by clearly and concisely saying where he stands. What a concept!

Reform Redistricting: In 2004, only five incumbents in the House of Representatives were defeated and only 22 of 435 contests were decided by a margin of less than 10 percent. This is due to rampant gerrymandering. The two major parties have colluded to turn almost every district into a “safe” district. This is absolutely not the intent of the Founders. Districts should be laid out by geology, not ideology. Competitive elections are essential to good government. We must change the way this nation redistricts.

Open Primaries: Every American should have the opportunity to vote in either party’s Presidential primary. Over 40% of Americans are registered Independents and in many states, they aren’t allowed to vote in primaries. The election of our President is too important to allow the partisan party bases be the sole determiners of who gets to run. We must convince states to open their primaries to all registered voters, regardless of political affiliation.

Reduce the Influence of Special Interests: Single-issue interest groups wield far too much power in government. While the membership in any given interest group includes only a small percentage of the American people, they use undue influence and threats of political retribution to push congressmen and women to vote in favor of special interests rather than American interests. Average Americans must come together and let our representatives know that we don’t want the special interests to rule Washington.

Strengthen the Center in Congress: We must let Centrist members of Congress know they have a wide and deep base of Centrist voters. They don’t need to appeal to the partisan wings because they can find support right in the middle. This is how John McCain won 77% of the Arizona vote last election. We must encourage the Centrist congressmen and women to vote their convictions first. We must encourage them to stick together and keep the balance of congressional power centered.

Change the Tenor of Political Debate: Too many members of the media and the electorate have bought into the two party’s polarization of politics. Instead of civilly discussing ideas, we too often fall into partisan spin and propaganda. If we are to continue to move forward as a nation we must begin discussing our differences reasonably and without the name-calling, smear campaigns and exploitation of wedge issues. The wide, nearly limitless variety of opinions in America is what makes us strong. But we squander that strength if we lose the ability to come together and act reasonably.

I suggested there, and repeat here, that if both political poles were required to state their cases in no more words that this, we may find more of a political center than most thought existed.

Downing Street Memo Makes a Move

2005-06-06T10:07:00.000-04:00

Tim Russert on Meet the Press confronted Ken Mehlman with a couple of real questions about BushInc's early decision to invade Iraq.

Atta way, Tim. Finally some MSM attention on the 'memo'. Now let's get on the evening news where a lot of the Bush fan base turns to see what they are getting away with.

Some good commentary along with the transcript can be found here.

Hart on History and More

2005-06-04T10:27:00.000-04:00

I'm pretty much down for some family time, but I appreciated this piece. It's a little more optimistic than I am right now though.

History, discernment, and prophecy from Gary Hart at Huffingion.

Memorial Day and Politics

2005-05-30T08:44:00.000-04:00

I told myself last night I should try and remain totally apolitical if I decided to post today, Memorial Day. I had hardly begun to browse my RSS feeds when I knew I couldn't do it, at least not totally.

My faith in the moral fiber of my government was shaken by the decision to go to war in Iraq - shaken not lost. My remaining hope is that the hawks have learned lessons their pride won't let them confess. So, I have to at least acknowlege my feelings about this war even in the context of memorializing real heroes.

I think in modern times war is always avoidable. It cannot always be avoided since no one party to a conflict holds all the power to desist. We can,though, set the threshold of necessity much higher than we did before invading Iraq. That is the least and the most we can do for those who have fallen in defense.

Working to insure as few Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines as possible give their lives in service to us is to do them the greatest honor possible.

For those who have already died while "following the lawful (sic) orders of those appointed over them", I love you; I bless you; you are deserving of all honor and glory in our memory.

War Crimes and Our Job-Scared Media

2005-05-29T12:38:00.000-04:00

"Well, sure it's a war crime...but this is just rehashing old news". At least that's the perception Attaturk over at Eschaton gets from the MSM about the mounting evidence of the American/British conspiracy to promote war in Iraq.

On the heels of "memo-gate", which gained little American media traction in the leadup to the recent British elections, this latest piece of news makes the case for conspiracy seem a whole lot more solid than the joint U.S./British case for Iraqi WMD.

It looks like the BushCo repression of the media is reaching new levels of effectiveness. I still believe the majority of the American press possess personally progressive views. But they, like all of us, have to make a living.

There appear to be few remaining in the established press willing to risk career suicide by pointing out the blatant manipulation employed to take us to war.

Oh Say Could We See?

2005-05-27T11:07:00.000-04:00

Unless the Center and Left gain some traction and quickly turn it into momentum, we may all wonder, as Eric Alterman laments below, where the hey our country went. Some see and hope that traction coming with the moderate coalition of Senators that temporarily staved off the filibuster fight this week.

I think it is just as likely their wad's been spent, and we all know their party leadership is working hard to rope them into their respective herds.

Call me shrill, ideological, or whatever you like, but I think we’re losing our Constitution, our civil liberties, and in many significant respects, our country. When future historians look back on this period, they will wonder, most of all, I think, how we let it go without a fight.

So go fight the good fight, somehow, somewhere. Better with a bang than a whimper.

Back From Oblivion

2005-05-27T08:06:00.000-04:00

Not quite oblivion, but I was unexpectedly off the internets for most of the week. I'm back and catching up on RSS feeds.

Hopefully I'll get posting for real later today.