12.23.04
A great site, which breaks down corporate campaign contributions by Party. Support the blue stores!!! Vote with your pocketbook!
Buy Blue
Particularly depressing/crazy:
- Circuit City: 96% contributions to Republicans
- Home Depot: 94% to Republicans (no wonder I prefer Lowe’s!)
- Fruit of the Loom: 100% to Republicans
- Outback Steakhouse: 95% to Republicans
- Russell Stover’s Chocolates: 100% to Republicans
- Hallmark: 92% to Republicans (no wonder the GOP has the market cornered on cheap sentimentality)
Particularly reassuring/heartwarming:
- Costco: 98% to Dems
- Barnes and Noble: 98% to Dems (I still don’t forgive them for driving small bookstores out of business, though)
- Bed, Bath, and Beyond: 97% to Dems
- Sharper Image: 92.4% to Dems
- J Crew: 100% to Dems
- Sketchers: 100% to Dems
- Starbucks: 100% to Dems (wish they had saved up a bit to improve their coffee)
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12.23.04
Today, the estimable Kos reports that Bush does NOT have the majority of the GOP on board with this social security privitization proposal. Kos goes on to quote a republican representative, who says that voting for privitization is “a no-win no-win for people in the House.”
“We risk our political careers. We risk 30-second ads against you saying, `You voted to gut Social Security.’”
Kos writes that “That’s the exact language Democrats should be using,” but he doesn’t make expand on that comment. This is not just the language that the Dems should be using, but the overall strategy, and they need to go with it big time. If the Dems truly want to nail Bush on social security, all they have to do is go on the talk shows and say “Bush is trying to gut social security”–those same, exact words, over and over. Sing it in three-part harmony. Shout it from the rooftops. Let that barbaric yawp ring out over the rooftops of America. Come on, Democrats, I know you’ve got a yawp–let me hear it!
What the talk about “gutting social security” does is put the GOP on the defensive. Instead of talking about their pet privitization theories, they’re forced to clarify how, exactly, Bush’s proposal does NOT gut social security. And once they start trying to explain it, to get into the complicated details of the plan, people will lose focus and stop listening–and all they’ll remember is the “gut social security” comment. And no one wants their financial future to be in the hands of some murky plans that does strange things with their money.
In other words, the Dems have a chance to turn to the tables on the GOP. During the election, everything with Kerry was complicated; everything with Bush was simple. The GOP used that to their advantage by constantly making false claims (about Kerry’s military record, about his health care proposal, etc. etc.) that Kerry had to defend. FINALLY, we have a situation where Bush is proposing something that can’t be explained easily, and the line of attack on it is so clear. Attacking him on this plan won’t just save social security–it will save the Democratic Party, by giving it practice in effective political rhetoric.
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12.23.04
In today’s Washington Post, you can read about a strange phenomenon: in Illinois, people are waking up to find their christmas displays vandalized. Someone is stealing baby Jesus figurines, and leaving signs asking “Would Jesus Use This Much Electricity?” in their place.
Here is the full text of the article. It’s worth a read–Seasonal Displays Being Looted
“But this is happening so much this year, I can only see it as part of the trend of Christian-bashing and trying to stamp out Christmas. It started with the criticism of the Mel Gibson movie [”The Passion of the Christ”] earlier this year. The culture wars are at their height right now, and this is part of it.”
um, yeah. they’re trying to stamp out christmas…. and your little dog, too!
This is just more crap from the christian right. As soon as their candidate wins an election, and they start getting the laws they want passed, they don’t know what to do–they’re so used to being in the minority that they don’t know how to talk about things when they are suddenly given the reins. So they start to drum up these fears of a “culture under seige.” You’re not under seige, you nitwits–you’re in the majority! You can stop complaining now.
As if to demonstrate that fact, the story panders to the Christian right throughout, and repeatedly calls the figurine the “Christ” figure. When did mainstream media start referring to Jesus that way? I always thought that calling him “Jesus” was the proper thing to do, since that’s the part of his name Christians, Jews, and Muslims can agree on (the very notion that he is “the Christ” being the very thing about which Christians and Jews disagree).
And I don’t understand why The Washington Post, a reputable newspaper, doesn’t even bring up the issue of the sign–doesn’t the author of the sign have a pretty good point about consumerism and traditional Christian values?
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12.20.04
A few weeks ago, when Army Spc. Thomas Wilson of the Tennessee National Guard asked Donald Rumsfeld why American troops were forced to scrounge for armor in garbage dumps, his question broke through the carefully crafted illusion that the Administration has spun (and that the mainstream media has helped them spin) throughout the war, and showed things, if only for a moment, as they really are.
As soldiers start shooting themselves at home so that they won’t have to be shot abroad; as soldiers have their tours forcibly extended and get sent back, over and over, to the killing streets of Iraq, the troops themselves are the only ones who are going to be able to stop this. Just as was the case in Vietnam, brave soldiers are going to have to overcome the Army’s “shut up and follow orders” mentality in order to speak up.
We have already seen cracks in the military’s stoic code–from soldiers refusing to follow orders in Northern Iraq to soldiers suing the Army to protest stop-gap measures, to soldiers in the Abu Ghraib case pointing out that the roots of the torture went all the way up the chain of command, to military doctors at Walter Reed displaying gruesome war injuries in medical journals. Ordinary soldiers are beginning to speak up, and when they do, the Administration has no way to spin their words–sure, the Bushies can take down a pack of liberals with a flick of their wrists, but when actual soldiers speak up–those paragons of virtue upon whose patriotic sacrifices the Administration has built its imperial fancies–they have no choice but to back down.
And it is only when soldiers realize the power they have–realize that their voices are the only ones that can stop this mess–that we will begin to get out of it. Those soldiers, no matter how patriotic they are, know that the situation in Iraq is a disaster, and that the Administration’s choices–from sending in too few troops to disbanding the Iraqi army, thus creating the insurgency–have proved disastrous. These soldiers will realize, after a while, that they are bearing all of the costs of the war but getting none of the benefits. They are paying for this with their lives, and when they begin to see the truth of the callous opportunism and profiteering of the war’s planners, they will have to speak out.
That seems unlikely, I know, but it may be the military’s only choice if it is to save itself. We can all see that recruitment is down; we can all see that the military is stretched too thin; we can all see that they have inadequate supplies. In order to save themselves, in order to save our military and the country it represents, ordinary soldiers have to speak up.
And I hope that when they do, they reflect on the criticism heaped on John Kerry for having spoken up about Vietnam, and on Kerry’s famous quote: “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” Because that is, again, the question before our nation once again.
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12.16.04
From the “yes indeed, it has gotten that bad” department:
Soldier Accused of Asking to Be Shot
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 16 (AP) - A soldier on leave has been accused of having his cousin shoot him so he would not have to return to Iraq, the police say.
The soldier, Specialist Marquise J. Roberts, 23, of Hinesville, Ga., suffered a minor wound to his left leg from a .22-caliber pistol on Tuesday, the police said. Specialist Roberts was treated at a hospital, then arrested after he and his cousin admitted having made up a story about the shooting, the authorities said.
After giving differing accounts of the incident, “they just broke down and confessed that they concocted the whole story so he didn’t have to go back to the war,” Lt. James Clark of the Philadelphia police department said on Thursday.
Specialist Roberts, who was visiting family members in Philadelphia, was charged with filing a false report. His cousin, Ronald Fuller, was charged with aggravated assault and other charges.
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12.16.04
I mentioned The Gadflyer soon after I started reading it, but continued perusing of its intelligent posts has me wanting to direct everyone I know to its pages. Many blogs out there are critiquing GOP policies, but The Gadflyer concentrates on political image and rhetoric, which these days is much more important. If the Dems are going to win back the country, they’re going to have to do it on a public relations front first. I think the first step towards that should be a strategy of rhetorical unity–the Democrats need to come together as a chorus to drown out the GOP’s bile. I can only hope that someone at the DNC is reading along with me.
Here is a Gadflyer post that does exactly what I’m talking about.
My only complaint about the Gadflyer is that it is not truly a blog: I wish that it allowed comments and trackbacks…
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12.13.04
In “Strain Is Seen in Giuliani Ties With President”, NY Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller describes the fraying of trust between the former NY Mayor and the former Yale cheerleader.
When I first began reading the piece, I didn’t even look at the author. But all of the breathless gossip by “a Republican close to the administration…who asked not to be identified because of the political sensitivity of the situation” begged the question, “WHO CARES?”
Well, when I looked up at the author, and saw Bumiller’s name, it all began to make sense. In an earlier post in this blog, I pointed readers to a New York Press contest called ‘Wimblehack,” which was set up, March Madness style, to identify the country’s worst campaign journalist. Bumiller dominated the competition with her uncanny ability to feed to the reading public exactly the information that the Bush administration wanted it to hear:
This habit of taking at face value the unconfirmable assertions about the personal feelings of officials—assertions hand-delivered to the journalist by a paid mouthpiece whose very job is to deadpan preposterous pieces of mythmaking to the media—is nothing new to most political reporters. But almost no one consumes this stuff more eagerly than Bumiller.
Take her piece from March 2 of this year, “Gay issue leaves Bush ill at ease,” in which Bumiller gives off-the-record spokesmen a chance to allow Bush to split the difference on the gay-marriage issue:
When President George W. Bush announced his support last week for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, his body language in the Roosevelt Room did not seem to match his words. Bush may have forcefully defended the union of a man and a woman as “the most fundamental institution of civilization,” but even some White House officials said he appeared uncomfortable.
This kind of thing is standard in the business—it is how we are delivered such seemingly unknowable facts as the “remarkably close friendship” we are told exists between Bush and Vladimir Putin—but what’s striking about Bumiller is that this is apparently her conscious response to an administration whose excessive secrecy she has complained about in public.
All of which begs the question: why, exactly, do the Bushies want us to know about Guiliani’s loss of influence at the White House?
The answer, obviously, is so that they can blame Rudy, instead of their own incompetance, for the blow-up of the Kerik nomination. Rudy gamely plays along with this charade, falling on his sword:
I feel very bad,” Mr. Giuliani said in a telephone interview on Sunday afternoon, adding that he felt somewhat responsible for the nomination of Mr. Kerik, who withdrew his name on Friday because he had failed to pay taxes for a nanny who was in the country illegally.
“Even though there was never a conversation about it, I realize that one of the reasons they did it was because of my confidence in Bernie over the years,” he said. “And I feel like maybe I should have involved myself more in it.”
ok–so Rudy is to blame for the Kerik debacle because the White House trusted his background check instead of performing its own? Come on! When will the Bush administration EVER take responsibility for one of its own mistakes?
But after reading that NY Press Wimblehack article, you’ll understand how the administration is playing Bumiller and the Times here. It’s sad, especially for anyone who trusts the NYT to investigate the stories it reports.
And, of course, the big loser here is Guiliani. I can’t say I feel sorry for him, especially after watching him go on the November 3rd morning talk-show circuit to warn Kerry and the Democrats that it was okay to take a few hours to compose himself, but that he had to concede soon because it was bad for a “country at war” to be doubtful of the outcome of the election.
Yup, that’s right–Rudy whored himself out for this administration, and the Bushies didn’t even give him the courtesy of a reach-around.
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12.13.04
Ever since my wife and I got rid of cable, I’ve had to do without ESPN and Comedy Central (the only two basic-cable channels I really miss). Thanks to corporate synergy, however, I got a chance to watch the Eagles–Redskins game on ESPN last night–I live in Philly, where ESPN’s “Sunday Night Football” was shown on the local ABC affiliate.
The first thing I noticed as I watched the broadcast is that the announcers seemed to be obsessed with big hits. They talked, over and over, about this big hit or that flattening tackle, and accompanied their rhapsodies over such violent hits with replay after replay of one player smashing another. They broke the hits down in slow motion, dissecting each tackle with voyeuristic excitement –”look at that,” one announcer said, “his body went parallel to the ground!”
Now, I appreciate a big hit as much as anyone, but as the game wore on, it became clear to me that this game was no more violent than any other NFL game out there. The emphasis on big hits was so obvious, and so repetitive–and so out of line with NFL broadcasts on CBS or FOX–that the producers must have told the announcers to emphasize the big hits in order build up the drama and keep people interested–after all, people watching a sunday night game have presumably sat through 6 hours of football earlier in the day. ESPN’s football coverage was the equivalent of its SportsCenter highlights of basketball games, which emphasize slam dunks at the expense of any other kind of scoring play. In the corporate mindset, Big Hits = Good Highlights = Good Ratings.
But the chickens finally came home to roost in the fourth quarter, when Eagles fullback Josh Parry knocked Redskins cornerback Shaun Springs out cold. Springs lay motionless on the ground for several minutes.
As the medical crew rushed out to examine him, the BS began flow.
Faced with the inevitable result of their orgiastic celebration of violence on the field, the announcers were reduced to looking for positive signs where few positive signs could be found. After they came back from their first commercial break, they told us that they had “some good news to report,” which turned out to be that they had seen Springs move his legs a little bit. Great. Maybe he’ll be able to wiggle his toes from his wheelchair in the future.
And then the announcing team–Mike Patrick, Joe Theismann and Paul Maguire–proceeded to tell us that “you never want to see someone get hurt like this” as they showed the replay of the devastating hit from multiple angles.
Look, I love football as much as anyone, and violence is a central part of the sport. But if you celebrate the violence without thinking about the effect that it has on the “performers,” you’re acting in an irresponsible way, especially if you’re doing that celebrating from the control booth.
What really bothers me is that the result of ESPN’s concentration on “big hits” will be that players will try to deliver bigger and bigger hits during the game, in the same way that basketball players have tried to compose ever-more complicated slam dunks as a way to get into a SportsCenter highlight. And when you have players concentrating on big hits instead of on the game, you’re going to start seeing them carted off of the field on stretchers more frequently.
When you consider the fact that the contracts of NFL players are not guaranteed–and thus, teams can cancel player contracts without compensation if a player gets injured–ESPN’s football coverage seems to rise to the height of irresponsibility.
But hey, at least the ratings were good…BOOYAH!
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12.13.04
John Perry Barlow, former lyricist for the Grateful Dead, cattle rancher, Harvard Fellow, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and fellow Wesleyan alum, is engaged in a legal fight with the U.S. Government that stems from the seizure of a small amount of drugs from his suitcase before a flight from San Francisco to New York. Barlow contends that the search represented a violation of the 4th ammendment’s prohibition of “general warrants”–random searches that look for general evidence of illegal activity. He tells the harrowing story of his arrest and court battle in his recent blog.
We then set about to mount what appears to be the first serious contest of TSA’s routinely over-broad searches of checked bags. Apparently, everyone else who has been arrested as a consequences of these inspections, and there have been many, has pled guilty rather than face the cost and trouble of mounting a constitutional defense.
I might have done so myself had it not been for Gilmore’s willingness to support the handsome cost of my defense. That, and the recognition that unconstitutional behavior by the authorities is constrained only by the peoples’ willingness to contest them. Liberty is preserved not only on the battlefield. More often, it is preserved on the streets, by people who know their rights and refuse to forfeit them at the time of arrest. Failing that, as I did, it is preserved in court. Fortunately, precedent appears to be on my side. The controlling Ninth Circuit case in such matters is US v. Davis (482 F.2d 893) which authorizes warrantless airport searches only for the purpose of detecting weapons and explosives.
full text
Barlow’s case is, in the end, a test of the Goverment’s power to conduct random searches in the name of national security. His story is worth reading on those grounds alone; the quality of his writing is just icing on the cake. Check it out if you have a chance.
As for me, I’m just thankful that there are people like Barlow and John Gilmore (his lawyer, doing the work pro bono) out there, who are willing to put up with protracted legal battles to preserve our liberties.
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12.06.04
From Rumsfeld Sees an Iraq Pullout Within 4 Years
Asked if he had ever considered resigning during his first term in the Bush administration, he said, “Certainly there are days,” without mentioning any one or any incident in particular.
Looking back over the past four years, he acknowledged that the two biggest mistakes or misjudgments that had been made - though not necessarily by him - were the failure to discover any prohibited weapons in Iraq (”that’s clearly a disappointment”) and a lack of intelligence that predicted “the degree of insurgency today.”
Rumsfeld refused to speculate on when he might pull out of America’s ass.
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