Month: December 2009

In a set of recent pieces, Cenk Uygur has made a defense of relentless criticism of the president and an argument that Howard Dean and Jane Hamsher cannot be wrong no matter what they say so long as they are attacking the president from the left. Part of this argument I understand. Cenk is arguing that loud, visible criticism from the left helps blunt accusations that Obama is himself on the left, and that this makes him appear moderate which, in turn, makes his job easier. This isn’t an argument on the merits. Cenk isn’t saying that Obama is left, center, or right, and he isn’t arguing that criticism of him is fair or accurate or otherwise. He’s making a simple observation about how it benefits Obama politically to be attacked from the left. In this view, there is no downside to blasting away at the president from the left because you are either right and he might hear you, or you are wrong but he’ll benefit from the optics anyway. There are a couple of flaws with this strategy, even if it is true so far as it goes.

The first flaw is that there actually is a downside to having progressive opinion leaders blast away at the president and say things like this about him:

…you won’t make things better because you don’t work for us. You work for ExxonMobil, Blue Cross and Goldman Sachs, who are all stealing from us and making our lives worse. You can’t work for the people who are stealing from the public and serve the needs of the public at the same time. A House divided against itself must fall, you cannot serve the voters and Mammon, etc., as they say. It doesn’t matter anymore if some of you want to, or would if you could, because you didn’t and evidently can’t.

Most blogreaders and radio listeners and Olbermann/Maddow watchers don’t like to admit that they take their queues from opinion leaders. But many of them do. Because of this, progressive leaders can’t act like Charles Barkley and say they don’t want to be role models. Opinion leaders shape opinions, and they can breed cynicism and apathy if they so choose. If they go out and tell their audiences day after day that the president of the United States is stealing from them to do the bidding of Goldman Sachs and Exxon/Mobil then a hearty percentage of their audiences are going to, you know…start to believe it. And that’s where you start eating into your base and causing problems in a midterm election that will be decided on differential turnout. So, you ought not to go around saying these things unless you really truly think they’re true. And if anyone thinks that blockquote above is fair and accurate, then I just don’t know what to say to them. It’s a bunch of malarkey, is what it is.

Another problem with Cenk’s argument can be seen in his advice for those of us that don’t agree with this strategy of incessant bombthrowing.

The point is that the mainstream media loves people who they can call “moderates.” If Joe Lieberman is somewhere between Obama and Cheney, no matter how far to the right he is, he gets to be called a moderate. Why? Because there’s someone to the right of him.

Now, you have someone to the left of you. Congratulations, you made it! You’re now part of the cool crowd in DC, the only people that the establishment media care about or give any credence to – moderates.

But Cenk is wrong about this. The only progressives who get on teevee and radio are bombthrowers who attack the president (and blacks that got confused and became Republican shills). You never see supportive progressive bloggers on television or radio. Never. That’s because controversy drives ratings. You see moderate elected Democrats on television because they disagree with the party and the president. The same phenomenon makes Jane Hamsher a starlet of cable news while anyone who defends the president is about as exciting as a WHAM! reunion.

There’s a lot of crazy violence going on out there today as this decade comes to a close. I wonder how things might be different if Al Gore had been president…and how they would not have been.

On the Dec. 29th Open Thread, Booman wrote:

It’s ass-cold here today and the temperature is dropping. The news is filled with the Palin custody battle, Rovian divorce, a lot of stuff about Iran and Yemen and terrorism, and generally nothing that is of much interest to me at the moment. So, what do you want to discuss? There must be something interesting? Besides Zinc Fingers, I mean.

I replied, saying in part:

Lots of “stuff” about Iran, Yemen+ terrorism, eh?

And you’re not interested?

And he responded:

It’s my unwillingness to participate in the hysteria that explains my apathy.  Why should I help push the cart off the cliff?

I started another reply, and it grew.

Read on if you are interested.

“Apathy”, eh?

Perfect.

Apathy is but one side of a three-sided Goldilocks pyramid in this case, Booman.

Ravening hatred is another, and the “just right” side seems to be a little off-kilter these days.

The fact is, we are at war. We asked for it, we got it, and unless we defend ourselves effectively we will never get the chance to change the economic imperialist mistake that drove most of the rest of the world to consider the U.S. an enemy in the first place.

“…a lot of stuff about Iran and Yemen and terrorism” sounds pretty off the cuff to me. Do you really think that Obama is simply continuing the same bait-and-switch routine of the Bush administration?

Just more “Ya-da ya-da ya-da?”

I don’t. I think that he knows a great deal more than we have been told about how serious the “terrorist” threat is…and will remain…to the U.S. over the next several years and is doing everything in his power to take us safely through that time while attempting to transition to a less predatory international position than the one in which we have lived and prospered for the past 60 years or so.

The thrust of Islamic opposition to the U.S. has never been about “beating” us militarily. How could it be? How do you “beat” a nuclear power with the delivery options that are available to the U.S.?

How?

By undermining its foundations.

This was brilliantly done to the U.S.S.R…do not forget, Osama bin Laben was part of that effort, too…and the same tactic is working on the U.S. now. The (s)election of Obama…the de-(s)election of the Butch administration, actually…was a blow to fundamentalist Islamic efforts to destroy this system. It is in their best interests to keep the level of incompetence as high as possible here, and it is the right that offers that characteristic in spades, not the centrist-left. If they can get Obama outta there and put some ass like Romney in his place…or even better, Sarah Palin…the U.S. is as good as done. Another 8 years of the right and the whole economic system would go belly-up, complete with riots in the streets and an eventual shattering of the U.S. into several smaller entities.

Abracadabra!!! No more capitalist pig, atheist world cop!!!

That’s the plan.

Bet on it.

And you write:

The news is filled with…generally nothing that is of much interest to me at the moment!!!???

Hmmmm…

Forgive me for getting personal here, but…

(12/30/09)NYPD Evacuated Times Square Buildings As Precaution

A New York Police Department spokesman said it was too early in the investigation to comment on the nature of a suspicious van in Times Square on Wednesday, but police had evacuated some nearby buildings as a precaution.

The Nasdaq Stock Exchange’s MarketSite was among the sites evacuated, though Fox Business Network has now reported the evacuations are over and the area is being reopened. Nasdaq’s MarketSite is the exchange’s face in Times Square, where it hosts corporate meetings, product launches, press conferences and special events.

“The bomb squad is barring pedestrians and is approaching the vehicle with a robot,” Sgt. Carlos Nieves had told Dow Jones Newswires. “The camera will help technicians assess what it is in the van.”

Fox showed that the rear doors of the van were opened by police and officers have moved in to inspect it. The news channel has also reported the FBI has been brought onto the scene.

Although some reports said the van had been there for possibly as long as two days, Nieves couldn’t comment on how long the van had been parked there. He did confirm there was a “placard” on the van that wasn’t known to police in either New York or New Jersey.

Nieves said that ahead of the New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square the NYPD was already on the lookout for vehicle bombs and is sweeping garages and other locations.

But, Nieves added, at this time “there is no known threat.”

and

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City’s Times Square has been reopened to traffic after a bomb squad found no explosive devices in an abandoned van parked in the area.
The squad used a robot-based camera to approach the vehicle and open it Wednesday. Police say they found clothing inside.

The area around 42nd Street between Seventh Avenue and Broadway was briefly blocked off as a precaution, and two high-rise buildings home to Nasdaq and Conde Nast were partially evacuated.

The van has tinted windows, and a placard from a nonexistent law enforcement agency is on the dashboard. It has no license plates, but a temporary registration was found inside the van and officers are trying to locate the owner.

Police officers on patrol noticed the van around mid-morning Wednesday. Security is tight as the New Year approaches.

Oh.

I am going to be exactly one block away from that area from tomorrow afternoon on through the night until after 1AM. Working. Or else I would be as far away from it as it is possible for me to get.

Like…in Maine or Iceland.

Several weeks ago I went into that area at 11AM on a weekday to take care of some business and missed a shootout between a cop and an automatic weapon-wielding nutjob illegal street vendor by almost exactly 3 minutes.

Remember it?

I do.

I was on that corner less than three minutes before the shooting went down.

In Holiday Crush, a Fatal Shootout in Times Sq.

—snip—

Police officials said [the vendor] had been issued a summons earlier this year — for selling compact discs and DVDs without a tax stamp — at the same spot where the chase began. They also said he was wanted for questioning in connection with an assault in the Bronx, and on a warrant for failing to appear in court on a disorderly conduct charge, also in the Bronx.

The police said they found business cards for several Virginia gun dealers in Mr. Martinez’s pocket.

 —snip—

The police said a cryptic comment that referenced a 1985 martial-arts movie was written on the back of the card: “I just finished watching `The Last Dragon.’ I feel sorry for a cop if he think I’m getting into his paddy wagon.”

—snip—

Mr. Martinez [the vendor]fired first, getting off two shots. Then his gun jammed.

Nice.

This guy was part of the system that is being set up by our Islamic enemies. It’s easy enough to do…simply keep ramping up the level of hatred between the haves and the have-nots on every level until the weakest minds of the have-not population begin to crack.

Surrounded by the violent hype of the last 9 years, this fool tries to off a cop over a couple of misdemeanors and a possible assault charge that would most likely disappear in the so-called “justice” system that is currently in place here in NYC.

And…he doesn’t even know how to use his weapon. Other news stories mentioned that he held it sideways…rap star style…and that’s why it jammed.

The perfect al Queda fool/foil.

Like the two assholes in the Caprice back in 2002, sniping at people getting gas.

Like the sneaker bomber in 2001.

Like the Ft. Hood shooter and the Riverdale synagogue (infiltrator-driven) “bombers” and the guys who wanted to blow up JFK airport by lighting a fire in a natural gas main miles away but forgot to bring matches and the Ft. Wherever idiots who were going to stage a raid on an Army base so they practiced their amateur shit in a public park. Like the Somali “pirates” who stood up with their heads in plain sight of crack U.S. snipers and got themselves blown away for their efforts.

Perfect fools.

Keeping the terror level up, up, up, without ever going so far over the line that some official U.S. fool decides to glass-parking-lot Riyadh, Kabul or some other “terrorist stronghold”.

Brilliant.

And…it’s working.

Here is a piece of prophecy from one of our true seers.

The Second Coming-William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Read it, goddamn it!!!

Understand it.

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

Sound familiar?

It should.

You are part of that “best”, Booman. Flopping around in the shit that passes for meta blog news while yawning at the real stuff.

Nice.

FUCK Jane Hamsher, Mr. Moulitsos and the rest of the impotent blogfools.

You’re better than that.

Do not look away.

Not out of fatigue; not out of disgust; not for any reason.

Your child will one day thank you for it.

Bet on it.

AG

I don’t think Armando really addressed my point. If it makes him feel any better, I do acknowledge a newfound appreciation for the challenges Clinton faced once the Republicans took over Congress. Yet, my problems with Clinton have always been less about policy triangulation in the 1995-2001 period than about his incompetence in the 1993-1994 era, the DLC’s fundraising strategy for the DNC et. al., and his personal shortcomings that damaged the party and the country leading to the Gore/Bush fiasco. But I don’t think Armando ever realized that my objections to the Clintons were less about policy ideology than political ideology. I was more offended by Lanny Davis and Dick Morris than I was by welfare reform and school uniforms. Most of all, I was offended by Al From. But all of this was a long time ago and it doesn’t matter much. The party of today is much better and much healthier than it was at the end of Clinton’s presidency. And it still sucks.

As for the rest, I was going to reply to Cenk’s Uygur Doctrine, and I’ll just wrap Armando’s thoughts on what blogs ought to do into that piece (when I get to it).

My name is John Presta and my book titled Mr. and Mrs. Grassroots: How Barack Obama, two Bookstore Owners, and 300 Volunteers did it, is my first book and will be released on January 20, 2010. That is the first anniversary of the Obama Administration. I finally did it. I not only completed a manuscript, but I was able to get it published by the perfect publisher, the Elevator Group.

The book I set out initially to write was a celebration of books and bookselling.

Mission accomplished.
I wanted the world to know about the achievements of this special group of people: your local independent bookseller. I hoped to bring attention to the great things independent booksellers do for their communities everyday and hope that an increasing number of independent booksellers will tell their stories. I wanted to do for bookselling what Barack Obama has done for politics. The book details the success of two independent booksellers, me and my wife Michelle, how we helped launched the political career of Barack Obama with a hands-on approach. In bookselling, we call it “hand selling.” We hand sold Barack Obama to anyone that would listen.

I wanted to inspire interest in books and in bookstores. I point out in my book the importance of several Chicago area bookstores to Barack Obama’s political life and his personal life. It starts with our own store, Reading on Walden Bookstore. There was his community bookstore, 57th Street Books, along with its sister store down the street, Seminary Coop Bookstore. Obama also love to visit Powells Bookstore (of Chicago), just east of 57th Street Books. Obama received the endorsement of Congresswomen Jan Schakowsky at Women and Children First Bookstore in December of 2003. The endorsement was huge for Obama and was likely, as author Malcolm Gladwell would say, the Tipping Point of that campaign.

The back-story of the book is simple, how to overcome obstacles. An obstacle is a barrier worth overcoming. The barriers in Obama’s way were plentiful and we worked to remove those barriers. It is about getting up after you have been knocked down. The obscure State Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, lost a Congressional race to an “entrenched incumbent,” Congressman Bobby Rush. Obama was knocked down and we were knocked down with him. We felt it as intensely as he felt it.

In the early fall of 1999, we met Dan Shomon, campaign manager at that time for the obscure State Senator from Hyde Park in the Chicago area, Barack Obama. Shomon wanted our support for this man named Obama. Our initial response to Shomon was lukewarm. Because of Shomon’s persistence and tenacity, he was able to convince us to eventually support Obama and support him in a big way. We organized a candidates’ forum for the Congressional race against Congressman Bobby Rush. The candidates’ forum was a smashing success for Obama. 600 people attended the event and were introduced to Obama. The community came to love Obama. Unfortunately, Obama lost this race to Bobby Rush. He had “lost the battle, but he won the war,” in the words of long-time aide Al Kindle.

Obama, in his own words, was “spanked” by Rush, but proceeded to pick himself up the next day because he believed in himself and his message. The book is about how my wife Michelle and I were emotionally effected by this defeat and how we picked ourselves up and dusted ourselves off and helped Obama in future elections. The obstacle was this haunting defeat. For us it was the elephant in the room.

Immediately after his defeat on March 21, 2000, we ordered a dozen copies (signed) of his book, Dreams from My Father, and placed them on the shelf. And they stayed on the shelf from March 2000 through March of 2004. We would not and could not remove them. On March 17, 2004, the day after Obama won the Democratic primary for United States Senate, the books vanished. They were bought quickly.

There was another elephant in the room. This man Obama, we believed, would one day become President of the United States. Could Obama overcome a crushing defeat in a Congressional race and inexplicably, come back and win a statewide, United States Senate race against some of the most formidible opponents in Illinois politics. Then capture the White House? What are the odds?  

For us it was not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning. We would stand by Obama, despite the loss. We stood by him in a tough primary fight in 2004 for a seat in the United States Senate, and this time he won. He personally asked us to support a local statewide candidate in 2006, as a test of his political muscle and political relevance and again he won. In spite of the opposition of the entrenched party leaders. Then in early 2007, he announced for the Presidency. And through a long struggle from lessons he had learned back in 1999, he won the Presidency. I started to write my story during this period. And two years later, a book is born. The book is a recording of American History of the Obama Presidency.

The book explains why were we so heavily recruited by the Obama campaign. Why would a little child, Sofia Clute, call us “Obama’s bookstore.” She would say to her dad during that period, “Daddy, take me to Obama’s Bookstore.” In our community, we will forever identified with Obama.

We were an ordinary bookstore run by ordinary people that made extraordinary achievements. We believed in ourselves and believed that books are not luxuries but essentials. We believed that books have transformative value and that books teach valuable lessons about life such as being physical health, spiritual health and financial health.

This is the story of how our community involvement led the Barack Obama campaign to our little bookstore. We were reluctant to embrace this obscure State Senator and it was not until Dan Shomon, the Obama’s campaign manager in 2000, mentioned that Obama was an author. He wrote a book titled Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. That got our attention. It mattered little to us that the book had limited commercial success to that point. That is not what great literature is about but it is about the writing. And Obama’s book was well written. The book was a great introduction to this man, Barack Obama. It parallels the life of the book, Dreams from My Father, and the life of the man, Barack Obama.

We reinvested a large part of ourselves into the community and as such our level of community involvement. We further extended that reach beyond the doors of the bookstore and into the streets of the community to help make the community a better place to live for all. Businesses not only should reinvest back into their communities, it I essential.

We discuss our transformation from being just booksellers to community activists. How it all began after a series of break-ins at our store, which motivated us to not sit idly and allow these terrible things to happen to us and more important, to happen to our beloved community.  

The story is about how this bookstore transformed our lives and how the bookstore transformed other people’s lives. We give examples of specific books that can help people transform their lives. It is, if you will, a book about books, a biography of books, a short history of books.

The easy part for me was getting it all down in a readable form. The difficult part was finding the right publisher that would stand behind the book and be as enthusiastic as I was about the book and its content.

Again, mission accomplished.

I discovered, through the social networking site www.Linked.com, Sheilah Vance, President and owner of the Elevator Group. Sheilah started her own publishing company in 2005 and knows what it takes to win elections and keep the electorate energized. Sheilah is also learning what it takes to sell books. Sheilah is a former member of Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee and former press secretary to Robert P. Casey, Sr. when he ran his successful campaign for Governor of Pennsylvania in 1986. Sheilah recognized my story in Mr. and Mrs. Grassroots of how everyday people can make a difference that changes the country and the world will let the electorate see that they, too, could be the next Mr. and Mrs. Grassroots. Sheilah is planning a promotional campaign with buttons and rally signs at book signings, campaign style. This book will be a campaign.

A political campaign.

A political grassroots campaign to sell books. A great campaign would be to make the book number one and outsell Sarah Palin’s book. This book has a better message and I actually wrote it myself, although my publisher, Sheilah Vance, did a great job in editing the final manuscript. Help me make this book a bestseller and recapture the narrative from the Republicans.

Let’s help to rally the base of the Democratic Party. Yes, we don’t like the health care legislation that was passed. It is just the beginning. Had McCain been elected, we wouldn’t be having this health care discussion of a “bad bill.” We might be discussing “no bill.” At best, some watered-down, non-binding, “patient’s bill of rights.” It is what we expect from the party of “no,” the Republicans.

The book can be ordered from many places, preferably your local independent bookseller at Indie Bound. It can be ordered from another great independent, Powells Bookstore in Portland, OR.

Or if you insist, from Amazon.com. Or Barnes and Noble. Or Borders. Or even Sears.

Blogging is an activity. It’s something you do either in your spare time or the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. If you are doing full-time political blogging, something is motivating you. For most of us, that motivation was originally outrage at what the Bush administration and the Republicans in Congress were doing. It wasn’t to argue over the fine points of their Medicare Part D bill or the decisions of Bush’s Treasury secretary and the FED chairman. Yes, there was always a place for that, and there are some bloggers who are dedicated to health care and fiscal policy. They are valuable and important contributors, but they are few.

What brought people together into progressive blogging communities and networks was related to policy (the invasion of Iraq, torture, illegal surveillance, regressive taxation, bad environmental policy) but also other things (a one-sided corporate media, incompetent government, and lack of meaningful and effective resistance by the Democrats). But notice something. The progressive blogosphere rarely if ever engaged in serious policy debate about legislation pending in Congress. Insofar as it was discussed at all, it was normally opposed. And that kind of blogging can be habit-forming. What was appropriate when the Republicans ran everything is carried over and used against the Democrats.

Now, I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, what was wrong when Bush and the Republicans did it is also wrong when Obama and the Democrats do it. Holding government accountable is important no matter who is currently in power. And the Democrats don’t have everything right on policy. On some things they are dead wrong. On others, they are divided and unable to pass good policy in the face of united opposition. So, people who really care deeply about policy and think the Democrats can and should be doing better ought to be speaking up and offering constructive advice or criticism. I think this is generally what Glenn Greenwald is doing. On the other hand, most of us got into blogging because we recognized the singular danger the Republican Party represented to our country, and our number one goal was simply to get them out of power. Like the teabaggers, we weren’t looking to make compromises on legislation but to defeat it. But unlike the teabaggers, we had facts to support our positions. If we got into blogging and political activism to put the Democrats in power, should we not be focusing on helping them pass their agenda and stay in power?

The split in the blogosphere is over splintering goals. On one side you have people who now identify the government itself (the insiders) as the corrupt entity regardless of party. On the other side you have people who don’t disagree about the systemic problems but who are looking for best outcomes and a successful presidency.

There is a place for both, but if you are waking each morning to blog about what a bunch of corporate whores the Democrats and the president are, you haven’t really adjusted your style to the new situation in Washington. In fact, you are effectively denying that there is a new situation in Washington. You just brought over what you were doing during the Bush administration and turned your guns on the Obama administration. And, remember, I am talking about motivation here, not discrete posts. I’m talking about themes and focus. Is this first thing you do in the morning to look for ways to talk about how the president has disappointed you? How Congress sucks? Then you aren’t interested in keeping the Republicans out of power any more. You are fighting a different battle. And if you don’t have a plan for how your reinforcement of Republicans memes is going to help lead to better outcomes, you aren’t really a Democrat anymore, and your activism can’t necessarily be considered progressive even if uses progressive terms and angles. That’s fine. No one is compelled to support the Democrats over the Republicans or to support policies they disagree with. But we should call this kind of blogging what it is, which is anti-Obama, and anti-Democratic Party…and anti-government, really.

Not much time to comment, but here’s Juan Cole…

See if this is covered much in the “slow holiday news.”

And it’s funny, I was going ver there to see if there was anything on the Ashura violence in Iran.

SAT Test Analogy Questions

1.) FDL : Riverdaughter ::

(A) dog : doghouse
(B) tree : tree
(C) beaver : dam
(D) cat : litter box
(E) book : library

Update [2009-12-31 15:41:37 by BooMan]: Lambert Strether is such a dipshit. How’s that for epic fail?

.
This ruling is most welcome, see the many fp stories on this issue by Steven D.

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

It’s ass-cold here today and the temperature is dropping. The news is filled with the Palin custody battle, Rovian divorce, a lot of stuff about Iran and Yemen and terrorism, and generally nothing that is of much interest to me at the moment. So, what do you want to discuss? There must be something interesting? Besides Zinc Fingers, I mean.