Month: December 2011

I’m very sorry to see Christopher Hitchens go. I agreed with him on more things than I disagreed. I think the 9/11 attacks messed up his mind, but he was always interesting. He was a truly gifted writer. I enjoyed his writing more for its style and construction than its substance. Even though I think he was aggressively wrong about a lot of things, particularly later in life, I feel like we’re all poorer without him. I know he wasn’t religious and didn’t believe in the afterlife, but maybe he’s found an open bar in the sky. Yeah, probably not.

Conor Friedersdorf is puzzled:

… A November 2011 CNN poll found that 68 percent of Americans oppose the [Iraq] war. A CBS News poll from the same month found that 49 percent of Republicans believe the Iraq War was “not worth it” compared to 41 percent who said the war was worth it. And as President Obama oversees a substantial pullout from the country, 71 percent of Americans say bringing our troops home is the right decision.

Despite all that, the Republican Party is attacking President Obama over his withdrawal of troops. And the Republican primary race is full of candidates who supported the war: Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum all favored waging it….

Why is support for the Iraq War still an unofficial litmus test in the GOP?

Simple: because what decides the viability of a political stance isn’t the raw percentage of people who support it, but the percentage of people whose blood boils at the mere thought of anyone opposing it. The GOP has done a terrific job of ginning up right-wing outrage at filthy hippies who don’t support star-spangled patriotic wars — and while anti-war voters were stirred up in 2006 and 2008, that wasn’t the same as a sense of permanent outrage at what’s perceived as sandal-wearing hippie peacenik thinking. It doesn’t matter that this particular outrage is now felt by less than a third of the public: that minority sliver of the population insists on bellicosity far more than the vast majority of us now insist on the opposite. Please note that 71 percent of the public doesn’t oppose the Republican presidential candidates who object to withdrawal from Iraq — they’re indifferent to that. Only the hawks are passionate.

Which is why Friedersdorf (whose point is listen to Ron Paul, dammit!) is naive when he writes this:

There is a chance [the Iraq War] could play a much bigger role in the general election. When President Obama debates his Republican opponent on foreign policy, he’ll likely be able to cite that candidate’s support for a war that a healthy majority of general election voters regard as a mistake.

Obama can try citing it, but most of the public has moved on. But the angry hawks never move on.

****

The GOP is excellent, of course, at turning its voters into people who never, ever move on on a wide range of issues: guns, abortion, tax increases, and so on. On the subject of tax increases (and economic policies in general), I think Kevin Drum is basically correct when he takes a jaundiced view of that new Pew poll. It’s true that the poll says

large majorities think that corporations and the rich are too powerful, our economic system unfairly favors the wealthy, and Wall Street is bad for the economy. What’s more, there’s a big decline in the number of people who think hard work leads to success and a big increase in the number of people who think they’re part of the have-nots.

But this is also essentially true:

Americans say the current system is unfair and favors the rich, but if you ask about specific things we could do to change that, I’ll bet support drops off dramatically. You can see some of this in the question about threats to America’s well-being. Only 56% name the power of banks and Wall Street, while 76% think the national debt is a big threat. This is not a sign of a country that’s seriously bent out of shape about growing inequality.

Sure, lots of people support modestly higher taxes on the rich, but serious reform to cut Wall Street down to size or reduce the influence of corporations and the rich? The kind that people feel strongly enough to march in the streets about or elect a Congress that agrees with them? We’re not there yet.

I wouldn’t say the problem is that “support drops dramatically” for actual remedies — people support a lot of progressive remedies. But there just isn’t enough outrage to get them passed. There is, however, plenty of outrage (ginned up by the right-wing noise machine) in favor of not doing these things — and that simply trumps the opinion of progressive-leaning majority on these issues.

Minority rage wins every time.

(X-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.)

It seems less and less likely with every passing day — hell, with every passing hour — that Newt Gingrich will survive the gang beatdown he’s being subjected to right now and go on to win the Republican presidential nomination (see yesterday’s all-Newt-hate Washington Post op-ed page; see also the forthcoming all-Newt-hate issue of National Review).

But if Gingrich does — somehow — survive this Establishment gang attack, will the party even support him?

Here’s a scenario I’m imagining:

If Gingrich really is unstoppable, the real GOP money — from the Rove-connected Crossroads groups and other super PACs — may simply dry up for him. Where will it go? I know everyone mocks this Americans Elect thing, but the group is well funded. What if GOP insiders game the AE nominating process to get a candidate who’s to their liking chosen as the nominee — Daniels, Christie, Barbour, Jeb Bush, Rubio, Jindal, Huntsman? And what if the “Democrat” who fulfills AE’s quest for a bipartisan ticket is … Joe Lieberman?

I think GOP establishment figures might get behind such a ticket — and I mean really get behind it, with serious money and all kinds of support. And then the party can just somehow fail to help Gingrich in any way. I’m thinking of the way the guy who had the ballot line in the 2006 Connecticut Senate race, Alan Schlesinger, effectively disappeared, as the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy cheered on Lieberman against Ned Lamont. Schlesinger got less than 10% of the vote.

Now, Gingrich won’t take a dive, the way Schlesinger seemed to. But if the party and its donors refuse to finance him, if party opinion-shapers continue to attack him, and if the leaders and pundits get behind the AE effort, I think Gingrich’s numbers could be driven down to the single digits.

For what it’s worth, yesterday Charlie Pierce posted an MSNBC clip in which Chuck Todd speculated that an anti-1% sentiment might drive a third-party bid to some success at the polls. I think minor parties can have an impact this year, but I don’t think this is why. I do think Rocky Anderson, or some other Nader wannabe, will get some Occupy/Firedoglake love at the polls. But the teabaggers aren’t angry at the 1%. The libertarians aren’t angry at the 1%. The young Paulites seem to be more interested in ending militarism and legalizing hemp than seriously curtailing fat-cat excess (which Paul himself has no intention of curtailing, of course). The general public still — still — hates “big government” more than big business, according to Gallup, and even though they seem to recall their class resentments when reminded of them by pollsters, they never vote in any way that reflects those resentments. And Americans Elect is going to be about centrism at best and conservatism at worst; it’s going to be about opposing “business as usual” without the slightest understanding of why “business as usual” is the way it is (and without the slightest recognition that the people on the ticket are part of the problem).

And if my cockamamie theory is correct, Americans Elect might just be the real GOP this year.

****

On the other hand, if the GOP insiders do successfully kneecap Gingrich, I think we should all join Americans Elect and say that Gingrich is our choice for the top of AE’s ticket. Between us and the remaining Newt true believers in the GOP, we might just be able to get him selected. And you know he’ll accept the nomination, because he’ll do anything for publicity. Then we’ll have Mitt and Newt siphoning votes from each other. Fun!

(X-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.)

Camille Etchison on Occupy Wall St.’s facebook page found this survey on foxnews.com that asks:

Do ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protesters represent your views about the nation’s economic problems?
     Maybe. I am not even sure what they want.
     No. They have no idea how jobs are created or how a free-enterprise system works.
     Yes. These folks are right about corporate greed and what’s happening to the little guy.
     Other (post a comment).

Camille Etchison asks us to

“FLOOD IT!!! SPREAD IT EVERYWHERE; YOU CAN RE-VOTE.”

I agree. I think this site needs a good old fashioned Blitz. Click on the logo below and it will take you to the survey.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/10/07/do-occupy-wall-street-protests-represent-your-views-econom
y/#ixzz1gZMsH1R8

Right-wing lunacy has won again! MSNBC yesterday forced itself to apologize for telling the truth about Mitt Romney’s rhetorical ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
Here’s the background: The good folks at Americablog.com reported that Mitt Romney has again used the phrase “keep America American” in a recent speech. The journalists at the site then factually noted that this was a phrase widely used by Ku Klux Klansman in the 1920 and was even used in their recruitment literature. Further, it was noted that Romney has a nasty habit of smearing Obama on any policy disagreement by claiming Obama “wants to transform America into a European style nation.” Get it, Obama is un-American if he wants, say, basic health care common to, say, Austria. Yet conservatives who routinely cite their belief in a field of economics founded in, say, Austria, are claimed by Romney and other conservatives to be good, right-thinking Americans.
Next, here is what MSNBC reported yesterday:

“So you may not hear Mitt Romney say “Keep America American” anymore, because it was a rallying cry for the KKK group, and intimidation against blacks, gays and Jews, and the progressive AMERICAblog was the first to catch on to that.”
As Americablog has since pointed out, MSNBC merely reported two indisputable facts: 1. The phrase Keep America American” was a phrase widely used by the Klan. 2. Romney has used this phrase and is unlikely to use it again.
I will give a free dinner on me to any reader who can point out the factual errors in that report. Typically, when news organizations make obsequious apologies, it is for getting facts wrong, not getting facts 100% right, as in this case.

So how did the ostensibly pro-Democratic Chris Matthews react to this news report? Here’s what Matthews said:
“It was irresponsible and incendiary of us to do this and it showed an appalling lack of judgment. We apologize; we really do, to the Romney Campaign.”

So in the Chris Matthews/MSNBC worldview, it’s not irresponsible or incendiary for a presidential candidate of the conservative party to pander to conservative white voters by using the rhetoric of the Klan. It is irresponsible and incendiary of a news organization to report well-documented facts that might make a Republican candidate look bad.
Nor does Matthews think it is incendiary for Romney to say things like this: “he (Obama) takes his political inspiration from Europe, and from the socialist-democrats in Europe.”
This is insanity!

Of course I can understand MSNBC’s position. After all, why spend valuable time reporting actual facts about Republican Presidential candidates when it’s so much more fun to report “debates” on utter nonsense on how Obama was born in Kenya,  how Obama is a Muslim, and how Obama wages class warfare and numerous other right-wing memes.
Romney, to his credit, is basically the only Republican candidate who hasn’t called Obama a socialist or communist. So we are supposed to grade him as the enlightened one and so it’s supposed to be unfair to make him look bad on these sorts of things. After all, nobody, myself included, really things that Romney is a bigot or endorses Klan philosophies. But the problem is that a lot of dangerous demagogues of the past didn’t really believe their own demagoguery. They used it because it worked.

It’s important to note that people who knew George Wallace didn’t think he was really a racist. It’s just that in his first gubernatorial Wallace ran as a liberal, integrationist on race relations and lost. So he simply switched positions for pragmatic reasons and vowed that he would “never be out-nigg*!d again.” Hmm…a pragmatic politician who first ran as a liberal and then moved right out of pragmatic concerns…sound familiar?

We are supposed to give Romney a pass because compared to the Rush Limbaugh/Glenn Beck/Mark Levin/Sean Hannity/Herman Cain/Newt Gingrich demagogues on the right who routinely traffic in socialistic/communistic/un-American slurs, Romney looks like a flaming liberal. But that is a low bar indeed.

This whole sordid episode is a perfect example of how the right-wing establishment has completely taken over the media in the US. Fox News is merely the clubhouse. But make no mistake about it, the ten gazillion right wing “think tanks,” media criticism institutes, talk show hosts, bloggers and pundits, have been “working the refs” (as right-winger William Kristol once conceded) for so long that all mainstream reporters and hosts and even supposed Democratic host and pundits have been cowed.

We now live in world where the only valid criticism of politicians is when it is directed at Democrats. Criticism of Republicans is, ipso facto, illegitimate and therefore must be retracted immediately, as happened yesterday.
I’m half-way tempted to produce a 30-second anti-Romney attack TV ad using footage of his “keep America American” sound bites and then juxtaposing it with quotes and a voiceover from KKK literature, but given, shall we say, the “proclivities” of the Tea Party, that might actually help Romney win the nomination.

We must be doing something right:

Public discontent with Congress has reached record levels, and the implications for incumbents in next year’s elections could be stark, according to the the latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Dec. 7-11. Two-in-three voters say most members of Congress should be voted out of office in 2012 – the highest on record. And the number who say their own member should be replaced matches the all-time high recorded in 2010, when fully 58 members of Congress lost reelection bids – the most in any election since 1948.

The Republican Party is taking more of the blame than the Democrats for a do-nothing Congress. A record-high 50% say that the current Congress has accomplished less than other recent Congresses, and by nearly two-to-one (40% to 23%) more blame Republican leaders than Democratic leaders for this. By wide margins, the GOP is seen as the party that is more extreme in its positions, less willing to work with the other side to get things done, and less honest and ethical in the way it governs. And for the first time in over two years, the Democratic Party has gained the edge as the party better able to manage the federal government.

The 23% who blame the Democrats more for congressional inaction? Those are same graniteheads who still supported Bush at the end of his presidency. Most of them are probably glued to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News around the clock.

I’d say that the electorate has been sufficiently conditioned and educated. A government shutdown right now (provided we can’t get a fair deal) will hit a public already predisposed to blame Republicans, and to hate them for it.

The man who led us down the path to where we are now. Trillions lost. Thousands dead. Millions harmed. A world where up is down and white is black, and Big Corporations control our country, in no small part because of the actions of one man: his wars, his Supreme Court appointments, his refusal to accept climate change, his many corporate beneficiaries on Wall Street, in the defense industries, on the boards of Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Pharma and Big Health care, and the economy he left in ruins.

Now imagine how humble the next Republican president will be.

To paraphrase Smokey the Bear:

Only you can prevent the next American War(s).

Only you can prevent the hostile takeover of our country by the person known as Corporations.

Only you can change the narrative of lies and deceit, bigotry and hate.

Only you.

For if you don’t act, who will?

Is there an Occupy event scheduled near you? Attend it.

Is there a progressive candidate you want to see elected? Send him or her money or volunteer.

Are their rapacious, arrogant governors in your state trampling on your rights? Work to recall them or fight to see that the damage they do is limited to one term?

Are their organizations that are fighting for your rights (rhetorical question)? Then support them any way that you can. Here’s a short list: ACLU, National Lawyers Guild, Southern Poverty Law Center, [add your own favorite organization here].

Are there homeless people and people in need of services governments no longer provide where you live? Then volunteer or send money to local charities that are helping them.

Are there Foxbots in your neighborhood or your family? Engage them, respectfully and with dignity, but also with firmness and belief that if even one mind can be changed you have succeeded.

Are there bigots and haters who threaten vulnerable communities, whether because of their religion, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation? Than stand up for them. Attend a gay pride march. Go to rallies against racial discrimination. Write a letter to the editor of a paper or online news outlets letting people know that progressive voices are out there.

For hope without action is an exercise in futility, and change, real change can only come from the bottom up. From you, all of you.

Make not a New Year’s resolution to do one of these things, make a lifelong commitment to do something, anything to effect the change you want to see.

It’s easy to blame politicians, but they are what they are because we let them be that way. We, the people, have been slumbering. This year many of us woke up. If you haven’t awakened to the tragedy that has befallen this country, now is the time. Get educated, and then get active in whatever manner you can.

Two quotes for you:

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

The abolitionists stood up, and by doing so started this country down the path that ended slavery.

Women (Suffragettes and Feminists) stood up and started the country down the path to gender equality.

African Americans stood up, and continue to stand up, and their bravery changed the laws in this country that had previously delegated them to second class citizenship, and though that was only a start, and we have far to go, they changed this country.

The LGBT Community stood up, and continues to stand up, against the tide of hate and bigotry, and now we are beginning to see the fruit of their labors, with laws in some states that protect their rights, and allow them to marry, and on the Federal level allow them to serve their country.

The Labor movement stood up, and after many years the laws were changed so that children didn’t have to work, work places were made safer, and unions could organize workers to collectively bargain with their employers. Those rights are under attack, and have been for some time, but the unions are still in the arena, fighting.

There are many more examples than I can list here, of Americans, like you, like me, who said enough is enough and asserted themselves to achieve goals no one thought possible.

These are dark times, times in which many have surrendered to despair. Times in which apathy and helplessness gnaw away at the body politic of this country. Times in which the rich and powerful have had their way and in their lust for power and their greed have ruined the lives of many, many Americans, young and old.<p

But dark times have assailed this nation before. Those who fought during those times for a better future, a better life, a better country, felt much as we do now. Yet, enough of them continued the struggle until the tide turned. They were not better men or women than you are today. They doubted, they despaired, they suffered losses, but they did not give up or give in. Neither should you.

The world is watching us.

Give them something to see.

Peace.

Personally, since my passport is current and I don’t plan on visiting any National Parks, I don’t care if most of the government shuts down tomorrow. My strong preference is that the Democrats refuse to fund the government until the Republicans have all missed their Christmas celebrations. That should be their punishment for being what can only be described as “unrelenting dicks.” Just to give you one example of the GOP’s bad behavior, Senate Minority Leader blocked the Senate from voting on the payroll bill that Speaker Boehner passed in the House. Why? Because he didn’t want his members to have to vote on it since it won’t pass and many in his caucus don’t support all of its provisions.

It’s appropriate that Newt Gingrich is in the news a lot lately, because he once thought that the president would get blamed for a government shutdown only to discover that people blamed him. We’ve lived through this before, and all Boehner and McConnell’s tricks aren’t going to help them avoid responsibility.

Their strategy is to claim that they passed a payroll tax holiday and unemployment extension in the House and that Harry Reid is holding up the appropriations bills for political reasons. This argument, they hope, will prevent the people from seeing that their extreme and unpopular efforts to shield and protect the richest 2% of the country from any taxation are the real problem.

I don’t know CNN‘s source for saying that the Democrats are dropping their demand for a surtax on millionaires. No one else is reporting that. If the Dems actually do formally drop that demand, it will help them win the argument over who is to blame for the shutdown, but it will undermine their moral standing with the public. Maybe after the government has been shut down for a little while the Dems can relent on their core demand. Doing it preemptively in exchange for nothing? That would be bad negotiating, and subpar politics.

In any case, I’d expect a Continuing Resolution that lets the bastards go home and spend time with their families. That’s what the White House is asking for at this point. Although, that, too, is part of their pre-shutdown positioning. If the government shuts down, it’s because the Republicans couldn’t even pass a CR.

Just a quick one:

From CNN.

Stakes couldn’t be higher in last debate before Iowa caucuses

Thursday’s Republican presidential debate in Iowa will be the final episode in one of the most popular reality television series of 2011.

The GOP presidential race has been defined by more than a dozen debates that have been watched by millions of television viewers.

The debates have forced some candidates to falter — most clearly Texas Gov. Rick Perry — while propelling at least one, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, to the cusp of his party’s nomination.

Thursday’s showdown in Sioux City will be last one before the Iowa caucuses kick off the nomination fight in less than three weeks.

—snip—

“…one of the most popular reality television series of 2011.”

And there it is in a nutshell.

Read on for more if you so desire.
I have never succeeded In watching any contemporary reality shows for more than about 3 minutes with the exceptions of “The Ultimate Fighter”…forgive me, I studied martial arts plus these guys remind me of my musician friends on any number of levels…and one truly disgusting cable episode of “Big Brother” where I sat dumbfounded for a couple of hours at the ugliness of the whole scene.

But the recipe remains pretty much the same. Assemble a cast of both more and less talented people…the kinds of talent do not much matter (talented backbiters, talented performers, talented survivalists, etc.)…put them under some kind of pressure and then watch them flail away at each other until one “wins.”

Sarah Palin was the first true reality show-influenced national pol, but four short years later that is exactly what we are getting now with the Ratpub debates.

Deep.

In a shallow kind of way.

Now…in almost all of these reality shows, you have to know that the fix is at least somewhat in. They can’t be having some plain jane singer winning just because she can actually sing unless she is so plain jane…like that poor English woman from last year, Susan Boyle…that they can use her as some sort of joke hustle. It’s all about sales.

Skip to the primaries and apply the same principles.

Yup.

Now…the interesting part here is that an MSM major player like CNN feels free to point this out! It’s like a master sleight of hand artist actually showing you “how he’s doing it” and still managing to fool you…using the explanation as a diversion itself.

Brilliant.

Just sayin’…

The media really does think that we are a bunch of cud-chewing fools.

And by and large they have been proven to be correct.

Deep.

Just sayin’.

Later…

AG

Mormons are a conservative lot and, for a lot of reasons, they’re a natural fit for the Republican Party. We shouldn’t forget, though, that the most powerful Mormon in the country is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat. When it comes to politics, I don’t like to critique people’s religious beliefs. Ask me what I think of a particular religion in a private setting and I’ll tell you, but I don’t want to try to score political points by running down someone’s private faith. I understand that a lot of Democrats (e.g., some in the gay community) feel like the Mormons are trying to oppress them and are very willing to fight back with tough language. I sympathize. I do. But even Democrats who fight back against Mormons do so with mockery and snark, not with incitement to fear. Even when Howie Klein, in the above cited piece, cites some history to show that the Mormons have been interested in winning the White House ever since Joseph Smith ran for the White House, he doesn’t say “egads, the Mormons are all out to get you and turn this country into a theocracy.” Yeah, Joseph Smith wanted to do that, but that doesn’t mean that Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman have the same intention. Nor does it mean that Harry Reid will switch parties to support a fellow Mormon’s presidential campaign.

But, you know, we could make that argument. We could treat Mormons exactly the way that the Republicans treat Muslims. We could forget all about Mitt Romney’s record and his ever-changing positions on the issues, and we could demonize his religion. We could pick it apart and make it seem silly. We could make it seem incredibly sinister. The whole left-leaning media world could get on board to one degree or another in pushing that narrative. We could even add in a little hysteria to mirror the right’s hysteria about Latino immigration. We could point out that Mormons are outbreeding the rest of us and they’ll only need a couple more centuries to become the majority in this country.

We could do these things, but we don’t, and we won’t. And that’s because we actually believe in a few things that are more important than winning. We won’t just say anything that can instill fear in people in order to manipulate them. We won’t make naked appeals to tribal/racial/sectarian feelings. We won’t step all over the spirit of the First Amendment and Article VI, paragraph 3 of the Constitution.

Likewise, we won’t try to win elections by making it harder for targeted Republican groups to vote. I could go on at length about the things the Left won’t do, but could do, to win elections. It can be frustrating to support a party that often fights with one hand tied behind its back while the other side is kicking us in the crotch, but I’ll take the frustration over the morally bankrupt tactics of the other side.