Author: sbj

I imagine right now that bin Laden and his mentor Aiman Al-Zawahiri are offering up many thanks in their prayers that Bush/Cheney has done so much for them by helping them to restructure the hierarchy of Al Qaeda in such a way as to keep them on stage in Iraq, and by extension, in the world at large.

After all, it was the Bush/Cheney machine that developed the chief villain position of “Al Qaeda in Iraq”  and attached that job description almost by osmosis, (osmosis sometimes closely resembling a relentless media propaganda and disinformation campaign), to the hapless and probably unsuspecting thuggish sociopath Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.
And now, even with Zarqawi dead, the position lives on, and one can’t help but expect that, because of all the magnified glory attached to a job so thoroughly exaggerated in importance and demonized by the US, there will be literally millions of eager weaponized ignorati rushing in to assume the deadly duties that go with that job.

And so Al Qaeda gets to live on as an entity of vastly exaggerated importance in a violent arena where they represent barely 5% of the problem, (and are not even part of the central problem at that). Meanwhile the sectarian and power-hungry-based civil war in Iraq escalates, drawing less focused attention upon itself because of all the false emphasis being put on the Al Qaeda construct devised by BushCo and it’s minions in the Western media. And most important of all, all this leads to a continuation of, and intensification of, the conflict in the region, the perpetuation of which suits the real BushCo agenda perfectly, since more destabilization and more violence remain necessary conditions for legitimizing their real goal of maintaining a permanent militarized presence in the region for the foreseeable future, in order to gain domination throughout the region and control of the energy reserves there.

The demonic brilliance of the Cheney/ Neocon strategy in this is clear. They managed to create and empower a tremendous “identity” that served to define an active connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda and then used their own fictitious invention to legitimize their insane assault on that country after the fact. And now that the job of “Being Zarqawi” exists, it will continue to exist with one rage filled, ambitious, hapless nut after another filling it’s shoes.

Even the Romans in Gaul under Gaius Julius couldn’t have devised a more clever pretext for extending their war  and masking their desire for ultimate conquest from those they sought to conquer. But lest anyone think I intend any praise here, please be reminded that Caesar himself was not long for this earth after his campaigns in Gaul, and that ultimately those conquests wound up stretching the empire so thin right from the start that the irreversible decline of the Roman Empire itself ultimately began as a result of the increasing strain a scant couple of hundred years later.

I suspect that if the future Caesar Julius had decided not to capture Vercingetorix and not assert dominion over the entire region of Gaul and beyond with such imperial brutality, such hegemonic totality, both his own fate and that of Rome and Europe might have been vastly better in the long run. And in the spirit of this speculation on ancient ambitions, I suspect that the rise of the neocons and their invasion of Iraq will be seen by future historians, (if, of course, there are any historians in our human future), as the proximate cause of the end of the American Empire.

I’ve really learned a great deal over the last couple of days from everyone who participated in SallyCat’s excellent diary “A Question”- Conversation Continuation yesterday and my diary From A Political novice; A Question from the day before.

I’m still a novice however, in the realm of grassroots political activism and awareness, and as such, I continue to have questions. One sort of large question, or perhaps more accurately, a large but perhaps important set of questions that have arisen in my mind out of all the great exploration and discussion in these two diaries has to do with how we variously view the Democratic Party and what we expect of it.

It seems to me there is wide divergence of perspective on the Party, and I think this is essentially a good thing, yet I sense that a joint exploration of our views on the Party, as we did in those other two threads on so many other aspects of the political calculus, might be very useful.

As I’ve been reflecting on my own perceptions of the Democratic Party, the more I think about it, the more complex, even contradictory, it all seems to get. As an acknowledged novice this makes sense; a sort of first plunge into the deeper teritory of familiairizing oneself and intensifying one’s understanding of things frequently entails lots of work resolving conundrums and perceptual ambiguities, often with surprising results. But it struck me that, in general,  maybe most of us could gain more clarity in our own views through a productive discussion about all this party stuff, and with that in mind, I want to put forward some ideas and questions that might lead to fruitful discussion.

As regards the (Democratic) Party itself;
As regards the Party itself;

Who’s party is it?

Does the Party serve us or do we serve the party? (And if both are true, how can we help insure that it works to our advantage?)

Who runs the Party? Who’s responsible for defining the Party’s  principles? (Do we get screwed when we let the elected offcials assume this responsibility?  Do Al From and the DLC gang have any legitimate standing to define Democratic Party positions or are they usurpers who need to be ignored?)

What function do we expect the party to serve?

How do we determine when Party politics and mechanisms help us exercise our democratic freedoms and when the party hinders us from exercising those rights?

Can we make the money work better for us, rather than working against our own interests like it seems to do so often?

Can “we the people” wrest control of the Party from the various hijackers and blowhards who’ve claimed authority to speak for it?  Can we differentiate between those who claim to represent the party from those who actually do represent  and stand up for the ideals and principles we believe the party should represent? ( In other words, can we recognize that someone like Joe Biden represents the “Joe Biden Party”, and Lieberman the “Lieberman Party”, etc. Can we effectively separate these types out, disqualify them from claiming the capital “D” mantle as their rightful identifier?

My own expectations of the Democratic Party are quite small and low, and given  the enormous threat posed to us all by the excesses and insanity of the Bush regime, I regard my low expectations  as unfortunate, almost tragic.  It just seems to me that we all should be able to expect more, that we should be able to  use the party structure  as a far more effective tool for stimulating and propagating honest and meaningful debate drumming up strong support for people who can challenge the lies and deceptions of the Repub juggernaut in a way that wil lead to us regaining control of the country. And, it seems to me that, (with the notable and important exception of Howard Dean), the people currently running the Democratic Party machine, along with the hordes of overpaid and failed strategists and consultants, the elected leadership of the party and the most prominent contenders for the ’08 elections, are our biggest obstacles to moving forward.

But I’m a novice always looking for new illumination.

As far as the mechanics of political activism go, I’m a novice, despite having been around for a long time.  While I did some volunteer work on behalf of first McCarthy and then, (somewhat reluctantly), Humphrey back in ’68, seeking to keep the obviously dangerous nutcase Nixon from ascending to the throne,  I was basically one of the least engaged grunts in those efforts; part of the herd, but indistinguishable from the rest. And, even having realized Nixon was a significant threat to the country and to our way of life, had I been eligible to vote in ’68, (I missed eligibility by under a year because the voting age then was still 21 years), I probably wouldn’t have involved myself in the democratic campaigns against him. I would have, (like so many others did), simply used my vote against him to fulfill what I saw as my democratic responsibility to oppose the bad guy.  All of this is preamble, a disclaimer of sorts, a way of acknowledging that I was never really an enthusiastic participant in the day to day dynamics of political activism, and because of this, I don’t want anyone to think I’m attempting to represent myself as some sort of authority on that subject. I definitely am not such an authority.

In the current political climate, it seems indisputable that for those of us who regard the Bush regime in toto as the biggest threat to our country, to our way of life, and to the world at large that’s ever come down the pike, we generally agree that we need to get these lunatics out of office and reclaim control of our own government. I think it’s fair to say that we agree in general that if we can somehow achieve Democratic Party electoral majorities in the House and/or the Senate that our chances of restoring the mechanisms of democracy and strengthening our constitutional liberties and protections are greatly improved. Similarly, I think we (on the “left”) generally perceive the Democratic Party in it’s current state as an institution that is failing us; one that doesn’t stand up for us often enough or with sufficient enthusiasm to have any meaningful effect.

But where we disagree, where we have, in my opinion a huge, (and widening) problem, is in what we think we need to do in order to achieve the aims of regaining control of the government and getting the BushCo maniacs out.

There are many who argue that we need to elect Democrats, plain and simple, in order to change the numerical calculus in congress, if we are to have a hope of restoring government by the people and for the people. And those who argue this point support the notion that even if you have to vote for a Dem that doesn’t necessarily support what you yourself believe in, it’s still the smart thing to vote for him if doing so will unseat a Repub. In short, removing the “R” from that congressional seat and replacing it with a “D” is a first priority and should generally trump every other consideration.

There is another point of view which has finally reached prominence, (especially here in the free-thinking blogosphere, and especially in the wake of recent political maneuvers nand propagandizing by the DLC and by the poor voting choices made by prominent Dems), which argues that, in the end, if we choose to vote for the “go along to get along” Dems who too often vote their support for the Repub agenda, that ultimately such a strategy is a “lose-lose” one because either the Repub beats the “Repub-lite” Dem  anyway, and, more importantly, because even in those rare cases where the Dem might win, the fact that his win betrays the principles we believe the party should stand for means the victory is hollow,  virtually worthless. And if we add to this the idea that a series of such “victories through capitulation to the rightwing” only rewards, and thus encourages), the party’s movement toward the “right”, then the damage done is multiplied exponentially.

So, finally, here’s my question, and I think it’s pretty simple.

“Would we on the Left, (whether we call ourselves progressives or liberals or moderates or centrists or radicals or whatever), benefit from having a constructive dialog that examines the relative merits and pitfalls of each of these two divergent strategic positions in relation to each other in a way that might help us determine where one strategy might be more beneficial than the other in specific instances?”

Can we acknowledge that both strategies above have merit, and that each has its place in an effective strategic calculus?  And can we have a civilized, respectful dialog about it without advocates for either position insisting the other is useless and irrelevant and ineffective?

Maybe I’ve missed it but it seems to me that there’s been little if any dialog along the lines I describe taking place anywhere. Yesterday in a comment thread on another very well-regarded left-progressive blog I proposed the idea that such a dialog as I refer to here might be a good idea, and I was surprised to be on the receiving end of a certain level of hostility from the blog host, who,  for whatever reason, chose to actually delete my final comment. I thought I was proposing a constructive add-on to the blogger’s story, a story which generally reflected views I agreed with. But instead I got sniping and disparagement.

So, I’m asking you all, am I whistling in the wind when I suggest those us of with differing perspectives on these strategic issues might benefit from seeking ways in which we might utilize both to maximum effectiveness in pursuit of our aims. Do we perceive a meaningful benefit can be derived from acknowledgement that both strategies have advantages we can make use of? Or, is such a dialog not seen important enough to mention. My political naïveté might have me reading more into this than it’s worth, so I hope some of you will offer your thoughts.

As a lifelong Democrat who loves his country and so very much values the liberties and protections with which we are endowed by our great constitution, I am pleased to learn that you will be voting against confirmation of Samuel Alito for appointment to the Supreme Court.

However, with heartfelt sadness, I have to tell you that a simple no vote against Alito is not enough. Should you fail to participate in an attempt to filibuster this nominee, I will regard such behavior as not only negligent on your part,  but as a direct abdication of your sworn oath as a member of congress to preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States.

It is inconceivable to me that you, along with so many other Democrats in congress, are seemingly more concerned  with a strategy of compromise in the (foolish, in my opinion) hope that such capitulation to the desires of the Bush regime will enhance Democratic Party chances for electoral victory in ’06 and again in ’08;  that you find this strategic calculus far more important than actually standing up against the most obvious threat to the very relevance of our constitution and the core principles that have guided our country from the beginning.

Samuel Alito is the personification of this threat, and the fact that you and so many of your colleagues can blithely determine to vote against him in open session yet fail to fully acknowledge the true nature and scope of the threat he poses represents a hypocrisy on an order of magnitude I cannot even begin to describe in words.

Whatever electoral calculus you and your Democratic colleagues may be using to legitimize this strategy, I can only say to you that there are literally tens of millions of us regular democratic voters and citizens out here who repudiate the very premise that not doing all that is possible to block this nomination from going forward is going to be advantageous on any level to the country or to the Democratic party.

There are many many more of us now than there were just a few short years ago who now understand fully the simple idea that,  as long as our Democratic representatives fail to stand up vigorously for our principles and beliefs, as long as they  continue to “go along to get along” with the Republican machine, we will not be sending you any money, any volunteers,  and certainly many fewer votes than previously.

I hope you may understand before too much longer that If you are not different enough from the Republicans to make a difference, we have no use for you, and the sooner we push you out, the sooner we’ll be able to replace you with new representatives that will stand up for that which we value.

I sent this to my Senator Bill Nelson here in Florida. He’s announced he’ll vote against Alito, I haven’t heard him advocate for filibuster, and I douibt I will. Hence the letter.

We’re devoting a lot of good energy these days to exploring the failings of the media and how we may best affect that media from our vantage point here in the blogosphere. Recently we’ve seen an excellent effort led by Jane Hamsher at FDL to take down the ratings at Amazon for the odious Kate O’Bierne’s latest piece of excresence titled “Women Who Make The World Worse”. We’ve seen several paid off opinion writers resign or be fired after their financial dealings withoutside groups have been revealed.

Now we have the latest raft of insulting and tasteless bullshit from Chris Matthews, a prominent pundit on a steep ethical decline, and we wonder what we can do to effect significant pressure on him and his corporate enablers. I don’t have any specific answers for this beyond all that’s being said by everyone already; write letters to MSNBC, to Hardball, to sponsors, etc. But I do want to explore some of the other dynamics involved in the failure of the media in general and what, if anything, we can do about it directly. And I don’t want to dwell on the money/profit angle too much because that is self-evident anyway. suffice it to say that if viewership goes down ratings go down and if ratings go down ad revenue goes down and if ad revenue goes down shows do, eventually, get bumped off. I’m not sure if this is still true but Matthews’ show’s ratings were on a pretty solid trajectory downward for a while. Olbermann’s show consistently outranks Hardball in viewers and I’m sure this rankles the hell out of Tweety. The reporter David Gregory usually makes Matthews look prety lame by comparison too, and I expect Gregory is remaining alert to the potential of sabotage against his career by Tweety and “pumpkin head” Russert. But Tweety himself is headed for the pre-emptive demise of his own show as long as his current behavior continues.

Even though Matthews has been “off the rails” (as far as responsible news handling goes) for a long time now, I still used to watch his show with some focus just to pick up the nuances that might lead to a fuller understanding of what the wingnuts’ next moves were going to be. and I found that despite the terrible factual negligence and arrogant laziness of Matthews personally, I still managed to extract some relevant info from his show.

But no longer. Matthews is now a major contender for most irrelevant pundit on TV. (I don’t include any of the Fox hacks in this contest because they are all shitbirds and constitute a league of their own). Admittedly he has a way to go; I think Russert is still way out ahead, but in Matthews case, his failings, IMHO, do more damage to the public mind than most of the others simply because he was at one time more trusted to be a balanced commentator.

I don’t regard Matthews as stupid by any stretch of the imagination, nor do I think he’s been co-opted by material rewards from the regime wingnuts. I think his primary failing, the proximate cause of his inability to do his job well and be responsible for conveying the facts and rational analysis to the public, is simply that, like so many others, he’s become his own biggest fan.

Many years ago a friend of mine launched into a fascinating discourse  about how the greatest threat to a guru was the temptation to be corrupted by the power inherent in both the knowledge he posesses and his position as the disseminator of that knowledge. Expanding on this basic theme, my friend went on to describe how so many spiritual “teachers” end up tricking themselves into believeing they are the source of wisdom, rather than the messengers of it; how so many, especially in the realm of religion, come to believe that it is they themselves that are deserving of worship from their acolytes, rather than the deity to which they supposedly pay homage.

Matthews has this problem in spades. Of course most of the rest of the millionaire media mannequins have the same affliction too, and sadly for us all, given that the media is now fundamentally an entertainment industry rather than a responsible information disseminator, there is precious little emphasis on reining in these tendencies one they start to appear in their star pundits and news readers.

Whether Matthews makes an apology to Michael Moore or to anyone else by itself is not very important. If he were to see the error of his ways and make an honest and sincere apology, now that would be something, but I suspect the odds of such a thing occuring are zero. Short of a powerful personal epiphany of some sort, I just don’t think he is capable of any such honest self-examination.

For me, virtually every single newsperson who’s ever attributed any sort of innate intelligence or awareness or courage or understanding to George Bush owes all of us an apology for suggesting that this blazing numbskull is anything but a complete imbecile on every level. If there does come a time when such apologies are tendered I will be very surprised. I’ve frequently wondered whether, once Bush is out of office, the prominent news people will feel emboldened to speak out more honestly as to their own real opinions of him as being a fool. I do find it hard to imagine that so many otherwise thoughtful and intelligent people could truly believe Bush has a functioning and aware mind that is anywhere even close to being adequate for the task of being chief executive of anything, let alone president. Time will tell whether such honest appraisals by the press will emerge, but I will certainly not be holding my breath.

In the meantime, Matthews show is, for me, no longer a barometer by which I can measure anything of substance, so I basically ignore it. It’s true I’ll have it on in the background sometimes, on the off chance I hear the voice of someone who’s ability to be relevant and truthful I respect, but, alas, on Matthews’ show this happens less and less often, just as it occurs less and less across the entire bandwidth of cable news media.

I ignore a vast number of people in the news business now, simply for the reason that there’s so much going on, and so much misinformation, deliberate disinformation and outright bullshit being spread about that the sheer volume of such crap has it’s own tactical effect in that when we try to pay attention to all of it it just burns up the clock on us.
We wind up spending so much time expressing outrage at creeps like O’Reilly or Coulter or Hannity, so much time refuting the falsities of lazy journalists that we spend far less time devoted to exploring in depth what we belive we need to do to effectively deal with the urgent problems we are faced with.

I recognize that we need to monitor the crazies, and to at least note the insanity of the prominent ones like Malkin, Limbaugh, etc. But I hope we’ll spend less time discussing the minutia of their idiotic and hateful crap, and just treat them with a sort of “there they go again” disdain that puts their remarks on the record as being noted without allowing ourselves to be drawn into such deep discussion. and besides, these crazies thrive on the attention they get from us; they celebrate the outrage they manage to incite, and for me it seems a shame that we so often respond to them in a way that gives them exactly whast they want. Ridicule and pity are more appropriate for these loonies, and for Matthews and his ilk, ridicule and disdain are likewise likely to affect them much more than outrage. After all, no one who’s his own biggest fan, no one in love with himself, ever likes being ridiculed or held in contempt. Less attention rather than more attention; this is what gets to them.