PARTISAN SCREAM MACHINE

Partisan Scream Machine Fed to Facebook!

2009-01-15T11:28:00.006-05:00

I finally have this blog hooked up to my Facebook account. As an update for my last post, about Facebook as a news feed, I've found some good tools to connect my content and interesting news pieces with Facebook.

Since Digg still isn't functioning with Facebook Connect, I had to find another route to connect that info to my Facebook account. I started using Twitterfeed, which is a great program that connects my RSS feeds and blog posts to my Twitter account (follow me here). The best part about Twitterfeed is that I can connect multiple RSS feeds and blogs to my Twitter account, and control the frequency of updates and volume of posts. I currently have my Digg actions, my blog posts here, and my actions on OpenCongress feeding to my Twitter account.

Seeing as I think Twitter is close to worthless without these feeds, I then hooked up my Twitter account to Facebook. Seriously, Twitter is ridiculous on its own. Twitter is like techie crack, but it's also one dimensional, and annoying. If I could just feed all my info to Facebook, I would...Anyone know a way out? hit me with it--Twitterfeed is cool--but how about Facebookfeed?

Facebook as a News Feed

2009-01-09T10:11:00.003-05:00

I'm not updating this blog very often because I'm lazy. I can't do the constant update thing, with breaking news, etc. I'm too lazy to copy a link to a news piece, post it in this little box and make some comment.

Of course my laziness has its own (lack of) motivation. I don't find it beneficial for me personally, to rehash news that has already been reported by much more authoritative voices. Not only am I not 'on the ground' in a lot of these instances, I don't have the best insight. Besides, there are plenty of people out there doing the exact same thing...

But mainly I'm not writing these updates because the Blogger platform is already outdated. It's an antique. I've been using RSS feeds to get my news, on my toolbar, from multiple sources all in one place.

In terms of sharing news, I'm no longer focusing on acting as a news and information hub, a point I've made clear in a previous post. Instead, I'm focusing on social media. I've been using Digg and Facebook to pass around my favorite news bits and interesting links. With the many sharing options on most big media sites, I've been able to post items directly to my Facebook page or Digg them quickly and easily.

But now, two developments have made all that even easier-- the Digg Toolbar on Firefox, and Facebook Connect. The Digg toolbar is a nice, seamless improvement, while Facebook connect could change the way people use and identify themselves on the Internet.

With the Digg toolbar, I can now Digg any story anywhere on the web, just by clicking the 'digg' button just below my toolbar links. Not only that, but I can see how many people have similarly 'dugg' the piece, and how many comments have been posted. What's more, I get a pop-up update every time one of my friends Diggs a piece. It's a great way to use Digg seamlessly, while sharing your news with friends.

Facebook Connect takes it to a whole new level. Now with Facebook Connect, sites (like Digg...) can allow users to seamlessly combine their actions to their Facebook profiles. For example, If Digg ever gets their shit together and starts using Facebook Connect, not only would I be instantaneously sharing my diggs with freinds on Digg, but I'd also being sharing them with all of my friends on Facebook. All in one click of a button. This is important because now I don't have multiple communties of friends on different sites (I have Digg friends, Facebook friends, OpenCongress friends, etc, etc). With Facebook Connect, I'll be able to share everything in one place.

So don't look here for rapid news updates.

Friend me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=12416298&ref=name

Or on Digg: http://digg.com/users/zepickens

Q&A with New School in Exile Participant Chris Crews

2008-12-23T11:43:00.003-05:00

In writing my piece on the New School in Exile and New Media, I had some interesting conversations with activists, past and present. Chris Crews, a graduate student in Politics and participant in the New School in Exile occupation, knew exactly what I was getting at in concentrating on new media and activism. He gave me some great answers to a few questions and I figured editorializing would not do them justice. So here are Chris's responses in their entirety:

ZP: Do you think live blogging and posting videos of actions while inside the building, in real time, was effective in making the student voice heard?

Chris Crews: Yes, I think it was critical to have real-time media reporting from within the building. We were able to keep outside supporters, legal teams, and the media informed as things were going down, and also to challenge the claims that the administration was making. Also, because of the power of the internet and blogs, we were getting letters of support from people in Greece, in Mexico, in Puerto Rico, in Malaysia, in Finland, basically in places we would never have been able to reach otherwise. And it also acted as a check against the university police and security. They knew that if they raided the place, we would report it as it was happening, thus ensuring they could not have a free hand to do whatever they wanted.

Additionally, I think it acts as a way to tell our story that engages with the younger YouTube generation who seems unable to read newspapers and magazines, but has no problem watching 8 minutes videos and animations. So for that group, it is also a powerful medium. Not only that, it serves to document events in a way that words alone cannot. A great example of that was one incident in particular where a high-up New School security official, Jose Villegas, slammed one student into the wall and threatened a few others. We have that all on tape, and can use that to make a case for the security acting in hostile and threatening ways towards the students. We can tell the press and the public that security is over-reacting, but when we show it it is especially powerful!

ZP: Was there any threat to your internet connectivity? Did any New School representative threaten to turn off wireless connections/electricity/etc.?

CC: Actually, the biggest threat was the poor quality of the wireless signal and the lack of any dedicated Ethernet connections. A few of us even joked about demanding better internet service in the cafeteria. But to the best of my knowledge, no, there was never a threat of turning off internet access. We did discuss that possibility, and had backup plans in place should that happen, as well as a number of people who could do updates via mobiles and blackberries with dedicated internet service. So ultimately it would have been a pain, but it would not have stopped our ability to communicate. To the best of my knowledge no one in the administration threatened to turn off internet service, and I'm not even sure if they control it, or if it is an outside service provider who has that power?
--
(NOTE: Elisa Deljanin of The New School Free Press told me in a separate email exchange that school officials DID discuss the possibility of turning off the Wireless Internet in the 65 5th Ave building during the occupation.)
--
ZP: Do you think you've been able to hold mainstream media accountable in this way?

CC: More or less, I think. Obviously you can't control what gets printed, and there were some stories, the NY Post in particular being the one that comes to mind, that spin things in ludicrous ways or at least not in the ways we feel are accurate. But since we were the main ones providing the media footage, statements and pictures from within the occupation, this did give us an unusually high amount of control over our own image, which is usually not the case in situation like this, and is worth noting. And overall, I think the media has been more favorable in its coverage because there is a perception that we have really legitimate demands and concerns, that we are not just an isolated incident, and that there is a whole institutional problem at work here that is being raised. The article in the New York Times today (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/education/21newschool.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink) is a perfect example of that.

ZP: I've been concentrating on two things in particular--one was the student response to Bob Kerrey letter calling the New School in Exile a 'security risk'. You guys then posted a Youtube video showing a security guard using excessive force against a number of students--with the message being "Who's the real threat?" Second, I was interested to see the comments on the NYtimes City Room blog posts from students getting more information out with a major newspaper. Basically then, what do you think this means for the future of direct actions if protesters are able to respond to attacks and report on police abuses in real time?

CC: I think this is important for two reasons. First, and this is definitely something that is an emerging benefit of new media technology, is the ability to get information out almost real-time on, for example, police raids or similar actions. So in the case of the Kerrey letter, we got it, were able to upload some video clips showing exactly the opposite was in fact happening, and then could use that to undermine his claims and bolster ours. That isn't something that could have been done even 20 years ago, and hardly even 10 years ago, at least not with this reach (ie. YouTube, the blogs, etc..) And as far as the NY Times City Blog, it's a mixed bag. It's a good way for other supporters to weigh in, show their support and add their views. On the down side, you get a lot of people who, in my opinion, have absolutely no idea what they are talking about and tend to leave comments suggesting they somehow know more than we do and have some moral authority over those in the occupation, that allows them to make snide and completely uninformed comments that only take away from the issue. But, as is the nature of blogs and comments, everybody gets their two cents, even if some posts are pure drivel.

ZP: I had some interesting discussions with Debra Sweet and Danny Schechter about their experiences trying to get their message out in the 1960s. They agreed that this is a clean break from their media struggles...I really think you guys were opening a new door here. What do you think?

CC: Absolutely. I'm a big media person, and so obviously I think it is a big deal. We were able to use film, printed text, e-mail, the Internet (blogs, YouTube, our web site), mobile phones and even Twitter to get information out and into the hands of others. I think that wide media saturation is critical for both creating a spectacle and for reaching a critical mass of attention than can shift the dynamics in a situation. Without all of that communication, who knows, we might have only been 30 people sitting in jail still in a New York processing facility? But we had that technology, and I think we used it really effectively, and that is a victory we will be able to learn from and build on for the future.

Activism in a Time of New Media

2008-12-21T17:39:00.005-05:00

Early Friday morning students stream out of a cafeteria in The New School’s Albert List Hall. Between 50 and 200 of them had been occupying a cafeteria in the building at various times during a 36 hour protest against the university administration. It’s early. The students are tired, but in good spirits after university president Bob Kerrey agreed to most of their demands, including more student voice in university affairs and the creation of a committee on Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) to oversee university capital funds. They declare victory.

But they can also claim a key victory in a less obvious battle—the battle over message. For two and a half days students reported from inside the cafeteria using text messages, email, blog posts, Youtube videos, and Twitter feeds. They responded to New York Times’ City Room blog posts with news updates and fact checks. They countered Kerrey’s labeling of the occupation as a “security risk” by posting videos of security personnel using excessive force on occupiers. They made their demands and their decisions clear and free for all to read. It was all in real time—and it was all powered by the university’s electricity and wireless Internet.

The use of these new technologies marks a new era in fighting and winning a message war during direct actions. Not only were the New School students able to quickly and inexpensively release updates and report on the scene, they were able to respond to accusations in real time, as the events were still unfolding. Getting the message out on a broad platform has never been faster, cheaper, or more accessible—and participants can do it all without leaving the scene.

This is especially important for student organizers who have long been on the margins of mainstream media. For young activists to have access to a national platform in which their voice can be heard unedited is unprecedented.

Compared to student actions in the 1960s and 70s, the New School occupiers have had a breeze. Debra Sweet, National Director of the activist group The World Can’t Wait, remembers the difficulties of message control and information dissemination in the 1960s and 1970s. “It was very hard to get on the national stage at all,” she said about actions she participated in at the time.

“We didn’t have any access to the media,” she said. “You had very primitive technology for making mimeograph fliers. And that was the main way you communicated. You’d hand deliver press releases to the news. There was no other way to quickly get the message to them. It wasn’t easy.”

Of course there was no guarantee that the information relayed to the press was being reported accurately. Sweet said, “There was a lot of shaping of the message and people were vilified.”

MediaChannel’s Danny Schechter draws the same conclusion about his experiences in student actions at Harvard and the London School of Economics. “We used to have demonstrations and we’d all go home at night and watch them do the reports on TV, which were never quite accurate.” “Today,” Schechter says, “you can see it immediately online.”

The New School occupiers could be thankful for that as they used video footage to document their actions and hold the university administration and security personnel accountable. On Thursday at 8PM, the New School in Exile, as the students called their action, posted a Youtube video of a security officer using excessive force on students, throwing one female student to the ground and almost choking another male student. This was posted in direct response to a letter Bob Kerrey sent to the press, labeling the occupation a “security risk.” In posting the video mere hours after the incident, the New School in Exile’s makeshift website stated, “We encourage the public to watch and decide exactly who is using force against whom!”

"This is definitely something that is an emerging benefit of new media technology," says Chris Crews, a graduate student in Politics at New School and participant in the occupation.

"In the case of the Kerrey letter, we got it, were able to upload some video clips showing exactly the opposite was in fact happening, and then could use that to undermine his claims and bolster ours. That isn't something that could have been done even 20 years ago," Crews says, "and hardly even 10 years ago, at least not with this reach."

Sweet asks what some student actions would have looked like if protesters had had the technologies we do today. “What if there had been real time broadcast capability during Chicago ’68?” she asks. “Especially during the various rebellions in the 60s where people were being shot down in the streets by the police. It took years to piece together and uncover what happened.”

Schechter makes the ultimate claim about the value of new technologies and accountability. He says, “Using video cameras monitors abuses and prevents them. People don’t like to be filmed while they’re beating people up.”

Crews said the use of video and other new media technologies was crucial to holding the administration and security detail in check. "It serves to document events in a way that words alone cannot," he said. "We can tell the press and the public that security is over-reacting, but when we show it, it is especially powerful."

We don’t know what violence (if any) might have been prevented by the students’ cameras. But we do know the students were quick to distribute all evidence they had to bolster their case. The New School occupiers can be thankful they were able to document instances of abuse and show clearly the posture of security forces, police, and students. Who was the aggressor? Go to the tape.

As for the actual events, the occupation was far less dramatic and violent than protests and occupations like Columbia University and the Students for a Democratic Society activities in Chicago in 1968. There is no doubt that this action was far more subdued than the 2006 student occupation of the Sorbonne in Paris.

But even as recent as the Sorbonne occupation of 2006 students were still at the whims of mainstream media. The new School in Exile may be one of the first actions in which the participants controlled the message. They were the authors, editors, and publishers of a message that found an international audience. Activists can now counter false reports and assumptions while documenting any grievances and infringements in real time.

Nixon famously claimed that Vietnam wasn’t lost on the battlefield, but instead it was lost in the halls of Congress and the editorial rooms of great newspapers. According to him, Vietnam was a failure of message control, because for the first time Americans saw the atrocities of war on the nightly news.

But now as more and more average citizens find themselves the authors of journalism, even the framing power of the editorial rooms diminishes. Those on the ground check the framing of the journalist with comments left on blog posts and links to videos. They ‘tweet’ about the conditions on the ground, and take digital photographs. And they can do it all as fast as the events unfold.

Impeach? Indict? Imprison?

2008-12-18T16:14:00.005-05:00

For years now many have been calling for the heads of most top Bush Administration officials for their parts in a number of illegal acts, including the suspension of Habeas Corpus, illegal domestic spying, illegal detention of suspected terrorists, extraordinary rendition, etc, etc, etc. But maybe no other issue has been so hotly contested, and now blatantly admitted to, as torture.

Now the Senate Armed Services Committee has released a study revealing evidence that Bush administration officials repeatedly ignored warnings that their actions were potentially illegal and could put interrogators at risk of being charged with crimes. These warnings, of course, were ignored.

I'm not going to write a history of the implicit or explicit support for torture in the Bush Administration. At this point, all of the information one needs has come out in the press or now from the Senate Armed Servcies Committe. It's all out there.

But what we do need to ask ourselves is whether or not we want this happening in our name. Ask any soldier who has gone through SERE training if waterboarding is torture or not, and then ask yourself if we can let these crimes go unpunished. You can also read this great piece by Glenn Greenwald about the report and the rise in the number of people wanting to do something about it.

The gist of Greewald's piece is that if we hear these reports, recognize their importance, and fail to act, then we have failed to uphold the social contract and the Constitution. If we don't act, we're saying it's ok for our leaders to act with impunity. The actions of this administration are becoming far too apparent to be ignored for much longer. So since the likelihood of action before Janurary 20 is quite minimal, I'd say we need to start gearing up for action aimed at the new administration.

Shameless self promotion ahead--- One thing you can do is check out my Cafe Press shop and get some gear for battle. I've made a simple shirt with a simple message: Indict.

Of course, all money I raise is going back into this blog, hopefully to boost usability and to add new tools. But if nothing else, to get it in good working order. We can't be scared to fund independent media.

After all, as Bill Moyers stated, "Democracy only works when ordinary people claim it as their own." That's the ethos of this blog, the new media movement, and this movement to see justice served to those in positions of power that feel they are above the law.

Looking for Thoughts on Participatory Politics

2008-12-17T10:51:00.006-05:00

The election of Barack Obama means change...in certain areas. Yes he selected "More of the same" for most of his cabinet posts. Yes, his economic recovery package looks like the Newer Deal.

But one thing is for certain; Barack Obama has consistently been the strongest advocate for empowering average citizens through technology and the internet. His solid position on Net Neutrality serves as the best example. Obama has already started using Change.gov as a forum for discussion. I'm interested to see how his administration will push this forward, how they will take in info and tips from across the country, how they will aggregate it, etc etc.

The best place to look will most likely be outside of Obama's government webpages for the time being. I'm on the hunt for the best tools and webpages that aid participatory politics. I'm looking for the sites that best act as a forum and aggregate debates in particular Congressional Districts. I'm looking for sites that best empower the citizens and build a large enough base to demand attention from Congress and the Obama Administration.

Here's a couple decent sites I've found so far:

Open Congress friend me, User Name: Zepickens
Our Presidency Friend me: Zepickens
I also use Digg, User Name: Zepickens

What I see emerging is a new, more democratic platform where citizens can contact their representatives, have debates in their communities, and be more engaged and connected to the issues that are effecting the lives of others in their community.

Give me some feedback here.

Happy Buy Nothing Day!

2008-11-28T10:34:00.003-05:00

Press release from Adbusters on Buy Nothing Day, the international day of resistance to consumer culture:

BUY NOTHING DAY ORGANIZERS
CONFRONT THE ECONOMIC MELTDOWN HEAD ON

Now in its 17th year, Buy Nothing Day is celebrated every November by environmentalists, social activists and concerned citizens in over 65 countries around the world. Over the years, Buy Nothing Day (followed by Buy Nothing Christmas) has exploded into a global movement, inspiring the world’s citizens to live more simply and buy a whole lot less.

Designed to coincide with Black Friday (which this year falls on Friday, November 28) in the United States, and the unofficial start of the international holiday shopping season (Saturday, November 29), the festival takes many shapes, from relaxed family outings, to free, non-commercial street parties, to politically charged public protests, credit-card cut-ups and pranks and shenanigans of all kinds. Anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending.

Featured by such media giants as CNN, USA Today, MSNBC, Wired, the BBC, The Age and the CBC, Buy Nothing Day has gained momentum in recent years as the climate crisis has driven people to seek out greener alternatives to unrestrained consumption.

This year, Buy Nothing Day organizers are confronting the economic meltdown head-on – asking citizens, policy makers and pundits to examine our economic crisis.

"If you dig a little past the surface you'll see that this financial meltdown is not about liquidity, toxic derivatives or unregulated markets, it's really about culture," says the co-founder of Adbusters Media Foundation, Kalle Lasn. "It's our culture of excess and meaningless consumption — the glorified spending and borrowing of the past decade that's at the root of the crisis we now find ourselves in."

Economic meltdown, together with the ecological crisis of climate change could be the beginning of a major global cultural shift — the dawn of a new age: the age of Post-Materialism.

"A simpler, pared-down lifestyle – one in which we're not drowning in debt – may well be the answer to this crisis we're in," says Lasn. "Living within our means will also make us happier and healthier than we’ve been in years."

Do what you can to spread the the BND message this year. Blog it, up-vote it on Digg, or slap a poster on a wall. This could be the breakthrough year when the heavy consumers of the world finally get it.

Warm regards,

The Adbusters Team

Warner on the Future of America

2008-11-08T18:07:00.003-05:00

Consider this piece Judith Warner just wrote on generations past and present, and the election. This is great stuff.

Looking Forward, From a Different Conservative Perspective

2008-11-07T10:22:00.002-05:00

David Brooks sums up my expectations for the next administration pretty well. He expects a smart, well reasoned administration to buckle down and do what is right for the country, not wage ideological wars:

Walking into the Obama White House of my dreams will be like walking into the Gates Foundation. The people there will be ostentatiously pragmatic and data-driven. They’ll hunt good ideas like venture capitalists. They’ll have no faith in all-powerful bureaucrats issuing edicts from the center. Instead, they’ll use that language of decentralized networks, bottom-up reform and scalable innovation.

This is, of course, a much different 'conservative' opinion than those being expressed on Townhall.com, Redstate.com, or Rush Limbaugh's radio program. Limbaugh yesterday continued to push the language of fear, affirming that what we do not know about Obama (what IS that exactly?) will scare us to death.

For what it's worth, credit where credit is due-- Sean Hannity gave a gracious and mature congratulations to President-elect Obama at the beginning of his radio show Wednesday afternoon. I respect the man a little more because of it. I wish I could find audio of it...

It's OVER!

2008-11-05T10:20:00.003-05:00

Now we wait and see what the Democrats will do with their mandate. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi say change has come to Washington, but it's in THEIR laps now. It doesn't get any easier today.

Regardless, I'm a pretty happy guy.

Barack Obama as Straw Man, Part Three: What about the Future?

2008-11-03T16:48:00.004-05:00

What does all this talk of racism and false accusations about Barack Obama’s upbringing and religion really matter? Can’t we agree that tempers flare during national elections? Didn’t the same happen to George Bush in 2000 and 2004? But the difference is in people’s expectations for the coming four-year administration. Their expectations are implied in their accusations.

When Barack Obama is called a terrorist or a Muslim (read terrorist), the expectations are clear—he stands against everything that Americans value. Who could possibly want to elect a president who secretly plans to destroy the state, or allow his co-terrorist/Muslims do it for him? If we are to heed the warnings of George W. Bush, we will know that there is no negotiating with terrorists. They are incapable of rational thinking. End of discussion. But what if a terrorist/Muslim were to find a way to be elected president of the United States? The prospects for good governance are presented with a major obstacle.

When I talked to a few people in Ohio this past week, I did get a few (off camera) statements about the prospects of an Obama presidency. One man kept it short and sweet. I simply asked him; “What does an Obama presidency look like to you?” His one word answer; “Scary.” This was the same man that started our conversation by mentioning that Barack Obama’s birth records had secretly been sealed by the governor of Hawaii, to protect the truth that he was actually born in Kenya. This is the same man that said he crossed party lines to vote for Hillary Clinton to be a part of Rush Limbaugh’s primary season “Operation Chaos.”

This man is not alone. With so much vitriol being aimed at Barack Obama it raises a serious question about the next four years. What if perosn is elected president who is accused of not only sympathizing, but also being friends with terrorists? What if we elect a president that is suspected to secretly be Muslim and a potential terrorist sleeper cell? What does this say about our government and democratic system?

Glenn Loury summed it up well on Bill Moyers Journal on Friday:

“Should Obama win, now you have a president of the United States who a lot of people think is illegitimate as a person who consorts with murderers, as a person who's sympathetic to terrorists. It's de-legitimating of the president of the United States. It's poisoning the well in a certain way.

You do what you have to do to win an election. But then after the election the person has to govern. And now what has been said about that person continues to echo in the minds of citizens. And I'm worried that in this case the suggestion that Obama is somehow going to get in the White House and, you know, sell out the country will hurt all of us should he win and need to govern.”

This goes beyond misguided policy and hypocritical statements. This goes beyond cynical politics and feelings of helplessness on the part of the electorate. This is not just election year hyperbole. This strikes at the heart of the credibility of our government and our leaders' ability to solve the porblems with the economy and two wars. Not only in Barack Obama's ability to govern, but in the legitimacy of the US presidency and our democratic process.

Those that choose these lines of attack are sowing the seeds of hate that will have lasting effects long after the campaign ends. Just ask Bill Clinton about campaign 'hyperbole' in the case of Vince Foster. That didn't just go away. But of course we're talking about a line of attack that goes deeper than a shady suicde. We're talking about one man's quest to tank the most powerful nation on earth.

This campaign got ugly in october, but the sentiments had been there all along. Now as we wait to see the results tomorrow night, we cannot pretend as if all of the hate speech, myths, and flat out lies will just disappear. We don't know what will happen if Barack Obama is elected president, but we know what we have to do to fight racism and dangerous lies in our communities. Many with prejudice and dangerous beliefs have shown their true colors during this election. Now we must continue to stand up to them and fight back as we try to change this country for the better.

If Obama Was Elected...

2008-11-03T16:32:00.001-05:00

Cheers to American News Project and The Real News Network for this one.

It's Out There

2008-11-01T10:53:00.006-04:00

I saw this sign in the front yard of an apartment building in Mansfield yesterday. It was in plain sight, painted with the same star and crescent on both sides. The implications of this are perfectly clear. This isn't vandalism. This isn't a "Muslims for Obama" sign. This doesn't represent all Obama haters or conservatives. But it is being tacitly accepted by all those in the apartment building and their neighbors. Something to think about.

UPDATE:

I saw this yard sign on Thursday and was quick to snap a picture of it. It had obviously been placed there with intent to inform and persuade. I went back on Friday to see if it was still in the yard and sure enough, still there.

I talked to a woman who lives across the street from this building. I asked her if she knew who put the sign in the yard. She said she did—there was a lady who lived in the front apartment. She called the woman “crazy” and a “lesbian”... That aside, I asked her if she knew what was painted on the sign. She said no, she thought some kids had just painted on it. I explained that it was an Islamic star and crescent. She looked at me with wide eyes and quickly glanced at her two children.

She informed me that at one time there had been three similar signs in the front yard of this apartment building. They had stayed there for a few weeks before the landlord pulled them out. The landlord apparently forgot one. This one had remained in the yard unchallenged for weeks...

Myth and the Election, The Candidates Compared

2008-10-31T12:07:00.001-04:00

Every election year undoubtedly brings out the worst in some people. Tempers flare as politicos of all stripes gear up for battle with an arsenal of half-truths, gotcha attacks, and accusations of the evils to come if one’s opponent is elected. In this age of blogging, Youtube, and rapid information exchange, these rumors, myths, and flat-out lies can whip around the country in record time, being emailed from family member to family member, to friend, to colleague.

Unfortunately, one expects questionable politics during a campaign. But to what degree? How far do the attacks and character assassinations and crackpot theories go? Can we say anything about the electorate based on the myths they read and pass on to their friends and family? If the amount of web traffic and written content on the web is any indicator of what voters are talking about this election year, the level of attacks lobbed at Senator Barack Obama is astoundingly larger than those aimed at John McCain. Not only are there more attacks in volume, but the attacks are more vitriolic and damning. With some simple Google searches, we get a good picture of what kind of myths are being spread about the two candidates.

Despite the relative novelty of a candidate for US president being called a Muslim and a terrorist, Obama is not alone in his seeming attractiveness as the target for conspiracy theories and myths. As could be expected in an environment where the freedom of speech is gleefully upheld to dizzying degrees on the Internet, a few myths float around blogs and information sites about John McCain. The most prominent myth involves John McCain as the ‘Manchurian Candidate.’ According to this myth, like the popular book and movie from the 1960s, John McCain was brainwashed during his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. The Communist interrogators were able to crack McCain and install in him the psychological triggers the Communists need to take down the United States government from the inside out.

We have two comparable myths of presidential candidates with secret agendas. In one, the candidate is a Muslim terrorist sleeper cell. In the other, the candidate is a hidden weapon for the enemy. But these myths differ in volume and widespread acceptance.

If we look at Google search terms as an indicator of the volume of discussion and debate on these topics, we see a clear difference between the two. A Google search for the phrase “‘John McCain’ ‘Manchurian Candidate’” yields 144,000 search results. A Google search for the phrase “’Barack Obama’ Muslim” yields more than 10 million search results. If the contrast in volume of discussion on these topics isn’t enough, the content of the top forty search results for each myth is even more telling.

In the case of Barack Obama, the formula is pretty clear and predictable. Barack Obama’s detractors, for racial or political reasons (exploiting racist sentiments), accuse Obama of being a secret Muslim (as if that were a crime). They say he will be sworn in on the Koran, take direction from Saudi Arabia, and bring down the United States from the inside out. The top forty Google search results are a mixture of webpages spreading this myth or webpages denying it while giving the facts—Barack Obama is not a Muslim terrorist sleeper cell.

Those that propagate this myth of the Manchurian Candidate do so from a different perspective. The majority of top forty Google search results for “’John McCain’ ‘Manchurian Candidate’” were from anti-globalism blogs and information sites that fear John McCain will bring on a one-world government. Furthermore, they appear to be motivated by discontent with John McCain’s position in the POW-MIA community, saying he was a weak prisoner of war and stands against their interests on POW-MIA issues in Congress. While equally ridiculous, this myth is not being propagated by McCain’s political opposition (political leftists and liberals), but instead by those even further to the right of the Senator.

The role of myth in the Presidential election gets even more interesting if we consider the issue of birth certificates. But here, instead of a situation where both myths may have been grounded in some very small element of truth--Barack Obama’s father was born a Muslim, John McCain was a prisoner of war like the characters depicted in The Manchurian Candidate—the issue of birth certificates is incomparable. Barack Obama was born in the United States and John McCain was born in Panama.

Briefly, the myths follow a similar pattern to the previously-stated accusations. Obama needs to release his ‘real’ birth certificate so America can see that either he is not a US citizen, or that he has a different mother and father. Again, this is fueled by the assumption that Obama could very well have faked his way into natural born US citizen status to further his political goals. Again, the top webpage results authors are conservatives that seek to discredit Obama or Obama’s political defenders. The Google search for “’Barack Obama’ ‘birth certificate’” yields 343,000 results. Again, these webpages are continuing to be authored to this day, despite the Obama Campaign having released Obama’s birth records.

In the case of John McCain, we see something different. The Google search for “’John McCain’ ‘birth certificate’” yields 111,000 results. These webpages almost entirely date back to the Republican primaries in January and February of 2008. The fact is John McCain was born in Panama while his father was serving in the United States Navy. Congress passed a non-binding resolution to validate John McCain as a natural-born citizen of the United States hoping to avoid a legal challenge to his candidacy. In the end, all debate over John McCain’s birth certificate centered around a legitimate question about his status as a natural-born citizen of the United States—an issue that was resolved and dropped almost a year ago.

So while this election has made a lot of tempers flare, we have to think about the magnitude of the accusations being thrown at the two candidates. While one might think that both candidates would see equally ridiculous myths and conspiracies being spread to their detriment, it has been Barack Obama’s campaign that has had to endure the most, and the most damning. The question is whether the vilification will stop on November 5th, or continue right on through an Obama Administration’s first four years. And if so, to what effect?

Barack Obama as Straw Man, Part Two: 'We Still Don't Know the Real Barack Obama'

2008-10-30T10:10:00.005-04:00

If the suspicion surrounding the early days of Barack Obama's candidacy weren't bad enough, the fact that the 'stranger' card is still being played is puzzling, if not suspect. Some of the nastiest rumors about Barack Obama started in the earliest days of his campaign, at a time when most people truly did not know about his family life, his home life, or his political life. Rumors can fester quite easily when a candidate is fresh on the scene. But the fact that these rumors are still being stoked by the insinuations of very prominent conservative writers and politicians gives one pause.

After nearly two years of vetting and investigative reporting, columnists like Charles Krathammer still make the following statements in his August 29 piece, Self-Made Man or Mysterioius Stranger?:

“The oddity of [the Democratic National Convention] is that its central figure is the ultimate self-made man, a dazzling mysterious Gatsby. The palpable apprehension is that the anointed is a stranger -- a deeply engaging, elegant, brilliant stranger with whom the Democrats had a torrid affair. Having slowly woken up, they see the ring and wonder who exactly they married last night."

Barack Obama is a cunning outsider with unclear motivations, as the Gatsby metaphor goes.

Thomas Sowell has simialrly, and more recently made similar arguments about Obama's character and readiness to lead while making this statement about what we know of the man. Starting the piece by calling Obama a 'phony' and 'dangerous,' he states:

“Of the four people running for President and Vice President on the Republican and Democratic tickets, the one we know the least about is the one leading in the polls-- Barack Obama.”

Sowell goes on to make historical comparisons of people putting faith in inspiring leaders sush as Jim Jones, Hitler, and Communist Russia. Again despite alomst two years on the campaign trail, in the public spotlight, Barack Obama is being called a mysterious man with questionable motives.

Just one week ago, Victor Davis Hanson continued to push the meme, calling Barack Obama an 'enigma' and 'the most unknown presidential candidate in its history."

Of course, calling a candidate unknown is not negative, per se. But these allegations fly in the face of two years of hard campaigning in which Barack Obama has opened up his life, political and personal, to public scrutiny. All of his policy positions are publicly available and backed up with experience where applicable. He has even established a website to fight smears about his person, releasing his birth certificate and giving more intimate details of his life to stop operations at the rumor mill. All the information these columnists need is out there.

The problem arises when an environment exists like today's. When so many myths about Barack Obama float across the worldwide web and and are passed in conversation from neighbor to neighbor, a prominent columnist can easily stoke the flames by making such adamant claims about what we know and do not know about a man. These articles have been relatively inspecific in detailing where they would like more information from the Obama campaign. Instead they make blanket statements where many readers are able to fill in the blanks.

So maybe John McCain isn't wrong to ask, "Who is the real Barack Obama?" But when the answer is screamed to his face--"Terrorist!"-- we know where some people's minds are. And we know why continuing to claim that Obama is an unknown, a stranger, an outsider, is dangerous.

This leads me to my next topic of the prospects for the next four years and how an Obama presidency will be received. Stay tuned.

More From Keystone Progress

2008-10-30T09:34:00.001-04:00

Barack Obama as Straw Man, Part One

2008-10-28T14:52:00.002-04:00

Over the next week, before the election, I will be writing about the phenomena of Barack Obama as “Straw Man”. People across the country witnessed the inexcusable behavior of many McCain/Palin supporters at rallies throughout October. I was appalled to see the level of demonization and “otherizing” of Barack Obama, as he was called a “terrorist,” a “Muslim,” an “Arab,” a “socialist,” and a turncoat. Gov. Palin herself accused Obama of “palling around with terrorists” and McCain constantly asked about the “real Barack Obama.”

I say Obama is being demonized and otherized in all seriousness. The accusations being made about Obama are deeply personal and dehumanizing. Research I’ve performed and read concludes that “otherizing”—or making an opponent a member of an outgroup—is necessary to rationally vilify an opponent. Dehumanizing an opponent takes away any predisposition to expect reason and logic from an opponent. When an opponent is dehumanized, compromise and empathy are impossible, as the opponent is not capable of meeting this gesture in kind.

But this otherizing is predicated, to an alarming extent, on exaggerated relationships and policy positions, blatant lies, and elaborate baseless conspiracy theories. The Barack Obama the right otherizes is a Straw Man. It is a fabrication that has been blown up to extreme proportions by an extremely large percentage of the right.

From the beginning, it appeared to be Obama’s ‘outsider’ status as a young, new Senator that fueled a lot of the initial myths. People did not know Barack Obama. They did not know where he had been in his life, who he had known, who he had worked with, or who gave him advise. Of course, the continuation of this myth about Obama being unknown, mysterious, and a ‘stranger’ is my motivation for writing today. The fact that these myths have been continuously spread about Obama this close to the election can only be seen as a deliberate campaign to discredit the man.

Below is the original email my father sent me way back in the Spring of 2007, when conspiracy theorists could easily breed on a population of voters that simply did not know who Barack Obama was For the record, my father does not actually believe the accusations that follow:

Who is Barack Obama?

Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in

Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black Muslim from

Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white atheist from Wichita,Kansas.

Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii.

When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya.

His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a radical Muslim from Indonesia.

When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia.

Obama attended a Muslim school in Jakarta.

He also spent two years in a Catholic school.

Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim.

He Is quick to point out that, "He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school."

Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this influence was temporary at best.

In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya Soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over His son's education.

Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam.

Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta. Wahabism is the radical teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world. Since it is politically expedient to be a Christian when seeking Major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background.

Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy.

Please forward to everyone you know. The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level.

In my next post, I'm going to expand on how these myths have been promoted and used in conservative discourse on Barack Obama and ask why it continues today. After two years of vetting as a presidential candidate, some prominent conservatives are still using racist insinuations to attack Barack Obama--but the Barack Obama they attack is nothing but a Straw Man as these politicos gear up for four years of entrenched disagreement with the Democratic president.

Later, I’m going to explore a simple case of most-comaparable cases. Given John McCain’s status as a foreign born (albeit to a US military family) citizen and prisoner of war in Vietnam, why haven’t accusations about John McCain’s past been circulating around the internet blogs and newsrooms across the country? I’ll take a look at the volume of equally ridiculous myths about the lives of Barack Obama and John McCain and ask why we see such a difference.

I fly to Akron tomorrow and will begin adding video and written accounts from then on.

Traveling to Ohio

2008-10-23T11:11:00.003-04:00

This woman is part of the reason...

I'm heading back to Ohio next Wednesday to do some campaigning for Obama.

Also, I'll be writing some pieces and recording interviews with people about their experiences with blatant racism, false accusations about Obama's family life, and the prospects for the next four years. I'll be writing more of my initial thoughts over the next couple of days.

Learning from the Past, Changing Approach

2008-10-13T12:08:00.002-04:00

I'm going to start keeping this blog again, but with a few new ground rules. When I was blogging before I found myself pressured to update it constantly, as if I was some center of news and information. This is ridiculous because I get most of my news from mainstream sources that anyone can access on Google News. I'm not doing myself or anybody else a service by regurgitating news that's very public. Where I can contribute is on new insights, ground-level reporting and analysis, and snark. So I'm going to be concentrating on these three things more and more.

I've always enjoyed writing longer op-ed style pieces and will continue to do so. Since I was an undergrad, writing for Ohio State University's student newspaper, The Lantern, I enjoyed editorializing and giving (hopefully) new perspectives. Now after a little training at GlobalVision and MediaChannel, and a new spirit of urgency and entrepreneurship I'm going to push this blog in a new direction. I'm mainly going to use it as a homebase for editorializing and reporting on issues such as race, media accountability, media and society, perceptions and politics, and a whole range of things Brian Williams will never be mentioning on the nightly news.

So don't expect constant news updates. But do expect posts with shameless self-promoting links to stories I've had posted elsewhere on the web.

Also, expect some video at some point...

So for now, let me get some comments on this blog, in terms of style--even the name, so I can get this thing going!

Sarah Palin: George W. Bush 2.0

2008-10-09T16:07:00.003-04:00

When Facebook dramatically changed its format last month, users were in an uproar. They either couldn’t or didn’t want to navigate the new format. How could they not be allowed to opt-out? Why couldn’t things just stay the same? Alas, the great wheel of progress rolls forward.

On November 4, voters will be faced with a similar dilemma. The current administration has expired. A new format will take place on January 20, 2009. But what hasn’t been articulated, at least thus far, is exactly what kind of an upgrade we’ll be getting. Senator Obama promises a totally new platform, a complete reboot. A Palin Vice Presidency offers something less dramatic, albeit no less violent: George Bush 2.0. By “2.0” of course I’m using internet-speak to say the second version. But, as in Web 2.0, the second version doesn’t just mean new, it means improved, updated, and expanded upon.

In this case we have George Bush, an underexperienced president that has failed us from day one while giving a wink to the American people and a cold shoulder to the world. George Bush 2.0 is fresh (With a new gender!), harder hitting and more galling (Now even more disrespect and arrogance!), more provincial (From deeper in the wilderness! With even less familial connection to the East Coast establishment!), and even more fundamentalist in Christian belief (Dinosaurs now only 6,000 years old!). Sarah Palin, my friends, is the George Bush that George Bush could only dream of being.

Barack Obama has been hammering John McCain as the new standard bearer of George Bush’s failed policies. Understandably, it is not in Senator Obama’s strategic interest to address the vice presidential candidate and acknowledge her as an equal. But, as her rally attendance numbers have shown, she is an energizing force in parts of the country where Senator McCain is simply seen as the least worst option. In the popular Governor Palin we have a politician that would not only carry out Bush’s policies with even more conviction, but would exceed all measures of ignorance and arrogance, something John McCain just hasn’t quite mastered.

The key to understanding George Bush 2.0 is to understand the failures of George Bush 1.0 (much to the chagrin of George Bush 2.0) and then adding flat out lies. George W. Bush had to learn foreign policy on the fly, while Al Gore sighed and tsk-tsked in the background. George Bush 2.0 takes it to the extreme by unabashedly defending the value of being able to see a foreign country from her home state. When asked to defend the claim that her position as commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard, McCain aides and Palin cannot site one specific example of a decision Gov. Palin has had to make. Most importantly, after defending her position as a government reformer over and over based on her stance against the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska, it was revealed that she in fact fully supported the bridge until the funding had been retracted by the US Congress. Not only does she not have the experience, like Bush 1.0, but she will blatantly lie and stretch the truth on tangential examples of her preparedness to lead.

She’s not lying about her smalltown life in Alaska, as her lack of international travel can attest to. This is completely acceptable and not to be mocked. But she may be cynically playing up her down home, folksy language for political gains. Compare her gubernatorial debates in Alaska in 2006 to her Vice Presidential debate with Joe Biden last week. In her gubernatorial debates she is professional, stern, and while not always on topic, eloquent. She presents a serious face, ready to take on serious challenges. In her Vice Presidential debate, she uses the word ‘darn’ three times in the first ten minutes. She winked more often than she gave a straight answer to a question. It’s as if she and the American people were a part of one big inside joke that Senator Biden and Gwen Ifill just didn’t get. One might reasonably expect that if Gov. Palin can be so professional in her role as gubernatorial candidate, she might equally rise to the occasion for an unarguably more important job interview as Vice Presidential candidate.

The new George Bush 2.0 has a disdain for history and level of disrespect for facts that was unimaginable under the beta version. On multiple occasions she has disparaged Senators Obama and Biden for pointing fingers at the Bush administration while they campaign on forward-looking platform of change. While certainly resisting exploding into laughter during the Vice Presidential debate, Senator Biden simply said, “Look, ‘Past is Prologue,’ Gwen.” Obviously studying history is too elitist for Bush 2.0. But since Bush 2.0 is such a populist, surely she saw The Dark Knight this summer, along with millions of other Americans. At a crucial moment in the psychological adventure that is Bruce Wayne, a young Wayne is schooled by his father, “Why do we fall? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

The fact is, for every time Bush 1.0 has proven his incompetence in the past, Bush 2.0 will be there in the future to not only carry it out, but also defend it. For every ounce of make-believe cowboy in George 1.0, there’s a real-life moose hunter in Bush 2.0. For every media blockade in the Bush 1.0 Administration, there will be a snarky, condescending attack on the media from Bush 2.0. Palin has proven herself to be more genuinely incompetent, less well-read, more condescending and cynical, and less prepared to lead than the administration that preceded her.

So when McCain and Palin’s “Brownie” starts doing a “heckuva job”, at least we won’t be surprised. We’ll have to take it as a genuine statement. We’ll also know exactly what we got ourselves into.

UPDATE: David Brooks gets it perfectly

Unbelievable

2008-10-09T15:24:00.002-04:00

Thanks to MorrillMajority for this footage. Wow. This is really unbelievable stuff.

No Slave Around the Internets

2008-07-30T15:13:00.000-04:00

Here's links to my work on the "Obama is My Slave" t-shirt guy on different sites around the web:

Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/20/10491/

Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/92807/jack_ass_designer_creates_racist_attack_on_obama%2C_charges_%2469_dollars/#comments

Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zachary-pickens/standing-up-to-low-down-l_b_115725.html

MediaChannel: http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2008/07/23/no-slave-to-the-racism-of-others/

Op-Ed News: http://www.opednews.com/articles/No-Slave-to-the-Racism-of--by-Zachary-Pickens-080718-591.html

No Slave to the Racism of Others

2008-07-21T14:58:00.000-04:00

Race—specifically the race of Senator Barack Obama—has been a subtext of this Presidential election cycle from the beginning. At first, we were unsure if Obama was “black enough” due to his mixed race family, having a white mother from Kansas and a non-African American father from Kenya. Then we heard “Barack the Magic Negro” and allegations of Michelle Obama calling someone “Whitey.” We heard that Obama’s candidacy is a conscious act of affirmative action by millions of disconnected voters all over the country. We heard that Obama’s pastor is a racist and that reverse racism is the real issue in this campaign.

All this underscores a true insecurity in this country about race and the relations between white and black communities. If race were no issue, a black man would run for president, submit his policy positions and promises, and be elected or rejected. Instead all news, all statements, are now pouring through the filter of race before entering the mainstream of democracy.

But the saddest parts of this situation are the instances of blatant racism that have emerged in our own communities that have gone unchallenged. Posters we have seen with our own eyes, racial slurs spoken about Obama we have heard with our own ears, false accusations have been allowed to stand unchallenged by those that know the truth.

Last summer, I remember talking with a professor of mine who said that Obama would never get elected because America was not ready for a black leader. He said the campaign of a black man would bring out the worst in the racist white supremacists and nationalists in this country. The reality of a black candidate would bring race to the fore and force us to confront it. I said I was ready for that. I said I want to see clearly who stands in that camp so we know who to approach with the light of truth.

My first personal contact with this blatant racism came yesterday upon hearing about a particular clothing designer on Manhattan’s Lower East Side who sells t-shirts that read, “Obama is my Slave.” The designer, Doron Braunshtein aka Apollo Braun, has also made shirts that read “Obama= Hitler” and “Who Killed Obama?” If this is an attempt to shock and to gain publicity, it has served the designer’s goal through numerous blog posts and news articles, many written in a tone of outrage. The “Obama is My Slave” t-shirt had gained publicity after it was reported that a woman wearing the t-shirt had been assaulted by a group of black teenage girls at Union Square.

After reading the news and blog accounts, I went down to this man’s shop to confirm the story. I did not go as a journalist. I went as a concerned citizen that wanted some answers. I walked through the main entrance where an “Obama is my Slave” t-shirt was proudly displayed and asked him if the story was true. Did a woman really get assaulted at Union Square for wearing his “Obama is My Slave” t-shirt? Yes, unfortunately it was true, he said. The two women customers in the shop cooed with sympathy for the poor t-shirt designer. I asked him if he understood why someone would react that way. He says it doesn't matter because "this is America." I ask him if there is no responsibility attached to the freedom of speech and he gives me the same spiel. I then tell him I think his shirt is disgusting and he should be ashamed of himself. That was my freedom of speech on display. The women looked shocked.

That's when he boots me out of his store. He points to the camera and says I need to watch myself, and that I should never show my face again in his store. I just say I'm not here to do anything but register my protest, and tell him that there are plenty of other people that are going to do exactly the same.

I didn't fight with him and, in fact, the conversation was rather civilized. But the fact is clear that his stated dedication to the first amendment does not include the inside of his shop.

The designer has been accused of the high crime of irony in designing this particular t-shirt and selling it for $69. Ahh, the irony of a young, white child of privilege stating his independence from the racism of the past by wearing a shirt that boldly puts that aspirational black man in his place ;). Oh how funny the wearer’s progressive friends will find a shirt that is so backwards.

The true irony of the situation is that as I left his shop I saw a poster promoting hip-hop artist Nas’s new album. The cover art shows Nas with back turned, showing the scars of a slave master’s whip. Not twenty feet away from this cowardly shop is a clear sign to all those would-be purchasers of racist garb: We have not forgotten.

Racial issues are not “over.” They are not resolved. Those “scars” still remain in the minds of every black person that’s ever been discriminated against, feared unjustly, or torn down to dirt with racial slurs. To act as if they don’t exist is to not know the pain of injustice.

But we have to go further. To allow blatant racism to continue unquestioned, under the guise of free speech, is unacceptable. To act with complacency is to act with complicity. Never let your freedom to tell racists that they are hurting our country go to waste. Stand up to these displays of gall and say no, not in my community. Race is still an issue and no level of ignorance and inaction on the part of the unaffected will improve the lives of the victims of hate.

You can personally express your desire to see these t-shirts removed from Braun’s store at 193 Orchard Street, New York, NY 10002. You may also call him at 212-726-8075. His hours of operation are 12PM to 10PM, seven days a week. He’ll most likely be there in person selling his wares.

--

2006-12-21T17:56:00.002-05:00

XENOPHOBIA

2006-03-13T02:02:00.000-05:00

Now honestly, who knows all the details about this "ports deal" anyways? It seems everybody had an opinion. "Oh God no we can't give the ports to a foreign company!!" But they're run by a foreign company, a British company. "But, what about national security??" Well, what about it? How does anything change when these people come in? What, oh cause a couple hijackers were from the UAE? Oh, that makes sense, ya know cause every time an American does something stupid in Europe, we blame Bush right? Well, some may... but the point is that it's entirely illogical, and politically motivated.

But here's the best part of this article:

The ironic fact is that the UAE is precisely the kind of Arab ally the United States needs most now. But that clearly didn't matter to an election-year Congress, which responded to the Dubai deal with a frenzy of Muslim-bashing disguised as concern about terrorism. And we wonder why the rest of the world doesn't like us.

Are we really that stupid as a nation to think that the UAE is just "another Arab nation"? I mean, are we really stereotyping that bad at this point? This is disgusting. This is the state in the Middle East we should be praising, and tripping over ourselves to court them.

Thomas Friedman called it xenophobia disguised as a "national security" issue. If you really want to break it down, there are probably three layers. The core is protectionism. This is the true core of much of the Democratic opposition. The middle layer is xenophobia. The outer shell that everybody has been spoon-fed is national security. Bull shit. We've been told over and over again that the ports aren't that safe to begin with. The Dubai-based company is in the business of making money. When they look at America, they do not see brown and white. They see GREEN. Thomas Friedman also said now is not the time to start looking for Arabs under your bed like you looked for Commies during the Cold War... The situation is no good, but the only glimmer of hope is that this ends up just being politics and not anything people actually believe to their core.

Just a Small Bit of News to Think About

2006-03-11T12:11:00.000-05:00

Abu Ghraib is being closed, which is good. But this news bit is kind of an aside. I was reading the New York Times article about the man in this picture. Ali Shalal Qaissi is his name and he's now speaking out in the name of prisoners like himself. Of course he's hooded in the picture and we can't confirm his identity. So what did the reporters do? They called up Uncle Sam and asked for confirmation... But they didn't get it. "Why not?," you may ask:

A spokesman for the American military in Iraq declined to comment, saying it would violate the Geneva Conventions to disclose the identity of prisoners in any of the Abu Ghraib photographs, just as it would to discuss the reasons behind Mr. Qaissi's detention.

No further comments.

Missing the Point

2006-03-08T15:09:00.000-05:00

The GOP today has announced an agreement with the White House on legislation iniating Congressional oversight for the domestic wire-tapping program. Now the Congress gets their fingers in the program and warrantless wire-tapping would continue for up to 45 days. This is totally missing the point of many people's apprehension about the program. No, we weren't calling for another layer of bureaucracy on Capitol Hill. No we weren't asking Congress to try and allay our fears by getting involved (because we all know we can sleep safely at night knowing the oh-so-helpful Congress is on the little man's side here). I just want the law enforced. I want Bush to get warrants. I don't want a secret committee hearing that nobody knows about for 10 years to be the on;y oversight for a program that can continue on warrant-free. I want to make sure Bush is following the law and that's it.

"The measure would require the administration to seek a warrant from the
court whenever possible."

Right...

Say What You Will About NPT...

2006-03-02T09:18:00.000-05:00

(Sorry to Steve Bell of the Guardian for ripping off his cartoons all the time)President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Singh have announced a landmark deal, giving India access to American nuclear fuel. Now we can certainly bitch about NPT and the seeming hypocracy of our actions as we row against Iran's nuclear ambitions, but let's be honest. We need India on our side. This is not the Cold War anymore and India knows it. They have to start alligning themselves, albeit in a much more fluid fashion. Every step we take closer to eachother is nothing but an improvement of our long-term security interests in the region. We have every right to bitch, but I don't even care.

Furthermore, we need to honestly consider the implications for NPT. Yes, we are turning a blind eye to India's nuclear weapons program, just as we have always done. But consider this; India has agreed to let international inspectors in for the first time. 14 of their 22 facilities are now under inspection. This is almost like NPT by another name. Bush called it the "non-proliferation team," not a signing member but an adherent. This is still a step in the right direction, is it not?

Fukuyama on Neoconservatism

2006-02-19T15:51:00.000-05:00

Here is a great, albeit long, piece written by IR scholar Francis Fukuyama. He has been associated with the neoconservative camp for some time now, but has broken ranks in the wake of the Iraq war. Here's a couple highlights:

The so-called Bush Doctrine that set the framework for the administration's first term is now in shambles. The doctrine (elaborated, among other places, in the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States) argued that, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, America would have to launch periodic preventive wars to defend itself against rogue states and terrorists with weapons of mass destruction; that it would do this alone, if necessary; and that it would work to democratize the greater Middle East as a long-term solution to the terrorist problem. But successful pre-emption depends on the ability to predict the future accurately and on good intelligence, which was not forthcoming, while America's perceived unilateralism has isolated it as never before. It is not surprising that in its second term, the administration has been distancing itself from these policies and is in the process of rewriting the National Security Strategy document.

----

The most basic misjudgment was an overestimation of the threat facing the United States from radical Islamism. Although the new and ominous possibility of undeterrable terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction did indeed present itself, advocates of the war wrongly conflated this with the threat presented by Iraq and with the rogue state/proliferation problem more generally. The misjudgment was based in part on the massive failure of the American intelligence community to correctly assess the state of Iraq's W.M.D. programs before the war. But the intelligence community never took nearly as alarmist a view of the terrorist/W.M.D. threat as the war's supporters did. Overestimation of this threat was then used to justify the elevation of preventive war to the centerpiece of a new security strategy, as well as a whole series of measures that infringed on civil liberties, from detention policy to domestic eavesdropping.

----

But the overarching lesson that emerges from these cases is that the United States does not get to decide when and where democracy comes about. By definition, outsiders can't "impose" democracy on a country that doesn't want it; demand for democracy and reform must be domestic. Democracy promotion is therefore a long-term and opportunistic process that has to await the gradual ripening of political and economic conditions to be effective.
The Bush administration has been walking indeed, sprinting away from the legacy of its first term, as evidenced by the cautious multilateral approach it has taken toward the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea. Condoleezza Rice gave a serious speech in January about "transformational diplomacy" and has begun an effort to reorganize the nonmilitary side of the foreign-policy establishment, and the National Security Strategy document is being rewritten. All of these are welcome changes, but the legacy of the Bush first-term foreign policy and its neoconservative supporters has been so polarizing that it is going to be hard to have a reasoned debate about how to appropriately balance American ideals and interests in the coming years. The reaction against a flawed policy can be as damaging as the policy itself, and such a reaction is an indulgence we cannot afford, given the critical moment we have arrived at in global politics.

One of his main arguments is that we must be careful not to retreat from the world as a reaction to failed neoconservative agenda. He proposes a "Wilsonian realism," where we work in non-military ways to promote our values but maintain a healthy skepticism of our own abilities and the intentions of others. Good stuff.

Vote Libertarian. What the Hell, Why Not?

2006-02-16T10:04:00.000-05:00

This is a money quote about politics, and it didn't take an expert to come up with this one. All it took was a human being. In reference to Minnessotta Libertarian Party candidate for governor, Sue Jeffers, one woman had this to say:

"What the hell," Eilers said, puffing on a cigarette outside the bar. "I voted for Jesse (Ventura). That was interesting. Let's keep it interesting."

I like that attitude a lot. Not to mention it does a lot to destroy rational choice theories of voting behavior... which is always a good thing.

The Key to Success in ALL World Politics

2006-02-16T09:48:00.000-05:00

Here is a good article about cultural training for Army troops in Afghanistan. It's good to see our military is making these changes. Hopefully it's more universal in the future.

Democrats= DOA

2006-02-08T10:04:00.000-05:00

This article was just everything I expected way too soon. I guess the dems have figured out that standing by and watching the opponent self-destruct is only half of the return to power. They forgot about the whole plan for change thing.

Asked to describe the health of the Democratic Party, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said: "A lot worse than it should be. This has not been a very good two months."
"We seem to be losing our voice when it comes to the basic things people worry about," Mr. Dodd said.

My God, I didn't know they had a voice. They say they haven't picked up much steam in the aftermath of such issues as the Abramoff affair, NSA wiretapping, or continued problems in Iraq. Just like 2004, they don't have any plans. Furthermore, on the Abramoff issue, they're as sunk as the GOP. Instead of a shrill cry for reform in the wake of that scandal, both sides were seen shedding their Abramoff dollars in an attempt to break any connections to his firm. When it comes to lobbyists, the Dems have nothing.

In the end, one Dem has figured it out at least:

Mr. Obama said the Democratic Party had not seized the moment, adding: "We have been in a reactive posture for too long. I think we have been very good at saying no, but not good enough at saying yes."

HA HA HA America

2006-01-30T20:15:00.000-05:00

Sundance Film Festival screened this short film about fat, lazy America. I actually think it's pretty funny. Not quite that worried about China yet, but don't let anyone tell you China will never rise to meet us... Let the Red, White, and Blue nationalism ooze out all over the MSM to combat this message of hate from Asia.

A Different View of Hamas

2006-01-30T11:47:00.000-05:00

***DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT IN ANY WAY SUPPORT THE PAST ACTIONS OF HAMAS OR AGREE WITH EITHER HAMAS' OR ISRAEL'S VIOLENT DIALOGUE***

That being said, Hamas' electoral victory deserves better treatment than has been given in much of the media. When the election results were announced on Thursday, Hannity was going nuts, saying the Palestinians were going to join forces with the Iranians and work towards eliminating Israel. The destruction of Israel, after all, is a part of Hamas' platform. But Netenyahu was on Hannity' show that day. He went on to say that the terror of Hamas was going to spread across Israel and then end up in America. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hamas is not leading a global jihad. They are fighting for their homeland. They have contained their violence in the past, when disagreements were much more heated.

In fact there is much historical evidence that the democratic process actually moderates many groups. Hamas is now accountable to all Palestinian people, not just their group members. They will be held responsible for any loss of aid or lack of services. They will be held responsible for international dealings. Furthermore, rhetoric should not be taken so seriously right now. The call for the destruction of Israel has been on the table for a long long time, whether in times of peace or war. A Guardian columnist put it this way:

Sheikh Ahmad Yassin...spelled it out long ago. We shall never recognise the theft of our land, he said, but we are willing to negotiate a ceasefire whose duration can be as a long as a generation, and let future generations on both sides decide where to go then. His ceasefire conditions are fully compatible with international law. Israel would have to give back what it occupied in 1967 - then without any Jewish settlements - and release all Palestinian prisoners. For that Hamas would halt its armed struggle and instead pursue peaceful means.
The IRA, whose leaders negotiated a deal with the British government, continues to dream of uniting Northern Ireland with the Republic; it was never a condition for the peace talks that they should first abandon that dream.
Well, let the Palestinians dream of the end of Israel and let the Israelis dream of Eretz Yisrael from the Nile to the Euphrates, but let's negotiate an end to the violence. Hamas alone is capable of that because Hamas will not give up the right of Palestinians to go back to the villages and towns from which the terrorists who stole their land drove them.

Obviously, this author has his bias, but that shouldn't detract from his main points. Peace is still possible. Political realitites will abound, putting restrictions on Hamas' actions. What's more, Hamas has only been in power for a number of days. Why should I automatically assume they are going to step up attacks on Israel? They ran on a domestic agenda all the way; end corruption, give the people the services they deserve. Israel was not their main campaign talking point. We need to continue to work with the freely elected leaders of the Palestinian territories. Did appeasement work for Hitler? Not at all. But we watched Hitler consolidate power. Hamas was just freely and fairly elected. There isn't an inkling of aggression in their posture right now.

But as an aside, if we need any reminder of what Hamas has done in the past, here ya go:

We're Pro-Democracy (as long as the elected are pro-U.S.)

2006-01-26T13:54:00.000-05:00

Well what to do now; Hamas, a group deemed a terrorist organization by our federal government, has won an overwhelming majority of seats in the recent Palestinian elections.

Georgetown Students

2006-01-24T20:03:00.000-05:00

Movie Notes

2006-01-22T00:22:00.000-05:00

I've been on a political conspiracy movie kick as of late. Not that this is out of the ordinary for me... but these happen to have been very excellent flicks that I want to recommend and reflect upon here.

The movies in question are The Constant Gardener, Munich, and Syriana. I just purchased The Constant Gardener on DVD, and saw Munich and Syriana in theaters. And yes before any conservatives start complaining about the obvious lefty-pinko-anti-corporate slant here, I'd just like to say I haven't heard the release date for Rush Limbaugh's response films. So until the day comes that the political thriller market is more fair and balanced, I'll stick with what we have.

The Constant Gardener left me asking if director Fernando Meirelles could ever go wrong. City of God, his first film, was incredible. Constant Gardener was far less violent, but Meirelles camera work really came through. I particularly like a scene in the beginning of the movie where Rachel Weitz's character confronts Ralph Feinnes, playing the British diplomat Justin Quayle, on his government's Iraq War policy. They are in a room of political activists and diplomats when Weitz levels a well-reasoned attack. She then slips into peacenik talking points and shout-down techniques that leave the audience groaning. The scene ends with everyone slowly peeling out of the room, as if quietly leaving her side, refusing to side with her anymore.

I think the point was timely, seeing as the film was released this past summer. Basically, I think this scene reflects the sentiment that the time to bitch about the war and pass it off as debate is long gone. People don't want to hear you bitch about the reasons for going to war anymore. We know it was wrong. Obviously fighting a war based on false pretenses and lies was not enough of an accountability issue for Americans to get Bush out of office. That's when the real bitching needed to go on. But now we're stuck with the motherfucker, so it's time to ask "What are we going to do to get our boys out of there and not leave a civil war in our wake?" This scene was a very small part of a movie not at all related to the war in Iraq, but I thought it was an interesting choice to throw into the film.

Munich was a very solid, very well-made film as well. I mean one can lose faith in Spielberg real quick when winners like A.I. and War of the Worlds get thrown at the masses as master works from a master filmmaker. Munich makes you ask, "How the hell did Spielberg make War of the Worlds?" So think about the Schindler's List Spielberg, not the E.T. Spielberg. This movie is packed with Palestine-Israel and Cold War insights, and gives us some very good points on terrorism and homeland. "Home is everything," says one of the characters. It's a pretty good way to sum up an entire 60 year conflict in three words. I highly recommend checking this one out.

Syriana... well, I mean there was some good stuff going on here. However, it didn't really close very well. It kind of left me saying, "That's it? That's the end?" I honestly didn't see the build-up, or climax or anything... Besides I really don't like Steven Soderbergh. I think he's kind of a tool, and I really hope his film on Che (soon to be released) bombs. If you want to see a good movie about Che that doesn't preach communism, but paints a beautiful picture of a person finding his life's calling, The Motorcycle Diaries is a much better flick. But that's beside the point.

I really would have liked to see a lot more out of George Clooney's character (based on CIA Agent Robert Baer) and seen the story of the mujahideen just removed. Soderbergh spent far too little time developing the terrorist Muslim school story, and instead relied clichés and myths to get by. The young Muslim gets fired from his job in a big-oil merger that eliminates his plant. We're left assuming the typical terrorist is a disgruntled, unemployed, poor radical. It's just not true. Furthermore, we don't see the rhetoric used to indoctrinate these kids. We didn't see the personal connections that many times must be made between the leader and the student. We're just left assuming all the students are sheep and are just in the martyr line. Very poor job on this part of the movie.

But it was very good at being matter-of-fact about the influence of these companies on governments and the role of money in politics (you can barely hear it on a TV set in the background of one scene). We're not told these companies are blatantly evil to the core and see it as their main goal to slowly kill your family. It's money. Money makes people bend the rules. It's not an excuse or an apology, it just shows us that, hey, money talks and no businessman that wants to remain in business would deny that. Worth seeing, but hardly as good as Munich and The Constant Gardener.

That's about all I have on those. I'm always up for suggestions for more good movies, so let me have 'em.

UPDATE: Here's a good interview with Spielberg about Munich. Seems he has been taking heat from all political sides for this film. Not the kind of controversy Close Encounters was able to foment.

Black Keys Special Shows

2006-01-22T00:19:00.000-05:00

Just a note to my Ohio people that the best band in Ohio will be playing in the three C's (Cinci, Columbus, Cleveland) late in February. Very very good band. Very very fun live. Check out their webpage to listen to some of their stuff and meet me at Cleveland's Agora Ballroom if you end up realizing it's time to rock out. Check out their homepage here.

On Datamining

2006-01-17T16:47:00.000-05:00

Nevermind the first part of this article's eerie similarities with my line of work, Russell Tice, the NSA whistleblower has some good stuff to say about the whole warrantless spying upon Americans thing:

REASON: Some polls suggest that most citizens aren't terribly concerned about these programs.
Tice: People think it's not going to affect them. They think it's against
the bad people, it's to protect our national security. Maybe it's against the
law, but it's just the bad people, just to keep the terrorist from blowing up my
neighborhood dam. But if those people find out it was hundreds of thousands or
millions, and they were swept up into it and the government was listening to
their conversation with their doctor.... Now all of a sudden it affects them
personally. Right now I don't think people see how it affects them. Though even
if it were just these few thousand people that have been talked about,
nonetheless it's wrong. There's no reason the two thousand warrants could not
have been done through the FISA court. The question is: Why wasn't it done?

That's right, I'm not a terrorist, so I have nothing to worry about right? Well the problem is sometimes it's kind of hard to get them to realize that when you are gagged and blind-folded in Gitmo.

And by the way, I haven't mentioned anything about this until now, but doesn't it say something about Bush's policy when he has to merely defend the legality of the program. He kept saying "I have the legal authority, I have the constitutional authority." As if to say, I didn't break any laws so of course I did nothing wrong. Well guess what, Clinton didn't do anything illegal until he lied under oath. Was what he did wrong in the eyes of most of his constituents?...

An Alternative Energy Solution

2006-01-17T15:26:00.000-05:00

Thanks to my roommate Rahul for this one. This guy has an interesting take on alternative energies.

Hahvad knows what's up

2006-01-12T10:06:00.000-05:00

Now if we can just get this kind of organization up and running in Athens... We'll see though. Sure there's plenty of pro-gun people down around the periphery of the city, but the evil-capitalist-whore vote doesn't seem to dominate on campus. Thanks to Hammer of Truth for bringing this one to all of our respective attentions.

Yulia!

2006-01-11T23:40:00.000-05:00

The shirt is cracking me up... but that's cause I'm a fuckin nerd.

Drunken Politics

2006-01-11T10:40:00.000-05:00

See, Senator Kennedy isn't so bad after all...

Haaretz on Sharon

2006-01-07T03:22:00.000-05:00

This pretty much sums up Sharon. I'm going to put it all right here:

Good-bye, giants of 1948

By Yoel Marcus

As these lines are being written, Ariel Sharon is fighting for his life. But you don't have to be a neurologist to know that his days in the Prime Minister's Office are over. As the last of the giants of the 1948 generation, Sharon has been a visible presence at every important and sensitive juncture in the chronicles of the state. As a soldier and a statesman, he was loved and hated, promoted and demoted. One day he was "king of Israel" and the next he was "a danger to the state." The man who was deemed unfit to be defense minister went on to become the "father of the nation." Sharon went through a process similar to Moshe Dayan, another member of the 1948 club who tended to view Arabs through a gunsight. Both were celebrated and resourceful generals. Both underwent a dramatic turnabout in their approach to the Palestinian problem later in life. Dayan came up with the idea of peace with Egypt, ran with it, and planted it in Menachem Begin's brain. He was the first to understand the limitations of

brute force and the need to use the occupied territories as cash for buying peace.

At that time, Sharon was a fierce hawk, the builder of the settlements, a master at manacling prime ministers who were extremists in their own right, like Yitzhak Shamir. Sharon's change of heart began when he slid into the driver's seat. Using the slogan "you see things from here that you don't see from there," he underwent a dramatic metamorphosis. It's hard to pinpoint the exact moment of transition. The common assumption is that as an illustrious general, he began to see that Israel had no answer to terror, and as a prime minister, flying back and forth to meet President Bush, he realized that Israel could not cut itself off from the family of nations. Most of all, he worried that the United States might someday impose an accord on Israel.

As a beloved and esteemed prime minister, he went through a process similar to de Gaulle. The general who was brought back to power to insure that the territories (in this case, Algeria) remained in French hands did the opposite of what the extremists expected. He gave up Algeria and ordered a million colonists to return to France.

Sharon was elected prime minister as the father of the settlers. But when he realized there could be no agreement without a Palestinian state and painful concessions, he found himself in a face-off with his supporters, his party and the entire far right.

Sharon's six-day war was evacuating the settlements in Gaza in six days. And he did it without bloodshed or civil war. He did it with the determination of a leader who had made up his mind that without a pullout from the occupied territories, we would never be able to live here in peace and security. The PR slogan "only Sharon can do it" became a
reality.

If the Palestinians were smarter and more organized, they would have grabbed what Sharon was offering with two hands. But, as much as I hate to say this, Arabs are Arabs. If there's an opportunity to be missed, they'll miss it. The moderates were scared stiff of the extremists. They could learn a thing or two from Sharon. There comes a time when you
act in accordance with the will of the majority and not the dictates of the fanatics and the militants.

Sharon did not hesitate to walk out on the Likud, which was screwing up the works, and found a new party. Even before things were organized, with the party still in an embryonic state, the pollsters were predicting that it would win 42 seats.

Sharon's stroke has sent the political system into a tizzy. Politicians who regard Kadima as a thorn in their sides - Netanyahu in this corner and Peretz in that - will try to get the tens of thousands who followed Sharon to come back home. But Kadima was the product of circumstances and those circumstances have not changed. The people who wanted this party are still there. The diverse cadre of leaders who flocked around Sharon can also rally around Ehud Olmert, a seasoned politician who dreamed up the idea of disengagement with, or maybe even before, Sharon. He can carry on from where Sharon left off.

The voters who were going to give Kadima those 42 seats refuse to believe that all is lost. Yesterday I saw people heading off to register for the new party. As if they were saying to Sharon: Good-bye, giants of 1948. You have heirs.

On His Shoulders

2006-01-07T02:45:00.000-05:00

Let me apologize if I seem insensitive when I say I don't think the whole West Virginia miner situation warranted that much news coverage when the only man that is right now making any moves in Israel/Palestine is laying in a hospital bed helpless and politically impotent.

The cartoon in my post entitled "Well If You Step Back a Few Years..." is very telling when we talk about the political might of Ariel Sharon. HE's the man that gets credit for the Gaza pull-out. No thanks to his party. No thanks to the Palestinian leaders. This was Sharon moving forward. He did this and knew there could be political consequences. Well it turns out, there were consequences. They just happened to be overwhelmingly positive until now.

He moved forward on establishing a more sovereign Palestinian territory. Then he moved forward on his new party, Kadima, basically by himself. He declared his new party AND THEN started to build popular and political support. Many big name politicians jumped on board after Sharon had already announced his aspirations and the public had reacted positively.

Sharon carried the weight of the Peace Process on his back, so the thought of him not being there to follow through is a bit worrisome. There are two questions we need to ask: 1. Can Sharon's new party pick up where he left off and move forward with popular support? 2. If the public decides to reelect the Likud party, are we willing to sit back and watch another war break out in the Middle East?

Sharon was not without his problems, but he was the one taking initiative. I worry very much about the Likud Party and Netanyahu being put in the leadership position. I also worry about the sanity of Pat Robertson.

But at least this is some promising news of Kadima without Sharon:

Were Vice Premier Shimon Peres to take over leadership of the party, Kadima would win 42 seats - exactly the number of seats it would have garnered four days ago, when Sharon was still healthy.

He Just Keeps Coming Back to Haunt Us

2006-01-04T00:10:00.000-05:00

I complain about politics a lot. A lot. But if there is one thing I like to bitch about to take my mind off politics, it's Ohio State football. We've had it good in Columbus the past five years. But one little problem keeps reemerging and its name is Maurice Clarett. He always chooses such perfect moments to butt back into the spotlight, so I can't say that Monday's headline announcing the alleged involvement of Clarett in an armed robbery was too surprising. At least I have two more stellar Fiesta Bowls I can look back on with pride and utter admiration. I unfortunately have to do a little mental editing when reflecting on the 2003 Buckeyes, the best OSU football team since I've been alive.

Abramoff is Just the Beginning

2006-01-03T23:32:00.000-05:00

Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to three felony charges that amount to full admission of manipulation of Congressional business and bribery. This is big news of course, but what worries me is the political positioning that is taking place right now on the left:

Some Democrats saw the plea bargain as good political news. They are trying to build their 2006 midterm campaigns around what they call the Republican "culture of corruption" and say Mr. Abramoff taps into that theme.
Minutes after his deal was announced, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which tries to help elect Democrats to Congress, trumpeted the news on its Web site. "Breaking News: Jack Abramoff to Plead Guilty," the headline said.

This post is a plea; DO NOT BELIEVE THIS SHIT!!! Any persons that honestly believe these sweetheart deals aren't going both ways are fooling themselves. I've said it before and I'll say it again; if there were ever a full-scale investigation on Capitol Hill, there'd be a lot of fucked donkeys too. I think the relative silence on the part of the Democrats is a testament to this reality. Sure they've put in their two cents, but no one has yet gone on a war path. But time will tell. Abramoff has a lot of talking to do now.

As if we needed any more reminders about this, Hammer of Truth carries a nice entry about the public's level of trust in Congress. 50% of all Americans believe Congress is now very or somewhat corrupt. It's time for a change.

Well if you step back a few years...

2006-01-03T01:43:00.000-05:00

I found this witty little cartoon floating around on the internet today:

The Jewish nation is slowly being destroyed by terrorism and diplomacy. Sharon's hands are of course covered in the blood of his hemorrhaging Jewish state. It's a very good cartoon, I'll give them that, nice imagery, nice illustration. It's funny though, because if you stepped back a couple generations, you might see a very different picture:

So lest we keep listening to Tammy Bruce tell us that Israel is our only partner in the world worth defending to the death, we should remember just how Israel got its state... I'm not siding with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on this one (I personally agree with the two-state solution), I think people either easily forget that Britain forcibly created the Israeli state by divvying up Palestinian land, or they have been listening to Bush too long and actually think these guys are terrorists that hate freedom. Turns out they actually really like freedom: their own freedom.

I think politics gets in the way in this issue too much anyways. Personally I couldn't care less about whose spiritual homeland Jerusalem (or al-Quds) actually is...It's really both anyways... but that's beside the point.

This cartoon is so deceiving because you really feel like the body politic is so firmly rooted in the land of Jerusalem that any subsequent negotiations will yield only certain death for the Jews. Of course the Palestinian people shouldn't be blowing themselves up in Israeli shopping malls. That goes without saying for every decent human being on this planet. It's just that in a fight over traditional homeland such as this one, it's good to keep in mind who was displaced to allow for the fight in the first place.

P.S.- I'm hoping to see "Munich" real soon so I'm sure I'll have more to say about this later...

Revisiting the Role of Government

2006-01-02T23:45:00.000-05:00

Ron Paul writes a good piece for the Free Liberal. It just serves as a good reminder of where the burden of proof lies:

The administration assures us that domestic surveillance is done to protect us. But the crucial point is this: Government assurances are not good enough in a free society. The overwhelming burden must always be placed on government to justify any new encroachment on our liberty. Now that the emotions of September 11th have cooled, the American people are less willing to blindly accept terrorism as an excuse for expanding federal surveillance powers. Conservatives who support the Bush administration should remember that powers we give government today will not go away when future administrations take office.

Yes, so let's assume that Bush is in fact honoring Americans civil liberties and is choosing to not spy on us (this is just a hypothetical, we all know the truth now). What happens when someone comes into office that really wants to test the limits of the law? Have you heard anyone put it in this way before? This is the first time I've been reminded of the fact that we have to look to the future when making this kind of legislation. Maybe I've been thinking Bush is going to crown himself emperor before we have that chance...

Oh and while we're not exactly to the point of total state dominance, let's just all take a refresher in what the word fascism means:

Fascism exalts the nation, state, or race as superior to the individuals, institutions, or groups composing it. Fascism uses explicit populist rhetoric; calls for a heroic mass effort to restore past greatness; and demands loyalty to a single leader, often to the point of a cult of personality.

...Demands the loyalty of the individual because of the superiority of the states. State over people, the nation above humanity... That does not describe my country. The burden of proof is on my government.

Announcement

2005-12-29T15:25:00.000-05:00

Just an announcement that today I officially dropped my non-allignment promise and became a dues-paying member of the Libertarian Party. Sicka dis shit...

Mysterious East European Man Belittles America

2005-12-29T15:18:00.000-05:00

This is an old story but incredibly funny nonetheless.

Shock but No Awe

2005-12-28T11:02:00.000-05:00

This is a nice piece in The Guardian about the status of neocon philosophy in American governance. Check it out, good stuff.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to All

2005-12-26T22:35:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and is looking forward to a New Year's celebration. I just got back into town tonight, this being the reason I haven't posted in a while. It's been a busy couple days between b-day celebration and Christmas in Mansfield and Cinci, so I'm taking it easy for a while. I'll try to post some stuff later on this week.

Letterman's Mind Tricks

2005-12-22T08:25:00.000-05:00

I'm not writing too much about this temporary restraining order that has been placed against David Letterman. More I'm going to promote this Hammer of Truth entry:

Oh ok… this all makes perfect sense, we can slap frivolous restraining orders on people based on our own delusions. That’s it, first I’m filing a restraining order against Bill O’Reilly — I swear every time he raises his eyebrows, he’s sending me the coded signal “I want to rub a falafel on you.”

Will on Bush

2005-12-20T11:40:00.000-05:00

Townhall carries a nice piece by columnist George Will on the powers of the president over time and the typical conservative response. Will tends to present a conservative viewpoint, but tends to understand things like limited government and separation of powers, something some "conservatives" have forgotten as of late, which Will addresses:

One reason was that Congress' cumbersomeness, which is a function of its fractiousness, is a virtue because it makes the government slow and difficult to move. But conservatives' wholesome wariness of presidential power has been a casualty of conservative presidents winning seven of the last 10 elections.

Good stuff. I encourage you to check it out. And another thing, why weren't news opinion shows talking to more legal analysts, or say law professors about the legality of Bush's actions. The question for me was "Is this even legal after the PATRIOT act and various other pieces of legislation?" I don't have that answer, I'm not a law expert. But this question went largely unanswered.

Blame the Science Teachers, Not the Science Textbook

2005-12-19T21:44:00.000-05:00

Media Matters runs a piece on Pat Robertson claiming that "evolutionists worship atheism... it becomes their religion." This fact, to Robertson, is enough to warrant the removal of evolution from schools because "this an establishment of religion contrary to the First Amendment of the United States constitution." My initial reaction was, well since we're obviously incapable of establishing facts in science, we are all believers, which means we all worship something. This means we really can't teach anything in schools anymore...

Well no need to dwell on Pat Robertson, this isn't about him. If you read on in this piece, you'll see that the ACLU is suing the state of Georgia for its supposed imposition of religion in textbooks:

Robertson was reacting to a ruling by a federal judge that it was unconstitutional for Cobb County, Georgia, to require the placement of stickers in biology textbooks, reading:

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.

That decision is currently under review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. The suit that led to the decision was initiated by a group of parents -- in conjunction with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) -- who argued that the sticker constitutes an endorsement of religion in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

I'm not sure that I read that right at first... "Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered." what to make of this.... Let's start from the beginning

1. "Evolution is in fact a theory." Any scientist in his or her right mind would say so. Why? Because a scientific theory is testable, observable, and disprovable. If you want to speak in real terms, you cannot disprove a fact. ALL SCIENCE IS BASED ON THEORY.

2. "...regarding the origin of living things." We'll come back to that in a second.

3. "This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered." Last time I checked, every good scientist, knowing that fact is not easily attained in any science, is already ethically inclined to act in this way. When a scientist strays from the pursuit of knowledge for the pursuit of data-fitting and personal opinion, he ceases to be a scientist.

So guess what? I blame the Cobb County School System for not better preparing its science teachers. They wouldn't even have to put this sticker on the outside of a single book, if the teachers were properly presenting what's on the inside. Obviously, fact vs. scientific theory vs. religious belief has not properly been taught to the children of Georgia. Ethics of proper scientific pursuit of knowledge have not been taught to the teachers or students.

I see no religion in that sticker's statement. What I actually see there is cold, hard fact. The real shame is that this obviously isn't coming through in Cobb County Schools.

I've already said what I need to say on the origins of life, so I'll leave it at this:

However, we must divide the disprovable from the unprovable. Most creationists want to include their beliefs in science based on the question of the origin of creation, not a living, breathing theory of how organisms adapt and change form. This argument is just off-base. When it comes to the question of the origin of life, most scientists wish not to include it in any curriculum because of the difficulty it provides to scientists. One pro-evolutionist, commenting on the hearings, spoke on this issue, saying, "It's not in the (school board) standards because the scientific community has not reached a consensus." What the scientific community has come to a broad consensus on is that evolution, whether fully accepting it or not, is the standard by which to judge its competitors. Creation is not even in the scientific ball park.

I Really Hope We Lose This War

2005-12-18T20:53:00.000-05:00

I've seen these great buttons floating around the blogosphere, usually on right-wing hack sites. They say "I'm Pro-Victory," as in pro-victory in Iraq. You can go here to check out a long list of sites that carry this short but sweet message of alliance and steadfastness. There's also a nice description of rhetoric and how it can be used to gain a foothold in a debate (that is to say if your substance can't speak for itself).

Cause ya know, I never supported this war. As it turns out that fact coupled with the fact that I like science to be taught in science classes is enough to warrant my being labeled a high-minded left-wing liberal (scroll down to "Apparently Creationism isn't a Theory"). So basically the point is that it seems nuance is lacking on the right on this issue. So I thought why not give them what they want? A full-out admission that we do not in fact support our troops and we want them all to die fiery and painful deaths. Here's a few ways libs and non-affiliated anti-war-in-Iraq politicos can give the conservative in his or her life a little something to bitch about. I offer you response buttons. I highly encourage you to copy and paste these:

So I mean obviously since I don't support this war, and I believe it was started on false pretenses that were not even investigated enough to even serve as solid cover-ups, I'm standing with the terrorists.

And every time al-Sadr opens his mouth I get that tingling sensation down between my thighs cause I know it's gonna be easy gliding to Congressional majority as soon as the Shiites start killing off Sunnis in genocide-like numbers. Oh I can't wait til the entire country just falls apart right into the laps of our godforsaken troops.

And you know whenever I get myself involved in something I strive for failure at all points. I don't expect anything less from my government:

And let's be honest, nobody likes a braggart:

Nobody likes an unpatriotic turncoat, especially when they share opinions with the French!:

But I've decided to help out the "pro-victory" side by giving them a few more positions they can unswayingly salute:

Well let's be honest, these are troubling times that require determination and unity. Resolve is the most patriotic front we could put forward against the enemy. With us or against us my man...

Nothing says freedom like being roped up and forced to fake oral sex on your Arab brethren while a vicious German Shepard bites your nuts. And remember, torture doesn't radicalize Muslims, it gets them to confess so we can avoid large scale human tragedy. Why don't we talk to Sayyed Qutb and al Zawahiri about the healing power of torture...

Let's not lie to ourselves here folks. We know it's true. Kanye, my nigga Kanye said it man.

But let's be real for a second. Bush spoke tonight in an attempt to get his peoples back on base. The thing is he actually sounded like an in-touch human being for the first time since the war in Iraq began. We have to stay the course and finish the job that we started. It hasn't been easy and it won't be for quite some time. The election on Thursday showed us that Iraqis, at some level, are ready to take up their own responsibilities and do what they can to mend the wound that is their country. But cut-and-run defeatist or "pro-victory" (or those unchartered waters of "somewhere in between"), I think we can all agree on one reality that hung in the air while Bush urged us not to leave before victory was assured:

Thank God for McCain

2005-12-15T21:09:00.000-05:00

Thank God for McCain. At least one republican actually gives a shit about America's image as world leader. These things are important when you're claiming to be fighting a war on "evil" things.

Welcome to The Strategerist

2005-12-12T22:09:00.000-05:00

My friend and co-worker, Adam Wagner, is joining the leagues of unaccountable opinionators upon my invitation and pleading. He brings a lefty pinko slant to round out the conspiratorial mind that will soon come through on this page. With his fear of neo-cons, corporations, and bears and my general fear of government, we will join together to bring you a more fair and balanced approach to the conspiracy theory and all-around political lunacy. So, welcome, Adam. Make sure to get your I-masturbate-to-Michelle-Malkin roommates on here every once in a while to spice up the debate.

I mean, shit, the kid's already got Senator written all over him.

Israel Readies for Attack Against a Rising Iran

2005-12-12T21:43:00.000-05:00

This is a bit worrisome to say the least...

The order to prepare for a possible attack went through the Israeli defence ministry to the chief of staff. Sources inside special forces command confirmed that “G” readiness — the highest stage — for an operation was announced last week.

NO Clemency for Tookie

2005-12-12T17:06:00.000-05:00

Well, it looks like logic has prevailed on this one. ***I AM NOT MAKING A JUDGEMENT ON THE MORALITY OF THE DEATH PENALTY*** Gov. Arnie said what I have been saying all along: how can the man reform if he doesn't admit to having something to reform from? He wasn't on death row for starting a gang (at least according to the law)...

Mr. Williams has always maintained his innocence of the four murders, and the governor said in a statement this afternoon that "without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption."

I am not saying he didn't have a life-changing experience in prison, it's just that he didn't go to prison for the life he claims to have reformed. He went to prison for killing.

...But... waitaminute...uhhh

And this is just bullshit. This is not Arnie's problem. This a legislature issue. This is a cultural issue. Arnie saw no evidence that brought the case into question. You want change? Bring it up with your Congressmen. And, also, good thing Arnie isn't governing in Austria... I mean they seem quite upset with an elected official that they have no sway over...that they did not elect...that does not serve them or represent them in terms of governance.

The other ID

2005-12-12T09:45:00.000-05:00

More on the group of people fighting alongside of Intelligent Design proponents for other theories to be presented in classrooms. Again, basically our design is incompetent, so calling it "intelligent" design is not the right approach...

Opinion Poll Shows Progress in Iraq

2005-12-12T09:26:00.000-05:00

The question is: How big is the BBC's contract with the defense department to get sweet figures like these... just kidding, this is really promising. This just make our job a lot easier. Iraqis have a reason to defend their own land, they have something to hold on to. Now get ready for December 15. December 16 is the day we can start having a real discussion about a pull out.

De Tocqueville brought forward

2005-12-11T00:42:00.000-05:00

So while I should be typing my two 20 page papers and reading ridiculous amounts of political science methods crap, I've instead started to read Alexis De Tocqueville's classic Democracy in America. I had gotten done with a good chunk and decided to switch gears and read one of two shorter essays contained in my volume (Penguin Classics). In Two Weeks in the Wilderness something struck me as oddly familiar and very relevant to the world today, in an era of globalization and cultural integration/tension.

Let me first say that this essay in particular is very amusing in that here we find De Tocqueville and his travel companion trying to get as far from the civilization they had come to study as possible. They take off for Saginaw, Michigan; across the most uncivilized, untouched parts of the new Michigan settlement. De Tocqueville would play the role of potential settler and ask for the best locations to buy land. When directed to the newest, best locations he and co. would ride off in the exact opposite direction, looking for the deepest woods possible, the furthest from white settlers as possible. No one could understand why they would want to go off into the untouched forest...

Anyways, what really struck me was a section where he discusses human nature and culture in a time where a number of cultures were beginning to intersect and interact. French settlers, the natives, English settlers, the half-caste native-French mix who stood between two worlds claimed by neither-- they were converging. But De Tocqueville makes a very interesting statement about this new situation:

Philosophers have thought human nature to be the same everywhere, changing according to the institutions and laws of different societies. That is one of those opinions that every page of the history of the world seems to contradict. All nations, like individuals, display an appearance which is their own. The characteristic features of their faces keep occurring through all the transformations they undergo. Laws, customs, religions suffer changes; power and wealth move around; the external aspects vary, clothing alters, and prejudices disappear or change places with others. Amid these diverse shifts you can still discern the same nation. Something inflexible emerges at the heart of human flexibility.

Something inflexible emerges at the heart of human flexibility... I sat on that line for quite some time. Keep in mind that DT wrote this essay before any major acceptance or knowledge of theories of evolution, natural selection, or anthropological studies on the spread of mankind across the globe. Despite this, he makes some very good points that imply a certain level of malleability in terms of cultural identity and practice. Customs do change, prejudices do appear and disappear.

But it is this last phrase that really stuck to me. It is so easily applied to our world today. The world IS getting smaller. More cultures and peoples ARE coming in closer contact, just like the natives with the French and British settlers. What we see in a lot of cases is adaptation, an acceptance of the new world, fit to meet our cultural norms. But very similarly, we see the inflexibility of our human nature. We see the resistance to change, be it conscious or not. DT saw the resilience of the native's stare. Their eyes burnt holes in his chest no matter where he came upon them. He felt this was innate, this was a primordial aspect of the native peoples. They had the gift of vision and insight.

Without getting into a debate about primordial versus constructed, it s very interesting to see this come up in DT's writings. The humans' ability to move and change has brought out a desire to do neither, a desire to resist change (once again be it conscious or not).

Dislodged

2005-12-09T23:20:00.000-05:00

Here's a good article about the state of third-party politics in America. What is truly unfortunate is that the Libertarian Party, or any other third party for that matter, has yet to really gain traction despite the fumbling on both sides of the ailse in Washington.

My answer is to take care of the problem at its root. Politicians are almost like rock stars anymore. They're faces are all over the news. Their lives are the subject of rampant gossip, maybe just more so in D.C. They're automatically looked upon, or FEEL THEY ARE, to solve all of our problems. But the fact of the matter is, the more power you give them, the more times a Cunningham is going to walk up to the podium and admit to taking bribes. But actually, eventually that will stop too, the better they are able to get away with it.

It's very hard in a democracy of this size to keep tabs on the actions of all out representatives. Furthermore, the training many members have in law doesn't hurt their chances of escaping embarrassing charges.

Basically it comes down to this: Do you really think the Democrats are going to do any different than the Republicans if voted into a majority? I encourage you to visit opensecrets.org to catch up on the wide array of corporate donors listed with Democratic members. If you think the Republicans are the party of corporate interests, you're only half right. It's more like one of the parties of corporate interests. The Democrats are not going to change any tone in Washington. If you think that's true, you've been watching the wrong channel for far too many years. Ask a Libertarian what s/he thinks about economic regulations, CORPORATE WELFARE INCLUDED. You're not going to hear a call for a million dollar tax break for wal mart, that's for sure.

So what is to be done? You VOTE LIBERTARIAN. If you're worried about wasting a vote on a losing candidate, I pose one question; Do you honestly give a fuck who comes out with the majority in Congress in 2006? They'll be dealing with a lame duck president that can't get out of Washington fast enough, while doing nothing but positioning for 2008. Their interests are not your interests. What the Libertarians aim to do is to knock down the priority of law makers' interests in the first place, basically, through less options. The government is NOT there to solve all your problems. It's not there to save your brain-dead daughter after the courts have consistently ruled out of your favor. The government is not there to make sure you have a cushy job in the steal mill until you can retire with a decent retirement package. The Federal government is NOT the first place you turn to resolve gay marriage issues, marriage itself being a state issue in the first place. And more than anything, the government is not the subject of automatic deference and respect. The people are the subject of automatic deference and respect. The individual rights and freedoms of the people are the first to receive attention. Asking me not to speak against government because it is unpatriotic or makes me a coward goes against everything this country was built upon. The people begin by questioning their government, not the government its people.

For further reading, check out this article about the lack of difference between the two major parties and Libertarians' inability to allign with either major party.

Pinter Addresses the Nobel Academy

2005-12-08T12:54:00.000-05:00

Here's a link to a recap of Harold Pinter's speech to the Nobel Academy on accepting his prize. I encourage you to also read the entirety of the speech here.

While I believe it unfair to call Bush a ruthless killer, instead of an ignoramous that can't control his house, Pinter is making some good points here. Take it for what it is; a brilliant, rational, reasonable man with a solid understanding of how the world works that has a background in theater and knows how to deliver an emotional speech...

Even the Canadians Get It

2005-12-05T13:47:00.000-05:00

Nice editorial from the Globe and Mail from Canada. See, even a Canadian newspaper knows the score. They disagree with the entry into the war, but they know a hasty withdrawl is suicide. Kerry didn't get it in 2004 and still doesn't get it today.

Steve Bell from The Guardian

2005-12-02T16:30:00.000-05:00

Constant Gardener Wins at British Independent Film Awards

2005-12-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

The Constant Gardener won a number of awards at the annual BIFA ceremony. This movie is really good actually, so I'm glad to see this. Constant Gardener was directed by Fernando Meirelles, who previously gained world-wide noteriety for his film "Cidade de Deus (City of God)."

I encourage you to check out this film when it comes out on DVD Januray 10, if you haven't already seen it. While it sounds like a lefty's conspiracy-theory haven, it actually has some good things to say about world politics and even the war in Iraq. Besides all that, the camera work is amazing and Meirelles is a very gifted director.

Hey, I Just Want My Kid to Know There Are Choices

2005-11-30T21:44:00.000-05:00

This is a great piece written by Rhinehold for Watchblog.com. So basically, look, scientists can't be trusted with their fancy logic and so-called standards of research. Because of this, a group is lobbying for a new theory to be taught in school science classes:

A new theory for the creation of the universe has been developed and subsequently named ‘Unintelligent Design’. While the theory is new it is only slightly more recent than the increasingly discussed theory by the similar name ‘Intelligent Design’. Followers of the new theory are hoping to petition school boards across the country to teach this theory alongside Evolution and Intelligent Design and are hoping that the supporters of other similar origin science theories support their right to be included in our children’s educational curriculum.

The idea behind the theory is simple, ' There is simply too many things in the universe that don't fit together or make sense'. Because of these irregularities the belief supports one of the two following options:

1)There is no sentient being who created the universe because if there were such an individual he would have to be very powerful and by his very nature smart enough not to make such mistakes

2)There is a sentient being but he is not all knowing and instead just lucky that things have worked out as well as they have despite his incompetence.

You see, I shouldn't have to let some 'scientist' tell me what science is and is not. Unintelligent Design proponents know they are fighting an uphill battle against these tyranical head-in-the-clouds, so-called, intellectuals who are totally out of touch with the mainstream. It is for this reason, the Unintelligent Design backers are looking to form a coalition:

We are joining with www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org in the struggle to seek institutional objectivity in origins science. And we believe that they will join us in ensuring that all sides of the issue are represented fairly in our public schools.”

The Creationists will revel in this opportunity to gain such a large number of supporters in their crusade. "Finally," they will say, "another group that gets it." I encourage you to write to your local school board and tell them that you want fair representation of all ideas in your child's science class.

We're Still Having This Debate...

2005-11-30T11:21:00.000-05:00

Stay the course, stay the course, stay the course, stay the course. Bush presented a brilliantly novel plan for the future of free Iraq... yeah just about as much as the Democrats are finding new ways to criticize the Adminstration on the war. I'm pretty sure we are having this discussion in a time warp a la 2003-2004.

The fact of the matter is we should all shut up until December 15. I can't understand why there is such a huge push for a withdrawal plan before we even know if there will be a state from which to withdraw. How irresponsible is that? We started this mess and we have to stay at least until we know that we can hand over the scraps to somebody, weak as they may be. Iraq's government is not legitimate right now, no matter what Rumsfeld says. It may just end up legitimate after December 15. People need to stop talking about November 2006 and start getting ready for December 15, 2005.

As soon as an Iraqi government can properly negotiate for the Iraqi people, we need to start hammering out the details with them. We cannot just sit around in Washington and create our plan out of thin air. We may be able to lay a foundation beforehand, but there's no point in getting detailed until we have a counterpart in Iraq with some real authority.

One Big Culture of Corruption

2005-11-29T13:09:00.000-05:00

Rep. Duke Cunningham announced yesterday he was stepping down from his spot in the House of Representatives as a representative to the San Diego area. Nancy Pelosi called this announcement nothing more than further proof of the Republican 'culture of corruption.' Obviously the Republicans aren't doing real hot right now. Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, Libby, Bob Ney, Bill Frist... the list goes on.

But the truth is, this is probably the worst political move the sitting Democrats could make. Are we really to believe that the Democrats aren't getting the same perks as Repubs? I'm not going to give factual evidence, but I will assure you that it is out there. The money flows both ways. Both Repubs and Dems are getting buttered up all over Washington. I saw it for an entire summer. Lobbyists roam free showering parties on members and their staff in hopes that they can gain some access to the inner-offices. Members and staff are taking lobbyist-sponsored trips all over the country and world, doing more golfing and sun bathing than business-related affairs. It's all over the place.

The last person I need to hear telling me about corrupt politicians is a senior member herself. If the Democrats really wanted to open up this can, they are in for a rude surprise when they have ethics violations cracking down on themselves. The best bet is for fresh faces on both sides of the ailse AND FROM THE LIBERTARIANS. The only people that can hope to have a major impact on a debate over corruption on Capitol Hill are young (or non-career) fresh faces. This is also to emphasize the fact that the Dems still don't have an agenda and are once again choosing to bash Republicans instead of working on legislation and proving something to American voters.

Take the Quiz

2005-11-25T20:39:00.000-05:00

See where you stand politically before you start supporting candidates for 2006.

So, Cinci, still happy with your choice?

2005-11-23T14:41:00.000-05:00

Jean Schmidt, the Republican that beat out Paul Hackett in the special election last spring, hasn't learned the hierarchy of Capitol Hill yet; junior members have to keep their mouths shut. Although she did learn something from Hackett; she spoke her mind. This is new for a lot of politicans. The only problem happens to be that Rep. Murtha, who she implicitly labeled a coward, is a two-time war veteran and hero for this country. She chose to call Murtha the coward while supporting the side of Bush, Cheney, and all the other "heros" with multiple deferments and excuses for not serving their country.

Another Success in the War on Drugs

2005-11-16T16:17:00.000-05:00

So far, America has been extremly successful in its wars against words. First the War on Poverty, then the War on Crime, and of course the ever-popular War on Drugs. We give millions and millions of dollars to Central and South American countries in an attempt to eliminate the drug trade. What happens to the money? The Central American DEAs use it to invest in their drug cartels...

Castro with Parkinson's

2005-11-16T13:24:00.000-05:00

Interesting. I guess we can start figuring out who's going to replace him and planning our "indigenous support for democracy."

Coalition of the Willing-to-Cooperate-On-Their-Own-Terms

2005-11-14T17:35:00.000-05:00

Bush really had broad multilateral support for this war, didn't he? Besides the mine-sweeping monkeys and promise from Haiti to dispatch counterterrorist voodoo witch doctors, we got willing commitments from Spain (until the costs came home), Japan (which constitutionally cannot fight aggressive war), and various other tokens. The fact of the matter is, everyone committed troops and resources on their own terms. This was not a grand, united coalition with a shared plan of attack and reconstruction.

There is now talk of Britain's considerations for a pull-out plan. That's fine, we've talked about it too. But what is striking is that nowhere in these media releases is there any mention of a more broad pull-out plan. Nowhere are there statements like "Iraqi troops will begin to fill in where British and United States troops once stood." If there is going to be a draw down of "coalition" troops, there should be a proportional draw down of all represented states' troops. Never in the Administration's addresses on the coalition was there mention of hierarchy. Bush's 40 nations were, in his presentation, all equal in contribution and worth. By committing troops and resources they should, principally, be seen as equal contributors. However, when it comes to declaring the job done, we start to see a hierarchy emerge. This is where we separate the men from the boys, so to speak. Or maybe I should say, this is where we separate the responsible and obligated from the lap dogs. This is not a criticism of Britain's decision, it is merely a critique of the conduct of the war. The nature of our coalition-building mentality has led to outcomes where our unilateralism is truly exposed. As the interests of our allies change or are exhausted, they leave as they please. The idea of shared triumph and sacrifice is nowhere to be found.

Keep em Comin, Billo

2005-11-13T21:56:00.000-05:00

He never ceases amazing me.

Massive History Revisionism

2005-11-11T14:19:00.000-05:00

Bush sought to reinvigorate support for his foreign endevours during his Veteren's Day address in Pennsylvania (as a note, I'm going to have to say NYTimes' article headline is a bit harsh. I think it's fair for Bush to retaliate when he's being so critically challenged by Congressional Democrats). He criticized Dems for trying to revise history, saying:

As president and commander in chief, I (accept ?) the responsibilities and the criticisms and the consequences that come with such a solemn decision. While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decisions or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began.

Wow... uhhhhhhh. Here, how about a refesher for everyone. Remember how we were all sold (well, a majority of the public at least) on WMD, nukes, and Saddam's conncetions with bin Laden and Al Qaida? But then this:

Our mission in Iraq is clear. We are hunting down the terrorists. We are helping Iraqis build a free nation that is an ally in the war on terror. We are advancing freedom in the broader Middle East. We are removing a source of violence and instability — and laying the foundation of peace for our children and our grandchildren.

Hey, why are the terrorists in Iraq right now? What happened to WMD and bin Laden? Do you really want to talk about rewriting history? Yes the Dems are a bit out of line. They said the exact same stuff as Repubs before the war. But then this from Bush today:

Two weeks ago, in Operation Clean Sweep, Iraq and coalition forces raided 350 houses south of Baghdad, capturing more than 40 of the terrorist killers. Acting on tips from local citizens, our forces have recently launched airstrikes against terrorist safe houses in and around the towns of Obeidi and Husaybah. We brought to justice two key senior al Qaeda terrorist leaders. And in Mosul, coalition forces killed an al Qaeda cell leader named Musslit, who was personally involved in at least three videotaped beheadings. We're on the hunt. We're keeping pressure on the enemy.

Great, just great. The War on Terror Bush wanted the entire time has come to him. But this is hardly the time to criticize anyone about rewriting history.

I want $3 million for getting totally Punk'd

2005-11-11T13:33:00.000-05:00

I can't even say anything about this. This guy got owned and now he's getting even... with Home Depot, which had nothing to do with the prank. Hilarious.

Saudi Arabia Joins WTO

2005-11-11T09:48:00.000-05:00

Now taking bets on the timing of the first bombing and anti-West fundamentalist uprising. I'm putting the odds at 3:1 that there will be an attack by Jan. 1. Get in on it quick, it might not take too long.

Time for a Change in Civic Society

2005-11-09T13:17:00.000-05:00

The riots in France have been drastically reduced, some say, thanks to emergancy measures implemented by the state. This is important because now it is time to bring the fringe groups into the debate. After period of calm, grievences can more effectively be aired. I don't profess to know all about the state of French society. What I do know is that the immigrant populations have been largely marginalized. Should European-descent French capitulate and acknowledge a deep cultural divide that cannot be bridged? Yes, says Paul Belien:

Those media that tell us that the rioting “youths” want to be a part of our society and feel left out of it, are misrepresenting the facts. As the insurgents see it, they are not a part of our society and they want us to keep out of theirs.

Please read this piece if you can. Samuel Huntington is probably posting it on his wall right now. Belien seems to believe that there is no hope for compromise because of deep-rooted cultural difference between the immigrant minorities and the European French. This is not about getting one group "in" to society and culture by assimilation. This is about getting the groups "in" to the civic debate. I'm very sure that parliamentary procedure can resolve many of these issues.

Oh and by the way:

"The concept of French identity remains rooted deep in the country's centuries-old culture, and a significant portion of the population has yet to accept the increasingly multiethnic makeup of the nation. Put simply, being French, for many people, remains a baguette-and-beret affair."

Vive la France.

The Illusive Democratic Agenda

2005-11-09T12:09:00.000-05:00

Democrats celebrated a number of victories in yesterday's elections, retaining two gubernatorial spots and resisting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's reform plan. This left many Democrats gloating that the hope of return to Congressional power in 2006 is well on its way to fruition. Here's what House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer had to say:

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said, “the stars are aligning for a big Democratic victory next November,” and he predicted that Tuesday’s wins would boost the party’s mid-term recruitment efforts.

“I believe that many Republicans are going to spend the next year looking over their shoulders,” Hoyer said in a statement. “And Democrats will see more and more strong candidates joining our ticket.”

Hoyer and his buds would of course have the best view of the aligning stars from their perspective in the clouds. His words sum up the pathology and disconnection of the Democrats very well. For some reason, they still haven't realized that being the anti-Repubs only works to an extent. Having an agenda can help. To be fair, one Dem made a good comment about the state of politics in Washington:

“You should never get in your opponent’s way when they are doing a good job of destroying themselves. There is plenty of time next year to talk to voters about what Democrats are fighting for.”

This is all fine, but when you really come down to it, what are the Dems going to tell us in 2006? Short of a major realignment, I don't see how the momentum is going to shift their way. Look at the current poll numbers of Bush and the two parties. Bush currently has an approval rating of between 35 and 39%. But what about people's faith in the Democrats? Not much better. As recently as last Sunday Democrats in Congress have a mid-thirties approval rating as well.

If we learned anything from November 2, 2004 it should be that saying nothing but "no" and "wrong" and "I am John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty" doesn't help your chance of winning elections. This may be hard to believe... but... people want their political leaders to have an agenda of reform that they can look at and use to gauge their confidence in future pay-offs. People want their leaders to do something when in office. I'm not going to like it, but I'm going to have to laugh if the Democrats find a way to screw the 2006 elections up. What's the best way to do that? Continue on the path they've been since Bush took office, don't give us anything new, and act merely as a roadblock.

Voters Reject Redistricting Initiatives

2005-11-09T02:21:00.000-05:00

Voters in both Ohio and California have rejected their respective state's ballot initiatives to take congressional redistricting out of the hands of long-standing majority parties. What can I say...

Big Suprise

2005-11-08T14:46:00.000-05:00

What can I say, no one likes to lose. No one likes to give up the power they have acquired through crooked gerrymandering and paid "access" to politicians. That's why today is going to really show the true colors of American politics. California and Ohio have similar ballot initiatives up for approval today hoping to take the power of redistricting out of the hands of the powerful. Republican Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger is supporting, among others, an initiative to take the power of dedistricting out of the hands of Democrat-dominated California legislature. Ohio Democrats have put a similar constitutional amendment initiative on the Ohio ballot. Here we have cross-party agreement that redistricting is necessary to ensure good governance. And even though it may look like a power grab by two minority parties, they're both right. Redistricting is a scam. Just look at a map of districts:

This is one candidate's representation of his 12th District. Looks like a nice community, doesn't it? This is what it historically looks like:

I don't even know if I have to say anything... Some districts, like this one, are drawn for what is called racial districting. This gives racial minorities almost guaranteed seats in legislature, which one could consider a good thing. The problem is this also solidifies the non-racial minority base in surrounding districts, meaning less reason to come to compromised viewpoints, and less chance of an opposition candidate exceeding in these areas. Take a look at a another district:
Now see that is nice. That really looks like a community of shared interests. Some districts were even floating among others, as if islands in the seas of surrounding districts. This is not community representation.

Anyways, the best part of all this is the selective reporting that has been going on in dealing with the Ohio and California initiatives. I'm only using a conservative viewpoint for my example, but rest assured that both sides are doing the same reporting.

Townhall.com gives us a lovely story about Schwarzenegger's problems with the lefty special interests that rule the state. The noble Gov. is getting shot down by 'devious Democrats' who bought their jobs. Interesting quote from a Republican in California:

Do you see that the lynchpin for reform of the state is redistricting?

McCarthy: These guys paid for their seats. The Communist Party [in the former Soviet Union] had more turnover than we have here.

The evil commie machine is unstopable in California. Soooooooo... what about Ohio's initiative? Any words, Townhall? Indeed, there are a couple, but just a couple. Keep in mind they run an entire article on the corrupt Dems in California, but managed to squeeze in just one paragraph on how the Dems in Ohio are grinding a political axe with their similar initiative:

Four constitutional amendments in Ohio would expand voting by mail, limit campaign contributions and create bipartisan boards to draw districts and oversee elections. The amendments were proposed by Democratic-leaning groups in the state they blame for costing them the White House last year.

Yes, yes, nice work. One paragraph, despite the similarities. I'm sure lefties in California are doing the exact same thing here, so don't think I'm totally trying to discredit the right. While the political arguments may be a little different, he issues are the same and the power grab continues.

Thanks to FraudFactor.com for a number of these pictures.

VIVA LA REVOLUCION

2005-11-08T02:17:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my maiden voyage into the waters of the idiot blogosphere. Channels that profess to be reporting news have been doing harm to our civic space for too long now. We take for granted the fact that objective reporting has largely been replaced by entertainment newscasting in many areas. Hacks have ventured away from the opinion pages of our dailies to the roundtable for our daily dose of "news" in the form of scream-fests, all the while charading as harbingers of our pressing national issues. Rush Limbaugh informs more Americans than most professional journalists. Sean Hannity has national exposure. This reporting is truly unacceptable on both sides of the ailse. I of course have my political leanings, which I will most likely not be hiding. But I hope to present my arguments either by merely refuting the lies presented by entertainment newscasting or in the most reasoned manner possible. There are enough hacks out there that strive for nothing more than victory in political argument. I don't need to follow suit. And besides, it's much easier for me to shout you down in person.

A note about the "workers' party" layout of this webpage: 1.) it's a work in progress. 2.) I enjoy the absurdity of it, which is to say don't read too much into it.

Enjoy and comment often. Bloggers are only accountable to you, so let me hear it.

Let the lies begin (or continue?)

2005-11-04T06:34:00.000-05:00

Bill Clinton, "the first black president," gave a most self-indulgent speech Tuesday and couldn't have picked a more respectful venue in which to do it: Rosa Parks' funeral. The most striking moment occured when Clinton, to roaring applause announced that he and two childhood friends had taken cues from Rosa Parks and moved to the back of the bus:

I remember, as if it were yesterday, that fateful day 50 years ago. I was a 9-year-old southern white boy who rode a segregated bus every single day of my life. I sat in the front. Black folk sat in the back.

When Rosa showed us that black folks didn't have to sit in the back anymore, two of my friends and I, who strongly approved of what she had done, decided we didn't have to sit in the front anymore.

(APPLAUSE)
It was just a tiny gesture by three ordinary kids. But that tiny gesture was repeated over and over again millions and millions of times in the hearts and minds of children, their parents, their grandparents, their great grandparents, proving that she did help to set us all free.

It was as if he was back on the campaign trail, soaking up the love and support gushing from the crowd, the crowd that wishes he was in his fourth term. This is all well and good, but here's where the fun starts...

Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, of course, couldn't resist a good crack at Clinton. But the best part was when Hannity and his henchmen decided it was time to start fact-checking the dirty liar. And we all know that Clinton is a LIAR LIAR LIAR, ALL HE DOES IS LIE!!!!!!!

Hannity claimed that Clinton was caught in a cold hard lie. He said Clinton claims to have ridden a segregated school bus at the time of Rosa Parks' act of civil disobedience (1955). Hannity chided Clinton because Clinton's hometown at the time, Hot Springs, still had segregated public schools. AHA!!! Slick Willy, there's no way you rode on a school bus with black kids! And the truth is, he's probably right. Clinton didn't ride on a school bus. He went to St. John's Catholic School starting in 1953. I don't know too many Catholic schools with their own buses, so I wonder what kind of bus Clinton was taking to school every day... Just maybe a public, segregated bus...

This is of course a very small example of what we hear every day coming from the right's propagandists. It is my goal with this blog to out these characters whenever possible. Don't think I'm in it as a political hack. Democrats are guilty too, there just happens to be a hell of a lot more Conservatives out there screaming there heads off. So if you're going to do a liberal to conservative story ratio here, let it be known that your stats will be loaded. Liberals don't have enough air time or ink to catch up with these guys. Scream on, my friends.