Part 203 In The Continuing Series Titled, "A Comment I Left"

Here is a comment I left, over at Atrios (edited to make me look better.)

I think the full impact of two recent events are going to take some time to dawn on all of us.

1) We just went to war with a country that did not threaten us. However we got there, that is a huge change in the nature of our country, and a huge change in the world order. As the world recedes from the fog of propaganda surrounding this war the consequences will begin to appear. I think it still has only barely started to dawn on everyone how big a deal it is that this happened - never mind how we got there.

2) We are only starting to wake up to the consequences of the Bush tax cuts. Before the tax cuts the administration was assaulting everything we care about, on many fronts at once, overwhelming our ability to gather a response. But the tax cuts - they have virtually destroyed the government a few years out. Aside from the international consequences of racking up that much debt there is the effect on the ability to pay for our government -- Starting a few years from now Social Security is gone, Medicare is gone, even fixing roads is gone! As I said, the consequences of ALL the money being gone are only beginning to dawn on us.

The Pop-Up Is Gone

OK, the Dean pop-up is gone. I couldn't stand it anymore, and readers were complaining. All of you who were annoyed are now ethically bound to go contribute to Dean so he can show a great quarter at the end of the money, and become the nominee, and get Bush out of the White House.

I actually think there is some validity to determining the viability of a candidate by how much money the candidate can raise early in the process. It is a gauge of whether the candidate is able to generate committed support, which is necessary to sustain a campaign for the White House. BUT I think it is just as important to look at the number of donors as it is to look at the amount. If a candidate is able to inspire a lot of people to send $100 checks, that says a lot. If a candidate is mostly raising $2000 check, that's a different story - that tells you how many rich people who don't CARE about spending $2000 the candidate attracts, and could lead to absurd pro-rich positions like supporting repealing the estate tax.

I think people who send $100 checks are almost always people for whom that $100 really matters. I think people who can send $2000 are more likely to be people to whom $2000 doesn't matter all that much.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying to send $100 if you CAN send $2000! Gov. Dean needs every penny if he's going to be able to go after Bush.

I will be writing about how I think we can beat Bush's money advantage. I've been percolating an idea.

Stolen Election Coin

Check out the Stolen Election Coin!

Bubbles and Disconnects

Paul Krugman starts his column today with:

"The big rise in the stock market is definitely telling us something. Bulls think it says the economy is about to take off. But I think it's a sign that America is still blowing bubbles ?— that a three-year bear market and the biggest corporate scandals in history haven't cured investors of irrational exuberance yet."

A news story this morning, Foreclosures Hit Record High in 1st Qtr:

Home loans in the process of foreclosure climbed to 1.2 percent of all mortgages in the first quarter, beating the previous high of 1.18 percent set in the fourth quarter of 2002, the Mortgage Bankers Association of America said.

Mortgages entering the foreclosure process rose in the quarter to 0.37 percent from 0.35 percent in the fourth quarter.

The percentage of all loans for one- to four-unit homes that were delinquent -- at least 30 days overdue -- slipped to 4.52 percent from 4.53 percent in the fourth quarter.

And a little story in this morning's San Jose Mercury News, Home sellers paring prices to speed deals:

"In general, homeowners are selling at lower prices, even in the lower-end ranges of homes,'' said Richard Calhoun, of Creekside Realty, who tracks Silicon Valley real estate data. "With increased inventory, buyers have more choice. And if a seller is not aggressive on pricing, the property doesn't sell.''
...

The drop in prices in May was steeper than in previous months this year, suggesting that sellers are accepting lower prices to close sales.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve sees a need to cut interest rates further,

All the debate in financial markets this week has been on exactly how much "insurance" the Fed will want to take out. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said recently that in the face of sluggish growth, insurance is cheap compared to the cost of disappointing growth that could eventually lead to deflation.

And the trade deficit, expected to decrease as the dollar falls, is rising, U.S. trade deficit swells,

The latest snapshot of trade activity reported by the Commerce Department Thursday shows that the mushrooming "current account" deficit in the first quarter was 5.8 percent larger than the previous record deficit of $128.6 billion set in the fourth quarter of 2002.

OK, the Federal Reserve is concerned enough about the economy that they are using up their last interest rate cut. The housing bubble looks like it could burst very soon. The Federal budget deficit is wildly, massively, unbelievably out of control. Japan is in deflation and Germany looks like it's there as well. The dollar has dramatically fallen, but the trade deficit is UP. And the jobs picture is still declining.

But the stock market is engaged in a major rally. What's up?

I think we're seeing one more part of what I will call a "disconnect society." This is the disconnect between the top tier of people who are doing well and managing things, and the rest of us. I think we are seeing the effects of a widening gap between the affluent and regular people, where the affluent lifestyle depends on greater and greater isolation from reality -- a reinforced head-in-the-sand view of the world.

In today's stock market rally we see a disconnect between the wealthy elite who manage the stock funds, and the real economy. They live well, they commute from the wealthy suburbs around New York into office buildings inhabited by other top tier elites, they don't know anyone who is hurting, they read the Wall Street Journal (written by other top tier elites) and they watch the world on TV. They think things are great, everyone THEY know is doing well, and we're in a "recovery" and heading for a prosperous Republican future.

We see the same disconnect in news reporting. Our local paper, the San Jose News, occasionally runs stories about how people live, and invariably picks people living in four-bedroom million-dollar houses, with six-figure incomes, and tells their readers how hard things are for them because their exclusive private school tuitions have risen. It is infuriating! The paper's managers, editors and reporters are well-paid and live in that top-tier world. The news anchors and reporters on the networks make seven figure salaries. The head of the companies they glorify make hundreds of millions! The politicians make six figures and live in the Washington yuppisphere - and say that people who talk like I am talking are on the "fringe."

And people in business are living this disconnect. Look what they expect people to be able to pay. Cable TV with a premium channel is $65-70 per month. A cable modem or DSL is another $40-50. (Cable modem is better.) A cell phone account for two is $65 or so. Then they show up with offers for internet or satellite radio for another $10-20 per month and think people can afford it - because THEY can. Never mind that they are moving YOUR job to India. I'm not talking about essential services here; my point is that they're trying to get customers and are pricing for a society that is living like they are. (Health insurance - $500 a month for a couple, minimum.)

I'll write more about this disconnect society. Leave a comment.

Building The Right

I came across this interesting look at how the right developed. At the bottom of the page are links to more pages.

Former Senator Max Cleland

A recent speech by former Senator Max Cleland is certainly worth reading. Here's a bit:

"Since the President declared a so-called "victory," we have buried 34 young Americans killed in Iraq. We are losing young men and women every day. We are trapped in a quagmire. We have 240,000 American troops tied down in Iraq and Kuwait. We have no clear exit strategy. So far we have found no WMD. We have taken our eye off the ball. In so many ways, we have substituted a rogue regime for the true target. The real target is Osama bin Laden and his terrorist cadre around the world.

This administration has not found Osama bin Laden. It has not found Saddam Hussein. And it has not yet found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Supposedly all of that was the rationale for losing over 200 American lives and wounding over 500 American troops so far."

Sen. Cleland lost three limbs fighting in Vietnam. But the Republicans campaigned against him by saying he is "unpatriotic" because he is a Democrat. The guy who won is another Republican chickenhawk.

But wait, there's more:

"What then is the Bush record in fighting the so-called war on terrorism? They have not found bin Laden. They have not found Saddam Hussein and as of yet there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. However, we have found two trailers. Is that why we fought the war? For two trailers? Did we send our sons and daughters to spill their blood in the desert over two trailers? We are spending over $100 billion bombing and then rebuilding Iraq while giving a tax cut to America's wealthiest citizens and denying hard-working Americans making $26,000 a year or less a child tax credit in order to pay for it.

That's the Bush record. It is not compassionate, and with this year's budget deficit running over $400 billion -- a record set by no other President, Republican or Democrat, it is certainly not conservative."

and:

"Like Colin Powell, I have served in a real war, and I know what it is like. The same cannot be said for other top administration officials, including the president, vice president, secretary of defense, deputy secretary of defense, and other top national security advisers who hatched this scheme to go to war with Iraq."

Go read.

Thanks to Counterspin Central.

Progressive Talk Radio

BuzzFlash points to this story, asking for a progressive talk-radio network.

Well, I'm listening to one right now, online. It isn't JUST online - it carries talk shows that are syndicated on radio stations - but you can listen to it anywhere online. It is so refreshing to be able to tune in for this perspective, and it is also very informative. But you gotta tune in just to hear the clip where they play Ari Fleisher saying, the job of the press secretary is to faithfully articulate what the President is thinking," and then play what the President is thinking!

Right now Thom Hartmann has a libertarian on, talking about health care. He is just ripping the libertarian's arguments apart. (Not hard to do.) Thom is a more serious, intellectual host, and his show is great. Yes, the same Thom Hartmann who writes articles on Common Dreams, AlterNet, etc. Later there's Peter Werbe, out of Detroit, and he is more aggressive and funny. Go see the "Topple Bush Now" poster at his website. Tonite is Mike Malloy, who is a wild man, very, very funny, takes no prisoners. He talks about "the Bush Crime Family."

To tune in, go to ieamericaradio.com on the web. Click on "Listen Live!" at the top and on the left side of the window. You will be taken to a page with instructions for how to listen.

Update -I guess Peter Werbe has a substitute on today...

What Bush Said Tuesday

Tuesday Bush had this to say about the Iraq invasion:

"We made it clear to the dictator of Iraq that he must disarm ... and he chose not to do so. So we disarmed him," Bush said at a Virginia community college.

Well, Bush has now set the marker. He has made it clear that the invasion WAS about WMD, not the post-war excuses about "liberating the people of Iraq."

But there were no WMD. It was either bad intelligence or they lied. Bad intelligence certainly doesn't let Bush of the hook. Since Bush has declared that preventive invasion is U.S. policy, we need to have faith in our intelligence that the country we invade really IS a threat. Bush invaded Iraq, killed thousands, bogged down half our forces in a quagmire with no path out (and by the way, we're going to need to start drafting people into the army soon), found no WMD, and this has destroyed the credibility of our intelligence agencies and our country.

Jobs Data

Remember last week, when the number of people filing first-time unemployment claims "dropped 17,000 to 430,000?" Well, this week it "dropped 13,000 to 421,000."

At least this week the number is lower after "dropping." Last week it "dropped" to a higher number. Anything over 400,000 shows a still-deteriorating jobs situation.

WMD Question

If Bush misled the country into war, can he be prosecuted for murder? Are there any legal experts out there who want to comment?

Tax Cuts

What do those tax cuts mean, besides that YOUR Social Security money is gone now? This post by Lambert over at Eschaton sums it up:

Student loans? "Wiped clean." Unemployment insurance? "Wiped clean"? School lunch for your kids? "Wiped clean." National parks? "Wiped clean." Your Mom's Medicare? "Wiped clean." Your Dad's Medicaid? "Wiped clean." And so on. Well, it is certainly "bold" and "audacious."

Oh yeah, don't forget paying for checking cargo containers at ports. Even the National Parks (yes, they're proposing selling them.)

Lakoff

Doc Searls writes about George Lakoff's work describing why people become liberals or conservatives.

As I have said before, I highly, highly recommend reading Lakoff's book Moral Politics.

Investigate the Missing WMD

From this story, Dean: Investigate Bush's Statements on Iraq

"Yesterday, President Bush asserted that those who question the evidence he used to justify the pre-emptive war in Iraq are ‘revisionist historians.’ Yet it is President Bush who is rewriting history.

“To justify the preemptive invasion of Iraq, the President claimed that the United States faced an imminent threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and that the Iraqi regime had direct ties to Al Qaeda. Meanwhile, no reliable evidence has materialized to prove Iraqi support of Al Qaeda, and weapons of mass destruction have not been found.

“The American people shouldn't have to wait for the history books to be written to discover the truth. Did the President receive bad intelligence, or did his administration deliberately mislead Congress, the United Nations and the American people?

“An independent investigation must be held to determine what the President knew, and when he knew it. The American people deserve the truth."
...

"We need a thorough look at what really happened going into Iraq," Dean said. "It appears to me that what the president did was make a decision to go into Iraq sometime in early 2002, or maybe even late 2001, and then try to get the justification afterward."
...

"No one is going to trust a right-wing Congress to do this," said the former Vermont governor.

Right to the point.

Taking Credit

Bush takes credit: Bush, Republicans Buoyed by Stock Market Gains.

So if the market does down, that will be Clinton's fault.

MoveOn Primary

If you are not already a MoveOn member, please consider registering for MoveOn.org's Presidential Primary and participating. I encourage you to vote for Howard Dean, but even if you don't support Dean it's great to get involved and MoveOn is an important organization to support. Voting begins June 24. You'll receive a "ballot" via e-mail.

Malpractice Awards

P.L.A. brings some perspective to the cost to society of jury malpractice awards.

Eschaton

<<--------- Eschaton is referring to the pieces linked to in the left column, like Don't Blame the Democrats, An Amplifier Of Our Own, Some History of the Conservative Movement, and the How They Do It series.

There's also We Urgently Need Our Own "Message Amplification Infrastructure".

Because it's blogspot, sometimes you have to scroll down to those titles, sometimes it takes you right to them...

Tax Cuts & Revenue Revisited

Let's revisit the question of whether tax cuts increase revneue. From August: Tax Cuts Don't Raise Revenue

The Divide

Posting by mail has limitations, so I'll keep this short. I was "tabling" for Dean at a farmer's market today, and we got talking to this guy who is a Bush supporter. I brought up the problem of there being no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Rather than go through the entire conversation, which went on through a while and through many twists and turns, it came down to he said that we need to oil, because we all drive cars. He started by defending going into Iraq because of the terrible threat. When I pointed out that the lack of WMD means there was no threat, then it was about liberating the people of Iraq from the terrible dictator. When I asked why we needed to divert our entire military from the war on terrorism, it became about 12 years of Saddam violating the end-of-war agreement. When I pointed out that his violation was supposedly having WMD, it became about "his" shooting at our airplanes in the no-fly-zone. So then it was back to why NOW, in the middle of the war on terrorism, and he finally said it was good because we need the oil. When I asked why Bush didn't make that case, he said because we also had to end the threat.

There, I just went through the conversation anyway.

My point, I was left with this feeling of a vast divide based largely on the different sources of information. The guy appears to get his information from the radio. (You know what that means.) You and I get information from the Internet, which means a variety of sources. You and I represent, what, maybe 2% of the public? He represents maybe 40% if you add in Fox News.

Two comments. One, this is an incredibly dangerous situation, because most people get their news from what amounts to one source - The Party. Let's assume for the moment that The Party is benevolent, and has only the best interests of the country and the world at heart. But suppose The Party were to be taken over by some malevolent force. With no other sources of information this could be a very dangerous thing.

My other comment is that the guy was ready to accept lying to the public to achieve any end. There's a "wink, wink, nod, nod" mentality at work here, where they all recognize themselves as being part of a movement. It's like the old communist party - infiltrate and subvert, say anything to get what you want. I think that The Party (as I call the Republicans) has conditioned its followers to accept the necessity of deceiving the public to accomplish its unspoken goals. I say unspoken, because while they don't ever bring this in front of the public "movement conservatives" all seem to have an end in mind. When you look at their websites it does become clear that they are talking about things like getting rid of Social Security, Medicare, any assistance to the poor, public schools, worker protection, and anything they might decide is "socialistic." But they understand that it would be bad politics to bring this in front of the public, because the public would vote against doing these things, so they accept that the ends must be accomplished by subversion. That this is fundamentally opposed to democracy, or even self-government, is not an issue to them.

I can't tell how this will look on the blog. When I can get back onto Blogger I'll edit this, if needed.

Update - I finally was able to log in, so I'm editing this a bit.

Update - I took the dogs for a walk and thought about what I'd written. I was just dashing off a thought, and now I need to clear it up. I'm not saying that because the guy at the farmer's market is a Bush supporter he's a "movement conservative" who accepts deceit as a way to eliminate Social Security, though that's what it sounded like I'm saying. I was jumping from this guy's acceptance of Bush's deceit - doesn't even bother him - to a rant about the "movement" right-wingers who are fully conscious that this is the method, and who share the goals. Does that clear anything up? This is a blog, so I can get away with this kind of writing, right?

Where's Digby

So what happened to Digby?

Can Post

Posting my mail worked. So I'll post.

Can't Post

For some reason I can't log in to blogger. So I can't post. I'm TRYING to
post this using the old "post-by-mail" address, if that still works.

Annoying Pop-Up

I have added an annoying pop-up ad, soliciting money for the Howard Dean campaign for President. I'll take it down at the end of the month.

The end of June is a crucial reporting time for presidential campaigns. The press will determine how much coverage to give to candidates based on the amount of money they raise this quarter. So if you can give even $5, please contribute. This is about getting rid of Bush, and I think Dean is the best candidate because he has shown his willingness and ability to effectively voice a message that resonates.

I will, of course, support whoever the Democratic candidate is because we need to get Bush out of the White House before he completes the damage he is doing to the country, the world and the ideals we share.

Surprise

Here's a story I doubt you'll see in the American press, US Turns to Taliban.

KARACHI - Such is the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, compounded by the return to the country of a large number of former Afghan communist refugees, that United States and Pakistani intelligence officials have met with Taliban leaders in an effort to devise a political solution to prevent the country from being further ripped apart.

Go read. A somewhat different view of what is happening than you'll see from FOX News.

The Bush administration in talks with the Taliban. Try telling an average American about this and they'll think you're crazy -- sort of like a few years back when it was discovered that Reagan was giving missiles to Iran. Of course, the difference is that was investigated and this will never be.

Scorecard of Evil

Have you taken a look at the Scorecard of Evil lately?

The Idea Of Democracy

Lately I have been seeing variations of a standard right-wing anti-democracy line, "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner." Here's one in a letter to the editor in this morning's San Jose Mercury News. Scroll to the letter titled Tyranny of 51 percent.

Has anyone been seeing this elsewhere? Is it organized?

Some Democrats Certainly DO Get It

Go read what San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown has to say about beating Bush. I don't want to hear about how "the Democrats" are cowed, silent, trembling, don't have a message, aren't speaking out, etc. Some Democrats certainly DO get it!

ePatriots

Seeing the Forest has joined ePatriots. ePatriots is a way to help beat Bush by donating to help the Democratic Party, through bloggers! The Boot Bush button on the left takes you to ePatriots. Go help them out!

Jobs Data

For those of you with memories, something might sound fishy about today's weekly jobless claims that "dropped 17,000 to a still-higher-than-expected 430,000, remaining above 400,000 for more than four months now."

Here's why: "The previous week's data were revised to show a 22,000-claims increase to 447,000."

Using this patented method, jobless claims can fall every week, boosting the stock market and Bush re-elects, and be over 500,000 soon.

Savage

How many of you have spent time listening to Michael Savage? The other day I suggested that it would be smart to spend some time listening to Rush, to become familiar with the thinking of the Right.

I won't go so far as to suggest actually spending time listening to Savage -- he is so vile, so beyond civility and decency that it is actually a sickening experience to tune in. And I mean that I believe that listening to his show regularly would affect one's mental health. (A subject of a piece I hope to write soon - the effect on one's mental health of listening to right-wing radio.) But I do want to point this out - Michael Savage now has a show on MSNBC! I think little more needs to be said about television and the quality of the information one receives from watching television. Michael Savage is on TV and Phil Donahue is not. (Not to mention - when was the last time you saw an advocate of the labor unions on TV?) That says it all.

I realized the other day that I have almost completely stopped watching TV news! Both network and cable. I think that around the time MSNBC got rid of Donahue and put Savage on that all of the cable networks seemed to change, and move violently to the right. Every time I turned on the TV I found myself disgusted and just turned it off, and soon I just stopped turning it on at all. I get my news online now, and listen to the radio. In fact, I find myself listening mostly to ieAmericaRadio.com online now during the day. Later in the day, sometimes, NPR.

This has made a big difference in how I see the world. The biggest difference is that I have stopped worrying about what the smarmy Washington pundits think! Because I am not exposed to them, I have stopped thinking like them. I don't worry about the "horse race." Instead I look at issues. I don't spend endless time thinking about the strategizing. I don't spend time on gossip-style character assassination concerns. I'm still trying to put words on this difference in my outlook, but as I withdraw from the effects of the TV Nation I feel like my mind is spending time more honestly and rationally evaluating the information I get.

Rather than get into that I wanted to say that I see this huge gap between people who are getting news from a variety of sources - namely online - and people who are getting news from major media - TV and radio. And the polls clearly reflect this division. Professional politicians and pundits tend to think that once the public has a belief, that settles the issue -- that spin determines the truth. It's a Gingrichian view that says what the public believes is what is true politically, so they should play the game according to what they can make the public believe, and according to what the public already believes, rather than according to truth and honesty. I think there is an opportunity here. I think that the actual truth can be very hard to argue with, so there is always a possibility of restoring the public to sanity by exposing them to the truth.

Anyway, I'm in a hurry, and rambling, and I'll try to put this into better words soon. That's what a blog is about, right?

New Official Dean Weblog

The Howard Dean campaign has launched a new, redesigned weblog at a new address. It's called Blog for America. I have updated this in the blogroll, except there it's called Howard Dean Blog For America.

It's The Information, Stupid

Please go read this poll, Many Americans Unaware WMD Have Not Been Found. It says a lot about what's going on in the country. It's the information, stupid.

While 59% of those polled correctly said the US has not found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, 41% said they believed that the US has found such weapons (34%) or were unsure (7%).
...

Another widespread misperception is that Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons in the war. Twenty-two percent held this misperception, with 9% being unsure, while 69% correctly said that Iraq had not used such weapons.
...

Asked, "Thinking back to when the US government was making the case for going to war with Iraq, according to the government, what was the most important reason for going to war with Iraq?" 60% said "the evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction," and 19% said "the evidence that Iraq was working with the terrorist group al'Qaeda." But 20% said the most important reason was "the fact that Saddam Hussein was an oppressive dictator." Asked for the second most important reason, another 32% chose "the fact that Saddam Hussein was an oppressive dictator," while weapons of mass destruction were chosen by 24% and links to al'Qaeda by 42%.

Got that? We went to war because Iraq HAD weapons of mass destruction, and because they were working with al-Queda. They used WMD against us during the war, and those WMD have been found.

It seems like we have such a struggle in front of us, when the public isn't even getting basic factual information. One thing that we CAN do at this stage is work to get people informed. I can't think of anything more important. Please write to everyone in your address book to let them know that there are places they can get honest news. Look at the way MoveOn and the Dean campaign have been able to get their message out. But we need to add more people to the "base" of people who are getting honest information. I think the most important place to tell them about is BuzzFlash, because it offers frequently updated headlines of basic news. And, of course, refer them to your favorite weblogs.

Kerry or Edwards, etc.

I'm curious. Can someone please point me to some weblogs that actively support Kerry or Edwards or Gephardt or any of the Democratic presidential candidates other than Dean? Thanks!

Update - I found one for Edwards, and it lists some other blogs, but none are up-to-date. One, Regular People for Edwards, requires a password. The Edwards campaign website doesn't link to any blogs.

The Kerry website doesn't link to any blogs.

The Gephardt website doesn't.

The Bob Graham website doesn't.

The Kucinich website doesn't.

The Al Sharpton website doesn't.

I found a weblog called "Bush Lites." Does that qualify? HEY - it links to Seeing the Forest! Oh, never mind, it's a pro-Dean blog.

Should I count this? I hope this isn't really Kerry's weblog!

UPDATE - OK, I found this: John Kerry's Unofficial Blog.

Update - Here's an active pro-Edwards weblog.

Blog Hero

A coveted Seeing the Forest Blog Hero Award goes to Billmon at Whiskey Bar. Whiskey Bar posted a list of pre-war quotes from Bush Administration officials that, it appears, many "journalists" have picked up on. But the Blog Hero Award is given for this post.

Keeping track of what those in power say -- and holding them accountable for it -- is not brilliance. It is (or should be) the stuff of ordinary journalism. It's the kind of thing the American media used to do, sometimes -- before 9/11 and our endless "war" on terrorism caused it to shut down the part of its collective brain devoted to critical thinking.

The fact that some dinky little blog now has to do the job does not reflect great credit on the blogger, but rather great shame on the media. Like the rest of American society, American journalism appears to have flushed some of the most important lessons of the Vietnam War down the toilet.

Top 100

Well, Seeing the Forest is back in the top 100. Number 100 anyway. Today, anyway.

Link slutting: If you're weblog is on the left there in my blogroll, consider linking back. (Link slutting is such an ugly thing.)

Update -Well THAT sure didn't work. 104.

Electability

For those who think that a Southern, conservative Democrat is more electable, I offer you this, from the Des Moines Register, about Senator Bob Graham:

Republican National Committee spokesman Chad Colby said Graham's comments are "outrageous statements."

"He's a conspiracy theorist," Colby said. "That's the only way he can get his name out there."

Also this kind of crap, from the Republican National Committee:

A Tax-And-Spend Liberal In Moderate's Clothing
...
Graham's Liberal Record On School Choice

In other words, if you want to play the "electable" game instead of talking about what's the right thing to do on the issues, you aren't going to get anywhere. The right-wingers are going to use their character assassination on you no matter what. So you just gotta be real.

I'm not criticizing Bob Graham here, and previously wrote that he also represents the Democratic Wing.

Bush, Politics and Policy

A great read in the LA Times today, Bush's Scorched-Earth Campaign.

From the moment of his disputed election in 2000, President Bush has been dramatically reversing the traditional relationship between politics and policy. In his administration, politics seem less a means to policy than policy is a means to politics. Its goal is not to further the conservative revolution as advertised. The presidency's real goal is to disable the Democratic opposition, once and for all.
...

The difference between Rove and former political operatives like Michael Deaver in the Reagan administration and Dick Morris in Clinton's is that he doesn't just advise on the political consequences of policy; he seems to be involved in crafting policy, making him arguably the single most important advisor in the White House. Rove's hand and guiding spirit are everywhere evident. As John DiIulio, who briefly headed Bush's faith-based initiative, indiscreetly put it in an interview last year, everything in this administration is political, by which he meant that everything is the product of political calculation and everything is devised specifically for political advantage.

The column goes on to say that the model for getting rid of political opposition is "defunding" in the same way that the tax cuts are really about defunding government so it just dries up and goes away. Specifically:

• Tort Reform - Caps on jury awards are really caps on trial lawyer income, so they can't donate to the Democrats.
  
• School Vouchers - Getting rid of public schools gets rid of teacher's unions, so they can't donate to the Democrats.
  
• The FCC Ruling - Getting rid of opposing voices in the media is really about getting Democrats off the air.
  
• The Faith-Based Initiative - Funneling money to the Right's friends and undermining "more liberal-oriented community institutions and advocates that might aid the Democrats."
  
• Appointing Far-Right Federalist Society Judges - To "disable laws -- like the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act -- that favor Democrats by regulating fund-raising, but also to make laws that will aid Republicans in a host of areas, from the environment to product safety to redistricting."
  
• Getting Rid of Affirmative Action - "a long-range political plan to slow the growth of a minority professional class that would be likely to vote Democratic."
  
• Privatizing Social Security and Medicare - "a blow aimed at the base of the Democratic Party, because these programs are most identified with Democrats and are still a reliable source of goodwill for the part."
  
• Iraq War - "struck the Democratic Party at one of its vulnerabilities: the idea that Democrats are weak on defense."
  
• Middle-East Peace - "pry Jewish voters and contributors from the Democratic Party."
  
• 9/11 Response - "an all-purpose excuse for any anti-Democratic policy and pronouncement, including accusing Democrats of deficient patriotism."
  

From the column:

Rove can operate in broad daylight partly because what he is doing is perfectly legal, partly because his plan is so bold that he realizes no one in the media is likely to call him on it, and partly because demonizing and destroying Democrats is now a tenet of the party he guides. It has been said of Bush that he intends to finish the Reagan revolution by embedding conservatism so deeply into the governmental fabric that it will take generations to undo it. What he is really finishing, though, is not the Reagan revolution but the Clinton wars, which had far less to do with ideology than with politics.

For Bush policy is about politics ONLY. There is no "policy" in this administration that is designed to help the citizens of the country or the interests of the nation. It is ALL politics.

That is why, one suspects, Bush elicits such deep antagonism from the left — deeper perhaps than any political figure since Nixon, even though he is personally genial and charming. At some level, maybe only subliminally, liberals know what the president and Rove are up to and fear that they will succeed in dismantling an effective two-party system. The left knows that Rove and company aren't keen on debating issues, negotiating, compromising and horse-trading, the usual means of getting things done politically. On the contrary: The administration is intent on foreclosing them.

As much as liberals abhor the conservative agenda, there is something far more frightening to them now — not that Republicans have an ideological grand plan but that they don't have one. Instead, the GOP plan is policy solely in the service of politics, which should terrify democrats everywhere.

Maybe the clue was when Bush said during the campaign that he would work with the Democrats, and said he was "a uniter, not a divider." That was a tip-of that he wouldn't work with the Democrats and would divide the country right down the middle. This is the guy who said he doesn't look at polls and focus groups - because polls and focus groups told him to say that. The guy who was willing to say Al Gore would say anything to win.

Update - Calpundit comments on the same column:

[Bush is] a furious political animal who is uninterested in compromise and whose main goal is to defeat his enemies, not advance a cause. Ideology is actually secondary, and is useful mainly as a way to batter his political opposites.

Although this has been evident in a number of battles, nowhere was it more striking than in the runup to the Iraq war. From the very beginning, it was clear that Bush wasn't trying to build bipartisan support, the normal course for a president embarking on a foreign war, but was using it as a partisan club and a campaign issue, a way of dividing the Democrats and making them look weak on national security. It's true that it's been a while since politics truly stopped at the water's edge, but Bush has well and truly put that particular political maxim to bed once and for all.

The 2004 election is going to be one of the nastiest on record, I think. I hope the Democratic nominee is up to it.

Comments

I'm working on fixing the comments, and maybe changing over to Squawkbox for comments. In the meantime I'll have both HaloScan and Squawkbox comments here. Chaos.

Update - OK Sqauwkbox comments lasted about 15 minutes. I couldn't get their home page to come up so I could login and change my preferences. That's a bad enough start that I took them back off. Sorry if you left a comment - it's gone.

Out It Goes

I just thought I'd post a reminder that the money going out to Bush's tax cuts today is the money that was supposed to pay our Social Security when we retire.

S&L Crisis

Don't I recall that one of the causes of the S&L Crisis was long-term fixed-rate mortgages at relatively low interest rates? Wasn't another an administration intent on deregulation?

The Far Right

I'm listening to Thom Hartmann's radio show. He just talked about Nelson Rockefeller's speech preceeding Barry Goldwater at the 1964 Republican Convention, warning of the takover of the party by right-wing extremists. So I looked it up.

The atmosphere at the Republican convention was heated as Nelson Rockefeller stepped up to the podium to address the belligerent crowd: "During this year I have crisscrossed this nation, fighting … to keep the Republican party the party of all the people ... and warning of the extremist threat, its danger to the party, and danger to the nation," he said, taking his time as the crowd cheered "We want Barry!" "These extremists feed on fear, hate and terror, [they have] no program for America and the Republican Party... [they] operate from dark shadows of secrecy. It is essential that this convention repudiate here and now any doctrinaire, militant minority whether Communist, Ku Klux Klan or Birchers." It was, according to many, Nelson Rockefeller's finest moment -- but it did little to stop the conservative wave that was transforming the GOP.

Goldwater responded with his famous line: "Let our Republicanism, so focused and dedicated, not be made fuzzy and futile by unthinking and stupid labels," he summoned the crowd. "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice -- and let me remind you also, moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue."

Do you think Rockefeller was warning us of what's happening to the country today.

For Real?

Is this for real, or is it more babies being thrown from incubators?

OK Kerry, Go For It

OK John Kerry, here's your chance. You have been handed what potentially is the biggest presidential scandal in American history: the President, intentionally or incompetently, mislead the public and the Congress into starting a war with a nation that had not attacked or even threatened us.

For the good of the country and the world, this is not the time to hold back. I was in the room when you said you had seen no secret intelligence beyond what the public had been told backing up the President's claims that Iraq was an imminent threat, so I don't think you are holding back because you know something that the public does not.

You're the front-runner, so it's your responsibility as well as your opportunity to take the lead on this one -- and if you do then you might just deserve the presidency for that alone. Otherwise, perhaps you should think about getting out of the way.

Update - Since writing that I came across this:

IN FIERY SPEECHES Sunday to 400 Democratic activists gathered in Mount Pleasant, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio assailed President Bush. While Kucinich said the Bush administration "lied to the American people," Dean compared Bush to President Nixon during the Watergate crisis. "What did the president know and when did he know it?" Dean asked, in a reprise of the famous question posed about Nixon in 1974.

"The country is facing a serious crisis," Dean told the crowd. "Our people are dying in Iraq at the rate of nine a week and the American people may not have had the full information about why we went there."

Now all we have to do is get the media to actually report the facts.

This One is Worth Sending

Everybody in the country should read John Dean's piece on Bush and weapons of mass destruction. This is one that is worth e-mailing to everyone you know.

To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."

Of course, the right controls the Justice Department, the Congress and the Courts. And the media. This is the big one. This is where we find out if we are still a nation of laws.

Books

In my opinion, a key book for understanding why liberals and conservatives think the way they do is Moral Politics by George Lakoff. Lakoff's research shows that conservatives use a "strict father family" metaphor for thinking about government, and outlines the morality that follows from this. Obedience to authority, reward and punishment, things like that. The book explains why conservatives think it is immoral to help the poor. He says that liberals use a "nurturing parent" family metaphor, and follow a moral structure of helping each other. Lakoff's book gives you a good insight into why right-wingers mocked Hillary Clinton for writing a book titled It Takes a Village.

A key book for understanding "movement conservatives" is Blinded by the Right, by David Brock.

"My Fight"

To understand the Republican plan, read this. Then tell me if it doesn't confirm this.

Wording It Well

Balkinization puts the right words to the WMD problem:

If the Administration did not deceive the American people about the existence of WMD in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, then the possibility that these weapons have already proliferated and spread to terrorist groups becomes much greater. And that should be troubling for any Administration that insists it is acting to make the American people safer. (Which raises an interesting question: should we be happier if it turns out that the Administration was merely dishonest because it misled the public about WMD's in Iraq or incompetent because it let the WMD's fall into the hands of terrorists?)

Did he lie, or was he just incompetent?

Republican Crony Club

Here's a story about more blatant Republican Crony Club corruption that will not result in any indictments or headlines. And especially no leading Democrats calling for investigations. Update - Here's another one.

By the way - still no no leading Democrats calling for investigation of Bush's corruption with Harken Oil, or Cheney's corruption with Halliburton.

Listen to Rush

A comment I left over at Billmon's blog, after a posting about how Americans are uninformed - or misinformed - about the WMD situation:

I'm surprised by how many of "us" - progressives and moderates - don't ever listen to Rush or Sean Hannity, which happen to be where a very large fraction of America gets its news. I think it's important to understand what they are saying. You won't BELIEVE it if you turn on Rush or Sean, but it's what the public is hearing, and you'll see why Bush is so popular. Try it.

I'm serious. It is a very good thing to know what your opponents are saying. It's also a good way to know what you're going to be hearing about everywhere else. Also, you'll understand just how serious the right is, and how hard they are ready to fight.

Go Read

Every, every, everybody should read Arianna Huffington's piece The Enronization of Public Policy!

More On Bush vs Veterans

Democratic Veteran has caught Bush out on another one - involving the government pulling back the number of contracts to veteran-owned small businesses.

The Democratic Wing

I think pundits who think the phrase "The Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" refers to the lefties "just don't get it." In my opinion the phrase refers to Democrats willing to be an opposition party and stand up and challenge the Republicans when it is in the interest of the country. Senator Bob Graham, candidate for President certainly is no leftie, but he certainly is willing to stand up and challenge the Republicans, calling on President Bush to release information about what led up to 9/11. I respect that, even if his politics are not in line with my own. The politics of Sen. John Kerry DO line up with mine, but I feel that he does not stand up to the Republicans as necessary, and THAT is why he does not earn the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" label.

Graham is a quiet man who is considered a long shot among Democratic contenders. But he is the only one so far to stake out an aggressive position on the basis of classified information obtained during his tenure as co-chair of a special House-Senate panel. That panel has been investigating failure by the intelligence community to anticipate the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001.

Not only has he complained that the administration has dragged its feet for five months on declassifying the panel's 800-page report, but he has warned that he will take his case later this month to Vice President Dick Cheney, who oversaw the inquiry.

"I was raising my voice about my concern on this long before I became a candidate," said Graham, the only senator running for president who voted against congressional authorization of the war in Iraq, arguing that the terrorist threat posed by al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden should be the top priority for the administration.

"The American people deserve to know what their intelligence agencies have done or not done, and Congress needs to know so that reforms can be made," Graham said in an interview.

Being in the Democratic wing is about being an opposition party and standing up for the people of the country and the interests of the nation instead of cowering before the Bush intimidation machine, allowing the right to persue their radical agenda to take the country back to the 19th century. That's what it's about, not about being a leftie. And it's about getting it. Checking in with weblogs is getting it. Reading BuzzFlash is getting it. Understanding what the grassroots are talking about is getting it. THAT is why Governor Howard Dean is doing so well with the grassroots, and THAT is why Dean can use the phrase "from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."

Priorities

U.S. Begins to Excavate Bomb Crater in Search for Hussein's Remains.

A team of American military engineers began an intensive effort today to excavate the site of a bombing on April 7 that military officials still think may have killed Saddam Hussein.

The operation, involving a backhoe, two bulldozers, two cranes and 17 dump trucks, appeared to be by far the largest American effort to discover whether Mr. Hussein was killed in the raid.

Weapons hunters haven't examined Iraqi missile site.

But no U.S. weapons hunters or intelligence officials have visited the heart of Iraq's missile programs -- the state-owned Al-Fatah company in Baghdad, which designed all the rockets Saddam Hussein's troops fired in 1991 and again this year. Not only that, it's not even on their agenda.

``We have the most sensitive documents here,'' said Marouf al-Chalabi, director-general of Al-Fatah. ``We were sure the Americans would target us, but they haven't even dropped by.''
...

Plans for rocket engines, guidance systems and even missile warheads are strewn across the dusty office floors and swirl in the parking lot outside. Some have been blown into nearby bushes. ``They're scattered everywhere,'' Chalabi said, marveling at the mess.

American missile experts who have accompanied U.S. weapons teams in Iraq expressed astonishment this week when told that the design plans and engineers behind the Iraqi Scuds and other missile projects were available. The experts, who couldn't be identified for security reasons, said Al-Fatah wasn't on any target list they had seen.

They sure as hell immediately secured the oil fields, and sent the troops necessary to accomplish that. But they never did put much effort into locating and securing the supposed weapons. Yes, the same weapons that were a terrible, unimaginable threat to our security. Weapons that not only Saddam could use against us, but terrorists could get their hands on. But after the war they didn't even bother to send more than a few teams out to look for them -- surely not a major effort to secure all these weapons before they could be used on us or dispersed to terrorists. It's almost like they didn't want to waste resource on something that was nothing more than a story - a pretense - an excuse.

Sense of Decency

Reading Krugman, and reading other news questioning whether Bush lied claiming Iraq was a threat to us, I think we might be having a "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" moment. If so, I want Al Franken to get the historical credit, for going after O'Reilly the other day. I heard about it from several blogs, and saw it on C-Span. You gotta see it, it's historic. You can watch by clicking here (scroll to where it says Franken, and click "Watch") or, if you have DSL or cable, here. (Use RealPlayer's slide bar if you want to skip to where Franken starts - about 27 or 28 minutes into it.)

Franken went after Bush and Limbaugh and O'Reilly (in person - he was sitting right next to him) for lying. I mean he really went after them. At the end of his talk he said that we're tired of the lies from the right and tired of just taking it and "we're not going to sit for it anymore, we just aren't." Franken's upcoming book is titled, "LIES, And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them:A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right" and O'Reilly is on the cover.

Then today Paul Krugman's column just got real and said it.

It's long past time for this administration to be held accountable. Over the last two years we've become accustomed to the pattern. Each time the administration comes up with another whopper, partisan supporters — a group that includes a large segment of the news media — obediently insist that black is white and up is down. Meanwhile the "liberal" media report only that some people say that black is black and up is up. And some Democratic politicians offer the administration invaluable cover by making excuses and playing down the extent of the lies.

This stuff MATTERS. We went to WAR based on their lies! Bush lied, people died. As I am hearing more and more people saying, this is a lot worse than Watergate or Iran/Contra. This might even be worse than getting a blowjob!!!!!!!

So this might be a turning point, a "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" moment that crystallizes people's thinking and helps guide them back to doing the right thing. It's hard to ignore this one. Getting us into a war is serious businesses. Many people died. We were asked to trust the President, that he knew things we didn't, that there were stockpiles of dangerous chemical, biological, even nuclear weapons -- and it's hard to reconcile that with what we have found on the ground. Now we're bogged down with at least 150,000 troops stuck there, getting shot at, for years. And if we leave there is little doubt that Iraq will become a Shiite fundamentalist country and that WILL be a threat to us. So this one is going to be very hard to slip past the public, even with the extent of control of the media they have now. They just lie and lie, and look where it gets us.

We're not going to sit for it anymore. We just aren't.

Update - Here, from a former war supporter.

I trusted Bush, and unless something big develops on the weapons front in Iraq soon, it appears as though I was fooled by him. Perhaps he himself was taken in by his intelligence and military advisers. If so, he ought to be angry as hell, because ultimately he bears the responsibility.

It suggests a strain of zealotry in this White House that regards the question of war as just another political debate. It isn't. More than 100 fine Americans were killed in this conflict, dozens of British soldiers, and many thousands of Iraqis. Nobody gets killed or maimed in Capitol Hill maneuvers over spending plans, or battles over federal court appointments. War is a special case. It is the most serious step a nation can take, and it deserves the highest measure of seriousness and integrity.

When a president lies or exaggerates in making an argument for war, when he spins the facts to sell his case, he betrays his public trust, and he diminishes the credibility of his office and our country. We are at war. What we lost in this may yet end up being far more important than what we gained.

Afternoon Update - Let's look at Senator Byrd's May 21 speech.

Truth has a way of asserting itself despite all attempts to obscure it. Distortion only serves to derail it for a time. No matter to what lengths we humans may go to obfuscate facts or delude our fellows, truth has a way of squeezing out through the cracks, eventually.

But the danger is that at some point it may no longer matter. The danger is that damage is done before the truth is widely realized. The reality is that, sometimes, it is easier to ignore uncomfortable facts and go along with whatever distortion is currently in vogue. We see a lot of this today in politics. I see a lot of it -- more than I would ever have believed -- right on this Senate Floor.

Regarding the situation in Iraq, it appears to this Senator that the American people may have been lured into accepting the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation, in violation of long-standing International law, under false premises. There is ample evidence that the horrific events of September 11 have been carefully manipulated to switch public focus from Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda who masterminded the September 11th attacks, to Saddam Hussein who did not. The run up to our invasion of Iraq featured the President and members of his cabinet invoking every frightening image they could conjure, from mushroom clouds, to buried caches of germ warfare, to drones poised to deliver germ laden death in our major cities. We were treated to a heavy dose of overstatement concerning Saddam Hussein's direct threat to our freedoms. The tactic was guaranteed to provoke a sure reaction from a nation still suffering from a combination of post traumatic stress and justifiable anger after the attacks of 911. It was the exploitation of fear. It was a placebo for the anger.
...

The Administration assured the U.S. public and the world, over and over again, that an attack was necessary to protect our people and the world from terrorism. It assiduously worked to alarm the public and blur the faces of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden until they virtually became one.

What has become painfully clear in the aftermath of war is that Iraq was no immediate threat to the U.S.
...

But, the Bush team's extensive hype of WMD in Iraq as justification for a preemptive invasion has become more than embarrassing. It has raised serious questions about prevarication and the reckless use of power. Were our troops needlessly put at risk? Were countless Iraqi civilians killed and maimed when war was not really necessary? Was the American public deliberately misled? Was the world?
...

And mark my words, the calculated intimidation which we see so often of late by the "powers that be" will only keep the loyal opposition quiet for just so long. Because eventually, like it always does, the truth will emerge. And when it does, this house of cards, built of deceit, will fall.

Please go read the whole thing. As it begins to dawn on America that they were hoodwinked into war, I have a sense that we are experiencing history and this will go down as one of its great speeches.

It's Just Gone

Also, read this letter from Charles Rangel. The Bush tax cuts were your Social Security and Medicare. The money is going to these tax cuts instead. No question about it. The money is just gone now, and you won't be getting Social Security or Medicare.

The Social Security and Medicare trust funds — financed through the payroll tax on workers — are being rapidly funneled out to "give the money back" to wealthy taxpayers. This lays the groundwork for the end of those two programs — not reform, end — because the money will simply not be there.

So when you hear someone defending these tax cuts, ask them if they understand that it means no Social Security or Medicare for them.

Lying

I know you've seen this and I'm sure everyone else is putting this on their weblogs, but it is so important that I'm referring to it as well. Read Paul Krugman's column today!

I'm in a "light blogging" period, but I want to write about this and will soon. You know I've been writing about the lying that is going on.

Good Kerry Piece

Here's a good piece about John Kerry.

Blog to Check

An Old Soul

Dean Meetups Wednesday

The next Howard Dean for President Meetup day is this coming Wednesday, June 4. If you have heard about Governor Dean and want to learn more, or already know enough and want to get more involved, or just want to go spend a couple of hours with other people who feel the way you do, then this is your chance.

When you arrive at your Meetup location you'll probably see a sign or someone with a Dean t-shirt on, maybe a sign-in table. Often these days you'll see a crowd. Usually they're at a coffee shop or somewhere that serves beer and can accommodate enough people. Usually Dean Meetups involve spending a bit of time mingling with other Dean supporters, then one or two people making a few announcements, and then showing a Dean speech or other video. After they finish people are asked if they want to join a committee to work on organizing, or perhaps to have a house party.

You can find out where your nearest meetup is at Dean2002.Meetup.com. At this website you can sign up, find a local Meetup, read messages from other local Dean supporters and learn more about the Meetup process. Meetup is not part of the Dean campaign, it is a commercial service that the Dean campaign is using for this purpose. Dean is currently the largest of Meetup's clients.

Go. You'll enjoy it and you'll feel like you are helping the country.

Bush Lied People Died

Bush Lied
People Died

Getting Our Message Out

I have a piece at Smirking Chimp today. It's an improved version of a recent piece posted here. (Edited to make me look better.)

Go leave a comment.

Voting Machines Petition

Working For Change has a voting machines petition.

Stop the Florida-tion of the 2004 election
Computers threaten accountability of voting system

Today, there is a new and real threat to voters, this time coming from touchscreen voting machines with no paper trails and the computerized purges of voter rolls.

You can join SCLC President Martin Luther King III and investigative reporter Greg Palast in opposing the "Florida-tion" of the 2004 Presidential election by signing this petition. A complete copy of the petition will be delivered by Working Assets to Attorney General John Ashcroft.

I think it's more about publicizing the problem than getting anything done. Imagine - giving a petition to Ashcroft and thinking anything is going to get done! But publicizing is good, so sign the petition and pass the word.

Nothing But Lies

I'm loaded down today reading weblogs and pundits complaining about hypocrisy from the Bush administration on one issue after another. Altercation writes, "The hypocrisy of this administration is absolutely mind-boggling and the mainstream media are its unindicted co-conspirators." because the Bushies have been claiming they're doing a lot of help AIDS in Africa, when they are actually doing nothing. Tbogg is upset that the Bushies are lying about WMD, contracting out the federal workforce, saving Private Lynch, etc. Democratic Veteran says they say they want to win the "Hearts and Minds" of Iraqis but aren't DOING that, and saying we won in Iraq when we're still fighting, and going after Iran, etc. In the New York Times Bob Herbert writes about the Bush tax bill saying it's about job growth but having nothing in it that will grow jobs. And I just heard someone on a ieAmericaRadio.com show say "and it just turns out that everything they were saying was lies."

Come on! Don't you get it? This is not hypocrisy or stupidity or incompetence - this is laying down a smokescreen of words to cover their real agenda. Get used to it - they just lie. Everyone gets worked up about the illogical arguments they make, and spends so much time and energy arguing with what the Bush people are SAYING and not much time effectively fighting what they are DOING. Gosh, do you think that's part of their plan for getting things done?

Eschaton shows that he has a clue when he writes today, "At what point will our media just accept that they get nothing but lies?"

I'll be writing about the influence on the right wingers of philosopher Leo Strauss soon. He taught that deception is necessary in politics - leaders should tell the people what they need to tell them to keep them calm and then do what they think is best. Oh yeah, there is a lot more. Here's a good place to study up: Leo Strauss' Philosophy of Deception

Corporate Share of Cost of Government

I was looking into what has happened to the share of taxes paid by corporations, and came across this interesting article, The 50-Year Swindle. Here are a few excerpts:

Year by year during the last half of the twentieth century, Congress and the Internal Revenue Service have shifted the national tax burden away from corporations and onto the backs of individuals and families.

The numbers are painfully simple. After World War II, corporations and individuals carried the tax burden together. Year by year, this has been altered until the corporate-individual split is now closer to 20-to-80--and guess who pays the 80 percent?

In 1953, if you count only income taxes, not various other excises, sales taxes, and special duties, individuals and families paid 59 percent of federal revenues and corporations 41 percent, according to The Statistical Abstract of the United States. By the latest confirmed figures in the Abstract, the corporate share has dropped from 41 to 20 percent, while that of individuals has increased from 59 to 80 percent.
...

On the flip side, it has made corporations steadily larger and more powerful. This has led to the "legal corruption" of huge campaign contributions that accelerated the ability of corporations to avoid more and more of their responsibility for keeping the country's civic system in decent economic health.

The half-century of stealth attacks have had the insidious effect of conditioning most of the public to accept seemingly unconnected annual changes that, with time, look like acts of God or some force of economics beyond human intervention.
...

The big swindle that shifts taxes from corporations to individuals is concealed by another myth that politicians keep drumming into the American consciousness: The citizens of the United States are being crushed by ever-rising tax burdens. We are told that we're all taxed to the eyebrows and this must be changed. It is almost mandatory rhetoric in every election campaign.

But, according to the Century Foundation (formerly the middle-of-the-road Twentieth Century Fund) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), of all the industrialized democracies, the United States is near the bottom in paying taxes when calculated as a percentage of the country's total wealth, its Gross Domestic Product. Our total taxes as percentage of our GDP are 29.7 percent, Britain's are 33.6 percent; Canada's are 33.6 percent; Germany's are 39 percent; and Sweden's are 49.9 percent. If that makes us feel lucky, we need to add that all those other countries provide health, housing, and other services we do not.

Some ammunition for any of you who still bother to argue with right-wingers instead of just realizing that what they do is lay down a smokesreen of lies to cover what they are really doing... Much of this article does that -- it refutes the arguments of the right-wingers point by point. Of course, by the time the article had been written all the arguments had shifted, because they were never meant as serious arguments at all.

Anyway, the article has some good numbers to help you understand what has been happening to the tax structure over time, and some good stories. A good read.

Welcome

Welcome BadGimp.

The Mood of Intimidation In Bush's America

Here's a story about a teachers being punished for not supporting Bush enough. One was suspended for not taking down posters done by students - the pro-war posters were not "pro-war enough." Another was suspended because a student on the school's poetry-slam team read an anti-war poem. The poetry-slam team has also been disbanded. Four more were suspended for having anti-war posters in their classrooms. Most are terminated as of the end of this school year. All have letters inserted in their files which will make it difficult to find another job. And this is just in Albuquerque.

"Meanwhile, pro-war, militaristic signs, posters and bumper stickers abound at many Albuquerque and Rio Rancho schools."

Has Bush spoken out condemning these violations of people's rights? Has he spoken out against the mood of intimidation that is spreading across America? After you're done spitting your coffee out of your nose and laughing, please remember to read the rest of Seeing the Forest.

As I wrote below in Agents of The Party, "This is not a man condemning thuggery, this is a man gratefully utilizing it."

Space - For Americans Only

tendentious brought to my attention that the U.S. is now talking about denying all other countries the use of space for intelligence gathering satellites. They're talking about total military domination of the planet.

If allies don't like the new paradigm of space dominance, said Air Force secretary James Roche, they'll just have to learn to accept it. The allies, he told the symposium, will have 'no veto power.'

See PENTAGON: SPACE IS FOR AMERICANS ONLY at Defense Tech.

Another Stealth Bill

It looks like the new Defense Department authorization bill has a hidden surprise in it - it ends civil service protection for Pentagon employees! This means the loss of almost half the civil service union jobs in the country! Apparently the House has passed this but the Senate has not yet passed it. The American Federation of Government Employees has more information.

Please visit their website, and then call your Senators right away!

"Starving the Beast"

Read this, Stating the Obvious from Krugman today.

It's no secret that right-wing ideologues want to abolish programs Americans take for granted. But not long ago, to suggest that the Bush administration's policies might actually be driven by those ideologues — that the administration was deliberately setting the country up for a fiscal crisis in which popular social programs could be sharply cut — was to be accused of spouting conspiracy theories.

Then read this, Taxing Credibility by Bruce Bartlett from the LA Times Sunday, arguing from the right that yes this is exactly what they are doing, and for good reason.

Neoconservatives thought that attacking massively popular spending programs was both counterproductive and politically hopeless. Congress would never vote to cut such programs directly, and would not even restrain their growth unless under enormous political pressure.

And so, they approached things differently. First, they concluded that it is the relative size of government, not its absolute size, that is most important. In other words, government spending as a share of the gross domestic product was what mattered. For neocons, increasing the GDP is as important as lowering spending. Earlier conservatives had concentrated almost exclusively on controlling spending, assuming that increasing GDP was beyond government's grasp.

Second, neoconservatives absorbed the insights of Public Choice, an economic school led by Nobel Prize winner James Buchanan. One of Buchanan's theories, developed in academic papers and books during the mid-1970s, held that the size of government is better controlled on the tax side than the spending side. Cutting spending directly, while desirable, was often impossible in the absence of special circumstances, because the beneficiaries of spending were well organized and motivated, while those favoring lower spending were disorganized and diffused.

Neoconservatives saw tax cuts as a single solution to both problems. Lower tax rates would spur economic growth. If growth increased faster than spending, then spending's share of GDP would fall without the necessity of cutting spending directly. At the same time, they reasoned, budget deficits resulting from lower taxes would mobilize movements advocating reduced spending.
...

When California's Proposition 13 came along in 1978, Kristol saw another way in which tax cutting was useful. By denying government its fuel, tax cuts forced politicians to cut spending. In this sense, supply-side economics echoed the thinking of conservative economist Milton Friedman, who wrote in a 1978 column that "the only effective way to restrain government spending is by limiting government's explicit tax revenue — just as a limited income is the only effective restraint on any individual's or family's spending."
...

Starving the beast and increasing incentives for work, saving and investment are still good reasons to cut taxes today.

Yes, it's obvious, especially when they clearly say that their intent is to bankrupt the country IN ORDER TO get rid of Social Security and Medicare They call it "starving the beast" and they are proud to be bankrupting the country, because that brings the desired goal of getting rid of all of our pensions and health care.

If you asked the average Bush voter if they think Bush is trying to get rid of Social Security or Medicare they'll look at you like you are a crazy conspiracist. But how do you get through to them, when all of AM radio is a 24/7 Republican party ad, the TV networks replace Phil Donahue with Michael Savage, and most people won't go near a newspaper? Well, I've been writing about how to do that.

Search is Gone

I got rid of the search capability becuase it sucked too much. One of these days Blogger will have its search working.

Update - Maybe one of these days Blogger will get Blogspot working, too!

So Much for That Idea

The huge Bush tax cut was supposed to immediately lift the stock market, creating a "wealth effect" which would then boost consumer confidence and revive the economy.

Well, the tax cut passed Friday night. This is Tuesday morning (markets were closed yesterday), and the stock market opened ... down. Down 45 as I write, 5 minutes after the open.

Oops. Oh well, so much for that idea. Sorry about that HUGE increase in the deficit.

Update -The market went up later, because of consumer confidence and housing numbers. But the initial movement, in response to passing the tax cut bill, was down.

Who Is Responsible?

I'm reading this NY Times story about the Democrats trying to find a message, etc. I don't agree that the problem is that the Democrats don't have a message, or that it is their responsibility to develop one. Politicians RESPOND to the public. That's their job. A while back I wrote a piece about this, Don't Blame the Democrats. I'm going to repeat and expand on that piece here, and tell you who I blame - who I challenge to step up to the plate and fix this problem.

I have written about how the right has in place a broad, extremely well-funded "idea development and communication infrastructure" and how this has successfully moved the public to the right. This infrastructure consists of think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute (the people who brought you the Iraq war) to develop and refine their ideology, and a communications infrastructure that pumps their message out. This is the "message amplification infrastructure." Some of the communication channels are Rush Limbaugh and all of AM radio, Fox News and most of the TV pundits, the Washington Times and other newspapers, various magazines, various book publishers, and numerous organizations endlessly repeating the ideological messages to the public.

As I wrote before: "After the public has been barraged with the messaging from The Mighty Wurlizter, the Republican politicians step in and harvest the results." In other words, politicians respond to the public. To change the country don't rely on the politicians, instead you must change the public. This is how the right has accomplished so much. They have been pumping their ideological message to the public, following a long-term strategy, and over time succeeded in moving the public to the right. Only then would the public vote for their candidates.

As one example of this process, let's look at the right's movement to get rid of public schools. For so many years the right-wing infrastructure has been pumping out the message that "public schools are failing." After some time, hearing this message over and over, a consensus grows that there is a problem with public schools. Right-wing politicians can then promise "solutions," like vouchers, and their message resonates with a public that is primed to believe there is a "problem" requiring a solution. This public is also primed, through repetition of other messaging, to believe that private companies are more effective than government, etc. So the environment for accepting private schools as a "solution" to the "problem" of failing public schools has been set up. (It doesn't matter if there really is a problem, as long as a large enough share of the voting public believes there is.)

Now contrast this with the progressive approach to the health care problem. A progressive politician can come to the public saying we need "single-payer health insurance" or even the shorter "universal health care." The response from the public is going to be, "What?" because so few of the public have heard of these terms, much less been pounded with progressive messages about the problems with the health care system. So the way things work now, progressive politicians have to come in explaining from scratch the problems, and trying to educate the public with their detailed solutions. This is because the support base for their ideas was not developed in advance by a comparable ideological infrastructure.

Do we blame the Democrats for this? The Republican Party "harvests" the environment set up by the well-funded "idea development and communication infrastructure." But it wasn't the Republican Party that set up this infrastructure. So I don't think we can blame the Democratic Party for the absence of a comparable infrastructure on the left. The right-wing infrastructure was set up by a few right-wing philanthropists with a vision and not by the Republican Party.

So when looking for someone to "blame" perhaps we should look to someone other than Democratic politicians. Perhaps we should look to the people who FUND moderates and progressives. Let me explain what I mean.

Here's how the right manages to have such an infrastructure in place, while progressives and moderates are left struggling with each other and barely getting their messages out to the public. There's a lot of money out there on the right, but there's also a lot of moderate and progressive money out there. The difference is that the right uses its money to provide general operating funding to "advocacy" organizations that exist to come up with ways to convince the public to vote Republican. The organizations on the right are funded just to exist, and the money continues year after year, so they do not have to spend so much of their time raising money, instead concentrating on effectively carrying out their ideological objectives.

On the other hand, moderate and progressive philanthropists have traditionally provided money for specific programs with the intent of doing good in specific ways. This system of "program funding" evolved as the best way to apply scarce resources to projects with goals for which there was a general public consensus of support. This system evolved at a time when helping the poor, protecting the environment were all widely supported by the public.

But now the right's ideology machine has eroded that public support, and the programs funded by this system are less effective. The right uses their machine to get politicians elected that will carry out their agenda of dismantling almost everything that the moderates and progressives have been funding. When this happens, the moderate and progressive money is wasted. The example I like to use is a program to protect a redwood grove, costing $500,000 a year for the last 10 years. But now an elected official issues a decree that the best way to protect forests from fire is to remove the trees, or an ideological judge rules that trees are better used for industry -- and just like that the redwood grove is gone, and the $5,000,000 spent over 10 years is completely wasted. AND on top of that the local radio stations are mocking the funders as "evironmental whackos" or "eco-terrorists," and perhaps people are picketing their offices with signs saying they are "anti-capitalist."

Program funding was not designed to counter the current destructive opposition from the right. Moderate and progressive funding must start taking this into account, and start building an infrastructure that reaches the general public with messaging that moves underlying attitudes back toward moderate and progressive principles. This would provide an environment where moderates and progressives can get public support to protect the programs that are so important to all of us.

Moderate and progressive philanthropists must step up to the plate. As with anything that has been in place for a long time, program funding is an entrenched system, with bureaucracies in place, and lots of careers depending on the system staying just the way it is. But moderate and progressive philanthropists and foundations must recognize that this is no longer the most effective use of their money. Moderate and progressive philanthropists and foundations must step up to the plate and begin providing general operating funding to advocacy organizations who will work to move the public back away from this right-wing ideological nonsense that we have been subjected to for so long! This will provide an underlying base of support for the programs we all care about. This will help persuade the public to elect candidates who will protect the programs they care about. This will persuade the public to support the organizations that are trying so hard to protect the environment and help the poor and all the rest. We all need the work done to strengthen the underlying public attitudes of support for these goals, to strengthen and build the base of support upon which the organizations and programs rest.

If you are fortunate enough to have possession of so much of the resources, you have the responsibility to use them in the best possible way. You have the duty to see that there is a threat from the right that must be countered. It is not the job of a political party - politicians respond to the public. It is your job to use your resources to educate the public, to move them back from the right, to counter the ideological propaganda that the right is bombarding us with, to defend the programs we all care so much about.

Endorsement?

Is this an early endorsement of Dean?

Bill To Fix Voting Machines

I just learned that Congressman Rush Holt has introduced legislation to require a voter-verified paper trail for electronic voting machines. There is a description of the bill here.

Agents of "The Party"

You can see the controversial commencement speech where Chris Hedges was "booed off the stage" online now. You'll see that while some people stood and turned their backs it was actually just a few of the typically nasty and disruptive right-wing thug types who were shouting and blasting air-horns, even sneaking up and pulling the plug on the microphone. Most of the crowd was sitting calmly, wishing the ruffnecks would shut up. Some were shouting back at them "freedom of speech!" When the Dean asked the disrupting Party Members to allow the speaker to continue the crowd clapped and cheered. When Hedges finished there were as many people clapping as booing. Then some of the thugs rushed the state to threaten Hedges. (Keep in mind as you watch this that Hedges' message was simply, "war is bad.")

The message-amplification organs of The Party, fresh from their corporate-sponsored national trashing of the Dixie Chicks, trumpeted this event as another triumph for Bush and The Party, encouraging more of this sort of activity.

So here we have another example of what I'll call "agents of The Party" using thuggery - violating the rights of the rest of the crowd, shouting down a speaker for opposing The Party, and disrupting the graduation ceremony of a college - only to be praised in the media as heroes. Why do I call them "agents of The Party?" Because this behavior is occurring more and more in Bush's America, encouraged by "The Wurlitzer." Drudge shouts headlines of another pansy liberal "booed off the stage." Rush and Sean and all of AM radio talk about the elitist limousine liberal speaker out of touch with or hating America. Fox tells viewers of the heroes of Rockford patriotically rejecting the anti-American rant. Certainly no one from The Party has spoken up to denounce this type of behavior!

Bush's failure to condemn this signals his support and understanding of how it benefits his agenda. And occasionally he goes beyond silent approval, as he did with his endorsement the organized, coordinated campaign of intimidation against countries threatening to vote against us at the U.N.

While Bush said he did not expect "significant retribution from the government" against Security Council member nations that didn't line up with the United States, he pointedly left open the possibility of a popular backlash.

This is not a man condemning thuggery, this is a man gratefully utilizing it.

Blog Hero - Slactivist

I want to announce another Seeing the Forest Blog Hero award. Go read this by Fred Clark at Slacktivist, and you'll know why weblogs are important.

Thanks to Atrios for pointing to this.

A Short Poem

It just doesn't seem
that God's chosen one
would be a creature of
lies and arrogance and privilege
and secrecy and war

These Things MATTER!

An excellent column in today's NY Times, by Bob Herbert, Dancing With the Devil. Companies like Haliburton do business with America's enemies, and cheat our government. Meanwhile, the Dixie Chicks (and France and so many others) are subjected to an orchestrated campaign of derision from agents of The Party, with the press playing along.

All this energy and public attention focused on political protection of The Party. So little energy and attention focused on actually protecting the country and its people. No probe of the failures of our government to prevent the 9/11 attack, and how we can improve the government's efforts to stop such attacks, and the relevant documents all classified. No press coverage of The Party blocking the probe. But Haliburton and others are left alone, even rewarded with huge government contracts.

Here's what I think. 9/11 did "change everything." 9/11 showed why these things matter. 9/11 showed that the people of our country are vulnerable to attack and why we don't have time for this political nonsense that the right is subjecting us to. Before 9/11 we got used to orchestrated character assassination campaigns, like that conducted against President Clinton. After 9/11 we should all understand that it is important to stop this kind of nonsense, and restore a free press, because a REAL free press looks into the weaknesses of our government's efforts to protect us! But instead we get a double dose of propaganda and ass-covering. We get an administration with "no policy apparatus at all" -- only political manipulation.

For example, here is why it is important to know if the lack of WMD in Iraq is the result of an intelligence screw-up: If they could screw up that bad on such an important issue, then we have absolutely no assurance that they are effectively protecting us from terrorist attack.

These things MATTER! There ARE people attacking us, and right now we need an honest government and an honest press more than ever.