Send Comments and Tips to: Bush Wars December 2003 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31   Nov   Jan Home Who the Hell is Steve Perry? CP Article Archive Old Blog Babelogue Index Published By:		<< Check Box to have links open new windows... Monday, December 1, 2003 PERMALINK: You are what you do, and we have become what we put up with by Mark Gisleson Home again, home again. Over the past couple of days I've had lots of road time to process things (but almost no virtual time to keep up with the news). The update on the Yellow Springs story I left you with hasn't changed in any substantial way [new link]. In the United States, employment is pretty much everything anymore, and the politics of the workplace accurately reflect the dysfunction of our government and economy. I thought a lot about that on the road, and how Vick Mickunas' situation is in many ways mirrored throughout our society. Ideally, you'd think a radio station would be a team effort (the ideal organizational model when your worker bees are called "talent"), but Steve Spencer's desire to jam a "chimney" style organization down everyone's throat introduced many of the woes of the "normal" workplace to WYSO. Top down management is, for the most part, a load of hooey. I've written tens of thousands of words about CEO greed and managerial excess over the years, but even at lower levels American management has regressed into something more closely resembling Dickens than Tom Peters. Without a doubt, managers who harass based on gender or race or religion are still the worst offenders, but the multitude of other managerial sins (e.g., overdelegation, micromanagement, ego venting, tirades, weekly worship sessions aka staff meetings, etc.) have gotten much worse. Not surprisingly, I blame Bush. Not that George W. Bush is a good example of a bad manager. To the best of my knowledge, George Bush has never "managed" anything in his life, job titles notwithstanding. No, George is a good example of the culture that has created a pampered executive class that has resulted in an overly greedy upper middle management corps that thinks your name on the door dictates a six-figure salary. Not surprisingly, folks at the top with unrealistic aspirations tend to, in many ways, resemble welfare recipients plotting out their children's college aspirations based on their future lottery winnings. Stealing money from your kids' college fund to buy Lotto tix is not unlike the current rage of underpaying subordinates to inflate your own salary and perks, and just as short sighted. Business needs to reinvent itself, and, for a change, they need to do it for real. Project management is the latest greatest solution, and I must say it does have some promise. By replacing consultants with project managers, business is again putting the emphasis on "realistic" process improvements achieved through greater accountability and realistic planning. I'm still pretty skeptical that you can "measure" everything, but basing promotions and raises on measured results beats handing them out based on quality of ass kissing and/or ability to achieve short-term results that disappear faster than a budget surplus after a Republican takeover. You get some pretty varied feedback when your vacation stop overs are with 1) a doctor, 2) retired entrepreneur/business owner, 3) on air "talent" and 4) senior business executive married to an IT project manager. And, to be honest, I still rely heavily on my clients to tell me what's going on out there. All my feedback is reporting that change is coming. The culture of corporatism doesn't shy away from excess or abuse, but unlike a true sociopath, the Jack Welchs of the world know when to stop. Make no mistake about it, top execs have behaved in a criminal fashion, especially on Wall Street and in the banking industry, but now that Elliot Spitzer is on the job, they'll slowly go back to making money the old fashioned way: screwing you out of your earnings instead of engaging in outright theft. Business is not exactly lightning fast when it comes to change, but despite all the hooey filled books on Dow 20,000 and how to use weaponized zen koans in business warfare, Wall Street's still much more pragmatic than D.C. Business understands that all things eventually change, and they work to accommodate that which is inevitable. Right now, my best guess is that we're up for some pretty serious changes over the next few years. My take would be that we can re-elect Bush, in which case we'll just wait for everything to finish breaking then argue about how to glue everything back together, or we'll dump W and get someone who can repair what's busted and do some quick preventive maintenance on our basic systems. Fixin' what's broke is not (or at least should not) be an ideological battle. That pretty much rules out Republican participation. I do have a solution (he modestly said), and it doesn't even require regime change. American workers need to grow a backbone. If your workplace is paralyzed by a bad boss, organize and walk out. Don't whine to me about how that doesn't work in your industry. If nurses and cops can walk out, so can insurance adjusters. The trick to ridding yourself of a senior parasite is to let top management know that things are broken. Faced with a choice of replacing the manager or the entire work force, they'll dump the manager. All it takes is a united front. Google up some union organizing info for starters. Then, systematically keep steering the water cooler conversations away from sports and fashion, keeping things focused on workplace issues. Talk things out among yourselves. Empower weaker workers, conversationally and through advice. Yeah, I know. Everyone knows you can't organize professionals or Wal-mart employees. But I've also learned over the years that everyone isn't always right. Change begins at the bottom. Ousting your jerk of a supervisor is a great warm up for more serious regime change. * * I'll catch up on the news and do some links tomorrow. Meanwhile, read your daily Atrios/Josh/Kevin/Mark/Steve, and don't forget to check out Cursor, Buzzflash and CounterPunch.     # -- Posted 12/1/03; 2:48:26 PM Saturday, November 22, 2003 PERMALINK: Pacifica redux Heading out on vacation, but decided to throw up one last post before going south. If you're a dyed in the wool lefty, you undoubtedly remember the Pacifica flap that dragged on endlessly a few years back following KPFA's decision to lock out much of their talent over organizational issues. A similar story may be replaying in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This morning's Dayton Daily News plays it this way: WYSO host reportedly taken off air Mickunas accused of insubordination Dayton Daily News YELLOW SPRINGS | Vick Mickunas, who for 10 years has hosted an eclectic music program and the popular Book Nook author-interview program at WYSO-FM, was reportedly taken off the air this week by station managers. In what could prove to be the latest controversy at the public radio station owned by Antioch University, Mickunas was placed on administrative leave after an accusation of insubordination. Word of the action was circulated in an e-mail sent to critics of the station's management, some of whom have banded together under the name "Keep WYSO Local." They have protested changes in personnel and programming that have been made over the last two years by station General Manager Steve Spencer. The e-mail was written by Andy Valeri, a Dayton media activist and observer. Valeri said he is not officially a member of Keep WYSO Local, but is critical of Spencer's management. Tim Tattan, WYSO's program director, declined to discuss the matter, but noted that Mickunas' show Excursions will continue to air next week, as will Best of Book Nook, a rebroadcast of previous programs. Mickunas and Spencer were not available for comment on Friday. "I'm stunned," said Sharon Kelly Roth, director of public relations for Books & Co., who works with many of the same authors Mickunas interviews. "He is regarded as the best interviewer in the country by the authors who come to town. He's so wonderful at what he does." The reports about Mickunas came shortly after WYSO concluded an on-air membership campaign that raised about $193,000 for station operations, falling short of a $250,000 goal. Spencer has said WYSO will continue fund-raising in the weeks ahead. [From the Dayton Daily News: 11.22.2003] Translation: Steve Spencer, the station's general manager, is a gung-ho NPR type who gutted local programming and inserted expensive syndicated programming into the station line up. Vick Mickunas is the locally respected long-time Music Director who has a national reputation for breaking new acts, and whose three-hour daily show is a unique blend of non-Top 40 music and author interviews (here's a list of who he's had on lately). A friend in Yellow Springs has filled me in on some of the behind the scene details, and it all seems to boil down to this: overworked but dedicated talent stifled by narcissistic manager who hates everything about Antioch University and local public radio. The skinny is that Spencer's boss was out of the country on vacation, and Spencer decided to move against Mickunas. What the Dayton Daily News article doesn't mention is that there was supposed to be a day of protest at the station today, but that it was called off after the ever-loyal Mickunas heard of it, and made some calls to quash the demonstration. Mickunas wasn't the first talent forced out at WYSO by Spencer. Award-winning NPR reporter Aileen Leblanc left the station last year after countless shouting matches with Spencer, who has allegedly graduated from anger management counseling. The Operations Manager then left the station in protest, and last week the All Things Considered host left, apparently fed up with management strong arm tactics. This left Mickunas surrounded by management toadies. Spencer has few allies in the community, and the suspension of Mickunas may have been triggered by this Diane Chiddister article in the Yellow Springs News that was published the same day Mickunas was forced to hand in his keys. One of the things Chiddister has previously reported on is the fact that WYSO's budget has doubled under Spencer, due in large part to fees for syndicated programming and Spencer's habit of taking first-class junkets to public radio conferences around the country. Of course the station's deficit was complicated a couple of years ago when the highly effective Development Director left after disagreements with Spencer, and was replaced by an inexperienced and ineffective replacement who, according to reports, knows how to properly brown nose station management. Local activists have long had a WYSO protest website up, but as of this morning, it hadn't been updated to reflect the latest station turmoil. Station management is fighting back, and there are vicious rumors flying around the community that Mickunas was agitated and "acting violent' when he left the station. The only problem with that is the well established fact that Mickunas and his wife are long-time peace and animal rights activists. Mickunas is a local institution, bicycling into town to do his show five days a week. Recently he had had on numerous political guests, interviewing Sam Green about his movie on the Weather Underground, Rita Mae Brown, Joe Conason, David Cole, John Stauber, Tom Tomorrow, Scott Ritter, Greg Palast, etc. The day Mickunas was escorted off campus he had been scheduled to interview Dan Kennedy, the media critic for the Boston Phoenix, and this Monday Nigel Hamilton was going to be on his show to talk about his new book, "Bill Clinton: An American Journey." If there's anything that gripes me about life in our radically corporatized nation, it's the fact that radio really sucks just about everywhere. Yellow Springs used to be an exception, but it looks like the suits are about to win another one. I'll update this when I get back from vacation, but in the meantime I'm asking other bloggers to take note of this situation. Antioch University is traditionally a hotbed of radicalism, and with any luck, enraged alumni may get the station to back off on Mickunas' impending dismissal, and might possibly get the station back to its roots as a wellspring of local programming and community news.   # -- Posted 11/22/03; 12:08:48 PM Friday, November 21, 2003 PERMALINK: Still stonewalling by Mark Gisleson If you can't afford to subscribe to Salon, you can at least watch the commercial and then read Eric Boehlert's dynamite interview with Max Clelland with a clean conscience. I'm running several excerpts today, but they're only a small part of the important things Clelland has to say about this administration and the 9/11 coverup. Republicans say the partisan flavor of Cleland's anti-Bush broadsides are easy to explain; he's still stinging from his surprise reelection loss last November. Cleland denies it, but if he were still bitter, it would be easy to see why, considering he was the victim of a now-infamous attack ad, which even some Republicans objected to. Cleland's opponent, Saxby Chambliss, who sat out Vietnam with a bad knee, aired a spot featuring unflattering pictures of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein ... and Max Cleland. Chambliss charged Cleland, the Vietnam vet amputee, was soft on national security because he'd voted against creating the Homeland Security Act. In truth, Cleland co-wrote the legislation to create the Homeland Security Department, but objected to repeated attempts by the White House to deprive future Homeland Security employees of traditional civil service protection. It's hard to imagine any recent Democratic senator less soft on national security than Max Cleland, a reflection on the unlikely path he took to the U.S. Senate. In 1967 he volunteered for combat duty. The next year, during the siege of Khe Sahn, Cleland lost both his legs and his right hand to a Viet Cong grenade. Two years later, at the age of 28, he became the youngest person ever elected to the Georgia state Senate. In 1977 President Jimmy Carter appointed him to head the Veterans Administration. He later became Georgia's secretary of state. And in 1996, Georgia voters sent Cleland and his wheelchair to the Senate. * * You say you think it should be a national scandal ... It is a national scandal. Here's the deal. The administration made a connection on Sept. 11, and you can read Bob Woodward's book ["Bush at War"]. He's a private citizen. He got access to documents we don't have yet! Just think about that. He's a great reporter and a good guy. Bless his heart. But he got documents over two years ago, handwritten notes from Rumsfeld tying the terrorism attack into Iraq. * * What's your take on the situation in Iraq? One word: Disaster. And when the secretary of defense puts out a memo to his top staff and says we don't have the metrics to determine whether we're winning or losing the war on terrorism? If the secretary of defense does not understand that we're losing our rear end in Iraq in order to save our face, he ought quit being secretary of defense. Because all you have to do is ask any Pfc. out there. They're sitting ducks with targets on their backs; they're getting blown up. The question more and more is, for what? And, when are we coming home? The president is trying to find a reason, now that there's no weapons of mass destruction, no yellow cake coming from Niger, no connection with al-Qaida and no immediate threat to the United States, we now have a war of choice. I'm telling you we're in a mess. It's a disaster. * * I know you're a supporter of Sen. John Kerry. I am yes, a big supporter. Do you think his vote last fall in favor of war has hurt him? Yes, it's cost him. But he and I were trying to do the right thing and give the president of the United State the benefit of the doubt. After all, the vice president stood up at the VFW convention and said Iraq is building nuclear weapons. It was all part of cherry-picking the intelligence and boosting the case for war in Iraq, which they'd already decided to do. They were just looking for reasons. They kept saying there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. And the president said it's all about terrorism and the war on terrorism. Everybody in the administration was selling this used car. The problem is all the wheels have fallen off the car and we've got a lemon. Looking back, yeah, I regret that vote. I gave the president of the United States the benefit of the doubt. He took it as a blank check. I feel like I have been duped, I don't mind telling you. But the deal with Iraq was obvious. [White House political strategist] Karl Rove and those guys knew that all of a sudden the president's numbers shot up, so the Cheney-Wolfowitz plan fit with Karl Rove's plan; perpetual war keeps the president's numbers up and we'll cover over any attack on the president and any other issue. So they put that front and center and used it as a hammer. They even put me up there with Osama bin Laden and all that kind of stuff, and said I voted against Homeland Security when I was really one of the authors of the Homeland Security bills. So you can see how they used it as a hammer over members of Congress who were running. And now we've got an absolute disaster on our hands. And now the president's numbers are falling and they don't know what to do about it. So the ground truth has overtaken the political B.S. and now the real truth of the war, the cost of the war, is coming out. The American people, one thing I know is, they do not fight wars of attrition well. And as Thomas Paine once said, "Time makes more converts than reason." As time goes on, this war will not be resolved. Now, how does this relate to the 9/11 commission? If you slow-walk the 9/11 commission and keep kicking this can down the road, and keep making deals and denying access, within a year they'll have the election out of the way. So it's election-driven. * * What was your reaction when you saw President Bush landing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in May to give a victory speech of sorts? I'll tell you the truth. I thought, "Oh my God." A man who deliberately got out of going to Vietnam by hiding out in the National Guard and who did not even complete his National Guard tour of duty, now walks onto an aircraft carrier in a flight suit with helmet under his arm, as if he's Tom Cruise in "Top Gun," and "Mission Accomplished." What do you think now? The president ought to be ashamed because real soldiers are out there fighting and dying for a disastrous policy that he created. I'm telling you this is serious business. And that has now all been acknowledged as a sham. We're in a helluva mess. And the worst part is the kids are getting killed every damn day, that's what gets me. [more] Max Clelland is a bona fide American hero, and the Bush administration is refusing to let him see any of their documentation. Administration surrogates tar Clelland with the label "partisan," just another item in their campaign of "big lies." It was 29 years ago today that the 18 and 1/2 minute gap was revealed in the key Nixon tape. It was stonewalling then, and it's stonewalling now. Enough is enough. * * Anyhow, that’s my last word on anything for a week. I tried to post on the road over the 4th and nearly died from toxic PC syndrome complicated by get-the-hell-off-my-Mac-so-I-can-surfism. I’ll be back in December and there may be some changes in this whole Babelogue thing soon after. I don’t know for sure yet — that’s one of the things I’m hoping to figure out while not thinking about things. Consider this your virtual postcard from Wisconsin-Ohio-Kentucky-Illinois.   # -- Posted 11/21/03; 10:28:22 AM Thursday, November 20, 2003 PERMALINK: Neverland vs. Buckingham Palace in head-to-head ratings competition by Mark Gisleson Jacko was more newsworthy than Bush in London. Yeah, it's hard to know how to react to that one. On the one hand, it's ridiculous to think that a Hollywood sex scandal is more important than a presidential state visit to a close ally, but on the other hand, this is George W. Bush we're talking about. Anyhow, it all put Nightline in a bind, and they decided to go with Jacko's tots over the Beverly Hillbillies invade Buckingham Palace. Somehow the Republic will carry on. England's not like the US, as the British cover art for Paul Krugman's "The Great Unraveling" makes clear. A bit on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre side, but definitely PC (politically corrosive). Zouhair Yahyaoui's release from a Tunisian prison is a bit more worthy of a Nightline feature, but chances are pretty good that if you don't click on this link, you won't hear anything else about this cyber-dissident who just spent 18 months rotting in a prison cell for reporting the news. [via Dan Gillmor] David Neiwert at Orcinus has a pretty thorough post up on gay marriage and the Republican Party's decision to make that their "Willie Horton" for the 2004 election cycle. Neiwert does a nice job of contrasting Donald Wildmon with the Klan and others. He's on to something here. The arguments for racial bigotry eerily parallel those used to denounce gay marriage. Good (albeit intense) read. Is re-regulation an idea whose time has come? I sure hope so, and I'm glad to see Howard Dean confronting the ignorant claptrap spewed by RNC spinmeisters on this topic. Having spent the '70s in a tire factory, I'm very much an advocate of tight government regulation of the workplace. Dean's perspective, of course, is more on Wall Street, and it's hard to argue against tighter regulation of the big money boys and some of the games they play. * * Short and sweet today. Lots of errands to run, people to see, places to go, yada yada.   # -- Posted 11/20/03; 1:06:28 PM Wednesday, November 19, 2003 PERMALINK: Some semi-salacious Page Six items by Mark Gisleson It took a while, but there's a fairly accurate transcript up of the recent Fox interview with Wes Clark that got a little testy. Three cheers for Clark. It's long past time for politicians to let interviewers have it when they ask stupid or misleading questions. I: [interrupting] Scuse me just one minute... I just want to add onto that. While our men and women are dying in Iraq is it proper to call it a sideshow? C: Our men and women in Iraq are doing a fabulous job. They're doing a great job. I love them. I respect them and I honor them and. My problem is with the president of the united states. He's the one responsible for this. As he told us. He was going to make the decision when to go to war. He did. Our men and women are doing everything their country has asked them to do. But for the war on terror it's not the right thing that we should ask them to do. Don't you dare twist words into disrespect for the men and women in uniform. I love those men and women. I gave 34 years of my life to them. You better take my words the right way... Speaking of another candidate with a reputation for bluntness, Edward Cone takes a good look at the marketing of Howard Dean. The important thing here is not the Internet, by the way. The 'net is a tool, and Dean's folks used it well, but that's about it. You could say that the typewriter changed the face of politics, but that wouldn't make it true. Political activists are usually quick to adapt to new technologies, and in my lifetime I've seen campaigns revolutionized by faxes, overnight mail, e-mail, and now the Internet, but none of these were the cause of change, just the delivery boy. At the risk of totally blowing it out my (very cute) ass, I think what Dean's really done is to tap into the energies of countless hacker moms who've parked their minivans and gotten their kids to teach them how their PC works. And, in this case, the hacker moms are also in cahoots with plenty of online allies who've been waiting for a chance to flex their modems. * * When the feds couldn't nail Al Capone for being a murdering, thieving psychopath, they got him on tax evasion charges. Hmm, I wonder if that scenario may be playing out again: the feds are investigating two-year-old leads into Rush Limbaugh's dozens of withdrawals of $9000 odd dollars from his New York bank account (banks must notify the feds of any withdrawals of over $10,000 in cash). Could Rush get sent up on money laundering charges? Can you say "poetic justice"? How about "lying loser"? And "fat," did we mention that he's really, really formerly fat? And don't forget deaf, richer than god, or the fact that he's Ted Bundy's third cousin on his mother's side. James Carville and Mary Matalin's "K Street" is pretty much a goner: "'K Street' is extremely bad," said TV Guide critic Matt Roush. "So much so that I don't see how it stays off any critic's 10 Worst list." Added USA Today critic Robert Bianco, who is based in Virginia, just across the river from the nation's capital, "Some people have said that it is a show that would only be of interest to people in Washington, and that's an insult to the people of Washington." The ratings went into a downward spiral and the buzz quickly evaporated. As the show finished its 10-episode run, it was averaging only a 4.3 rating in HBO's universe, or about 2.2 million viewers. HBO hits such as "The Sopranos," by contrast, typically attract numbers almost five times larger. "The Sopranos" has attained a 20 rating in HBO households. Meanwhile, on tonight's West Wing: The president engages in a war of wills with the GOP house speaker (Steven Culp), resulting in a government shutdown; Bartlet seeks to end the fiscal crisis by challenging the Republicans in the halls of the Capitol. * * OK, this is my second time around on this post, having lost my first draft when my tv listings page crashed me as I checked on tonight's West Wing episode. Only three more posting days and I is out of here! One word of caution: Steve's already making noises like he might be really busy next week. Ever since he finished his Bush Lies cover story and we draped his cape over him as he slumped down in his editor's chair, he's been busy being editorial and not at all bloggerly. So send him an email to coax him out of bullpen and back onto the mound.   # -- Posted 11/19/03; 10:41:46 AM Tuesday, November 18, 2003 PERMALINK: Congrats to Mr. and Mr. Chalmers-Linnell by Mark Gisleson Let's try starting out with some good news for a change. No, a crazed housewife didn't break through the cordon of 16,000 British bobbies to swat George W. with a rolled up copy of the Sunday London Times, although that would certainly bring a smile to my face. The good news today is that Gary Chalmers and Rich Linnell won. What did they win, you might ask? They won the right to get married in Massachusetts. By a vote of 4-3, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the Legislature must accommodate the needs of all the citizens of the Commonwealth seeking to join together in wedded matrimony. I'll also be unnecessarily candid, and admit to a shortcoming of my own. For my parents' generation (you know, the "greatest generation"), the linguistic battle was to exorcise the "n-word" from their vocabularies. Like many Baby Boomers, I've struggled for years to rid myself of the classic male bonding locker room "f-word," and no, I don't mean "fuck." Here's hoping this court ruling helps to make that a little easier the next time I take to trading insults with my drinking buddies. I look forward to lots of new bonding opportunities next year when the GOP makes 2004 the "Year of Gay Marriage Bashing." I think it's time a few Boomers and a lot of Greatest Generationers learn that young people really don't give a rat's ass about these things, and it's time we stopped freaking out over other people's preferences. * * Regular Babelogue contributor Elaine Cassel's byline shows up at FindLaw today, where she weighs in on Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad. Elaine thinks Muhammed may get a new trial due to Virginia's "triggerman rule." Ashcroft screws up yet again. Eager to assign jurisdiction to a death penalty state, Maximum John forgot to check the rulebooks and, as a result, the slimiest jerkwad to parlay a one-man cult into Jim Jones territory may get off scot free. I admit to a passing interest in the Ed Geins of this world, and I do have an opinion about this case. Allen is scum and should fry, but Malvo should get off with a very, very long sentence and a chance at rehabilitation. Just call me a wishy-washy liberal, and don't forget my standard caveat that, while I believe in capital punishment for some crimes, I don't think our current system passes the laugh test and that every single person currently on death row should have their sentence commuted to life without parole. * * I'd like to think that nobody cares about Bernard Goldberg's newest book, but for those who do, be sure to read Bob Somerby's recent Daily Howler post in which he shreds Bernie's credibility and so-called facts. * * Had to run out and do some quick errands for "she who must be obeyed," and got to hear some of a Minnesota Public Radio call in with NPR's ombudsman. Nothing terribly important was said (gee, does that sum up public radio or what?), but one caller got my goat. He was a "lifelong Democrat" but couldn't stand how "liberal" NPR was. If MPR or NPR had any class or conviction, they'd hang up the second anyone identifies themselves as a lifelong Democrat. Why? Because 98% of the time, it's a Republican trash talker trying to establish the most holy of all RNC memes: that of the disaffected Democrat who just can't stand the fact that their party has moved so far to the left. Nevermind that the current Democratic caucus in the Senate is visibly to the right of the Republican Senate minority caucus circa 1967, this is the whopper du jour that the RNC keeps seeking to establish. (In all seriousness I'd trade either Kerry for Chuck Percy, Feinstein for Margaret Chase Smith, Daschle for George Aiken, or Joe Lieberman for Edward Brooke.) I posted a little bit yesterday at Babelogue's front page blog about "Blind Spot — Hitler's Secretary." Listening to Frau Traudl Junge, it was easy to see how Hitler took and kept power. The Germans, quite simply, did not challenge his lies, and they accepted his authority. The secret to Hitler's rise to power is not a secret: it was based on the "big lie" and reinforced with selective and ever increasing violence. I'd argue any day of the week that George W. Bush rose to power on the strength of Karl Rove's lies, and while the bourgeois riot in Miami was pretty fey compared to Kristallnacht, it was a strategic application of well-timed violence all the same. And that little thing known as the invasion of Iraq makes up for a lot of the violence gap between AH and GW. Junge has a telling moment towards the end of the interview/film. She talks about walking down a German street after the war and seeing a statue that had been erected to a young German woman who had been killed for resisting the Nazis. At that moment, Junge finally realizes that there were indeed some Germans her age who saw through the lies and resisted. The shame of that moment stayed with her the rest of her life, and it wasn't until she did the interviews that formed this movie that she finally came to some peace with her role as a secretary to Adolf Hitler. Before that moment she had told herself she was just like every other German. I don't think Republicans are Nazis, but I do think that the Nazis in the RNC work very hard to make cultural conservatives think that their beliefs are the norm, and that everyone else is aberrant in some way. The galling thing, of course, is that the Republican leadership in almost no way reflects the beliefs of their core supporters. For every bastard Dan Burton has running around Indianapolis, there are countless aborted fetuses that could have claimed a Republican member of Congress as their daddy (or mommy). It's not Bush bashing to pay attention to Larry Flynt's press releases, and it's not Bush hatred to point out that the emperor not only has no pants, but has a very small dick, and I don't mean Cheney. * * Vacation time coming up next week, and I promise to come back with a bit more polish than I've been exhibiting lately. I need a break from my posting, as I suspect all of you do. Here's to the return of Steve Perry on November 24th (that or you'll find my November 22nd post gathering cyberdust all Thanksgiving week — write Steve to let him know you're looking forward to some new posts from him, but don't tell him I sent you).   # -- Posted 11/18/03; 12:27:41 PM Monday, November 17, 2003 PERMALINK: Moon exerts pull over the son? by Mark Gisleson The Star Tribune's Robert Franklin writes that "Some wealthy aren't sharing the wealth." According to a Harris Interactive survey, "By far, the top concern of affluent investors is sustaining and increasing their wealth." If you didn't get a call to participate, it may be because you don't earn at least $325,000 a year, or have a net worth in excess of $5.9 million. [Emmett] Carson, chief executive of the Minneapolis Foundation, said he is disappointed in the survey results, but "giving is a taught behavior. It is something that families teach their young. They believe in a tradition, they understand and have a sense of responsibility, and many families don't have that tradition."Some of the affluent view wealth as if "it's theirs, they own it, they made it, they have no obligation to share it with the society in which they live," Carson said. "For them, the scorecard is how much they can accumulate." Regular readers may have noticed that I am somewhat less than religious, but I blame that on the church. Growing up in the '60s exposed me to efforts to place the gospels in the context of sharing the wealth. That brief flirtation with the teachings of Jesus was quickly quashed by church elders, but to this day the fact that so many of our wealthy claim to be Christians baffles me. How do "Christians" justify the amassing of great wealth? The answer does not involve any vast conspiracies or cabals, but the cast of characters is certainly interesting. On the one hand you have Fox, always mewling about the victimization of the white right, but their real bottom line never strays from special rights for the especially wealthy. The moral side of the equation is just flat out a nonstarter, as Frank Rich reminded us this weekend with his brilliant essay "Angels, Reagan and AIDS in America." It's hard for me to see just exactly how the vast right wing conspiracy works on behalf of Christians, but that doesn't mean there aren't Christians within the movement. Calpundit recently linked to a fascinating Tristero blog post on a shadowy network of college and high school Christian groups that operate much like the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's old cult network. I think Americans have always been oblivious to Moon's efforts. This snippet from a lengthy webpage illustrates Moon's ability to use money to corrupt almost anyone. Prior to the 2000 election, some ex-Moonies speculated about a Bush presidency being hijacked to advance Moon's agenda: Following through on one of his campaign promises, President George W. Bush announced today a major increase in funding for a sweeping program of abstinence based sex-ed curriculum to be instituted throughout America's public school system. The program, teaching sexual abstinence as a means to deter teenage pregnancy, was developed through "Pure Love Alliance" a front group funded by Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, more popularly known as Moonies. Responding to criticisms that embedded in the program are buzz-words and terminology exclusive to the Unification Church, designed to encourage future membership among high-school age youth, the newly elected President responded that the program would meet all requirements of the Public School system's official guidelines for new curriculum. Contrast that with these items from a recent Bill Berkowitz story: On December 19, 2002, while many Americans were caught up in Trent Lott's troubles or trying to figure out what to get their mother-in-law for Christmas, the Corporation for National and Community Service announced the appointment of three managers to oversee AmeriCorps. David Caprara was appointed director of AmeriCorps*VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America). Caprara comes to government service having served as president of the American Family Coalition, an organization many observers say is a "front" organization for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Caprara's appointment is the latest in a series of events signifying a close relationship between the Bush Administration and the Rev. Moon's Unification Church... On May 21, 2002, the Rev. Moon hosted a gala 20th anniversary celebration for The Washington Times at the Washington Hilton Hotel. The Times reported the following day that "more than 3,000 congressmen, state legislators and business and religious leaders from across the country" attended and heard country music singer Randy Travis and radio talk show host Laura Schlessinger, who delivered the keynote address. One of the highlights of the evening was the reading of a congratulatory message from President Bush, who called The Times "a distinguished source of information and opinion" and "a forum for the debate of timely issues." The SBC's antipathy over the Rev. Moon's sponsorship of the prayer event and the Republican Party's dependence on its organizing skills are indicative of the longtime love/hate relationship Christian evangelicals and GOP operatives have had with the Unification Church. (Boston recently told me that the "baggage associated with the Unification Church has created problems for the church over time, so they formed the more family-friendly-sounding Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.") I thought I could make a much neater case out of all of this, but Moon's gotten to be pretty slippery, hiding behind numerous front organizations. And, I think a case can be made that the Moonies go out of their way to avoid using his name. While doing my research, however, one thing did stand out. It seems that every time this Bush administration even thinks about supporting a UN resolution or some action that would run counter to Moon's agenda, scads of articles and warnings pop up at fringe website's decrying Bush's support of homosexuality or abortion or general ungodliness. The pressure from the right is largely invisible to the general public, but Moon's ability to apply pressure from within the conservative establishment has only grown over the years as he has continued to distribute cash and intangibles to his flock. Pop "Sun Myung Moon" into Google News and you'll get 22 matches. Jerry Falwell gets 145, "Rev." Jesse Jackson 349, the Dalai Lama 390, and Pope John Paul 2,960 matches. I'd be willing to bet that Moon has more influence with this administration than any of those other guys. Enough influence, at least, to keep his name out of the news. The Hollywood left may have its Scientologists, astrologers and cabalists, but Washington, DC, seems to be firmly controlled by the Moonies. I think it would be interesting if the media were to start asking our office holders the very simple question, "So Senator, what do you think of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon?" * * Some good news: in the spirit of the riot grrl movement "radical cheerleaders" are popping up all over. Here's the Guardian story, and a few extra links to the Rocky Mountain Rebels and an index page for similar organizations.   # -- Posted 11/17/03; 10:38:23 AM Saturday, November 15, 2003 PERMALINK: Update by Mark Gisleson From AP: BAGHDAD, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Twelve coalition personnel were killed and nine wounded when two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters crashed in Iraq on Saturday, a U.S. Army spokesman in Baghdad said. The spokesman said there was no immediate information on the cause of the crash, which involved two helicopters from the 101st Airborne Division. There was also no word of any Iraqi casualties on the ground. The helicopters crashed in a residential area in the northern city of Mosul. Christ. One question: what kind of wounded do you get from a helicopter crash? Update to the update: I didn't have the energy to deconstruct Stephen Hayes' lengthy flaunting of a leaked intelligence memo, but fortunately Kevin "Calpundit" Drum was up to the task. Or you can just note that Douglas Feith was involved, and let it go at that. [Update: Joel Swadesh over at Atrios does a first-rate job of boiling down Hayes' overly long piece, reducing it to its essential parts. Nothing new here at all, it appears. Just more hot air to justify what cannot be justified.] One other thing. I don't link to or tout CounterPunch nearly as often as I should, mostly because I assume that almost all of our readers go to CounterPunch first, and then click on us as an afterthought (and our readership numbers certainly confirm that). But if you're not a CounterPunch reader, you probably should be. Lots of weekend reading up right now from Norman Solomon to Alexander Cockburn to Babelogue's own Elaine Cassel. Worth the click. # -- Posted 11/15/03; 1:51:39 PM The "Friday" Report by Mark Gisleson The Iraqi Governing Council claimed this morning that the US will hand over control of Iraq to "a new transitional government by June." ??? These guys claimed they couldn't even begin to guess how long the war would take or what it would cost, but now they can pinpoint the moment when we'll get to pull out? Faced with escalating violence in Iraq, the Bush administration wants to speed up the handover of power to Iraqis — dropping its earlier insistence that the Iraqis first draw up a new constitution and hold general elections, a process likely to last at least another year. The Iraqis had been insisting on a faster transfer. Council member Ahmad Chalabi, appearing at a news conference with other members, said the selection of a transitional government should be completed by May. The government, he said, will be “internationally recognized” and with “full sovereignty.” Council President Jalal Talabani said the transitional administration would be selected after consultations with “all parties” in Iraqi society. Council members also said the plans called for a permanent constitution to be drafted and an elected administration chosen by the end of 2005. Mr. Talabani said the new government would negotiate an accord with the U.S. military on American troops' role in the country after the handover. [emphasis added] The BBC just posted a follow up to the Riyadh bombing. Reporter Bill Law gained access to the al-Muhaya compound that was leveled by a car bombing Thursday. "Over there on the other side of the building is a foot... Do you want to film it?" I didn't have a camera. I didn't find the foot. I didn't want to find it. But the cloying scent of death hit me. As did the realisation the Saudis were cleaning up the bomb site with scant regard for those who had survived and those who had not. I couldn't help but think the remains of some of the victims were still in the rubble being carted off. The Voice of America has the latest on Rummy's activities: U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the United States understands Japan's decision to delay sending non-combat troops to Iraq. Appearing at a joint news conference with his Japanese counterpart, Shigeru Ishiba, after talks in Tokyo Saturday, Mr. Rumsfeld said every sovereign nation decides on its own about its "appropriate" involvement in Iraq's reconstruction. The U.S. defense secretary said he appreciates the support that Japan and other countries have provided for rebuilding Iraq. Japan has pledged $5 billion in grants and loans for Iraq over the next three years, making it the biggest donor after the United States. Mr. Ishiba said Japan intends to dispatch troops to Iraq "as soon as possible," but is carefully monitoring the security situation in that country. On Thursday, Japan said it was postponing deployment of its troops to Iraq until next year. The announcement came a day after a suicide bombing in southern Iraq Wednesday that killed 18 Italians and nine Iraqis. Another U.S. ally, South Korea, said it would send no more than 3,000 of its troops to Iraq, far fewer than has been suggested by the United States. I'm not much on reading the warbloggers, but recent events made me curious as to how they are reacting to all this bad news and bluster. I was, to say the least, a little disappointed. Uber-blogger Instapundit briefly links to Kris Lofgren's post on the synagogue bombing in Istanbul this morning, but then turns a loving eye to a lengthy quote and link to the Media Resource Center's latest propaganda screed, "MSNBC's Arnot Sees Iraqis Angry at TV Coverage, Who 'Love' Bush." Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds then eats up some more column inches by quoting a reader's thoughts about this story which conveniently speculate about how world opinion has been shaped by the liberal American media. Have any of these people EVER read a foreign news report on this war? Higher up on the Media Resource Center's CyberAlert list are the following two items (deciphered from the original Goebbelese): Nets Portray Both Parties as Equally Guilty of Blocking Nominees [translation: even though the Democrats haven't begun to sink to Clinton era Republican level obstructionism, we're offended that anyone would even think that the GOP was ever as rude as these stinking liberal busybodies] CBS Solicits Military Advice from Clark, Doesn’t Challenge Him [translation: all Democrats must be challenged and ridiculed, no matter how great their expertise on the matter at hand] Steve Den Beste over at the USS Clueless does address a pertinent issue: whether Osama really has a game plan or not. I wish I could summarize his 2,800 word post, but like all things Den Besteian, it meanders a bit. Here's his conclusion: This is not a war which they expect to win with guns or explosives. It is a spiritual struggle. The word "jihad" is sometimes claimed to have two meanings: one of holy crusade against the infidel, but another representing a struggle within to achieve moral purity and faith. Those are not separate meanings to the zealots. They are the same thing; they're inextricably linked. If they triumph internally, and achieve purity of faith, they will win the holy crusade against the infidel, because God will aid them and there is no limit to God's power. Not even America's wizard weapons can defeat God. And they can only become pure internally if they are also dedicated to holy crusade. And that's why al Qaeda's plans seem idiotic to rationalists like Donald and me. bin Laden could not create and follow the kind of plan which we'd think was essential. If bin Laden's plan had been based entirely on temporal power and cogent strategy and real resources, and if such a plan did not rely on miracles, it would have demonstrated lack of faith. If there were no place in the plan for God, it would prove that bin Laden didn't truly believe God would help. And it would therefore prove that bin Laden didn't deserve any help from God, because it would prove that his faith wasn't really pure. For bin Laden to create such a plan would be a heretical act. Of course that entire issue is meaningless for an Atheist. It isn't meaningless for a rationalist post-Enlightenment Christian, but he faces no crisis of faith in a similar situation. He can make rational plans which don't rely on miracles because his faith acknowledges that God doesn't usually work that way. Such a Christian doesn't pray for victory; he prays for the wisdom to create rational plans and the strength to carry them out. But for bin Laden and other Islamic zealots bent on jihad, even that would be heresy. The only way to truly prove your faith is to rely on miracles, and that's what I think they're doing. I think that was bin Laden's strategy. It's not enough for them to win or lose their crusade; they have to win it the right way, by showing the purity of their faith and by having God fight beside them. And they only can, and only should win by purifying themselves enough to once again deserve God's aid in the crusade. To demonstrate any doubt whatever in this is to prove that they are unworthy to be Soldiers of God. And God will prove that by not aiding them, and permitting their enemies to triumph. Donald Luskin impotently flogs his war on Paul Krugman, linking to David Brooks sophoric "stop the hate" column in today's New York Times. It's hard not to be reminded of Harry Truman's quote, "I never give them hell, I just tell them the truth and they say it's hell!" As for Brooks latest nonsense, the following purports to be the words of an unnamed Democratic candidate for president (and ain't it amazing how often the pro-war crowd finds it necessary to invent quotes or quote people you've never heard of before?): If Dean is our nominee, he may fight the Beltway wars more aggressively than other Democrats, but we will still be a nation at war. I have seen Dean up close. The man hates his opponents. His kind thrives only during times of domestic war. If we nominate Dean, it will be bad for our party and bad for our country. It will be bad for our party because 40 percent of the voters in this nation call themselves moderates. If we nominate Dean, George Bush will have a good shot at winning a large chunk of those votes. That's disgraceful after the partisan way George Bush has led this country. But it will be our fault because we nominated someone just as partisan on the other side. But suppose Dean does win the White House. He'll propose some good legislation. I'll support it, but it will never get passed. Because each party will still be down in its trenches, and nothing will move except the bouncing of the rubble and the writhing of the wounded. We've all seen the Dean style. If he is elected, we will be a nation at war every second of his term. I don't even want to think about what our country would be like after four years of that. [Gee David, I was having just that exact conversation with one of my minivan driving suburban "bobo" friends just this morning!] The only good thing I can take from all of that is this: if this is the best the pros can come up with, Bush Wars readers should be able to utterly demolish the arguments of their pro-war drinking buddies. Iraq is a goddamned mess, and I don't know how anyone could say otherwise with a straight face (the above noted professional liars excepted). The time honored strategy when your cause is hopeless is to accuse the other side of unspeakable crimes. This time around, the real issue is that everyone on the left "hates" Bush, or hates America. They can lie, obfuscate and dodge, but they can't change the facts. We're hip deep in shit, and the big fool says to push on (but not to worry, we'll be out by next June in time for the Republican National Convention in ... New York City?).   # -- Posted 11/15/03; 11:28:16 AM Friday, November 14, 2003 PERMALINK: Rall you really need to know by Mark Gisleson I don't usually weigh in on daily military developments in Iraq, but I'm getting a little sick and tired of the names the Pentagon gives to their new initiatives. Operation Iron Hammer? Give me a break. What's next — Operation Our Dick Is Bigger Than Yours? It's definitely "boxers or briefs?" season with our press corps. Hot on the heels of the "Mac or PC" MTV/CNN flap, the Washington Post wastes several column inches looking at the issue of the Democratic candidates' hair. Might I suggest they sleuth out the cost of George W's tonsorial sessions? Bowl cuts don't go well with thousand-dollar Italian suits, and I suspect more time and care goes into that Lonestar 'bidness" look than even Al Sharpton's grooming regimen (does he conk, or doesn't he?). Karl Rove would sleep a lot easier if all his problems were this easy to deal with. For the record, I don't think Bush raped this woman and I certainly don't trust Pravda to tell me about it, but I still think our feckless leader did more rum and coke than Guard duty in his youth. In any event, past indiscretions pretty much pale next to the current litany of war occupation crimes. * * The right is desperately trying to spin attention away from Iraq. Tory bloggers are either grasping at irrelevancies (androgyny, yacht clubs, Dennis Kucinich), or attacking the messengers. In particular, they hate Ted Rall. It's not hard to see why if you read Rall's cartoons or blog, but the really choice stuff is the weekly op-ed piece Rall writes. Here are some recent excerpts worth chewing on: [From a mock Iraqi resistance recruiting letter] Thank you for joining the Iraqi resistance forces. You have been issued an AK-47 rifle, rocket-propelled grenade launcher and an address where you can pick up supplies of bombs and remote-controlled mines. Please let your cell leader know if you require additional materiel for use against the Americans. You are joining a broad and diverse coalition dedicated to one principle: Iraq for Iraqis. Our leaders include generals of President Saddam Hussein 's secular government as well as fundamentalist Islamists. We are Sunni and Shia, Iraqi and foreign, Arab and Kurdish. Though we differ on what kind of future our country should have after liberation and many of us suffered under Saddam, we are fighting side by side because there is no dignity under the brutal and oppressive jackboot of the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority or their Vichyite lapdogs on the Governing Council, headed by embezzler Ahmed Chalabi. November 12 It's high time that victorious Democrats stop being suckered by reckless Republicans into cleaning up their messes. Walking behind the elephant with a pail and a smelly broom might be the right thing to do, but it doesn't earn you any respect after the parade. All Democrats worthy of the name ought to sign a pledge to ignore problems caused by Republican administrations and leave them to their Republican successors. Let the GOP deficit ride, and pass socialized medicine while you're at it. Keep the bloated HomeSec bureaucracy on the payroll, and change its mission to something useful, like making a serious attempt to guard our borders. Run up the deficit like there's no tomorrow. Withdraw our troops; when the Iraqi civil war spreads throughout the region, some smart future Republican president will figure it out. I can hear you grumbling: but that's irresponsible! Yes. It. Is. But playing the sap to Republican fait accomplis is like paying off your drunken kid's gambling debts. It makes you an enabler of destructive behavior--and that's even worse than throwing your hands up in the air and walking away. Let's give the GOP some tough love. November 5 As much as I relish the idea of a million angry Americans turning the tawdry Necropublican National Convention into a Seattle WTO-style fiasco, the potential for mayhem is terrifying. As a Manhattanite, I hope that the Republicans will seriously consider moving their convention somewhere else. New York, wounded by the dot-com crash and 9/11 (the latter injury exacerbated when Bush welched on the money he promised to help the city rebuild), continues to suffer from widespread unemployment. The risk of convention-related terrorist attacks should be reason enough to not hold it in a city that paid the highest price on 9/11. A revival of 1968, with cops fouling their batons with the blood of young people, wouldn't do anyone--left or right--any good. October 29 Trading civil liberties for increased security would be a bad deal, but we've given away our freedoms for nothing. "The bottom line is, America is safer, more secure, and better prepared than we were on Sept. 11, 2001," says White House flack Scott McClellan, but nothing could be further from the truth. The man we blame for 9/11, Osama bin Laden, is still loose; Bush's "dead or alive" pledge has devolved to, as of Oct. 21, "We believe [Pakistani President Musharraf] will help us, if in fact [bin Laden] happens to be in Pakistan...Who knows where he is?" The US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq , coupled with Bush's support for Ariel Sharon 's aggressive attacks on Palestine, have increased the supply of anti-American militants willing to die as long as they take a bunch of us with them. The only reason we haven't suffered the next big attack is because They Who Hate Us are still planning it. October 22 As you might have guessed from the dates, there are quite a few of these sick puppies archived. It's too bad our press corps doesn't have the courage of our cartoonists when it comes to telling it like it most certainly is. * * Salon has an AP report on that recently brokered 9/11 Commission - White House deal to allow limited access to White House security reports. The Family Steering Committee, a 9/11 survivors' organization is not pleased. "'All 10 commissioners should have full, unfettered and unrestricted access to all evidence,' the group said in a statement Thursday. It urged the public release of 'the full, official, and final written agreement.'" That speech from Chandrika Kumaratunga linked to yesterday apparently was an attempt to head off today's announcement by Vidar Helgesen that Norway will not continue to participate in negotiations between Sri Lanka and the Tamil insurgents. Norway, the Jimmy Carter of the First World, apparently has become disillusioned with the lack of progress. [link]   # -- Posted 11/14/03; 11:05:43 AM Thursday, November 13, 2003 PERMALINK: Rusted by tears by Mark Gisleson Josh Marshall says Bremer got in trouble for endorsing a very bleak CIA report on the prognosis for the occupation. As Chinua Achebe wrote, "when things fall apart..." Via Steve Gilliard, here's a good Jonathan Landay story on that report. The Hindustan Times reports that Chandrika Kumaratunga, the President of Sri Lanka, has made yet another overture to the Tamil minority. Here's hoping that Kumaratunga achieves a lasting peace, and that it serves as an example to the Indians of how to deal with their Muslim minority. [OK, here's where you the reader writes in to tell me I don't know squat about the situation in Sri Lanka. I hope this is what it appears to be, but I'm ready to stand corrected if there's something more cynical going on.] Meanwhile, new Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia has "pledged" to end the chaos in the Palestinian territories. I'm not quite as hopeful about this development. * * One quick business item: Wal-Mart didn't meet Wall Street's forecasts, but Twin Cities based Target did. At the risk of sounding like a homer, I'm glad. I despise Wal-Mart's anti-union business model, and as a resume writer I'm very familiar with Target's business practices. In my book, Target's pretty much OK. I wouldn't want to work for them, but to be fair, I probably could if I made a serious effort to apply. The fact is, there aren't many employers who'll give a middle aged fat guy with a pony tail a second look. The Target store in your neighborhood might not be quite so open minded, but the corporate folks are pretty friendly. Credit the influence of the Dayton family, one of the more progressive clans involved in the big box retail scene. * * Meant to run this sooner but kept getting sidetracked. Gar Smith at The Edge outlines in some detail Col. Sam Gardiner's analysis of the lies told by the White House to achieve their goal of war on Iraq. Lots here, and it's all damn good stuff that you can use to turn your average warblogger's arguments into Swiss cheese. The warbloggers, by the way, are still having a hard time holding it together. Lt. Smash, a popular but bellicose "shut the fuck up" kind of guy is feuding with "Tom Tomorrow." Read in order: TT • Lt.S • TT It's hard to do when you're on the receiving end, but my advice to other webloggers would be to ignore the flailing about coming from the online right. It's like watching a dinosaur die: stand clear, and don't take anything T-Rex has to say personally. Via Eschaton, Jesse at Pandagon sums up the problem of trying to talk to these people, while Tallahassee yanked some patriotically incorrect folks from their Veterans Day parade. On a related note, thanks to everyone who wrote in about yesterday's post. As any writer will tell you, some of your best stuff comes in the heat of the moment (often the more you put into a piece, the worse it becomes). Yesterday's was written and edited in about half an hour, but it had been building up over the course of months. Not that you asked for it, but here's an example of what happens when you try too hard: We are not so much a nation as a fetish post, with each nail a grievance that further splits the wood and distracts from the other nails, all rusted by tears and burnished from the rain of global change. Nails we once hated are now just other nails, but the hammer of God, in a different light, has come to look like bad Greek mythology. This makes sense to me, but I've always thought of poetry as a pretty poor device for delivering political commentary. Believe it or not, I've been saving that in my Wes Clark file. Don't worry, I won't make you read that again. Hopefully some more later, but maybe not. I'll be on vacation the week of Thanksgiving, and I've got a lot to get off my plate before I wander off to the sunny clime of south Ohio to catch up with some friends and do some sightseeing. # -- Posted 11/13/03; 11:44:25 AM Wednesday, November 12, 2003 PERMALINK: Hating Bush? Or just the horse he rode in on? by Mark Gisleson Both Steve Perry and I are in complete agreement about one thing: "fisking" makes for rotten reading. If you're not familiar with the term, it references the phenomenon of rightwing blogs desperately attempting to deconstruct Robert Fisk's damning reports on world politics. Long before Donald Luskin began stalking Paul Krugman, Fisk was making conservatives choke on their own bile with his often brilliant but somewhat slanted takes on the Middle East, Afghanistan and Iraq. There is nothing more tedious than reading long quotes from a news story interspersed with even longer — and usually highly subjective — commentaries on how full of it the quoted text is. And, quite frankly, as a long-time student of Marxist rhetoric, it's pretty tiresome to see the endless circular quotes from the world according to Regnery. Still, today's Nick Kristoff piece in the New York Times very nearly inspired me to do a little fisking of my own. Because liberals are now finally starting to fight back, Kristoff is buying into the Right's new meme that it's all "Bush hating." Well it's not. It's also Cheney hating, Rumsfeld hating, Wolfowitz hating, Rice hating, DeLay hating etc., etc. This is not tit for tat, a retaliation for Clinton. Fuck Bill Clinton. This is about a senseless, vicious war, a braindead tax policy, and an astonishingly manipulative and churlish administration that plays by its own rules. Speaking for myself, I'd hate these people even if I was related to them and getting weekly dividend checks from their favored corporate sponsors. In any event, "hate" is entirely the wrong word. Revulsion, contempt, disgust, loathing, disapproval, enmity and repugnance are all much closer in nuance to the actual rejection Bush's clowns are experiencing. Kristoff falls into the bifurcated trap of "he said, she said." There are two sides to this issue only in the sense of one side having illegally seized the reins of power, and the other, vastly larger side, objecting to the subsequent goings on. Whether you rely on Red state vs. Blue state crap (as the improved map shows, we're all really purple states), or polling numbers, it's all the same propaganda. The division in our ranks reflects not facts or figures, but simply a head count of who's still buying G.W.'s brand of bullshit, and who's not. And the polls aren't counting us very accurately. Bush's supporters are currently living in a hell of their own making, and doubts and second thoughts abound. Those things aren't showing up in the polls...yet. So what's poor Karl Rove to do? Exactly what his mentor Josef Goebbels would have done: divide and continue conquering. Tell your supporters that the other side "hates" them. Keep the divisions going lest a final reckoning be visited upon the neocons. Make no mistake about it, when the mobs show up with their pitchforks, there will be as many stars'n'bars t-shirts as posters of Ché. But that's not what really pissed me off about Kristoff's column. This is what got my dander up: The most striking cleavage is the God Gulf, and it should terrify the Democrats. Put simply, liberals are becoming more secular at a time when America is becoming increasingly religious, the consequence of a new Great Awakening. Americans, for example, are significantly more likely now than in 1987 to say they "completely agree" that "prayer is an important part of my daily life" and that "we all will be called before God on Judgment Day to answer for our sins." The Pew survey found that white evangelicals are leaving the Democratic Party in droves. Fifteen years ago, white evangelicals were split equally between the two parties; now they're twice as likely to be Republicans. Likewise, white Catholics who attend Mass regularly used to be strongly Democratic; now they are more likely to be Republican. Since Americans are three times as likely to believe in the virgin birth of Jesus as in evolution, liberal derision for President Bush's religious beliefs risks marginalizing the left. You want to see fisking? This is fisking: There is no "Great Awakening." America is, essentially, as godless as ever. In fact, putting Republicans in charge has greatly increased the godless factor as big business is the most effective and unrelenting purveyor of pornography, drugs, misogyny, violence and crime imaginable. I grew up in a small Iowa town where religion was EVERYWHERE. There was no escaping the church, church activities, or constant mandatory recitations of faith. So how religious was my graduating class? At reunions my informal polls have shown us to be every bit as ungodly as the rest of the population. After a certain point, you just mouth the words, knowing that some day you'll leave and that will be the end of that. Small town America has returned to its coercive ways. You want to live in our town? Eat our God until you choke on Him. We know you don't really believe, but pretend you do or get out of town and take your snotty "I don't have to recite the Pledge of Allegiance" brats with you. Does coercion work? It never has, and never will. Over at Babelogue today's quote of the day is lifted from Jennifer Michael Hecht's "Doubt: A History." In her book she quotes 18th Century French encylopedist Denis Diderot as having said, "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." Ain't it the truth? And isn't that quote so very typical of the sentiments that arise whenever the godly get the upper hand and force the issue? Humans are a semi-religious lot. Some of us believe, many of us don't. I don't think the numbers ever really change all that much, just the attendant propaganda. The only real constant is this: whenever the state pushes religion, it's a sure bet that money is flowing from the poor to the rich. That's why religion is important. If you didn't think you were getting yours in the afterlife (where the rich burn in hell for all eternity), you wouldn't put up with this crap on earth. America isn't all that religious, as George W. Bush will find out next November. But until then, Nick Kristoff can go fuck himself. (There, now that's not Bush bashing, is it?)     # -- Posted 11/12/03; 10:24:39 AM Tuesday, November 11, 2003 PERMALINK: Hey, hey, ho, ho, Dick Cheney's got to go! by Mark Gisleson MSNBC/Newsweek has a new story out on Dick Cheney. Mark Hosenball, Michael Isikoff and Evan Thomas unload on the war-mongering Veep, but you have to wonder if that's just part of this administration's game plan. Would Karl Rove sell out Dick for political advantage? (Is there anything Karl Rove wouldn't do with Dick if it helped out with the re-election campaign?) [M]ore than any adviser, Cheney was the one to make the case to the president that war against Iraq was an urgent necessity. Beginning in the late summer of 2002, he persistently warned that Saddam was stocking up on chemical and biological weapons, and last March, on the eve of the invasion, he declared that "we believe that he [Saddam Hussein] has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons." (Cheney later said that he meant "program," not "weapons." He also said, a bit optimistically, "I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators.") After seven months, investigators are still looking for that arsenal of WMD. Cheney has repeatedly suggested that Baghdad has ties to Al Qaeda. He has pointedly refused to rule out suggestions that Iraq was somehow to blame for the 9/11 attacks and may even have played a role in the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. The CIA and FBI, as well as a congressional investigation into the 9/11 attacks, have dismissed this conspiracy theory. Still, as recently as Sept. 14, Cheney continued to leave the door open to Iraqi complicity. He brought up a report--widely discredited by U.S. intelligence officials--that 9/11 hijacker Muhammad Atta had met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April 2001. And he described Iraq as "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11." A few days later, a somewhat sheepish President Bush publicly corrected the vice president. There was no evidence, Bush admitted, to suggest that the Iraqis were behind 9/11. Al Jazeera is getting some mileage out of some pretty disturbing photos of US troops tying up Iraqi women and children. A senior British military source commented, ""We just don't do things like that. We are working very closely with Iraqi people on the ground in Basra and prioritise in winning hearts and minds." The administration is continuing its fight to block former and current US servicemen from ever collecting on the money owed to them by Iraq as compensation for their having been tortured while held prisoner by Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "No amount of money can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering that they went through." But, he said, "it was determined earlier this year by Congress and the administration that those assets were no longer assets of Iraq, but they were resources required for the urgent national security needs of rebuilding Iraq." Meanwhile, Josh Marshall has this link to the Tapei Times story about President Chen Shui-bian paying $1 million to meet with Neil Bush. Membership in the Bush clan does have its privileges. Calpundit has another unrelated story about a Bush crony from Texas cashing in by bending the rules just a bit. The current war in Iraq just broadened a mite. Reports from the Turkish border indicate that US troops just tangled with Turkey's PKK rebels. A member of the Iraqi border patrol was killed. The PKK has been trying to lead an insurrection in Turkey for over a decade now, and over 30,000 have been killed and millions displaced by their struggle to free Kurdish southeastern Turkey. [more] On the plus side, the Colorado mother and Guard member who was facing charges of being AWOL has been given "compassionate reassignment." * * Sigh. Everyone on the left side of the blogosphere is linking to Al Gore's recent speech to the Move On folks, so here's the link. Too bad he wasn't giving speeches like this when he ran for president. And, it would have been nice had he said stuff like this when the Patriot Act was being debated. Hell, it would have been nice if anyone had said stuff like this during that debate. Unsurprisingly, Republicans are getting snarky about billionaire George Soros' decision to feed millions of dollars to the Democrats in an effort to depose George W. Bush. "It's incredibly ironic that George Soros is trying to create a more open society by using an unregulated, under-the-radar-screen, shadowy, soft-money group to do it," Republican National Committee spokeswoman Christine Iverson said. "George Soros has purchased the Democratic Party." In past election cycles, Soros contributed relatively modest sums. In 2000, his aide said, he gave $122,000, mostly to Democratic causes and candidates. But recently, Soros has grown alarmed at the influence of neoconservatives, whom he calls "a bunch of extremists guided by a crude form of social Darwinism." Neoconservatives, Soros said, are exploiting the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to promote a preexisting agenda of preemptive war and world dominion. "Bush feels that on September 11th he was anointed by God," Soros said. "He's leading the US and the world toward a vicious circle of escalating violence." [More] The New York Times editorializes about the "manufactured crisis" regarding the confirmation of judges. Nothing new here, but it's nice to have this stuff on the "official" record, and not just archived at TalkLeft. As a sidebar to yesterday's Reich link on manufacturing jobs, here's a New York Times story about Wal-Mart's new radio identification tag program. This technology will revolutionize inventory control, saving companies more money so CEOs can get paid more. Is this a great country or what? This is one of those links I usually run at my other blog, but there's no joke here when you think about it. Billie Jo Hawks is currently in isolation after the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women discovered that Hawks is a man. This guy is in for a life of living hell once he reports to a men's prison. [link] [related links] Here's the latest on Bill Janklow, the Dale Earnhardt Jr. of western Republicans. And, in closing, Steve Gilliard has more on Bush's pending visit to England. Somehow I suspect that pressing business will keep Bush from making it to his rendezvous with fellow war instigator Tony Blair... # -- Posted 11/11/03; 11:02:52 AM Monday, November 10, 2003 PERMALINK: The end of capitalism as we know it? by Mark Gisleson Some Bush Wars readers who've been following Babelogue since its inception may remember that I used to write a Career News weblog. I quit because it became an unending litany of bad news. I still have my resume writing business, but I'm not eager to take on new clients because — in this economy — a good resume is not the door opener it once was. Crony capitalism rules, and I advise anyone looking for a job to focus on their personal networking first and foremost, but, as the following article demonstrates, soon nothing may be enough to get you a new job. Robert B. Reich isn't Bill Clinton's favorite former cabinet member, and he didn't do too well when he ran for governor of Massachusetts a while back. Still, he knows economics, and this article is getting a lot of play on the 'net. "Welcome to the Machines" is a must read if you want to understand why everything has to change. Innovation is outstripping capitalism, and we're coming to a point where we'll be able to feed, clothe and house the world without breaking a sweat. All that stands between this utopia is a small, determined group of ultra-wealth capitalists who think it's more important for some to amass great wealth than it is to make sure every baby goes to bed at night with a full stomach. When was it decided that gains in productivity only benefit those at the top of the food chain? More and more, tomorrow looks like it will bring a choice between utopia for all, or feudal wealth for the few. The future is now. Read the article. * * If you just rotated back from a tour of duty in Antarctica and don't really appreciate how quickly civilization is breaking down, Ric Bucher at ESPN has a quick read that summarizes the decline of American law enforcement. The real acid test for law and order is now before the Supreme Court. The Rehnquist 5 was unable to block an appeal of some of the things we're doing at Guantanamo. In my gut I suspect this is a pretty critical vote. If they stand shoulder to shoulder with Ashcroft and Bush, the inevitable post-Bush reconstruction will be much more difficult, and the rewards for prospective revolutionaries will be all the greater. FDR fought tooth and nail with the Supremes of his day over the New Deal, but how will any liberal president get past the thousands of Federalist Society judges that rule over our courts? I'm sure some readers will question my speculation about future revolutionaries, but they do tend to show up after a civil war, and that's pretty much what we've got going on right now. The CIA and the White House have been skirmishing nonstop, and the CIA is losing. Mark Follman interviews CIA expert Thomas Powers in Salon, and gets an earful. Here's some of the set up for the interview (it's a fairly short, hard-hitting interview, so if you're not a Salon member, watch the commercial — it's worth it). [T]he CIA, facing a demoralized rank and file and a lack of resources, is being effectively hamstrung by the Bush administration and compromised in its job of protecting national security. A big part of the danger is that U.S. intelligence, in the hands of an administration that views foreign policy through its own self-serving lens, has lost not just its autonomy, but essential assets. With the administration's focus shifting to the invasion earlier this year, crucial intelligence resources needed to battle al-Qaida around the globe -- as well as those now needed to secure and stabilize Iraq -- have been squandered. "We have practically nobody who can speak the language [in Iraq]," Powers says. "We're running the country with teenagers carrying machine guns." As the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq keeps rising, evidence continues to accumulate that the Bush administration was determined to invade the country and topple Saddam Hussein, and was never interested in compromise. On Thursday several major news services reported that the Pentagon was offered a last-minute deal by high-level Iraqi officials, via an obscure Lebanese-American middleman, to avert the war. According to the New York Times, the US government did not pursue the offer. The back-channel attempt, which allegedly would have made concessions to key US foreign policy goals in Iraq, may not have been credible. But according to Powers, the Bush administration's apparent lack of interest in the offer fits a broader pattern in which it has parsed intelligence to fit its long-held plan for taking over Baghdad. * * The Paul Krugman–Donald Luskin feud has made it into the pages of The New Yorker. Is Luskin a stalker? I sure think so, but read The Talk of the Town for a lot of new background on this ongoing story. [via the indispensable Romenesko] The Nation has a new article on the media monopoly from Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols. Perhaps not a good starting point if you don't follow the media closely, but great reading for anyone who thinks the most dangerous Powell is the son, Michael. [ViaCursor] * * UPDATE: Just read a great post by Dan Kennedy here. Lots of good links on Reagan, Guatemala, and John Kerry. And, after going a while without any posts, Mark A.R. Kleiman is back with several items of interest. Best of the bunch is this anonymous quote: Did you ever think you'd look back on the Reagan Administration as the good old days? Those folks were ideological, but once they'd decided what to do they were willing to ask people who knew for facts relevant to how to do it. The current crowd doesn't think they need that. They simply say what the Truth is, and if anyone disagrees they simply say it again, louder. And since they never talk to anyone but one another, they egg one another on to the point where they can believe absolutely anything, and act on it. It's government by assertion.   # -- Posted 11/10/03; 10:35:10 AM Saturday, November 8, 2003 PERMALINK: The "Friday" Report by Mark Gisleson This is probably one of those tempest in a teapot only-on-the-Internet political stories, but Senate Republicans are freaking out over the revelation that Democratic staffers are actually planning how to get more information about war planning out of this administration. Josh Marshall dissects the reaction, but you might want to read this link first to see the actual memo at the heart of this mock drama. Atrios has the story on an American military intelligence officer who was pushed out of the Army for, apparently, being a Democrat. More Patriotic Correctness from the crowd that sees a Politically Correct conspiracy in every campus syllabus. Atrios also links to this story about how we're literally rewriting Iraqi history. And the Jessica Lynch story just keeps unraveling. Odd how the Soviets tried to take credit for everything, but our censors are trying to avoid giving the US credit for its "help" in the Middle East. Hesiod Theogeny has an illustration of the Strela-2 SAM missile the Iraqis are using to down our helicopters. The Red Cross just got the hell out of Baghdad. Dan Kennedy follows up on the James Risen story about the possible peace overture out of Lebanon just before the invasion of Iraq. Dan also has a few links to more stories about Republican politicization of just about everything that trips the triggers of knuckle-draggers in states where they still celebrate the war to preserve the hallowed institution of slavery. Via Drudge, there's a story coming out of Pennsylvania about Dauphin County's very questionable quickie auction of an 89-year-old woman's $800,000 farm for only $15,000 over a disputed $572 property tax bill. The county returned her check, saying only a money order or cashier's check were acceptable tender. Arndt said the property was deeded to his aunt and his uncle, Clayton, in 1948, but the county records only list the deed in his uncle's name. He said the tax bureau sent delinquent-tax notification letters addressed to his uncle, who died four years ago. Kocher said the county began the notification process in March 2002, when three certified letters were sent to Clayton Shue. Other letters were sent this year, advising of the pending sale. Kocher said all certified letters were returned to the bureau unopened. Letters were sent by regular mail, which were not returned, she said. "We don't investigate who the owners of those properties are," Kocher said. "We had no way of knowing whether there was a problem on their end or whether they were ignoring it." Written notices were twice posted on the front of the house, in September 2002 and in September 2003, Kocher said. One official posts the notices, and another is required to accompany him as a witness. The impending sale was listed in The Patriot-News in a legal advertisement in September. The entire Shue parcel was sold to Philip Dobson of Middle Paxton Twp., a developer, on Sept. 25, Kocher said. Dobson said he has not been notified that the sale is being contested. "I'm just a purchaser at a public auction, and I paid my money and that's all I can say," he said. The property is near land being developed for residential housing. Arndt said that since his uncle died, his aunt has become reclusive and wary of strangers. Helene Shue declined to discuss the situation. But her nephew said her only wish is to live her remaining days in the home she shared with her husband. "Her farm means everything to her," Arndt said. "It's life and death to her. She won't move off of it. She's been offered one million bucks for it and she refused." Arndt, who is heir to his aunt's property, said the sale was "morally and legally" flawed and that an elderly woman should not be expected to understand the legal process. He said he has tried to explain to her what has transpired. "She understands that something terrible is about to happen and that I'm going to do something about it," he said. Meant to run this one the other day, but forgot to check my notes. I have to admit I don't read The Economist as faithfully as I used to, but "A flood of red ink" is a good reminder of how The Economist blows US News out of the water, reporting wise. No link, but I'm somewhat amazed at how quickly the punditry has reversed course and is now saying that the economy's in Bush's favor, but the war might bring him down. Methinks some of these folks are willfully propping up the grossly overvalued stock market. It's taken almost 60 years, but Americans are about to learn (again) that you can't trust the rich to tell you anything, and by normal American standards, the pundits are either rich, or hanging out with the rich. Here's hoping the Democrats wake up and fix this mess before another Pat Buchanan comes along and fixes our problems by bringing Guantanamo justice to the mainland. Buzzflash celebrates 2.8 million unique readers in October with a blistering editorial: It is 2003, and we have a Tory party who seized power and wrapped itself in a disguise of cultural populism and demagogic tax cuts. Then it slathered on several layers of fear, claiming that only the Tory party could protect Americans from all the evils lurking "out there in the world." The Tories in the White House adapted propaganda strategies honed by the Soviets and Goebbels and broadcast them through an "amen choir" media. [more] George E. Condon Jr. asks "Bush big, bold, visionary, but is he out of touch?" A study finds that New York state alone could save $500 million if they distributed the "morning after" pill.   # -- Posted 11/8/03; 12:25:51 PM Friday, November 7, 2003 PERMALINK: Quick links by Mark Gisleson Busy day so you'll have to come up with your own commentary to go with these links: Ruy Teixeira, "Well, Maybe That Iraq Think Didn't Work Out So Well, But the Tax Cuts Did" Gary Kamiya, "The case of the last-minute offer" [Salon reg. req.] Eric Boehlert, "More war on the cheap" [Salon reg. req.] Robert Weller, "Army Dismisses Soldier Cowardice Charge" David Kirkpatrick, "Jessica Lynch Criticizes U.S. Accounts of Her Ordeal" Paul Krugman, "Flags Versus Dollars" Kevin Drum, "Why I Like Wes Clark..." TalkLeft, "Janice Rogers Brown Passes Judiciary Committee Vote" Steve Gilliard, "Multilevel Marketing" [if you don't know what that means, this is a must-read post] Think of this as Buzzflash, Bush Wars style... # -- Posted 11/7/03; 10:51:29 AM Thursday, November 6, 2003 PERMALINK: A response to Rumsfeld's memo by Mark Gisleson Asia Times has a harsh report from a retired Army colonel in response to Donald Rumsfeld's leaked memo: Does the Department of Defense need to think through new ways to organize, train, equip and focus to deal with the global "war on terror"? Definitely. The first step is to declare the end of the global "war on terror". Next, the Pentagon should shift from lead to supporting agency, with the State Department becoming the new lead. The Justice Department would assume a more prominent supporting role in keeping with the emphasis that terrorist incidents are criminal acts. Al-Qaeda has been dealt a blow and the regime that was most visible in its support of global terror, the Afghan Taliban, has been replaced. This is not to say that those Taliban and al-Qaeda loyalists still at large pose no residual threat, either to Afghanistan or, through other, loosely affiliated groups, to other governments. But these groups seem less interested in pressing a global jihad than in achieving specific goals within the countries in which they are operating. (This is true even in Iraq, where the US presence acts as a magnet for jihadis.) They of course will always accept money, equipment and training from any source, al-Qaeda or not. At least part of the current US dilemma stems from an inability to see simultaneously the two levels of terror in the 21st century. The administration's emphasis on "global war" masks the reality that all terrorist acts are local. This suggests that the effort to stop or at least control acts of violence directed against non-combatants should remain at the local - or no more than a regional - context. Were this done, the Department of Defense would be able to re-form its plans and organization to support the police and justice systems when these civilian-oriented agencies determine they do not have the resources to track, apprehend, or where necessary, fight and defeat those committing acts of terror. [much more] Also in the Asia Times, Conn Hallinan reports on "Rumsfeld's new model army." Gary Webb, the San Jose Mercury News reporter who all but ended his career when he exposed the CIA's connection to Contra cocaine smuggling scandal, has a new spy story about former FBI agent Lok Lau. Unsurprisingly, the DOJ has done its damnedest to destroy his career even though Lau burrowed more deeply into the Chinese government than any other American agent. Regular reader Gaius Publius sent in this link to a San Diego Union-Tribune story about the FBI's abuse of the Patriot Act. Apparently domestic political corruption now qualifies as part of the war on terrorism. The AP article also notes that the act has also been used to "crack down on drug traffickers and child pornographers." As someone once said, "by any means necessary." The Hill's Peter Savodik thinks there's a good chance Terry McAuliffe may be on his way out. My joy over this news is somewhat dampened by the suspicion that they'll just hire someone else who has the DLC stamp of approval. * * Apropos of nothing, looking at the illustrations that adorn this web story I couldn't help but wonder if any of them would some day evolve into a new religion (or terrorist movement). Apropos of everything, this photo demonstrates a small problem with some recent legislation that promises to have a big impact on women. (Hint: how well does this crowd mirror the American public?) Families of 9/11 victims are outraged by this series of "art photos" from James Cauty. The Independent Media Center currently has a ton of Diebold links up. A new book on PFC Jessica Lynch alleges she was a victim of anal rape following her capture. Spammers have taken their work to a new level. Jack Kapica reports that some spam now triggers attacks on anti-spam websites.   # -- Posted 11/6/03; 11:02:42 AM Wednesday, November 5, 2003 PERMALINK: Drug wars (continued) by Mark Gisleson The DEA's war on doctors keeps getting worse. Frank Owen reports in The Village Voice that, thanks to SWAT style raids on medical clinics, some doctors have posted signs warning patients to not even ask about Oxycontin. Even at the height of the Vietnam War I disliked this term, but it's hard not to conclude that John Ashcroft is a pig. "The war on drugs has turned into a war on doctors and pain patients," says Dr. Ronald Myers, president of the American Pain Institute and a Baptist minister who operates a string of clinics for poor people in the Mississippi Delta. "Such is the climate of fear across the medical community that for every doctor who has his license yanked by the DEA, there are a hundred doctors scared to prescribe proper pain medication for fear of going to prison. The DEA is creating a situation where legitimate pain patients now have to go to the streets to get their medication. It's a health care catastrophe in the making." Dahlia Lithwick has a great piece up at Slate on the idiocy of collective arrests. Frankly, it's amazing that this kind of thing hasn't been challenged before. Say you catch a ride to the store with your neighbor but before you get to your destination the cops pull you over, search the car, and find a baggy with some crack in it. You're busted just because you were in the car. Lithwick reports on the arguments before the High Court, and they're a bit more entertaining than usual. Gary E. Bair argues for Maryland this morning, and Bair seems to believe that the state has probable cause to arrest everyone in a drug-mobile because it's always a reasonable assumption that they all know about the drugs. Bair apparently lives in the Land That Knows No Carpools. And he thus spends most of his time this morning resisting the planes, trains, and automobiles hypotheticals put forth by the justices. What if the drugs had been found closer to the driver, rather than in the back seat, asks Sandra Day O'Connor. Could all three passengers still be arrested? Yes, says Bair, because the car is a common area. What if the drugs were found in the trunk, asks Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Well, says Bair, if there were a "large quantity of drugs in the trunk, or a dead body in the trunk …"; Ginsburg reminds him that this is her hypo and there is just a Ziploc bag in the trunk, not a dead body. Then it's O'Connor's turn with the innocent-grandma hypo: "What if it's a high-crime area and some mother gets a ride from her son and doesn't know he's involved with drugs?" Can she be arrested? "Supposing it's the middle of the day," she adds. "And she's going to the grocery store?" Bair can't quite make himself say "Lock the old drug-mom up." So he mumbles something about a "totality of the circumstances test." Justice John Paul Stevens has a hypo, too. What if there were four passengers in the car instead of three? No different says Bair. "What if there were six?" asks Stevens. Same. Stevens, undaunted: "What if it's a minivan and there are eight people?" he asks. Lock 'em up. Stevens takes a breather while Ginsburg takes over: "What if it had been a bus?" Bair seems ready to concede that he would not seek to arrest all the passengers on a bus just because someone had drugs. Prompting Antonin Scalia to enter the bidding war to ask if the result would be different if it were a public bus or a charter bus. He appears to be asking this question purely for recreational purposes. Anthony Kennedy wonders whether the police, upon finding a dead body and two possible killers, each claiming the other did it, could arrest them both. Bair, who couldn't get Ginsburg on board with his dead body in the trunk hypo, appears relieved that the corpses are back. He says both potential killers could be subject to arrest. Stevens then notes that there are three suspects here—not two. So it's not as if there's a 50 percent chance that one guy is the criminal. There's only a 33.3 percent chance. Can a mere 33.3 percent likelihood of criminality constitute probable cause? Bair insists you cannot quantify probable cause. Stevens is unperturbed. So what if there are four people and each is only 25 percent likely to be the criminal? And what if there were 300 people on a 747 and one of them was purple? It's a long morning. Tim Lambert has one of the better political quizzes I've seen in a while — at least my score reflects what I think (for the most part). Is it just me, or do most political quizzes seem to be designed to prove the test taker is a libertarian or conservative? (Maybe I should stop taking all those Readers Digest quizzes...)     # -- Posted 11/5/03; 9:22:16 AM Tuesday, November 4, 2003 PERMALINK: Transcripts and reviews: the truth keeps dribbling out by Mark Gisleson Via Romenesko, some excerpts from Sunday's CNN's Reliable Sources debate between David Corn of the Nation and Rich Lowry from the National Review: LOWRY: ... there are obviously -- obviously fair questions and tough questions to ask about this. But there are a couple of media myths that are grown up now, and they're basically unmovable. One that Bush said the threat from Iraq was imminent, which no Bush official said. The other thing that he said, it was going to be easy. He never said that either. But, you know, as a background to a lot of these stories and oftentimes explicitly stated in these stories, is that Bush officials said those things. He didn't. CORN: Well, wait a second, he didn't say the word "imminent." But he did say "immediate" and "direct." And he said there was a high likelihood -- the White House did -- that there'd be a surprise attack from Saddam Hussein. LOWRY: Right. CORN: Using weapons of mass destruction ... LOWRY: Well, ... CORN: ... If that's not imminent ... LOWRY: ... the premise ... CORN: ... I don't know what imminent is. KURTZ: All right, all right, all right. * * Hot articles at Salon include Joe Conason on blaming the media and Eric Boehlert's "Mission Demolished." Boehlert reviews the sad state of current affairs, then concludes: Today, experts suggest 100,000 additional troops are needed to really secure the country, on top of the approximate 116,000 currently serving in Iraq. But the White House won't budge. "It's doable if they're willing to make hard choices. But politically the administration has said there are enough troops. And they're trying to avoid all comparisons to Vietnam," says Pena. "But if you ramp up to almost a quarter of a million troops, suddenly Vietnam comparisons become impossible to avoid." CalPundit has a good post up with links to examples of Bush administration quotes that have vanished from the Internet. Revisionist historians indeed. Via Josh Marshall, Fareed Zakaria on "Iraqification." More on Roger Ailes and rightwing press bias from Dan Kennedy. Another day and more good reasons to read Steve Gilliard. * * If you've been reading our Diebold links (you know, the company with the shoddy voting machine software and propensity for suing its critics), you probably think that electronic voting is some sort of sick joke. Australia doesn't think so, but then again, they're taking a much more sensible (think Linux) approach. For a quick refresher on the American experience with electronic voting, check out this link (via Atrios). * * Hot, hot, hot reads at the New York Review of Books: Paul Krugman reviews the new books from Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, and Joe Conason, and provides some wisdom of his own in the process in "Strictly Business." Bill Clinton, with his close ties to the Arkansas chicken industry, wasn't particularly good on food safety issues in the early years of his presidency. But by the end his officials had devised and were on the verge of implementing regulations that would have greatly reduced the risk of Listeria infections from such foods as ready-to-eat turkey. The Bush administration killed those regulations. It also, Ivins and Dubose's book suggests, introduced a new culture in the Agriculture Department, one in which warnings from official inspectors are disregarded, and in which the health of food consumers is definitely not a priority. "If you must eat while the R[epublican]s control the White House, both houses of Congress, and the judiciary," write the authors, "you might want to consider becoming a vegetarian about now." And on it goes: toxic waste, insider trading, Enron, and all that. One might suspect that in order to fill out their book Ivins and Dubose have trotted out every damning story they could find about the Bush administration— every story that combines contempt for the public's welfare with unseemly financial and personal relations between industries that benefit from policy changes and the officials who made those changes. But while writing this review I decided to see how many similar or worse stories not covered in the book I could jot down on a piece of paper without even cracking a book or going online—and eventually realized that I could do this for quite a while. A sampler: the elimination of new source review, the provision of the 1977 Clean Air Act that requires older power plants to comply with modern pollution standards when they update their facilities; the go-ahead for nuclear waste disposal at Yucca; the corporate welfare in the Cheney energy plan; the combination of environmental havoc and corporate welfare in the "healthy forests" initiative ostensibly intended to reduce forest fires; the retroactive tax cuts for corporations in the 2001 stimulus plan; and, of course, Halliburton's no-bid $1.3 billion and counting deal in Iraq. The most striking feature of these stories is the rawness of it all. Never mind all that stuff you've read in the past about how political contributions buy "access," which allows interest groups to influence policy. The companies now riding high don't just contribute to Republican campaigns, they contribute directly to the personal wealth of future (and in some cases current) public officials. And they don't influence policy: they write it, directly. * * [T]oday's right wing flourishes in part by using the personal to distract voters from policy. Is a conservative politician a reliable friend of the privileged and well-connected? Never mind, let's talk about his sterling family life. Is a liberal politician spectacularly successful in his conduct of economic policy? But he had an affair! Even if you think that public debate ought to be about policy, not persons, it's necessary to defeat this strategy—and if exposing the dissonance between personal pretensions and reality is what it takes, go for it. The main lesson of Conason's book, however, is that hypocrisy works. Phony populism convinces the public that the greedy rich are regular guys; whining about the "liberal media" helps to entrench a de facto conservative bias; noisy tirades about morality convince voters that liberals are sinners; flag pins in the lapels of draft dodgers let them question the patriotism of critics. Joan Didion on Tim F. LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins' "Armageddon: The Cosmic Battle of the Ages." [T]he question they raise, that of "sincerity," makes no substantive difference. Either of the two possible answers to the question—the politician who talks the talk of the true believers is himself a believer, or the politician is merely an astute operator of the electoral process —will produce, for the rest of us, the same end result. In either case, believer or operator, the politician will be called upon to display the same stubborn certainty on any issue presented to him. In either case, committed fundamentalist Christian or pursuer of the fundamentalist Christian vote, the politician will be called upon to consign the country to the same absolutist scenarios. "We have carried the fight to the enemy," the President declared in his September 7 address to the nation. "We are rolling back the terrorist threat to civilization, not on the fringes of its influence, but at the heart of its power.... We will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom, and to make our own nation more secure." We understand: the perfect beauty of the fundamentalist redemption story as applied to the public arena is that it transfers responsibility for any chosen mission from the believer in that mission to the nonbeliever (as in, from the same speech, "Members of the United Nations now have an opportunity, and the responsibility, to assume a broader role in assuring that Iraq becomes a free and democratic nation"), transforms even the most calculated political play into a reward for faith, conveniently serves as the last word on any errors that might surface. And, for the Minnesotans among us, Larry McMurtry on Garrison Keillor's "Love Me." (And if you prefer your culture with a bit more of an edge, try Andrew O'Hagan on the new Eminem books.) The last live show on June 13 [1987] was pretty typical. Chet Atkins and Leo Kottke played guitar, a Hawaiian school choir sang in Hawaiian, Jean Redpath sang and Stevie Beck played the Autoharp and I sang with Rich Dworsky's Orchestra, Tom Keith and Kate Mackenzie starred in an episode of "Buster the Show Dog," and Vern Sutton sang "Stars and Stripes Forever," with the mighty white Wurlitzer played from the pit by Philip Brunelle as Tom made excellent rocket sounds and the audience clapped and at the climax Vern crashed a pair of cymbals—classic American entertainment, in other words—and in the third half hour I strolled out and told a story as per usual. — Garrison Keillor Tipper Gore's cofounding in 1985 of the Parents' Music Resource Center, the lobby responsible for the sticker, caught the imagination of the American right in their general disgust with what Christians often call "verbal pornography." A few years on from that, Lynne Cheney took Tipper's homespun outrage and turned it into a form of censorship metaphysics: at a time when hate is something to be experienced and opposed at the glo-bal level, she found herself disgusted by rock lyrics which sell hatred to listeners. — Lynne Cheney, testifying before Congress in 2000 * * Still looking for something to read? Courtesy of The Weekly Standard, here's yet another reason why I despise the current crop of very non-conservative thugs who dominate the Republican party. If you watched the Wellstone Memorial Service in its entirety as I did, you'll understand what a pack of lies this story is. If you didn't, here's the other side of the story.   # -- Posted 11/4/03; 11:55:47 AM Monday, November 3, 2003 PERMALINK: The Debt Tax by Mark Gisleson Byron Auguste and Mark Strama unload on the "debt tax" in today's Boston Globe. This is the campaign issue Democrats have to hammer on nonstop for the next year. Political cartoons of babies saddled with Iraq War debts doesn't convey the truly insidious nature of Bush's war on the budget. IN RECENT YEARS, much has been made over the repeal of the estate tax -- or "death tax." Much less attention has been paid to a far more pernicious tax -- the "debt tax" -- which is bigger than the estate tax, capital gains tax, and so-called "marriage tax" combined.... Today's average American household pays an astounding $3,153 in taxes annually just to service the debt -- about enough to lease a car for a year. These debt tax payments are required because of the fiscal irresponsibility of previous federal budgets.... But the national debt is increasing, because the government is spending beyond its means. In the past three years, federal spending has increased by 13.5 percent. Only half of this increase is attributable to the war on terrorism. And this figure does not even include the $87 billion recently requested for our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 are projected to reduce revenues by $1.35 trillion. Even if interest rates remain constant, this year's budget alone will add approximately $22 billion to annual interest payments -- $22 billion in debt taxes. "Tax relief" for today's taxpayers is, plain and simple, a tax increase for tomorrow's taxpayers. As a result these factors -- rising interest rates, growing spending, and massive tax cuts -- the debt tax burden will continue to mushroom. The administration's own projections show the debt growing by half through 2008. This means that in five years, the average family could be paying between $4,500 and $6,000 or more each year in debt tax alone. * * A few notes on the presidential campaign: CalPundit has committed to Wesley Clark. Can't say I disagree with his logic. Mark A.R. Kleiman comes to Howard Dean's defense, and criticizes the Democrats for letting themselves get sucked into the GOP's bullshit cultural wars. TalkLeft has the story on each Democratic candidate's position on the death penalty. David Niewert eviscerates the Republicans over race politics in Mississippi. Billmon has the best take I've seen on the Bushies inflicting US-style rightwing tax theory on Iraq. (Frankly, I'm impressed. Having gotten the US press to ignore the devastation wreaked on Argentina after they followed our advice, a sane person would have thought they'd never get away with this horseshit a second time. Live and keep learning, I guess.) * * Read Steve Gilliard. He doesn't put up links to his posts, but he's got several items up on the war that provide valuable insights you're just not going to get on cable or in your daily newspaper. Astute readers may have noticed, as my buddy and correspondent Jon Stopa did, that the big New York Times Magazine article on the war yesterday (linked to in Saturday's posts) really wasn't much more than a review and summary of what we already know. If, that is, you read weblogs for your news. Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back, but if you're a regular reader of this or any of the blogs I regularly link to, you're better informed than 99% of your fellow citizens. So, while you're busy staying well informed, you should probably meander over to Juan Cole's Informed Consent. Several posts up that will give you more news than you got from the newspaper this morning. The Guardian has a summary of US editorial responses to yesterday's helicopter downing. Also in the Guardian, the economics of terror. I've linked to the Wolfowitz speech at my other blog, but you might also want to brush up on your Orwell before getting too deep into Wolfie's propaganda (via Josh Marshall). After reading about how cowboys handle things, you might want to read this real world reminder of some of the ways in which Bush era law'n'order differs from the actual rule of law. Or you can read the text from Zbigniew Brzezinski's recent speech, in which the former NSA Advisor slowly works his way through recent history before condemning our intelligence efforts prior to invading Iraq. * * Senator Pat Roberts claims the White House will be turning over all the requested documents, but Jay Rockefeller is justifiably skeptical. "Every document we want will be made available," Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said on CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer." However, a White House spokesman refused to confirm the senator's statement. "We have had productive conversations about ways we can work with and assist the committee," Deputy Press Secretary Trent Duffy told reporters in Crawford, Texas. "While the committee's jurisdiction does not cover the White House, we want to be helpful, and we will continue to talk to and work with the committee in a spirit of cooperation." Attempts to reach Roberts to clarify the apparent contradiction between his comments and those of the White House spokesman were unsuccessful. * * Some sane comments on mental health from the right, courtesy of Sally Satel, an American Enterprise Institute scholar. " For many thousands of mentally ill people, America has failed to make good on John F. Kennedy's promise of 40 years ago. Releasing them from the large state institutions was only a first step. Now we must do what we can to free them from the "cold mercy" that comes with criminalizing mental illness." # -- Posted 11/3/03; 11:15:50 AM		This blog only THE COALITION OF THE UNWILLING VITAL Cursor Counterpunch FOREIGN PRESS Al-Ahram Weekly Al-Bawaba Al Jazeera Arab News BBC News Globe & Mail Guardian Ha'aretz Hindustan Times Independent Middle East Times Mirror Telegraph Times of London GOOD BLOGS Brad Zellar Cheek Civil Liberties Watch Fimoculous Joshua Micah Marshall Lew Rockwell Not So Private Ryan Sam Smith's Progressive Review Tom Nadeau Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World MaxSpeak Neal Pollack Where is Raed? REFERENCE C-SPAN DoD releases/transcripts Iraq Body Count Iraqometer Iraqwar.ru Polling Report
Part of the Twin Cities Babelogue Community Published by: © Copyright 2003. Last update: Monday, December 1, 2003 at 2:48:26 PM Central.