JOTTINGS
(Formerly "The
Gadfly's Blog")
2004
2017,
2016,
2015,
2014,
2013,
2012,
2011,
2010, 2009,
2008,
2007,
2006,
2005,
2004
Before
2004
I offer below,
random musings, reflections, correspondence, scraps of
work-in-progress, and other such miscellany, perchance worth sharing
but not ready for the prime time of formal publication.
Much of this
material has been adapted from personal e-mail
correspondence. While I am perfectly free to use, revise and expand
on my side of these exchanges, use of the "incoming" correspondence
is problematic. I have neither the right nor the inclination to
include the words of my correspondents if they can be identified
either by name or description.
If I am confident that the correspondents can not be identified and
if their part of the exchange is essential to the exchange, then I
might quote them directly. Otherwise, their ideas will be briefly
paraphrased, only to supply context to my part of these
conversations. In no case will I identify the correspondents by
name.
On the other hand, signed letters to The Crisis Papers and The
Online Gadfly are fair game as are other comments published in the
internet. They were submitted with the clear understanding that
they, and their signatories, might be made public.
Incoming correspondence will be identified by italics. My
contributions will be in plain text.
"**" means "Broken Link"
April 26, 2004
We Love you, Uncle Walter, but....
Walter Cronkite is mad as Hell and not going to take it
anymore. And so, the man once described as "the most trusted voice in
America," is writing a series of columns, bluntly criticizing the Bush
Administration. Well, good for him -- and for us!
We applaud Cronkite's enlistment into the fight, and agree with almost
everything he writes. However, one recent and widely cited column, "Dear
Senator Kerry," provokes our respectful disagreement.
In that column, Cronkite writes:
"[Your] denial that you are a liberal
is almost impossible to reconcile.
"When the National Journal said your Senate record makes you one of the
most liberal members of the Senate, you called that 'a laughable
characterization" and "the most ridiculous think I've ever seen in my
life." Wow! Liberals, who make up a substantial portion of the
Democratic Party and a significant portion of the independent vote, are
entitled to ask, "What gives?"
Well this, in our humble opinion, is "What Gives." The
radical right and the corporate media have managed, over the past few
decades, to turn the word "liberal" into a political hate-word. Thus, for
example, Ann Coulter virtually equates liberalism with treason, and Sean
Hannity, with a neat trick of guilt by association, titles his best-selling
book: "Deliver Us from Evil : Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and
Liberalism." And need only hear the likes of Bob Novak utter the word
"liberal" to feel the chill of pure hatred behind the utterance.
So, if John Kerry's political enemies have concocted a semantic poison pill
out of the word "liberal," then the Senator should not be obliged to swallow
it. This is why many "liberals" have chosen to adopt the word "progressive"
instead. If your foes have soiled your suit, better change to a clean suit
than to stubbornly wear the old one.
After all, "liberalism" is just a word. And as Thomas Hobbes wisely noted,
"words are wise men's counters -- they are the money of fools."
Interestingly, as numerous public opinion surveys have confirmed, a sizeable
majority of the public endorses the established "liberal" program even as
they shun the word "liberal." Ask the ordinary citizen if s/he endorses
Social Security, Medicare, racial and gender equality, environmental
protection, regulation of markets, progressive taxation, and non-aggressive
foreign relations, and you will find that most will support these liberal
programs. Then ask the same person if s/he would accept the label of
"liberal," and they would emphatically deny it.
And that, when you think of it, is a hopeful trend. Decades of costly and
persistent propaganda have damaged a mere word, while leaving public support
of the program essentially intact.
If Kerry chooses to avoid the besmirched word, that's just political
astuteness. How does he stand with the liberal program? Quite well, it
seems, as we explain in our essay of the week, week, "More
than a Dime's Worth of Difference."
Confucius Say -- Rectify the Names:
And speaking semantic muddles, long ago Confucius recognized
the importance of language to both social order and disorder. In The
Analects, we read:
Tsu-lu said: "the prince of Wei is
awaiting you, Sir, to take control of his administration. What will you
undertake first, sir" The Master replied: "The one thing needed is the
rectification of names.
The Chinese scholar, Hu Shih elaborates:
The Rectification of Names consists in
making real relationships and duties and institutions conform as far as
possible to their ideal meanings... .When this intellectual
reorganization is at last effected, the ideal social order will come as
night follows day - a social order where, just as a circle is a circle
and a square a square, so every prince is princely [and] every official
is faithful...
We begin, of course, by refusing to go along with the
right-wing's appropriation of the honorable word, "conservatism." The Right
is anything but "conservative," since it has set out to destroy our most
cherished and valuable endowments from the past: our Constitutionally
protected rights, science and scholarship, and even the Christian ethics of
pacifism, compassion, tolerance, and forgiveness.
So, instead, we should choose another name for the radical right. Someone
suggested "Regressivism" which strikes us as just right. It immediately
indicates, correctly, the opposite of "progressive."
And what shall we name ourselves? Our choice is "progressive." "Liberal" has
been severely injured by decades of "regressive" abuse, and is due for a
leave of absence and a prolonged convalescence. Again, it's just a word.
It's the idea and the program that matter.
"The rectification of names" in our political discourse must be an arduous
and prolonged exercise, involving the rehabilitation of such words as
"clear" (as in "clear skies"), "health" (as in "healthy forests") and, of
course, "compassion" (as in "compassionate conservatism").
This is because progressives have an entirely different approach to language
than the "regressives." Progressives are the true conservatives, since they
treat language as a priceless endowment of our forbearers, while regressives
treat it as a malignant tool to further their agenda. As we wrote in our
chapter in the forthcoming "Big Bush Lies" (edited by Jerry Barrret,
RiverWood Books):
A well-ordered and well-integrated
society rests upon a foundation of shared meanings a language with a
rich vocabulary, capable of expressing novelties, relatively constant,
but at the same time evolving through ordinary use, rather than
political manipulation. Put simply, language functions best as a
conservative institution.
However, as Orwell so clearly pointed out, political propaganda is
destructive of this "conservative" function of language. Heedless of the
cost in social disorder, right wing propaganda deliberately and
willfully distorts language to serve the purposes of the party, of the
faction, of the sponsor. This is no secret. In his GOPAC memo of 1994,
Newt Gingrich candidly identified language as "a key mechanism of
control."
Propagandistic manipulation and distortion of political discourse is
subversive of democratic government whether or not it is successful. If
the "Newspeak" of the controlling party is uncritically accepted by the
public, it becomes an instrument of control by that government. If it is
rejected, because the public thus becomes suspicious of language, the
institutions of government and the rule of law are likewise rejected,
and anarchy ensues.
Furthermore, a degraded political language can cause havoc in the
society as it undermines clarity of ordinary discourse and with it the
capacity of ordinary citizens to communicate, to trust each other, and
thus participate in and sustain a democratic government. Civil society
then dissolves as individuals retreat into themselves and are reduced
from citizens to self-seeking consumers, and society is reduced to a
mere marketplace -- if that.
It is thus the urgent duty of the opposing party, civic organizations an
educational institutions to restore to political discourse the clarity
and order of a natural language what Confucius called a "rectification
of names" which is pre-requisite for open, intelligent and productive
political debate.
For still more about "rectification" versus "corruption" of
names, see my
Newspeak Lives!
May 3, 2004
The Mailbag
To Ted Koppel, ABC News:
Thank you, Ted Koppel, for your
principled determination to read the names of the fallen in Iraq. You
are (almost) forgiven for your performance the December Candidates'
debate.
Where, or where, is an Ed Morrow or a Walter Cronkite with the courage
to stand up and protest this outrage in Iraq, and resist the Ministry of
Truth that is corporate media "news."
Are you prepared to fill those shoes?
America has rewarded you lavishly for your work and your talents. Now
it's payback time.
No need to answer propaganda with counter-propaganda. When more than
half the population persists in believing Administration-serving
falsehoods (cf. the PIPA studies), just the simple truth will suffice.
A few weeks ago, we saw a debate on Amy Goodman's "Democracy
Now," regarding the integrity of touch-screen voting. To our astonishment
and chagrin, these infernal machines were vigorously defended by the
Executive Director of Common Cause of Georgia (the location of likely
computer-voting fraud in 2002).
So when the annual Common Cause renewal notice arrived at our mailbox, we
fired back an angry letter, in effect: "not another dime from me until
Common Cause joins the fight against e-voting."
Mr. Alex Camarta, Executive Assistant to the President of Common Cause, was
kind enough to reply. In part:
Common Cause is indeed in agreement
with the concerns you express about the need for an auditable voting
process... It is the position of Common Cause to support voting which
can be audited; however, we do not believe that time allows for total
institution of this process by the time of the presidential election.
We replied:
I’m sorry, but I cannot accept the
assumption that there is insufficient time to decertify all
non-auditable voting machines before the November election. Rep. Rush
Holt and 150 House co-sponsors of his bill apparently disagree. So too
our California Secretary of State, Kevin Shelly who has just decertified
all such machines in California.
In a just country, non-auditable voting would be illegal – especially so
when the software codes are proprietary, and the machines built by a
company whose senior officers publicly endorse and financially support
one of the candidates. On its face, this setup stinks. Any election that
results from such an arrangement must be suspect.
It is not too late to build a few thousand ballot boxes and print paper
ballots. It’s the oldest system, and to date the most secure. Canada
manages this, so why can’t we?
If the non-auditable machines are widely used in November, I fear that
the outcome is pre-determined, and American democracy is lost.
We recently sent the following to some friends in Russia and
a similar message to other friends abroad:
The political situation in the US is
terrible. Whether or not it gets much worse hangs on the election --
which, for all we know, may be "fixed" to ensure a Bush victory. This
election may be our last chance to save, or perhaps I should say
"restore," American democracy.
One of the primary problems we face is a corporate media which both
effectively "owns," and is owned by, the Bush regime and the
Republicans. Our media is scarcely less supportive and apologetic of the
government than yours during the Soviet era. In this regard, you
Russians have an advantage over us. You knew and appreciated that the
media lied to you; Americans are not accustomed to this, and so are
inclined to believe what they see and hear in the media.
For example, a recent poll reports that 57% of our public believes that
Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis were involved in the attacks of 9/11 (it
was previously as high as 70%), despite the fact that there is no
evidence whatever of this, and very good reason not to believe it. But
the lie about the Saddam-9/11 connection is told so often by the Bush
regime, and repeated by the captive press, that most of the public still
believes it. Those who refuse to believe this official lie are solidly
opposed to Bush.
The last refuge of a free press in the US is the internet, our
"Samizdat." At The Crisis Papers, we are doing our small part to get
essential news to the public.
Little by little, as new books are published and news of the lies,
greed, hypocrisy and incompetence of the Bush administration leaks out,
the opposition grows and we keep hope alive.
And so we struggle on.
I am sadly aware that the world opinion of Americans has declined
dramatically. So please remind your friends and anyone who will listen,
that a majority of us Americans voted against Bush in 2000, and that he
holds his office through fraud and judicial malfeasance. Moreover, many
of us oppose Bush's terrible war in Iraq and are determined to end it,
and to end his reign of error and incompetence.
A friend in St. Petersburg, an officer in a citizen
environmental organization, asked permission to distribute the letter to his
associates. We agreed, of course.
This exchange reminds us to urge all of you with friends and associates
abroad, to remind them, repeatedly, that Bush, Inc., does not represent the
United States, that a majority of Americans voted against Bush, and that
there is an active and determined opposition to Bush and all that he
represents.
Historical Analogies
How could the neo-cons have got it so wrong? Where did they
ever get the idea that the troop of the "coalition" would be greeted with
flowers and sweets?
Think of Paris in 1944, the neo-cons said.
Well, not quite the same. In the first place, the first Allied troops to
enter Paris were the Free French, led by Charles de Gaulle. (That name, by
the way, is roughly equivalent to "Johnny America"). In addition, the French
were fully confident that their cheese industry would not be taken over by
Kraft Foods, nor their wine industry by Ernest and Julio Gallo. And finally,
there was not doubt that the enemy of both Americans and French were the
Nazis.
On the other hand, when we were attacked by al Qaeda, we proceeded to invade
al Qaeda's sworn enemy, Iraq. As several astute individuals have put it, it
was as if, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, we promptly invaded Mexico.
No, the Paris-Baghdad analogy just won't do.
On the other hand, here's another historical analogy:
When I was an undergraduate, my Sociology professor told of the time he was
visiting in Germany in the mid-thirties. One day he decided to watch a
Hitler motorcade, which he did with academic attachment as the crowd around
him cheered enthusiastically at Der Fuhrer. In an instant he found himself
on the ground, bleeding. A Gestapo officer, noticing that he was not
cheering, delivered the blow. "Don't you realize that this is the greatest
man in the world passing by?" he said. "You must show your respect." Quite
probably, his American citizenship saved him from a far worse fate.
I've thought of that incident, as I have watched the cable TV run-up to the
Iraq war, and have heard the network anchors, and even many leaders of the
Democratic Party, promise to "follow the Commander in Chief" when the war
starts. Because we are "at war," Ari Fleischer sternly reminded us, we must
"watch what we say."
In short: "we must destroy our democracy in order to save it."
Fortunately, more and more Americans, and even a few key members of the
media, have grown some spine of late. In particular, note the sharp
questioning at Bush's notorious news conference, Ted Koppel's aforementioned
"roster of the fallen," and CBS's 60 Minutes interviews with Paul O'Neill,
Richard Clarke, and Bob Woodward, in addition to its disclosure last week of
the Iraq torturing scandal.
They deserve our encouragement and support. Have you sent a letter of
appreciation to any of the above?
Earning Their Parachutes
A few brave souls are putting their careers, and possibly
their very lives, on the line, in the struggle to restore peace in the world
and democracy at home. Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame, Sibel Edmonds and
Katherine Gun come immediately to mind. In addition, there are several
war-resisting soldiers, some seeking asylum in Canada, and others remaining
the United States to face desertion charges. No doubt, there are many more
in the wings, ready to step forward.
And after they have taken their stand, what then? The thought came to my
mind as I watched and heard Sibel Edmonds interviewed on "Democracy Now."
This eloquent and courageous woman sacrificed her job as an FBI translator
when she reported to the public that prior to 9/11, there were abundant
warnings of the pending attacks.
So what follows for Mrs. Edmonds, Katherine Gun in Great Britain, and others
like her?
These individuals have earned the support of wealthy private businessmen and
progressive foundations, who should promptly hire them to work at positions
of responsibility and at salaries comparable to those they have lost. In
addition, they should be offered free legal support, should that become
necessary.
In short, if the costs to actual and potential whistleblowers due to loss of
income and legal expenses are mitigated, then still more information
damaging to the Bush regime will come out.
George Soros, Ted Turner, Warren Buffett, et al, are you listening? You too,
Center for American Progress.
And speaking of parachutes, we close with a story.
George Bush, a priest and a boy scout are aboard a private corporate jet.
The aircraft suddenly loses power over a mountain range -- no hope of a safe
landing. The pilot, a libertarian devotee of Ayn Rand, looks after No. 1.
and promptly bails out.
There are only two parachutes for the remaining three passengers. Bush grabs
a pack, snaps it onto his back, and announces, "I am God's chosen leader of
the free world, and God tells me that I must survive to vanquish the
evil-doers." And then he bails out.
The priest then tells the boy scout, "son, I've lived a full and blessed
life, and you have your life before you. So you must take this parachute."
"Cool it pops," said the lad, "God's chosen leader of the free world just
stole my backpack."
May 10, 2004
Holy War, Anyone?
Islamic Radicals ... have been
around for well over 1000 years - Islam itself is a dogmatic, gutter
religion for people still stuck in the 10th century. There have been
thousands of "radical" leaders for ages and millions willing to
follow. Never fool yourself into thinking Islam is a peaceful
religion. Any president who thinks Islam is a peaceful religion is
thinking foolishly and dangerously.
Debates over public issues generally
excite my interest and invite my enthusiastic participation. Rarely do
they provoke my anger and disgust. This comment, and similar comments by
the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, falls into that latter
category.
In a sense that the reader would likely reject, I fully agree that
"there have been thousands of 'radical' leaders for ages and millions
willing to follow." Truly there have been such leaders and followers of
all religions, and of no religion. Islam is no exception. For Islam is
no more an exclusively peaceful nor an exclusively war-like religion
than Christianity. The history and scriptures of both religions portray
both pacifism and warfare, both mercy and cruelty. (I argue this point
at some length in my my "Warriors
of the Lord").
In fact, there is solid historical evidence that Islam has been the most
tolerant of the Abrahamic religions. Moslems regard both Moses and Jesus
as holy prophets. Christians and Jews do not accord the same honor to
Mohammed. As "religions of the book," Christianity and Judaism have
traditionally been tolerated by the Moslems -- unless, as with the
Crusades and the establishment of the state of Israel, Christians and
Jews have attempted to uproot Moslems from their homes and their land.
When the Moslems arrived in Egypt, they encountered the Coptic
Christians, a sect of Christianity as ancient as Roman Catholicism. The
Copts have flourished in Egypt ever since, to this day. When Saladin
recaptured Jerusalem and Damascus from the Crusaders, Christian churches
and Jewish Synagogues remained intact, alongside the Mosques. When the
Spanish Inquisition expelled the Jews, they found refuge in the Islamic
Middle East.
On the other hand, there are Islamic extremists such as Osama bin Laden,
and they are dangerous. So too are the orthodox Jewish settlers on
Palestinian land, the "end-of-times" evangelical Christians, and bigots
who refer to the faith of over one billion of our fellow humans as a
"gutter religion."
Consider the legacy of this "gutter religion."
When my European ancestors were groveling in the ignorance and
superstition of the Dark Ages, the Arabic scholars of Baghdad, Damascus
and Cordoba were translating and preserving the philosophy and
literature of the ancient Greeks and Romans. They developed the number
system and invented algebra, which were to become the foundation of our
mathematics and physical sciences. Their universities advanced the
sciences of medicine and biology, and they built architectural
masterpieces that stand today: the Alhambra palace in Granada, the Dome
of the Rock in Jerusalem, the shrine of the Kaaba at Mecca.
As a philosophical secularist, I am equally outside of Judaism,
traditional Christianity and Islam, yet I find much to admire in each of
these great world religions. There are resources in each for
accommodation and mutual respect -- as the Moslems have shown us in the
past. There is also a potential for a "clash of civilizations." The
choice is ours
Struggles such as "the war on terror" proclaimed by George Bush,
polarize whole populations and turn common moral ground into a
depopulated no-mans-land. "You are either for us or against us." Thus
the post-9/11 pogrom by the INS and the Justice Department against
Moslems within our borders, followed by Guantánamo, and now Abu Ghraib
prison.
In that direction lies misery, poverty, and carnage.
The urgent question before is now, is whether, instead, we can emulate
the tolerance and accommodation of Saladin toward "the religions of the
book," following his triumph over the Crusaders.
May 10, 2004
Kooks Need Not Apply
In his book, The New Pearl Harbor, David Ray
Griffin of the faculty of the Claremont School of Theology, makes numerous
serious accusations against the Bush administration, some plausible and
others "far out." Consider just one of the latter: "The physical evidence
contradicts ... the official account, that the Pentagon was hit by a
Boeing 757 -- Flight 77, that is." He then goes on to argue that the
Pentagon was hit by a missile. (Santa
Barbara Independent,** April 1, 2004).
Trouble is, there were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of eye-witnesses to the
event, as the plane flew over a crowded freeway adjacent to the Pentagon.
Moreover, the impact was recorded on Pentagon surveillance cameras --
images that I have seen myself on TV. (See John Judge:
"Not all Conspiracies are Created equal" and Carol Lovett:
"Eyewitnesses Describe Pentagon Attack,** the latter published
September 11, 2001).
Then there is the obvious question: If Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon,
where is that plane and all the crew and passengers (including, by the
way, Barbara Olson, the wife of the Solicitor General, Ted Olson)? Griffin
seems uninterested: "I have no idea what happened to Flight 77."
Now imagine that a commercial flight took off last week and then
disappeared along with a couple hundred passengers on board -- one of them
the wife of (say) a Justice of the Supreme Court. Would the press, the FAA
and law enforcement just shrug it off? "Get over it -- now how about them
Yankees!"
In sum, Griffin's charges (in this case at least) are absurd on their
face.
In an essay that Prof. Griffin surely has read, philosopher David Hume
wrote: "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the
testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous
than the fact which it endeavors to establish." (An Inquiry Concerning
Human Understanding, Section X, "On Miracles").
The "missile theory" of the Pentagon attack must presume some kind of mass
hallucination afflicting hundreds of eye-witnesses in Northern Virginia on
the morning of September 11, 2001. It must further assume that a
commercial airliner, with all its crew and passengers, disappeared without
a trace -- conveniently at the same time that the alleged missile hit the
Pentagon.
My vote goes to David Hume. It would be far more "miraculous" for
Griffin's "missile theory" to be true, than for it to be a concoction of
his imagination.
The case against the Bush administration is overwhelming: election fraud
in Florida, demonstrably false grounds for initiating a war, the
"purchase" of federal offices and public legislation by campaign
contributors, and on and on. All this cries for removal of the Busheviks
from office at least, and more appropriately for criminal prosecution.
This case must be proclaimed persistently and vehemently. But the case is
not served by wild and demonstrably false fantasies. The Bushistas, and
their media camp-followers, are desperately looking for means to divert
public attention from the crimes of this administration. Wild accusations
such as those put forward by Griffin, by inviting a smear of the
opposition with the tar of "kookery," can only give aid and comfort to
"the enemy."
Where are they Now?
Sometime between Bush's May 1
"Mission Accomplished" celebration and the outbreak of the Iraq
insurrection, the satellite station "Link TV" (Dish Network 9410)
broadcasted a global link conversation between a group of
college-age students in New York and another group in Baghdad.
Link TV is vanishingly obscure, and I happened on this program quite
by accident. Yet it haunts me today more than anything I have seen
on TV this past year.
Through this chance encounter, I got to meet some "real" Iraqis, "up
close and personal." And these half-dozen or so young people were
extraordinarily intelligent, articulate, attractive, and courageous.
"Articulate" in English, of course, which most of them spoke almost
flawlessly. (No doubt, this was a primary reason that they were
selected for the program).
During the program, the camera crew was invited into some of the
Baghdad homes, where we were introduced to the family members of the
participants. Some of their friends and relatives had been injured
by the war, but none, to my recollection, had been killed. The homes
were also damaged and the utilities were sporadic at best. A visit
to the University displayed the total ruin of one of the student's
former classroom buildings.
The middle-class parents of one of the young women were out of work,
and she was providing the family income as a translator -- a task
for which she was obviously supremely well suited.
Clearly, the war, and the Saddam regime and the economic embargo
before it, had caused these people great hardship. Yet they were
hopeful that the "liberation" would soon improve their condition.
There were scenes of pleasant conversation with the US "coalition"
troops.
I came to admire these people immensely, as did the New York group
-- a multi-racial collection, including a Hispanic, an Asian and a
black. The trans-oceanic rapport was immediate and profound.
That was then. What about
now?
We are told that translators are now the targets of resistance
fighters. Has that young woman quit in fear of her life? In fact,
how many of those splendid young people are still alive? If they
have survived this "liberation," what are they doing now? Have they
joined the resistance? Has all communication with the US forces
ceased? What are their prospects? What can they hope and work for?
How did these apparently hopeful beginnings collapse into the chaos
that is Baghdad and Iraq today?
What kind of arrogance, greed and stupidity in Washington has
betrayed these magnificent people and has led us to this horrible
state of affairs?
I grieve, I am angry, and I feel so
helpless!
And Finally, This from Baghdad:
Each week, at The
Crisis Papers, we
pick out about a dozen of the best selections of the week, and put
them in our "Editors' Choice" page. There is no "Choice of the
Choices," but if there were, "Dear Occupiers -- Take your Torturers
and Just Go," by the pseudononymous Iraqi writer, "River," would
surely qualify. This masterful outpouring of pure, justifiable rage
strips bare the nakedness of our national culpability. The article
closes:
I sometimes get emails asking
me to propose solutions or make suggestions. Fine. Today's
lesson: don't rape, don't torture, don't kill and get out while
you can- while it still looks like you have a choice... Chaos?
Civil war? Bloodshed? We’ll take our chances- just take your
Puppets, your tanks, your smart weapons, your dumb politicians,
your lies, your empty promises, your rapists, your sadistic
torturers and go.
Stop whatever you are doing,
follow this
link, and read this now! Then
weep for your country and theirs.
And redouble your resolve and your effort to cleanse our nation of
the scoundrels in Washington who have brought this shame upon us
all.
May 21, 2004
ESCAPING A SEMANTIC TRAP. A PROPOSAL.
Few of our fellow progressives seem to be aware that whenever they apply the
label of "conservative" to the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, DeLay, Falwell,
and especially George Bush, they are needlessly conceding ground to these
opponents.
These right-wingers are very pleased to be called "conservatives," and
indeed they never tire of applying that label to themselves. But is it an
appropriate name for these individuals?
Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (Second Edition) defines "conservatism" as
"The practice of preserving what is established; disposition to oppose
change in established institutions and methods."
Does this correctly describe those individuals who are determined to tear
down the wall of separation between Church and State? Who violate laws and
treaties at will, most especially our Constitution and Bill of Rights? Who
stifle the free expression of diverse opinions? Who rule under a veil of
secrecy and who sequester historical documents from public and scholarly
scrutiny? Who over-rule and disregard at convenience, the accumulated
knowledge of the sciences? Who distort language and use it as a political
tool, rather than respect language as a common endowment and the fundamental
institution of social cohesion?
Clearly, these are not "conservatives." So why do we persist in calling them
"conservatives"? Just because they insist upon this false appellation, does
not oblige us to go along.
It is past time to take the initiative and to adopt a term of our own
choosing to apply to our political adversaries.
I've considered several, but at last have settled on "regressive." It
immediately and correctly places our adversaries in direct opposition to our
"progressivism." "Regressive" vs. "Progressive" is a splendid delineation of
our present contest.
Why "regressive"? Because far from "preserving what is established," these
right-wingers are clearly disposed "to oppose change in established
institutions and methods." (Webster's) As Paul Weyrich states, quite
directly: "We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are
radicals, working to overturn the present power structure of the country."
Nor are the right wingers looking forward. On the contrary, they are casting
nostalgic eyes back beyond the New Deal to The Gilded Age of the Nineteenth
Century. As
William
Grieder** aptly puts it:
The movement's grand ambition... is to roll back the twentieth century,
quite literally. That is, defenestrate the federal government and reduce its
scale and powers to a level well below what it was before the New Deal's
centralization. With that accomplished, movement conservatives envision a
restored society in which the prevailing values and power relationships
resemble the America that existed around 1900, when William McKinley was
President.
So "regressive" it is. Still more, for the immediate future, make that
"right-wing regressive." Because we are attempting to introduce a new term
into the political mix, our term requires a semantic boost. To be sure,
"right-wing regressive" is a redundancy (after all the "right wing" is
regressive). But that redundancy serves to alert the public to the intended
meaning of "regressive." If the term catches on, then we can drop the
"training wheels" of "right wing."
So c'mon, troops. Let's get with it. Introducing a new term into the
language is far more than a single obscure writer can accomplish. But if the
neologism serves a compelling public need -- be it social, political,
economic, or scientific -- and if a deliberate effort is made by a few, and
then by more and more, it just might catch on. Surely the right-wing
regressives have proven as much.
And it is surely long past time that we deprived the right wing of their
thoroughly inappropriate self-description of "conservative."
(For much more about this proposal, see my my
Conscience of a Conservative and
Newspeak Lives).
MR. NOVAK'S FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS
It is a fundamental rule of law, and of practical morality, that no precept
is absolute -- one can, in principle, imagine exceptions to every rule.
Thus Justice Holmes' famous observed that freedom of speech does not include
the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theater. Moreover, "thou shalt not
kill" allows for killing in self-defense, and one is permitted -- indeed,
morally required -- to lie to a hired killer in order to prevent the murder
of an innocent victim.
The reason that every moral and legal rule has exceptions is quite simple:
as soon as one adopts two or more rules of conduct, it becomes possible for
practical situations to arise whereby obedience to one rule necessitates the
violation of another. True believers tell us that The Lord gave not two but
Ten Commandments to Moses. And to those familiar with the Bible, those ten
are scarcely the end of it.
The law recognizes that particular laws may, under extraordinary
circumstances, be justifiably violated. This is called "the defense of
necessity." Violation of traffic laws in order to get a critically injured
person to a hospital is a case in point.
The only escape from moral conflicts, then, is to live by only one precept.
And one who does so is not a moralist, s/he is a fanatic.
Accordingly, a moral life, of necessity, must involve the violation of some
moral rules in order to obey other rules.
The right-wing moralists call this "situation ethics" and "moral
relativism," and it causes them fits. These are the excuses of "wicked
liberals," they say. Yet surely these moralists would readily lie to save an
innocent life, and kill a threatening guilty culprit to spare the lives of
several innocents. In fact, today it seems that a great many religious-right
moralists, solidly supporting their "born again" President and his Iraq War,
are quite willing to sacrifice innocent Iraq lives to bring about the
greater good of --- well, forgive me, but I haven't quite figured that part
out.
Which brings us to Robert Novak.
There is a well-established and morally compelling principle that "freedom
of the press" does not extend to the right to report the departure of
troopships into submarine infested seas, nor to disclose the time and place
of invasions. The reporter who does so is justly convicted of treason.
Nor should one be permitted to disclose information that will put the lives
of covert operatives at risk, and that will shut down an operation vital to
the national interest -- which precisely describes Valerie Plame's CIA work
in discovering and thwarting the distribution of weapons of mass
destruction.
Of such disclosure, one former President said: "I have nothing but contempt
and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our
sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors." (George H.
W. Bush, April 16, 1999).
They have not yet found and indicted the scoundrel who "outed" Valerie Plame.
When they do, if our laws still have any meaning, s/he will serve time in a
Federal Prison.
But that mischief would never have "gone afoot," had no one agreed to
publicize Ms.Plame's covert activities. Five of six reporters, we are told,
declined. Mr. Novak did not.
Which leads one to wonder: Why is Robert Novak a free man today?
May 25, 2004
WHEN IGNORANCE IS BLISS, YOU ARE PROBABLY A REPUBLICAN.
On Sunday (May 23) The Smirking Chimp posted Tom Brazaitis' article,
'History profs rate Bush a disaster'**. The article reported:
Responding to a national survey by George Mason University's History News
Network, 81 percent of the 415 historians who expressed a view of the Bush
presidency so far classified it as a failure and 12 percent see it as the
worst presidency in American history.
At least eight of the 77 historians who expressed a belief that Bush's
presidency has been a success so far seemed to be pulling our leg. Seven
said Bush's presidency is only the best since that of Bill Clinton, his
immediate predecessor, and one said the country hasn't seen a president of
Bush's caliber since Millard Fillmore (1850-53) who filled the remaining
term of Gen. Zachary Taylor after Taylor's death.
This launched an enthusiastic string of responses (32 at last count) on the
sorry state of American public education and the resulting ignorance of the
American public. The prize, in the opinion of your humble blogster, goes to
an anonymous "Chimpster" who uses the handle "SnoopDopeyDogg."
The problem [of public ignorance and gullibility] depends on your
perspective. If you approach the problem from the perspective of a
right-wing corporate shill propagandist, such as from one the propaganda
branches of Corporate Amerika known as PR firms, THEN education IS the
problem, for troublemakers ... keep throwing out facts to the lambs that the
PR firms have worked so hard to prepare for the slaughter.
On the other hand, if you approach the problem from the perspective of the
truth, regardless of what it is or where it leads you, then the public
education system, made creaking and near defunct by Republican efforts to
starve it to death by lack of funding (picture money as oxygen and Repubs as
shutting the garage door and revving the engine), is one of the last
holdouts against the onslaught of corporate propaganda. Don't think so?
Conservative backing of various schemes to keep poor and minority kids
undereducated and grist for the blue-collar wage-slave/prison/military
mills, from various "voucher" conspiracies to home-brainwashing (I mean
"schooling") schemes, provide the proof. If public education were doing its
proper job of brainwashing kids in the tenets of conservative corporatism,
then you would see GOPers funding the school system like it were a
subsidiary of Halliburton.
We (Americans) are brainwashed 24/7 by the media and the corporate culture.
Brainwashing consists as much of what is excluded and implied as it does
what it teaches. I know a old veteran who was subjected to brainwashing by
the North Koreans. He said it consisted almost entirely of negative FACTS
about American history, not torture or some "Manchurian Candidate" hypno-pharmacology
CIA stuff, facts which they knew the POWs would check out, much to their
ultimate dissatisfaction, when and if they returned stateside.
Teachers ... are the Weapons of Mass Deprogramming feared more than any
other, right up there with librarians, by fascists. Hence things such as
mass book-burnings and similar acts of totalitarian control and censorship,
always carrying doublespeak terms such as the "Patriot Act" and "The Charter
of Labor". One was Nazi's Germany law that banned unions and enslaved
employees to their corporate masters, the other an act aimed at destroying
American patriots by destroying the root of their power: facts, ideas, and
the sometimes painful truth. One nice thing about Nazis is that their words
can be used as an accurate reverse-barometer. They always mean and do
exactly the opposite of what they say, unless they know that you are on to
them, at which point they simply up the deception ante a notch or two, or
three.
ONE public school history teacher undid years of Bonanza and Gunsmoke
episodes, hundreds of hours of John Wayne movies, and thousands of dollars
of propaganda invested in me when he covered the "Robber Barons." It seems
that the Old West wasn't the way Big Business said it was. He didn't require
blind adherence to his statements, and would have been ignored had he done
so, but rather used verifiable facts, the scourge of all Nazis, to drive
home his points and positions.
History professors are far more damaging to the Bush Reich than all the Al-Zarqawis,
Saddam Husseins, and Howard Deans combined, and the Reich knows it. Bush may
be dumb but the neo Nazi cabal isn't stupid.
Like rats and cockroaches in your garbage, corporate propagandists function
best under the cloak of darkness, but never mistake their silence as
weakness, for as any doctor will tell you, the silent killers are always the
deadliest.
You don't have to believe a confused liberal such as myself. Take it from
the uber-public relationist, the grandaddy of them all whose firms are still
alive and lying today:
“The conscious & intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and
opinions of the masses constitute an invisible government which is the true
ruling power of our country.” -Edward Bernays (Sigmund Freud’s nephew and
corporate public relations founder)
Mulder was (is) right. The truth is out there. Just not out here in
Corporate Amerika.
Clearly "Snoop" is not "Dopey."
Here is my contribution to The Smirking Chimp's post-fest:
Fourteen years ago, while on the faculty of one of the California State
Universities, I perceived that some of our scientific-historical-cultural
allusions were being met with perplexed expressions or blank stares among my
students. So I prepared and distributed a "General Information and Opinion
Questionnaire" to gain a sense of the students' general cultural knowledge.
The results were startling, to say the least. Of the forty-eight students
responding:
Seven identified the Secretary of State
Six Identified the Secretary of Defense
None Identified the Attorney General
None Identified the UN Secretary General
Thirteen identified both California Senators
Eight identified the nine US Presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt
Less than half identified the "Big Three" allied powers, and the Axis powers
in World War II.
Twelve correctly placed the date of the Civil War within the "window" of
1855-1870.
Less than three (in a Philosophy class) were able to identify: Bertrand
Russell, Alfred N. Whitehead, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stephen Hawking, or
Michael Faraday.
I neglected to ask the students to identify the rock stars heading the
charts at the time.
Of course, I would have flunked that test.
And yet, in view of what our colleges and universities receive from the
public schools, what they accomplish in four years is nothing short of
miraculous.
Several years ago, 60 Minutes aired a disgraceful "profile" of American
Universities, with a focus on the University of Arizona and featuring,
favorably, Prof. Keith Lehrer of the UA Philosophy Department. The primary
complaint was that students were being short-changed because the professors
were spending too much time on research, too little on teaching, and were
turning their teaching duties over to ill-prepared teaching assistants. (But
don't get me started on that. I wrote an unanswered letter of complaint to
the reporter, Leslie Stahl.
You can find it here).
Later, in a personal conversation, Keith Lehrer pointed out
to me that those
university faculties -- including the awkward teaching assistants --
routinely accomplish a small miracle. As we know too well, the reading,
writing and computational skills of our high school graduates are a national
disgrace. Yet in four years these research-distracted institutions somehow
manage to raise the knowledge and skills of these students to a level
sufficient for them to qualify for graduate schools, where they successfully
compete with the same foreign students that so thoroughly outclassed them
just four years earlier. And why are so many foreign students at our
graduate schools? Because they recognize these institutions to be the finest
in the world.
Or at least they were in California, until first Ronald Reagan, and now The
Governator, got hold of them.
MICHAEL MOORE v. MIKKI
MAUS HAUS: NO CONTEST
So Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911" has won the Cannes Film Festival's
"Palme d'Or" award. And if theNew
York Times' Frank Rich is to
be believed, "he's detonating dynamite here."
But not in the USA, if the Disney Corporation has its way. For as you surely
must know by now, Disney has ordered its subsidiary, Mirimax FIlms, not to
release the film
Too little, too late. "Farhenheit
911" is totally out of the control of the Busheviks and their corporate
whore, the Disney Corporation.
Like The Voice of America during the Soviet era.
Anyone remember when "banned in Boston" was top-grade promotion material for
a book? Similarly, the more right-wing regressives try to squelch this film,
the more attractive it will be and the more determined the public will be to
see it.
Frantic attempts at censorship only prove that the establishment has
something to hide. And traditionally, censorship does not sit well with the
American public.
Suppose they manage to keep it out of theaters. So what? It will be out in
DVD, copied, and pirated versions put on the internet, possibly on offshore
websites.
If so, it may cost Michael Moore a lot of bucks, but I suspect that he won't
mind all that much.
Just like the Shah, when cassette recordings of the Ayatollah were passed
around before the Iranian revolution. Like Brezhnev and the Commissars, when
Samizdat manuscripts were written and distributed by the Soviet dissidents.
Now its Bush and Rumseld, who just might be overthrown by "the information
age."
Just recall Rummie's unguarded outburst about the distribution of the
digital images of the Abu Ghraib tortures. "Digital cameras! Who could have
guessed?" Answer: anyone even remotely aware of the political implications
of the new info-technologies.
If the election were next week or even next month, the Bushistas might
squeak through. But they can't keep the lid on for five months.
Not even the mighty GOP Media Wurlitzer can drown out the uproar that is
beginning to erupt.
"Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again." (William Cullen Bryant).
There remains the problem of the GOP paperless voting machines. Kerry must
win big. The public outcry against the brutal and criminal regime that has
captured our government must be so loud, persistent and overwhelming that a
fraudulent and unverifiable election "win" becomes instantly, universally
and totally unsustainable.
With the constant stream of anti-Bush books, the crumbling solidarity of the
corporate media (e.g. 60 Minutes), and now Fahrenheit 911, it's just
beginning to appear that this may be possible after all.
¡Si se puede!
May 31, 2004
We've Heard this Song Before!
CNN's "Capital Gang" last Saturday turned their attention to
Al Gore's
MoveOn.org speech**. The progressive press and internet that
we read was greatly impressed, as were we.
But not so, "The Capital Gang." After denouncing MoveOn (that
"left-wing radical group"), they focused almost their entire attention on
theatrics and imagery, with disparaging remarks about Gore's
animated presentation and the volume of his voice. Except for Gore's calling
for the resignation of Bush's top advisors, scarcely a word was said about
the content of Gore's speech. No words in defense of Gore -- not by the
token "liberals" Margaret Carlson, AL Hunt and Mark Shields. Shameful!
But there was worse to come.
David Brock's Media
Matters, collected these tid-bits of armchair psychiatry :
Dennis Miller: "I think he's lost his mind."
Mark Levin: [Al Gore is] a mental patient."
Michael Savage: "He has definitely pulled his raft across the river of
sanity."
John Podhoretz: "It is now clear that Al Gore is insane."
Oliver North: "They should check Gore's medications."
Sean Hannity: "He's really nuts."
Charles Krauthammer: "It looks as if Al Gore has gone off his lithium
again."
Krautammer, it is worth noting, is a one-time psychiatrist. Why is the
American Psychiatric Association silent in the face of this abuse of the
profession?
Never a word from this gang about the psychopathology of one George W. Bush.
(One might well wonder about such issues as unconstrained lying, dislexia,
sociopathy, religious megalomania, etc.).
The regressive pundits will keep up this despicable character assassination
until they are shamed into silence. And as things look right now, that
desirable consummation is nowhere in sight.
Barking Up the Wrong Tree:
About a year ago, we happened upon a CSPAN coverage of a meeting of the
Democratic Leadership Conference. At that meeting, DLC Chair AL Fromm
favored us with a PowerPoint dissection of public opinion -- group
dissection on the Y-Axis (whites, blacks, hispanics, men, women, young, old,
etc.) and issue dissection on the X Axis (taxes, education, environment,
defense, etc.).
That sort of thing. You've all seen it.
All in all, things were looking upbeat for the Democrats -- "the people," by
and large, were with the Democrats on the issues!
Ho hum! Big Deal!
Fromm may have earned himself an A in statistics, but he flunked history.
Have we forgotten? Candidates Carter, Dukakis, Mondale and Gore each
clobbered their GOP opponents "on the issues." And they all lost their
elections -- correction, all but Gore, but that's another story.
And on matters of substance Gore sliced and diced Bush in the debates. But
then the media spin doctors got to work, asked their phony "focus groups"
who was more "likable." Advantage Bush.
And its happening again. Almost half of our fellow citizens are smiling at
Bush as he lies to them, picks their pockets, sends their sons off to die in
Iraq, and robs them of their Social Security and Medicare. And yet they will
vote for Bush in November.
And so we ask again: "When will the Democrats learn from their mistakes?"
Those of you old enough to remember, consider this: In 1980, the prominent
"image issues" included (a) the honor of military service, (b) religion (as
always), and (c) family life.
Now let's profile the candidates.
Ronald Reagan: Dodged combat in World War II by narrating propaganda
films in Hollywood, never attended church while at the White House,
divorced his first wife, and conceived the first child of his second wife
out of wedlock. And Reagan notoriously failed to recognize his own
grandchildren.
Jimmy Carter: Graduated with honors from Annapolis and served as an
officer in the submarine corps (longer military service than any 20th
Century President except Eisenhower), taught Sunday School while in the
White House!, and stood by his often eccentric family members in spite
of the political costs. (Remember brother Billy and mother Lillian?)
So which candidate benefited more from these issues? Shucks, you all know
the answer. (When asked that same question, Carter wryly commented, "the
question has crossed my mind").
Yes, the issues count for something, but probably not much. What counts is
"image," "likeability, and sound-bite slogans. Also, an ineffable quality
that show-biz people call "presence" -- which is akin to "authenticity." And
finally, an air of control and competent authority which engenders charisma.
Look over that list, and you might sense that Kerry is in pretty good shape.
Bush is ahead in "likeability," but that's just about all he has. His
attempts at imagery have backfired, "big time." (Think "Mission
Accomplished"). His record of mendacity is bound to catch up with him and
undercut any claim to "authenticity." Next, how can a candidate who dares
not speak without a teleprompter that serves up the words of others acquire
"presence" and personal contact? As for authority, Bush's campaign is
reaching desperately with the unconvincing slogan, "Steady leadership in a
time of change." But who really believes it?
And charisma? Kerry has plenty, as his Massachusetts constituents
well know, still more the string of GOP opponents he has defeated.
Most of the public believes that Kerry suffers from a severe charisma
deficit, but that's only because the media have told them so.
(Remember how authentically honest Al Gore was believed by most to be a
chronic liar? Totally a media-generated myth).
The GOP knows all this, and so, rather than build up their candidate, they
are devoting their major effort and funds to the task of diminishing Kerry.
I think he can survive it. And the more the public gets to know Kerry, the
more apparent will be the contrast between Kerry and Bush in moral and
intellectual quality, and in leadership capacity.
The overarching question is whether the media will allow the public to get
to know Kerry.
Message passing around the Internet
How many members of the Bush Administration are needed to replace a light
bulb?
The Answer is SEVEN:
One to deny that a light bulb needs to be replaced
One to attack and question the patriotism of anyone who has questions about
the light bulb,
One to blame the previous administration for the need of a new light bulb,
One to arrange the invasion of a country rumored to have a secret stockpile
of light bulbs,
One to get together with Vice President Cheney and figure out how to pay
Halliburton Industries one million dollars for a light bulb,
One to arrange a photo-op session showing Bush changing the light bulb while
dressed in a flight suit and wrapped in an American flag,
And, finally, one to explain to Bush the difference between screwing a light
bulb and screwing the country.
Who Can You Believe?
For most of last week our "Best of the Week" page was headed by an article
from the Daytona Beach News Journal: "Hard
lessons from poetry class: Speech is free unless it's critical,"** by
Bill Hill. The story has been circulating around the progressive internet.
Here was our excerpt-blurb:
Bill Nevins, a New Mexico high school
teacher and personal friend, was fired last year and classes in poetry
and the poetry club at Rio Rancho High School were permanently
terminated. It had nothing to do with obscenity, but it had everything
to do with extremist politics... In March 2003, a teenage girl named
Courtney presented one of her poems before an audience at Barnes & Noble
bookstore in Albuquerque, then read the poem live on the school's
closed-circuit television channel. A school military liaison and the
high school principal accused the girl of being "un-American" because
she criticized the war in Iraq and the Bush administration's failure to
give substance to its "No child left behind" education policy. The
girl's mother, also a teacher, was ordered by the principal to destroy
the child's poetry. The mother refused and may lose her job. Bill Nevins
was suspended for not censoring the poetry of his students. Remember,
there is no obscenity to be found in any of the poetry. He was later
fired by the principal... But more was to come. Posters done by art
students were ordered torn down, even though none was termed obscene.
Some were satirical, implicating a national policy that had led us into
war. Art teachers who refused to rip down the posters on display in
their classrooms were not given contracts to return to the school in
this current school year. The message is plain. Critical thinking,
questioning of public policies and freedom of speech are not to be
allowed to anyone who does not share the thinking of the school
principal.
Wow! Powerful stuff, this!
Turns out there might be another side to this story.
"The Agonist" website** reports
that one of its readers e-mailed the school system, and got this reply (in
part):
Recently, the Daytona Beach
News-Journal published an editorial highly critical of Rio Rancho High
School and some of its staff members. It was written by Bill Hill, a
columnist for the paper and, he states, a friend of Bill Nevins, an
untenured teacher whose contract was not renewed at the end of the
2002-03 school year. Mr. Nevins is currently engaged in a legal action
against the Rio Rancho Public Schools.
While we recognize the right of newspapers to engage in fair criticism,
such criticism should be grounded in the facts. We are disturbed that
neither the writer nor the Daytona Beach News-Journal contacted the
school district for information or comment. This editorial, simply put,
is rife with inaccuracies, misinformation, and outright untruths. Its
publication constitutes a reckless disregard for the truth to such a
degree that Rio Rancho Public Schools has asked its lawyers to review
and evaluate what legal recourse may be available.
The school officials then denied many of the allegations in
the Bill Hill article. As for the rest, they were constrained, they said, by
the fact that the case was in litigation.
The student in question, "Courtney," added her bit with a letter to the
editor of the local paper, which read, in part:
When I asked the administration why
Mr. Nevins was put on administrative leave, I was told that the reasons
would not be discussed with me, but that they had absolutely nothing to
do with me or my poem. I accept that. The administration at RRHS has
been nothing but supportive of my poetry endeavors and continue to
encourage my writing, even in light of all this nonsense.
She closed with a complaint against the media that had
"bombarded" her and her family, and begged to be left alone at last. Fair
enough.
What are we to make of this? Not too much I hope, at least not yet. These
were spectacular accusations by Mr. Nevins and his friend (?) Mr. Hill, and
for that reason the story may have got out of hand. While Mr. Nevins'
version may be totally accurate, this story has the appearance of a seed of
truth that grew uncontrolled into a weed of exaggerated rumor. All too
often, when we read something that is "too good (or in this case, too bad)
to be true," we discover at length that it is just that.
Fortunately, the accusation has elements that can readily be confirmed or
refuted -- the firings, the involvement of the ACLU. Apparently it is now up
to the courts to sort this out.
Suspension of belief is an uncommon virtue, and often difficult to bear. But
it is surely called for here. And skepticism is more difficult when directed
toward allegations that support one's deepest convictions and commitments.
But the capacity for suspended belief and skepticism are traits that starkly
set progressives apart from right-wing regressives. We should practice and
display these traits proudly.
In this regard, it is worth noting that in his Air America Radio show, Al
Franken has a "corrections" feature (complete with theme music). How often
do Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and the rest admit their
mistakes on the air? And we all know about George Bush's total inabillity to
admit error.
I'll bet we'll be hearing more about the Nevins case. Stay tuned.
Barking Up the Wrong Tree:
About a year ago, we happened upon a CSPAN coverage of a meeting of the
Democratic Leadership Conference. At that meeting, DLC Chair AL Fromm
favored us with a PowerPoint dissection of public opinion -- group
dissection on the Y-Axis (whites, blacks, hispanics, men, women, young, old,
etc.) and issue dissection on the X Axis (taxes, education, environment,
defense, etc.).
That sort of thing. You've all seen it.
All in all, things were looking upbeat for the Democrats -- "the people," by
and large, were with the Democrats on the issues!
Ho hum! Big Deal!
Fromm may have earned himself an A in statistics, but he flunked history.
Have we forgotten? Candidates Carter, Dukakis, Mondale and Gore each
clobbered their GOP opponents "on the issues." And they all lost their
elections -- correction,
all but Gore, but that's another story.
And on matters of substance Gore sliced and diced Bush in the debates. But
then the media spin doctors got to work, asked their phony "focus groups"
who was more "likable." Advantage Bush.
And its happening again. Almost half of our fellow citizens are smiling at
Bush as he lies to them, picks their pockets, sends their sons off to die in
Iraq, and robs them of their Social Security and Medicare. And yet they will
vote for Bush in November.
And so we ask again: "When
will the Democrats learn from their mistakes?"
Those of you old enough to remember, consider this: In 1980, the prominent
"image issues" included (a) the honor of military service, (b) religion (as
always), and (c) family life.
Now let's profile the candidates.
Ronald Reagan: Dodged combat in World
War II by narrating propaganda films in Hollywood, never attended church
while at the White House, divorced his first wife, and conceived the
first child of his second wife out of wedlock. And Reagan notoriously
failed to recognize his own grandchildren.
Jimmy Carter: Graduated with honors from Annapolis and served as an
officer in the submarine corps (longer military service than any 20th
Century President except Eisenhower), taught Sunday School while
in the White House!, and stood by his often eccentric family members
in spite of the political costs. (Remember brother Billy and mother
Lillian?)
So which candidate benefited more from these issues? Shucks,
you all know the answer. (When asked that same question, Carter wryly
commented, "the question has crossed my mind").
Yes, the issues count for something, but probably not much. What counts is
"image," "likeability, and sound-bite slogans. Also, an ineffable quality
that show-biz people call "presence" -- which is akin to "authenticity." And
finally, an air of control and competent authority which engenders charisma.
Look over that list, and you might sense that Kerry is in pretty good shape.
Bush is ahead in "likeability," but that's just about all he has. His
attempts at imagery have backfired, "big time." (Think "Mission
Accomplished"). His record of mendacity is bound to catch up with him and
undercut any claim to "authenticity." Next, how can a candidate who dares
not speak without a teleprompter that serves up the words of others acquire
"presence" and personal contact? As for authority, Bush's campaign is
reaching desperately with the unconvincing slogan, "Steady leadership in a
time of change." But who really believes it?
And charisma? Kerry has plenty, as his Massachusetts
constituents well know, still more the string of GOP opponents he has
defeated. Most of the public believes that Kerry suffers from a severe
charisma deficit, but that's only because the media have told them so.
(Remember how authentically honest Al Gore was believed by most to be a
chronic liar? Totally a media-generated myth).
The GOP knows all this, and so, rather than build up their candidate, they
are devoting their major effort and funds to the task of diminishing Kerry.
I think he can survive it. And the more the public gets to know Kerry, the
more apparent will be the contrast between Kerry and Bush in moral and
intellectual quality, and in leadership capacity.
The overarching question is whether the media will allow the public to get
to know Kerry.
June 7, 2004
Is it time for the Dems to do unto Bush as he has done
unto them?
In the June 4 "Capitol Hill Blue," Doug
Thompson** reports that George
Bush may be buckling under the pressure.
"Going besmirk," as a late uncle used to put it.
Thompson writes:
President George W. Bush’s
increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the
West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over
their leader’s state of mind.
In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President
goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against
the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the
state.”
Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge,
increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a
public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.
“It reminds me of the Nixon days,” says a longtime GOP political
consultant with contacts in the White House. “Everybody is an enemy;
everybody is out to get him. That’s the mood over there.”
In interviews with a number of White House staffers who were willing to
talk off the record, a picture of an administration under siege has
emerged, led by a man who declares his decisions to be “God’s will” and
then tells aides to “fuck over” anyone they consider to be an opponent
of the administration.
So now he's making up an "enemies list." Has he started
talking to the Presidential portraits in the White House?
We've read this sort of thing about the Bush "bonkers-factor" nowhere else.
It's the stuff of maverick journalists like the denizens of "Capitol Hill
Blue." The corporate media won't touch it -- at least not yet.
And yet, it rings true. Thompson is simply describing the sort of behavior
reported earlier by such ex-insiders as John DiIulio, Paul O'Neill and
Richard Clarke. Indeed, it is the behavior we occasionally see during Bush's
unguarded public moments, such as the Tim Russert interview and his last
("can't think of any mistakes") press conference.
What Thompson is portraying here is a super-annuated adolescent who is way
over his head. Heretofore, whenever Bush has found himself in trouble, which
was quite often, his Daddy has bailed him out. This time the doo-doo is so
deep that even Poppy Bush can't rescue him -- and that ugly fact is finally
beginning to dawn on Dubya.
I picture "jet pilot" George being called to the cockpit of Air Force One,
after the entire crew is rendered unconscious, and being asked to fly the
contraption. No can do. Total
panic.
So now he's hired a personal lawyer, and the Plame case is closing in. More
firings and resignations are likely, to be followed by inside info getting
out. And, at long last, his solid media support is collapsing.
If the Dems are smart and crafty, they will probe, provoke and nurture this
madness until it breaks into the open, discredits the whole rotten bunch
before the public, and brings an end to our national nightmare.
But they must be careful: the injured beast is most dangerous when cornered.
"Ruthless" you say?
Think Lee Atwater and Karl Rove.
And Tip O'Neill, who reminded us that "Politics ain't beanbag."
Why not the best?
When I was a youngster in grade school, I was told that "anybody can grow up
to be President."
Ronald Reagan and now George Bush have proven this beyond a doubt.
There was a time in the memory of many of us, when the Presidency of the
United States, the supreme executive office of the land, was regarded as the
most important and most demanding job in the world, worthy of only the most
qualified citizen among us -- a citizen in whom we were to entrust "our
lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor."
And so, appropriately, we sought out the best.
In our prospective candidates, we assessed the knowledge, experience
(preferably executive), and that ineffable quality "wisdom," which could
only be validated by an established record of public service. We demanded
moral probity, empathy and compassion. We also demanded a loyalty to the
political traditions of the country and a sense of responsibility toward all
citizens, including political opponents. As John F. Kennedy replied when his
supporters complained that he was neglecting their interests, "I was elected
President of all the
people."
But now an additional trait has been added to the mix, rising to the top of
the priority list: "likeability."
After Gore decisively trounced Bush on substantial issues in the debates,
the media spin-merchants hammered on the "likeability" issue until Gore's
advantage was neutralized.
And it continues to this day, as John Kerry -- whose courage has been proven
on the battlefield, who has twenty-two years of continuous experience in the
United States Senate, who has acquired one of the highest ratings with the
liberal American for Democratic Action and with the the League of
Conservation Voters -- this same John Kerry, we are told, is unqualified for
the Presidency because he "looks" and speaks French, and because he pays too
much for his haircuts.
Instead, as we approach another Presidential election, shouldn't we be
asking Jimmy Carter's question: "Why not the best?" Why should we settle for
less?
In less than two hundred years, the leadership of the Roman Empire evolved
from Cato and Cicero to Caligula and Nero.
In approximately the same time, our leadership has evolved from Washington,
Jefferson, and Madison to Ronald Reagan and George Bush.
Is this the best that we can do?
Rather than close by speaking ill of the dead, here is a kind word for the
late Ronald Reagan.
Reagan had the good sense to appreciate the changes that were afoot in the
Soviet Union, and to make a correct assessment of the Soviet leader, Mikhail
Gorbachev. This, at a time when the hawks in his administration were
convinced that Soviet Communism was forever -- when George Will, for
example, was characterizing Gorbachev as "Brezhnev with a tailored suit and
a thin wife."
Reagan ignored all that, and thus facilitated the difficult dismantling of
the Soviet Empire.
But he did not, as the right wing insists, "win the Cold War." For this,
Gorbachev deserves equal if not more credit. But when the question is posed,
"who won the Cold War?," the greatest heroes of all are usually left out of
the equation. These are the people of Eastern Europe, and of Russia and the
other Soviet Republics. "Solidarity" in Poland, "the Velvet Revolution" in
Czechoslovakia, the throngs of ordinary citizens who filled the streets of
Vilnius, Lithuania. And the Muscovite citizens who stood fast in front of
the tanks and thwarted the counter-revolution against Gorbachev in August,
1991.
But for the will of the people, communism and the Soviet Union would likely
have survived to this day.
Something to think about, when the will of the people may be the only force
capable of saving the American Republic from becoming a theocratic
oligarchy.
June 14, 2004
"The Wheels are coming off the Bush Administration!"
How often have we heard that expression in the media -- and often from
pundits and reporters that are not particularly unfriendly to Bush and the
GOP?
There is a sense in the media, and presumably among the public, that events
are spinning out of control, and that the Busheviks simply haven't the
smarts to put things back together.
And there's a lot of grief coming their way -- that we know about. The Plame
investigation is moving into the final act, while the "buck" in
"torture-gate" goes higher and higher. Ashcroft has thoroughly pissed-off
the Senate -- including Republicans, etc., etc. And here's something you
might not have heard about: in a couple of weeks, the Supreme Court is due
to rule on the Guantánamo and Padilla cases, and Ashcroft's legal team
appears convinced that they are going to lose -- which means that the
Constitution will win.
Now that's a blockbuster!
As Juan Cole astutely observes** (in a
blog cited today by Bernie
Weiner), a sense that the leader is in control -- let's call it "the
charisma of confidence" -- is essential to political success. FDR had it,
Eisenhower had it, Kennedy had it. Carter and Ford did not. But note this:
LBJ and Nixon had it early on, and then lost it: LBJ to Viet Nam, and Nixon
to Watergate. Progressives and astute observers of the federal government
are well aware that Dubya is way over his head, and has been from the
get-go. Now its beginning to dawn on some Congressional Republicans. If that
realization begins to spread among the populace -- and if it starts, all of
Karl Rove's millions won't stop it -- then you can stick a fork in The
Shrub. He's done.
All this reminds me of Garison Keilor's story of the truck parked on the ice
in middle of Lake Wobegon as spring is coming on. Sooner or later -- it's
just a matter of time.
And Speaking of Public Relations Genius:
A couple of weeks ago, I happened to watch CNN's "Capitol
Gang," as they played old footage of "the Gang" within a week after the
"Mission Accomplished" stunt on the carrier deck. Everyone on that panel,
covering the political spectrum from center, center-right to far-out la
la right, saw Bush's
performance as a "political coup," a master stroke by the wizardly Karl
Rove.
Little did they suspect just how much that dramatic production would
backfire.
They did, however, get one thing half-right: "we'll be seeing a lot of that
footage in the 2004 Campaign." They just misjudged which side would be using
it.
Keep this in mind whenever you yield to despair at the thought that Bush's
campaign gurus are miracle-workers.
Where are the Christians?
What do you call someone who launches aggressive war, takes
money from the poor and gives to the rich, impoverishes the next generation
and the one to follow, mocks prisoners that he has condemned to death, takes
poses of piety to attract votes, and lies without scruple.
A "Christian?" C'mon!
Blessed are the peacemakers: for
they shall be called the children of God. (Matt. 5:9)
Blessed are the merciful for they
shall obtain mercy. (Matt. 5:7)
If thou wilt be perfect, go and
sell that thou hast, and give to the poor (Matt 19:21-2)
If ye love me, keep my
commandments. (John 14:15)
How in God's name (literally!) does such behavior reportedly
attract 80% support from evangelical Christians? Let me say that again: "Christians"?
This people honoureth me with their
lips but their heart is far from me. (Mark 7:6)
Beware of false prophets, which
come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
(Matt. 7:15)
Christian clergymen and scholars throughout the realm see
through this charade, and are outraged. Unfortunately, for the most part,
they are silently outraged.
Why aren't they in the political mix, appealing to the authentic Christian
consciences of the public? Why have they abandoned the political arena to
the fanatics and the hypocrites?
Where's the outrage!
Jesus wept. (John 12:35).
June 25, 2004
"Equal Justice Under Law?"
That principle -- "Equal Justice Under Law" -- is carved in stone over the
entrance of the Supreme Court building.
One wonders of the justices ever bother to look up as they enter that
building.
Case in point: Jones v. Clinton. Remember that case?
The American Spectator, a right-wing rag supported by Richard Mellon Scaife,
located and identified Paula Jones as a "victim" of an alleged indecent act
by Gov. Bill Clinton (an event never proved in a court of law).
This, Ms. Jones charged, publicly defamed her. So she sued. And who was the
defendant? The American Spectator, which identified and thus defamed her? Of course not. She
sued Clinton.
Go figure.
When the lawyers of then President Clinton filed for a postponement, on the
grounds that the case was distracting him from the duties of his office, the
Supreme Court refused relief, stating that this Jones business need not be a
significant distraction.
And now this: Today, the Supreme Court announced that, with regard to the
suit demanding that Veep Cheney disclose the details of his energy task
force, a lower court should spend more time (conveniently past the November
election) clarifying its ruling.
Writing for the majority,
Justice Anthony Kennedy said** that there is "a paramount necessity of
protecting the executive branch from vexatious litigation that might
distract it from the energetic performance of its constitutional duties."
Clearly, this "paramount necessity" applies to Republicans and not to
Democrats.
Equal Justice under Law?
Fagettaboutit!
The Constitution as Scripture.
How often have we heard, "the expression 'separation of church and state' is
not in the Constitution."
Well, it happens to be true. It's not in the Constitution.
But so what? What you will find in the Constitution is the First Amendment,
which begins: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion..."
That means "separation of church and state." The phrase itself, "separation
of church and state," is found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson and James
Madison, and numerous successors.
The claim that "separation of church and state" is not in the Constitution,
betrays a bewitchment with language that is typical of religious
fundamentalists and right-wing ideologues. (See our
Newspeak Lives). To people of
such a mind, its the words that matter, and not that to which the words
refer. And if the exact words, "separation of church and state," are not in
the Constitution, it is no matter that their meaning, in different words,
are in the First Amendment.
Apparently, we are asked to believe that if the magic words, "separation of
church and state," are not in the Constitution, then Presidents like George
Bush are free to tear down the wall between church and state, and set up a
theocracy.
The same sort of "word magic" is evident in the Right's use of the words
"liberal" and "commie" as weapons against their adversaries --
"thought-stoppers" which short-circuit the thinking processes of citizens
who would be far better served by thinking past the words, to examine and
assess the particular ideas of their opponents, and the evidence and
arguments presented in their support.
The Curse of the Monolingual:
I've often wondered if the typical American susceptibility to "word magic"
might be due, in part, to the fact that the vast majority of us speak and
read only one language -- English, of course.
A few years ago, while attending a conference in Germany, a friend told me a joke which, I understand, is
well known abroad:
"What do you call someone who speaks three languages?"
"Tri-lingual."
"And two languages?"
"Bi-lingual"
"And what do you call someone who speaks only one language?"
"An American."
Of course, he told it to me in English. In German, I would not have
understood him.
In order to earn my doctorate, I was required to acquire a minimal reading
capacity in two languages: French and Spanish, as it happened. And I have
acquired sufficient Russian to direct a Moscow taxi driver to the correct
address. But that's about it. Because I will never think, or even carry on a
conversation, in another language, I am just another monolingual American.
And I am ashamed of it. It is embarrassing to travel abroad, and to expect
others to always bear the burden of speaking to you in your language.
Unfortunately, some traveling Americans who aren't embarrassed, tend to be
arrogant instead.
Someone who fluently speaks two or more languages, can understand and
appreciate the separation of words from the things or concepts that they are
intended to refer to. That person is well aware that there is no one-to-one
correspondence between two languages -- that there are words that are
difficult or even impossible to translate into a corresponding word or brief
phrase.
In short, a multilingual person is more likely to agree, with Thomas Hobbes,
that "words are wise men's counters; they are the money of fools."
There is an urgent need for the public schools to re-introduce foreign
language instruction, and to begin it at an early age.
But there is little political will. After all, why should politicians want
to relinquish the advantages gained from addressing a public that is
susceptible to word-magic?
July 2, 2004
Black Hole
As many of our regular visitors know, I was incommunicado a week ago for
about five days. A day into my week-long trip to Utah, I discovered that my
notebook computer had suffered a fatal infection from the Sasser virus. Thus
for the remainder of the week, I was unable to access the internet, and my
only contact with "news" was through the TV, radio and local newspapers.
As far as significant news was concerned, I might just as well have been on
the opposite side of the moon. However, I had the opportunity to learn far
more than I ever wanted to know about Kobe, Laci, and Brittney. And in
remote Moab, Utah I was needlessly reminded by the local news that there are
robberies and auto accidents even in small towns.
About the economic and political disaster that is now unfolding in our
country, with dire implications for the lives and futures of every American
citizen -- Nada, Nichivo.
So it seems that to acquire reliable news and intelligent commentary on the
ongoing crises in our own country, we must turn to foreign correspondents
assigned to Washington, New York, and elsewhere within our borders, and to
the internet volunteers who are filling the void of facts, investigation,
and critical analysis, left by the departure of so-called "journalists" of
the corporate media.
Once again, thanks to a computer virus, I was reminded of what my Russian
friends had to put up with during the Soviet era, when Pravda, Izvestiya
and Gostelradio were worse than worthless, and when, for news, one
had to listen furtively to the BBC and the Voice of America.
The Russians, for the most part, knew better than to trust their "official"
media. Most of the American public, with fresh memories of a time when the
media were moderately free and independent, still clings to the belief that
they are still getting the "straight scoop."
Even so, the small voice of independent progressive news and opinion is
getting louder, thanks to the internet and the launching of Air America
Radio. And now, despite determined "establishment" efforts to prevent its
release, Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" has broken free, and is spreading
its message of dissent and defiance to huge audiences throughout the land.
"Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again."
"The Wheels are coming off the Bush Administration!"
How often have we heard that expression in the media -- and often from
pundits and reporters that are not particularly unfriendly to Bush and the
GOP?
There is a sense in the media, and presumably among the public, that events
are spinning out of control, and that the Busheviks simply haven't the
smarts to put things back together.
And there's a lot of grief coming their way -- that we know about. The Plame
investigation is moving into the final act, while the "buck" in
"torture-gate" goes higher and higher. Ashcroft has thoroughly pissed-off
the Senate -- including Republicans, etc., etc. And here's something you
might not have heard about: in a couple of weeks, the Supreme Court is due
to rule on the Guantánamo and Padilla cases, and Ashcroft's legal team
appears convinced that they are going to lose -- which means that the
Constitution will win.
Now that's a blockbuster!
As Juan Cole astutely observes (in a
blog cited today by Bernie
Weiner), a sense that the leader is in control -- let's call it "the
charisma of confidence" -- is essential to political success. FDR had it,
Eisenhower had it, Kennedy had it. Carter and Ford did not. But note this:
LBJ and Nixon had it early on, and then lost it: LBJ to Viet Nam, and Nixon
to Watergate. Progressives and astute observers of the federal government
are well aware that Dubya is way over his head, and has been from the
get-go. Now its beginning to dawn on some Congressional Republicans. If that
realization begins to spread among the populace -- and if it starts, all of
Karl Rove's millions won't stop it -- then you can stick a fork in The
Shrub. He's done.
All this reminds me of Garison Keilor's story of the truck parked on the ice
in middle of Lake Wobegon as spring is coming on. Sooner or later -- it's
just a matter of time.
And Speaking of Public Relations Genius:
A couple of weeks ago, I happened to watch CNN's "Capitol
Gang," as they played old footage of "the Gang" within a week after the
"Mission Accomplished" stunt on the carrier deck. Everyone on that panel,
covering the political spectrum from center, center-right to far-out la
la right, saw Bush's
performance as a "political coup," a master stroke by the wizardly Karl
Rove.
Little did they suspect just how much that dramatic production would
backfire.
They did, however, get one thing half-right: "we'll be seeing a lot of that
footage in the 2004 Campaign." They just misjudged which side would be using
it.
Keep this in mind whenever you yield to despair at the thought that Bush's
campaign gurus are miracle-workers.
Where are the Christians?
What do you call someone who launches aggressive war, takes
money from the poor and gives to the rich, impoverishes the next generation
and the one to follow, mocks prisoners that he has condemned to death, takes
poses of piety to attract votes, and lies without scruple.
A "Christian?" C'mon!
Blessed are the peacemakers: for
they shall be called the children of God. (Matt. 5:9)
Blessed are the merciful for they
shall obtain mercy. (Matt. 5:7)
If thou wilt be perfect, go and
sell that thou hast, and give to the poor (Matt 19:21-2)
If ye love me, keep my
commandments. (John 14:15)
How in God's name (literally!) does such behavior reportedly
attract 80% support from evangelical Christians? Let me say that again: "Christians"?
This people honoureth me with their
lips but their heart is far from me. (Mark 7:6)
Beware of false prophets, which
come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
(Matt. 7:15)
Christian clergymen and scholars throughout the realm see
through this charade, and are outraged. Unfortunately, for the most part,
they are silently outraged.
Why aren't they in the political mix, appealing to the authentic Christian
consciences of the public? Why have they abandoned the political arena to
the fanatics and the hypocrites?
Where's the outrage!
Jesus wept. (John 12:35).
A Question of Loyalty.
Before our very eyes, we seem to be seeing the dissolution of the Bush
regime.
-
The 9/11 Commission concludes that
there was no alliance between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda -- no
involvement by Saddam in the 9/11 attacks, nor any other terrorist
activities. Even so, Bush and Cheney insist that there was an
alliance, and that through it, Saddam posed a significant threat to
the United States.
-
John Ashcroft refuses, for no
legitimate reason, to release to the Senate Judiciary Committee, a
document that is readily available on the internet. The memo states,
quite explicitly, that with regard to national defense, the
President is above the law. The Geneva Conventions do not apply, if
the President decides that they don't.
-
At long last, the Supreme Court
tells the Administration that regarding due process and the rights
of the accused and detained "unlawful combatants," the Constitution
means what it says.
-
The CIA Director, George Tenet,
resigns "to spend more time with my family." Nobody believes him, or
should.
-
One after another former member of
Bush's Administration publishes a damaging account of a ruthless,
manipulative and clueless White House: Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke,
Joseph Wilson.
-
Twenty-Six distinguished retired
diplomats and military officers, most of whom are either Republicans
or have served Republican administrations, issue a statement urging
the defeat of George Bush in the election. This despite a
long-standing tradition that diplomats and the military should be
independent of domestic politics.
-
And now, "Imperial Hubris," a book
anonymously authored by a serving senior officer of the CIA, is
about to be published. The essential message is in the subtitle:
"Why the West is Losing the War on Terrorism."
What motivates individuals such as
these to abandon their careers, or in the case of anonymous "leakers,"
to endanger their careers?
Are these acts of disloyalty? On the contrary, these acts may display
loyalty, not to a failing and arguably illegitimate "leader" and not to
a party, but to moral principles and to the political institutions of
our country. These individuals, and many more, are at last beginning to
appreciate that there are more important issues at stake in the coming
election than careers and party affiliation.
Whether Democrat or Republican, left or right:
-
No one wants the United States to
lose the "war on terrorism."
-
No one wants the American economy
to collapse, or their children and grandchildren to be permanently
impoverished.
-
No one wants the United States to
be hated abroad and isolated from the international community.
-
No one, apart from a few religious
fundamentalists, want the United States to lose its leadership in
science and technology.
-
No one wants to live to see the
end of the Constitutional Republic of the United States.
Until recently, few Americans could
imagine that the economy, reputation, scientific and technological
leadership, and Constitution of the United States could possibly be in
any kind of danger.
Today it is becoming apparent to more and more of our compatriots that
we are facing these very dangers. A few heretofore politically neutral
individuals and organizations are sounding the alarm -- the
aforementioned diplomats and military leaders, and such organizations as
the Union of Concerned Scientists.
But what of the elite writers and artists, journalists, leaders of
industry and commerce? They too have an enormous stake in the outcome of
the election. Why haven't more of them stepped forward and spoken out?
This might very well be the most important election in our history.
And time is running out.
July 6, 2004
MICHAEL MOORE'S CRITICS:
Often the merit of a creative work is indicated by the quality of the
attacks upon it. Clearly this is the case with Michael Moore's Fahrenheit
911.
As I have read and heard numerous reviews of Moore's film, two modes of
criticism appear to be especially prominent: personal attacks on Moore (ad
hominem), and "refutations" of assertions falsely attributed to Moore
and his work ("straw man fallacy").
As an example of the personal attack, consider this
from Christopher Hitchens:**
To describe this film as
dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the
level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be
to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the
excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would
be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity,
crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of
abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of
"dissenting" bravery. (Slate),
One can almost imagine
steam coming out of Hitchens' ears has he threw these words on to the page.
(And they say that the Brits have a fondness for understatement). This is
pure spleen, undiluted by any reference to confirmable fact in Hitchens'
favor, or confirmable error on the part of Moore.
Moore's claim to have subjected his script to scrupulous fact-checking is
borne out by Hitchens' failure to catch Moore in any serious errors of fact.
Not that this failure inhibits Hitchens from making the broad charge that "a
film that bases itself on a big lie and a big misrepresentation can only
sustain itself by a dizzying succession of smaller falsehoods, beefed up by
wilder and (if possible) yet more-contradictory claims."
What "big lie"? What "serious errors of fact"? Moore freely admits that one
might dispute his interpretations and inferences, which Hitchens does at
length. But hard facts?
We search in vain in Hitchens' diatribe for explicit citations of factual
errors on Moore's film.
Hitchens' attempt to disarm the impact of the devastating Florida schoolroom
fiasco is especially weak. But I suppose he felt he had to give it his best
shot:
More interesting is the
moment where Bush is shown frozen on his chair at the infant school in
Florida, looking stunned and useless for seven whole minutes after the
news of the second plane on 9/11. Many are those who say that he should
have leaped from his stool, adopted a Russell Crowe stance, and gone to
work. I could even wish that myself. But if he had done any such thing
then (as he did with his "Let's roll" and "dead or alive" remarks a month
later), half the Michael Moore community would now be calling him a man
who went to war on a hectic, crazed impulse.
Aw, c'mon Chris, is that
the best you can do? An infinite array of options is reduced, in Hitchens'
imagination, to just two: the "Russell Crowe moment," noted above, and the
catatonic immobility that Moore displayed on the screen. Of course, a
poised, intelligent, commanding leader would do neither. He would
immediately and calmly excuse himself with a remark, "now children, I must
do what a President does and leave to take care of some business." He could
have been out of that room within a minute after hearing the dreadful news
from Andy Card. Perhaps a prompt call to the Air Defense Command might have
foiled the attack on the Pentagon. We cannot say.
What we can say, is that those seven minutes brutally displayed the
incapacity and unfitness of this little man for the office to which he was
appointed by his political allies on the Supreme Court. Hitchen's attempt to
explain this away is simply pathetic.
A careful rebuttal of Hitchens' six-page bombast might easily extend to
three times the length of its target. And I have other fish to fry in this
piece. So let's move on.
Al Franken quoted a critic (I can't recall who it was), who said that if
Michael Moore thinks that no son of a member of Congress in serving in the
military in Iraq, he should talk to Sen. Tim Johnson (D. SD) who's son is in
Iraq this very day. Now watch the film carefully, and you will find that
Moore said "only one member of Congress..." In addition, several
critics have pointed out that Moore falsely charged that the Saudi nationals
flew out of the country when all commercial airliners were grounded. In
fact, this has been widely reported. But not by Michael Moore. Again, check
the script.
These are just two examples of the "straw man" fallacy -- attacking claims
NOT made by Moore. (Compare these with the infamous and false charge that Al
Gore claimed to have "invented the internet.") When critics have to concoct
false targets of their attacks, one can only assume that they cannot find
genuine targets.
Finally, there is the criticism that "Fahrenheit 911" tells us nothing that
we don't already know. This was the line of attack by Terry Lawson of the
Detroit Free Press, on Laura Flanders' "Air America Radio" program of June
26.
First of all, not everyone who sees the film is as well-informed as a
full-time journalist in a major newspaper. But much more significantly,
Lawson completely fails to recognize the distinction between "knowing"
something and "appreciating" the significance of what they "know." We know
that six million European Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. The
significance of this "known" fact is totally beyond human comprehension. We
know that innocent civilians have been killed in Iraq, and that our
occupation has provoked a great deal of hatred toward American troops. It is
quite another matter to have the mutilation, suffering and destruction
displayed on the screen in all its horror, and to hear the anger of from the
mouths of those that we are told we came to "liberate."
Most Americans, we may assume, know that George Bush was visiting a Florida
elementary school when he received word of the attacks on the World Trade
Center. But the media have, for the most part, spared the Bush
Administration the embarrassment of reporting Bush's behavior that morning.
But now, millions of Americans have been stunned by the image of their
paralyzed President reading about a pet goat as the towers burned.
Yet Mr. Lawson of the Detroit Free Press tells us that "we've learned
nothing new" from the film. But even those who "knew it all" when they
entered the theater, must have exited with a transformed perspective on the
events presented and a transformed judgment of the leadership that has been
foisted upon our unfortunate nation.
I saw "Fahrenheit 9/11" last Thursday, after reading numerous accounts and
reviews of the film beforehand. I was not disappointed: it is a stunning
piece of work, expertly scripted and edited. Propaganda, to be sure. But
rather than a distortion, it is a compensatory balance to the war promotion
that has been relentlessly pushed at the American public by a shameless and
servile media, acting in behalf of the Bushista junta.
Michael Moore has freely admitted that he hopes that "Fahrenheit 9/11" will
arouse the American public and contribute significantly to the defeat of
George Bush and the Republicans next November.
Judging from the extraordinary response this past week, he just might pull
it off.
July 9, 2004
The Dog Eats Bush's Homework.
Bush Service Records "inadvertently destroyed" -- (Yea,
Sure!).
In Today's New York Times, Ralph Blumenthal writes:
Military records that could help
establish President Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in
the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been
inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon.
It said the payroll records of "numerous service members," including
former First Lt. Bush, had been ruined in 1996 and 1997 by the Defense
Finance and Accounting Service during a project to salvage deteriorating
microfilm. No back-up paper copies could be found, it added in notices
dated June 25.
The destroyed records cover three months of a period in 1972 and 1973
when Mr. Bush's claims of service in Alabama are in question.
And I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
So, is the case now closed? No way to find out about Dubya's (alleged)
"service"?
Hardly.
A determined "Special Prosecutor" who like Ken Starr, is given a $50 million
budget, could find more than enough evidence to nail Bush's cowardly hide to
the wall. Hell, he could do it with $50,000.
As I pointed out in my "The cover-up that's worse than the crime,"
in the US military, there's no
such thing as a "single copy." Bush's service record, no doubt, exists in
distinct copies in several locations -- most notably, in microfiche in
Colorado, along with the forty year old service record of Ernest Partridge,
HM3, USNR and the records of millions of other veterans.
And suppose, somehow (per impossible),
that each and every copy of that service record were "inadvertently
destroyed," we could still recover the most sensitive documents in that
record: Bush's medical records in the files of the Air Force Medical
Department, and his officer fitness reports with the records of the
Commanding officers under which 1st Lt. G. W. Bush served.
Bush's record in the Texas Air National Guard is not a forever-unknowable
mystery.
It could be recovered by a diligent prosecutor or investigative journalist.
If the Defense Department or the media wanted the public to know.
Which, of course, they do not.
"Those who control the past, control
the future.
"Those who control the present, control the past."
George Orwell, 1984
Right-Wing Idiocy of the week:
"There's an arrogance in the scientific
community that they know better than the average American."
Andrea Lafferty, Traditional Values Coalition.
This seems to suggest that scientific research and several years of
post-graduate scientific education are of no value whatever.
The following scene comes to mind:
Doctor: "Our
laboratory tests show that your cholesterol level is at 250. We strongly
advise that you change your diet and bring that number down to a safe
level."
Patient: "How arrogant of you and your lab to pretend that you know
better than me. After all, I am an average American"!
Sorry, Ms. Lafferty, but scientists do in fact know more than
the average American, concerning matters of their professional competence.
That's simple common sense.
About matters outside their specialty -- that's another
matter. As Mark Twain once said: "we are all ignorant, but about different
things."
The arrogant ones, are those who allow their "hunches" and
their dogmas to over-rule scientific expertise.
"Kerry to reach out to 'people on the right,'"
Matea Gold and Mark Barabak thus title their July 11 Los
Angeles Times article.**
They write:
"Sen. John F. Kerry
plans to aggressively court more conservative voters with a message that
emphasizes traditional values of service, faith and family... Kerry's
strategy is not without risks. By wooing moderates and conservatives, he
could offend liberals in an election that could hinge on which side best
galvanizes its base. And casting his values as conservative, despite his
liberal voting record in the Senate, could reinforce Republican
criticism that Kerry lacks convictions."
Oh, now I get it! Liberals
are against families, faith and service. So by "emphasizing" these "values,"
Kerry may offend his "liberal base."
What pure, unadulterated hogwash!
Has the right-wing propaganda been so spectacularly successful that
"liberalism" is now regarded as anti-family, anti-religion, and
anti-service?
Tell that to the liberals who teach in the public schools, who serve in the
Peace Corps and AmeriCorps. And tell it to the liberals who love their
spouses and children, and who even attend church now and then.
But no, we are told, to find authentic "values" in action, it seems, we must
look to the "compassionate" conservatives. Their "compassion" includes the
enthusiastic promotion of foreign wars, deficit spending that will put
enormous burdens on their children and grandchildren, slashing
appropriations to aid veterans, children, the aged, an impoverishment of
public education and a tax structure that speeds the flow of national wealth
from those who produce that wealth, to those who own and control the wealth.
There is no shortage of "values" among the liberals -- surely not in
comparison with the right-wing.
There is, instead, a shortage amongst the liberals of a resolve to defend
themselves against the slanders of the right.
So by all means, John Kerry, "emphasize traditional values of service, faith
and family."
There are precious few liberals who will be offended.
To the Affluent -- George Bush's "base:" Is the the kind of country you
want?
Matthew Yglesias writes in The
American Prospect:**
It is hard to see
..., how the creation of an unhealthy, ill-educated workforce could
possibly serve the interests of corporate America in the long term.
Nevertheless, this is precisely the direction in which the Bush agenda
points. Most broadly, fiscal policy à la Bush has produced tremendous
budget deficits at the very moment when the looming retirement of the
baby boomers makes such deficits unsustainable. Were the nation to
continue down the road to bankruptcy, the resulting political and
economic instability would harm all Americans, but do the rich not have
more interest than the rest of us in maintaining the current order? The
real beneficiaries of a fiscal crisis would be none other than America's
enemies abroad.
What the regressives fail to appreciate is
that by dismantling the cooperative economic order and the social contract
that has been painstakingly crafted and refined throughout the history of
our Republic, they are sowing the seeds of their own ruin. They are telling
the rest of us -- those who toil and produce their wealth -- "tough luck,
suckers!, your end of our common boat is sinking.!"
There is no need for progressives to appeal to the sympathy or the
compassion of their political opponents. Enlightened self-interest will
serve quite well enough.
For if the regressives "win," they will lose along with the rest of us.
And that is the message which must be told, again and again.
July 16, 2004
Mon Dieu! -- Still Another
Right-Wing (Regressive) Idiocy of the Week:
"The French have no word for
entrepreneur." (George Bush to Tony Blair)
Dubya is only following an honored GOP tradition.
Ronald Reagan repeatedly asserted that the Russians had no
word for "freedom."
Ronnie was not inclined to fact check. And yet, at any time
that he was in the Oval Office, he could have picked up the phone, called
the Russian desk at the State Department, and asked if this were so.
He would surely have been told, "Mr. President, the Russians
do in fact have a word for "freedom" -- it's "свобода"
(svoboda)."
But then, why let a brute fact get in
the way of a good story.
After all, its the secret to the
success of right-wing talk radio.
And speaking of right-wing talk radio --
Time once again to blow the whistle on Rush-bo.
About ten years ago, FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) put out a
booklet, "The Way Things Aren't" -- a fact-check of just a few of Rush
Limbaugh's "instant facts and statistics." False statements, as Al Franken
indelicately puts it, "taken from Rush's butt." (The title was a reversal of
the title of Limbaugh's book: "The Way Things Are").
Isn't it time -- way past time -- for an update. How 'bout it FAIR? Or maybe
David Brock's mediamatters.com
will take it on. Or maybe even a broader project, including Sean Hannity and
Bill O'Reilly.
Ken Lay does his part.
A couple of days ago, we listened to Air America Radio's "Unfiltered" gang
speculate with relish, what Ken Lay might tell the prosecutors, now that
he's finally been indicted.
Sorry, folks, it just ain't gonna happen. Kenny Boy wasn't busted in order
break open the Enron scandal, and to follow it all the way to the White
House.
No, sadly, it is much more likely that he's following a script that Karl
Rove designed to assist Dubya's campaign.
For consider: An indictment is
not a conviction.
Ever since the collapse of Enron, we've heard the complaint, "there is no
justice in Bush's America, so long as Ken Lay remains a free man."
Now that Lay is under indictment, the critics are muffled.
Post-election, Lay will be acquitted or, failing that, pardoned by his pal
in the White House. You can take it to the bank.
Win-Win. A Win for Dubya
and a win for Kenny Boy.
So call off the celebrations. In all likelihood, we've been had once again.
Bad Advice from Michael Moore.
Recently, Michael Moore was reported to have said that he had no problem
with people downloading and distributing pirated copies of Fahrenheit 911 --
provided they don't charge for these copies. Of course, the motion-picture
and recording industries cried bloody murder.
I've also heard that the commercial DVD of the film will be released in late
September.
I strongly recommend that we wait and buy the legitimate copies, Michael's
generous offer to the contrary, notwithstanding.
Throughout the country, teenagers, and even a few pre-teens, are being
nabbed and charged for downloading pirated music and movies. If, like the
co-editors of The Crisis
Papers, you are actively engaged in the effort to legally overthrow
(i.e., by the ballot) the Bushevik regime, it would be foolish to put
yourself in a legally vulnerable position. You won't be busted for a US
version of what the Soviets called "slandering the Soviet State" (i.e.,
political dissent) -- at least not quite yet. But the powers-that-be
devoutly wish that you would just "shut up!" (Bill O'Reilly's all-purpose
rebuttal). A bust for copyright violation will do the trick.
Come to think of it, better not spit on the sidewalk or jay-walk. And be
sure to use your super-duper-pooper-scooper whilst walking your dog.
The sins of the corporate media -- more of omission
than of commission:
Surely, most readers of this website and this blog agree that the (in fact)
non-librul media has shamelessly distorted and slanted the news in favor of
the Bushevik regime.
But probably, the most serious distortion arises, not through falsehood, but
by omission and neglect. Conversely, the media will crowd out important news
with trivia (Jon-Benet, OJ, Laci, Jacko, Kobe, etc., ad
nauseum).
About ten years ago, I hosted a Russian friend -- an historian of science at
the Russian Academy of Sciences. He stayed with me for several weeks, and
when it came time for him to return to Moscow, his foremost impression of
the US (this was not his first visit) was "all this talk about Whitewater --
it's all I hear about on the news."
By that time, the Clinton's failed investment was (or should have been) old
news, and the media were reduced to telling us: "There's nothing new about
Whitewater today -- we have two reports, after this. Stay with us."
Eventually, as we all know, Whitewater was a journalistic dry-hole. There
was no there, there. Yet that dead horse was flogged for more than six
years.
Now, almost four years into the Bush term, there have been dozens of
authentic scandals, any one of which, had they been committed by Clinton or
another Democrat, would have brought the President up on impeachment
charges, or would have forced a resignation.
Election fraud, bribery, "outing" a CIA agent, lying to Congress, denial of
civil rights of citizens, deliberate violation of most of the articles of
the Bill of Rights, abrogation of treaties (which have the force of law),
illegal withholding of information, and on and on.
Crisis Papers readers know
about all this, and more, but you are not typical American citizens. You get
our information from "the underground" -- the internet, the few remaining
independent presses, foreign journalists.
Most of our compatriots -- the vast majority of those who are eligible to
vote -- get their news from TV, talk radio, Letterman and Leno, and
occasionally, newspapers. And the aforementioned crimes and misdemeanors,
which, in a country under the rule of law should decisively end a
presidency, might be reported one day, only to be gone and forgotten within
a week.
To repeat: the scandal of the corporate media is less its distortion and
slanting, and more its failure to investigate and report significant events
and issues, and to keep this news in the forefront of public attention.
In the Soviet Union, astute citizens knew they were being lied to, and so
they looked elsewhere for news -- The Voice of America, the BBC, smuggled
copies of foreign publications. And they organized, at great personal peril,
an underground media -- Samizdat.
In the United States, we are used to be being well-served by the news media
-- as we were, not too long ago. All too many Americans have yet to realize
that the media have betrayed them.
But when we do, we have an advantage over the people of the Soviet Union and
other despotic regimes. To the editors of Pravda and Izvestia, it
didn't matter if these enterprises operated at a loss. Propaganda, not
profit was not their objective. The same might be said of some right-wing
journals, like Rev. Moon's Washington Times, and Murdock's National Journal,
and worst of all, FOX (alleged) "News".
These exceptions aside, corporate media by and large cares very much about
the bottom line -- which is to say, circulation and Nielsen ratings which
are, in turn, tied to advertising revenues. Shutting off the tube, canceling
subscriptions, and boycotting sponsors, by even a small but measurable
minority, this will get their attention. That attention will be further
alerted as this small but significant population turns to alternative
sources -- independent media, foreign sources, the internet.
So let's, each of us, boycott the corporate media and their sponsors, and
spread the word.
Let them know, "WE'RE
MAD AS HELL, AND WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!"
July 19, 2004
EVEN PROFESSORS CAN SAY THE SILLIEST THINGS.
An old high school chum, sends me the following.
"At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution
in 1787, a Scottish history professor by the name of Professor Alexander
Tyler had this to say about "The Fall of the Athenian Republic" over 2,000
years previous to that date.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can
only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves
largesse (generous gifts) from the public treasury. From that moment on,
the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits
from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always
collapses over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a
dictatorship." "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has
been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this
sequence. From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great
courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance, from
abundance to complacency; from complacency to apathy, from apathy to
dependence, from dependence back into bondage."
"Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St.Paul,
Minnesota, wrote this about the 2000 election:
Population of counties won by Gore 127 million, won by Bush 143
million. Sq.miles of country won by Gore 580,000, won by Bush 2,427,000.
States won by Gore 19, by Bush 29. Murder per 100,000 residents in
counties won by Gore 13.2 by Bush 2.1 (not a typo).
"Professor Olson adds, 'The map of the territory Bush won was (mostly)
the land owned by the people of this great country. Not the citizens living
in cities in tenements owned by the government and living off the
government....'
"Professor Olson thinks the US is now between the apathy and complacency
phase of democracy although he believes that 40 percent of the nation's
population has already reached the dependency phase."
Surely, you didn't think I'd let this pass without comment! Well, I won't
disappoint you.
I replied:
I wonder what country the good Prof. Olson is describing. Surely not the
United States that I live in!
It is true that "the land is owned by the people of this great country" -- a
VERY few of those people. In fact, today 40% of the national wealth is owned
by 1% of the population. A quarter century ago, that was 20%.
Moreover, a quarter century ago, the average Fortune 500 CEO earned about
forty times what his median worker earned. Today, that number is 500 --
meaning that CEO earns in half a day, what the average guy earns in a year
-- if he is fortunate enough to have a job.
With the abolition of the estate and dividend taxes, and the reduction of
capital gains taxes, that disparity between the very rich 1% and the rest of
us is accelerating.
You will find all these statistics, and more, validated at the website of
United for a Fair Economy**. See also
"The Deserving Rich?.
There are, in fact, authenticated cases in "blue states" (e.g., California)
of people owning their own land (e.g., myself). Indeed, it is even possible
that there are more than a few folks in the blue states who do not live in
tenements. Furthermore, you can be sure that almost all of those
unfortunates who do live in tenements, have private, not government,
landlords.
As for this matter of "dependency," there is a great deal of wildly
inaccurate information at large, affecting, it seems, even Hamline
University law professors. In 1995, the late Hobart Rowen wrote:
“A survey sponsored by the Harvard School of Public Health ... revealed
that when asked to list the largest federal programs, 27 percent put down
foreign aid and 19 percent listed welfare as the biggest program... This
perception is sensationally out of tune with the facts. Welfare and
foreign aid are among the smallest, not the largest spending programs in
the federal budget. The foreign aid budget ... was less than 1 percent of
the federal budget.... The basic welfare program, Aid to Families with
Dependent Children ... [was] just over 1 percent of the budget.”
(Washington Post, January 16, 1995)
Yes, there is a "dependency" class. It includes the aforementioned top 1%
oligarchs, who have acquired and who maintain their wealth, thanks to the
education and labor of those who work for them. As L.T.Hobhouse, a
nineteenth century English sociologist wrote:
The organizer of industry who thinks he has 'made' himself and his
business has found a whole social system ready to his hand in skilled
workers, machinery, a market, peace and order -- a vast apparatus and a
pervasive atmosphere, the joint creation of millions of men and scores of
generations. Take away the whole social factor, and we have not Robinson
Crusoe with his salvage from the wreck and his acquired knowledge, but the
native savage living on roots, berries and vermin.
And now, in their wisdom, our Supreme Court selected "leaders" have
decided to roast the golden goose rather than feed it. They are drying up
the wellspring of all economic prosperity in industrialized civilization:
the educated work force.
Due to the state budget crisis, the freshman class at the University of
California has been cut by a third. (And no, this is not Gray Davis' fault
-- 46 of the 50 states have severe budget shortfalls). The public
universities of Virginia are now producing half the graduates needed for the
work force. And these are just two indicators of the nation-wide decline in
education due to a withdrawal of public investment. In general, state
deficits are causing sharp increases in tuition costs, which are closing the
doors of higher education to the talented poor -- Jefferson's "natural
aristocracy of virtue and talent."
Meanwhile, the public infrastructure of the US (highways, bridges, water
supply, power grids, sewages systems, etc.) are in a condition that would
embarrass a third-world country. (American
Society of Civil Engineers).
Yes, professor, there are worse things than paying taxes for the public
services that sustain us all.
As for "voting themselves largesse from the public treasury," look no
further than Mr. Cheney and his pals at Haliburton.
In less than a century, the leadership of Rome evolved from that of Cato and
Cicero to that of Caligula and Nero. We began with the likes of Washington,
Jefferson, and Madison. And now? You finish the rest.
PostScript: The Scottish Prof. Tyler merely repeats an observation made by
Plato of old:
How does despotism arise? That it comes out of democracy is fairly
clear... Perhaps the insatiable desire for [liberty] to the neglect of
everything else may transform a democracy and lead to a demand for
despotism. (The Republic viii).
I believe that Plato meant "liberty" for self at the cost of liberty for
others, and also "liberty" unconstrained by wisdom and temperance. (Cf. The
Republic, ii-iv).
Have a nice Decline and Fall.
Dump on Joe Wilson Week.
And now, as if on cue -- (whadayamean, "as if"?) -- the thundering
right-wing punditocracy has gone after Joseph Wilson. Remember? He's the
ex-ambassador, much admired and praised by Poppy Bush, who betrayed Dubya by
telling the truth about the non-existent Saddam-African Uranium deal.
Did the Busheviks answer with a well-reasoned rebuttal? Not quite. They
committed treason by "outing" Wilson's wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Well, you know about all that.
But now, they are after Joe Wilson again. With new information to refute
Wilson's report re: the non-existence of Niger uranium?
Don't be silly!
No, they are attempting to discredit Wilson by contending that Wilson was
"set up" for the African trip by none other than his wife, Valerie Plame.
Wow! What a posh assignment! A
couple of weeks in the Saharan desert, away from his wife and young twins,
for no compensation whatever. Now who wouldn't be tempted with such a
junket?
Bottom Line: If, however
unlikely, all the attacks aimed at Wilson last week by the pundits and the
Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee are true, none of this has
any bearing whatever on the undisputed facts that he reported back from his
African trip. Nor do these attacks in any way mitigate the crime of exposing
a CIA operative, engaged in thwarting the sale and transfer of nuclear
materials.
That the Bushistas and their Congressional and "journalistic" (sneer quotes)
toadies would let loose this smokescreen of irrelevance, testifies both to
their desperation and the indefensibility of their behavior.
The Wilsons -- Joseph and Valerie -- are national heroes. May they flourish
and prevail.
July 26, 2004
A STRING OF PEARLS:
Much of the content of this blog emerges from notes that I jot down, as
fleeting thoughts surface now and then while I am at work. Most of these
notes amount to nothing, while others develop into the "mini-essays" of the
blog.
In the stack before me, there's some good stuff that I'm reluctant to toss
out, and now that Crisis Papers has discontinued the "Short Takes," this
blog is the last chance for them to see the light of day.
Besides, who set a minimum-size rule for blogging?
No one!
This is my blog, dammit, and I get to set the rules!
So, for your enjoyment, here are some tid-bit odds and ends -- a "string of
pearls."
MEMO TO THE DNC: SHADDUP, AND PAY ATTENTION TO PROF. LAKOFF.
We've seen it happen so often: some brilliant liberal intellectuals come up
with effective prescriptions for defeating GOP campaign tactics, and these
proposals are then ignored by the Democratic Party "pros" who proceed to
repeat the same tactics that led to defeat in the past.
Case in point, linguistics professor George Lakoff. He has the goods on the
Repubs -- he will tell all who will listen how the GOP has crafted political
language and framed public debate to their advantage.
But will the Democratic PooBahs listen? Naw! The poor saps will
continue to innocently talk in GOP-speak and play in the GOP's conceptual
ball park according to GOP ground-rules. As long as they do so, they are
bound to lose.
The left is equally entitled to come up with its own labels, and to put them
to good use. Why, for example, should the Democrats consent to the terms
"trial lawyers" or "healthy forest initiative"? Lakoff proposes instead,
"public protection attorneys" and "leave no tree behind".
And why do the Dems allow the right-wingers to demean the good word
"liberal," while the right boldly adopts for itself the name "conservative."
The right, which attacks our Constitution, the institution of science, and
the integrity of our language, as it attempts to roll-back
political-economic progress to the 19th Century, is anything but
"conservative." (See my
Conscience
of a Conservative). So why do we continue to allow them to use
that word, without protest.
And so, I have this proposal: let's give "liberal" a rest for awhile, and
instead adopt the word "progressive." As for the "return-to-the-gilded-age"
right wing, lets call them "regressives" -- but never "conservatives." The
word simply does not apply.
That will be the policy of this writer. But I can't do it alone. Adopt the
"progressive"/"regressive" polarity in your own discourse and writing, and
pass it along. Maybe, just maybe, it will catch on.
'TRUTH CRUSHED TO EARTH WILL RISE AGAIN."
Amazing, isn't it? The corporate media have effectively shut down meaningful
left-right political debate, and have become, in effect, shills for the GOP.
Even so, the progressive message is getting through, and at times quite
effectively so.
(Yeah, yeah, I've heard about "the liberal media" jazz. But check out
www.mediamatters.com,
FAIR.org, and Eric Alterman's "What
Liberal Media?" Examine the hard facts presented therein. Then check these
against what you see and hear in the media).
So, in the face of right-wing regressive dominance of the commercial media,
does bold and challenging progressive criticism of the political
establishment simply disappear from the attention and awareness of the
public at large?
Not at all. It simply finds a new outlet -- a new medium.
That emerging medium, it appears, is the documentary film. Of course,
Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911" comes immediately to mind. Attempts to keep
it out of the commercial movie theaters backfired spectacularly. And now
"Outfoxed" follows, with still more to come.
All this, of course, follows upon the growth of the progressive internet.
And finally, with "Air America Radio," the liberals are struggling to regain
a foothold on the radio.
If, somehow, these avenues of dissent are blocked, others will be found and
utilized. It happened during the American revolution with Tom Paine and
other "pamphleteers." It happened in the Soviet Union with
Samidzat.
It it will happen here, so long as there are (authentically "conservative")
patriots determined to defend their Constitution and their liberties, and to
restore a just society.
You can count on it.
July 29, 2004
TRUE LIES:
In addition to the traditional tripartite division of lies -- white lies,
damned lies, and statistics -- one should not lose sight of a fourth: "true lies."
"True lies" are statements which, while strictly true, are intended to
convey falsehoods. They are the stock-in-trade of lawyers and of cagey
witnesses under oath, hard-pressed to put out false information while
evading perjury.
The most notorious recent example is Bill Clinton's denial: "I did not have
sex with that woman." According to Clinton's definition (intercourse), the
statement is literally true. But that's not what he meant for us to believe.
My favorite example of a "true lie," now completely forgotten, was by the
late California Senator, S. I. Hayakawa, a man I much admired as a scholar,
and admired much less after he turned to politics. Hayakawa was a steadfast
proponent of the adoption of English as an official national language which,
of course, would have worked to the great detriment of immigrants -- in
particular, Hispanic immigrants to California.
"Why shouldn't immigrants be required to make full adjustments to American
language and culture," he insisted. "After all, I did."
Seeing Hayakawa's Japanese face and reflecting on his Japanese name, and
then hearing these words in perfect non-accented, idiomatic American
English, you just had to admire his total assimilation into our language and
culture.
And yes, he was telling the lilly-white truth! He was in fact an immigrant. Samuel I. Hayakawa migrated to the
United States all the way from Vancouver, British Columbia, where he was
born in 1906. His linguistic
assimilation consisted of little more than substituting "out" for "oot."
But that was not the point he wished to put across by offering himself as an
example of a successfully assimilated immigrant.
Now lets turn to the Bush Administration.
Bush's tax cuts, we are told, average more than a thousand dollars per
taxpayer. And guess what: he's right! The lucky top one-percent get
cuts into five and six figures. The median (middle) taxpayer is lucky if he
gets as much as two hundred dollars. (And of course, that much is taken back
by rising state and local taxes -- but that's another story). But the
average is still over a thousand dollars.
How does that work? Well, picture this: Bill Gates walks into a homeless
shelter with sixty impoverished wretches. As he does, the average net worth
of each individual in the room is a billion dollars.
Far better to ask, what is the median tax break -- the tax reduction to the
middle ranked individual? That's the statistic that the Bushistas would
rather you didn't know about.
Finally, there's Al Franken's favorite example of a Bush campaign-2000 lie:
"The vast majority of my tax cuts go to those at the bottom."
Sorry, Al -- he was telling the truth. If, that is, he was referring to the
number of tax cuts, not the amount of the tax cuts. Almost everyone is
getting a tax cut, and there are a lot more people at "the bottom"
than there are Fat Cats. But, of course, that's not the message that Bush
intended to convey.
So was Bush lying? Depends on the meaning of "lying."
And was Clinton lying? Depends on what the meaning of "is" ... --
no, sorry, the meaning of "sex."
MORE ABOUT "THE LIBRUL MEDIA."
How can anyone still believe that the mainstream media has a "liberal bias"
-- anyone, that is, except those who believe it because the media or the
right-wing hacks like Horowitz and Coulter tell them so?
About the only "evidence" for liberal bias is the apparent fact there are
more working reporters who describe themselves as "liberal" than those who
identify themselves as "conservative." However, when one surveys the
"bosses," we find startlingly different statistics. The current issue of
FAIR's "Extra" reports:
Among national news executives -- the people whose job descriptions
involve setting policy at media outlets -- only 16 percent describe
themselves as "liberal." Sixty percent call themselves "moderate," and 19
percent "Conservative." [Pew Research Center]. With 84 percent of media
bosses not identifying as "liberal," what happens to the myth of the
liberal media?
Of course, media bias issues, not from reporters, but from executives --
who, it should be added, hire and review the work of the editorial writers
and columnists: the designated "opinionators."
But the proof is in the publishing: for example, the editorial endorsements
of candidates, and the right-left ratio of opinions in the editorial and
columns.
Perhaps the most insidious bias is in the selection of "stories" given
prominent attention.
For example:
-
Compare the six-year run of front-page attention to "Whitewater" -- a
land deal that ended in a loss for the Clintons and, after a $50 million
investigation, no evidence of wrong-doing -- with Bush's Harken Oil scam,
whereby he unloaded stock, apparently illegally on insider information,
and his Daddy blocked an investigation by the SEC.
-
Compare the thousands of Nexis-Lexis "hits" on Clinton's perfectly
legal "draft dodging" with the mere dozens of stories on Bush's AWOL from
the Air National Guard. To this day, the press insists on downplaying this
potentially explosive story.
-
"Flash polls" immediately after the three Presidential debates in 2000
disclosed that the public had judged Al Gore to be the winner. Polls taken
after the networks and cable stations broadcast the "spins" and the phony
"focus groups" showed a reversal of public opinion.
-
A Wall Street Journal poll just prior to the election asked "Which
candidate is more honest and straightforward?" 45% said Bush, and 29% said
Gore. Bush's record of prevarication is known to any willing to face the
evidence. Gore's reputation as a "liar" was itself based upon lies --
i.e., that he had claimed to have invented the internet, etc. (See my
"The Hijacked
Election").
-
On CNN's Crossfire, Paul Begala reported the following results from a
Lexus-Nexus search:
"There were exactly 704 stories in the campaign about this flap of Gore
inventing the Internet. There were only 13 stories about Bush failing to
show up for his National Guard duty for a year. There were well over 1,000
stories -- Nexus stopped at 1,000 -- about Gore and the Buddhist temple.
Only 12 about Bush being accused of insider trading at Harken Energy.
There were 347 about Al Gore wearing earth tones, but only 10 about the
fact that Dick Cheney did business with Iran and Iraq and Libya."
If the mainstream media is so biased toward the right, why would the same
media perpetrate a myth of "the liberal media"?
The advantages of this myth to the right should be apparent on reflection.
News items and opinions that reflect poorly on Republicans or favorably on
Democrats are discounted. "Can't believe that -- it's just the bias of the
liberal media." Conversely, news items and opinions that reflect poorly on
Democrats or favorably on Republicans are credited. "It must be true, even
the liberal media can't deny it."
And so it will continue, until the public finally "wises up" and turns to
alternative sources for information and balanced opinion. There is
encouraging evidence that such a shift might be in the making, as the most
egregious failings of the mainstream press become too apparent to be denied.
For example, there was the near unanimous press acceptance and praise of
Colin Powell's February, 2003 address to the United Nations. "proving"
Saddam Hussein's possessions of WMDs -- now thoroughly debunked. Even the
reporting of the most prestigious of newspapers have been seriously
compromised. Witness the New York Times' fruitless investigation of the
Whitewater story, and of atomic physicist Wen Ho Lee. Consider too the false reports
by the New York Times' Judith Miller of Saddam's "weapons programs."
For more about the myth of the liberal media, and how to deal with it, see
Eric Alterman's "Myth of the Liberal Media," FAIR
fair.org,
and my
Don't Give Up on the Media,The Dragon at the Gate: The Media Problem,
and
Following the Light.
September 2, 2004
BUSH’S NATIONAL GUARD AWOL SOLVED!
From the secret vaults of our perverted imagination, comes this exclusive
news:
Karl Rove is about to announce Bush's whereabouts during the last two years
of his National Guard obligation.
Turns out that Dubya was in Russia on a very secret and very dangerous
mission for the CIA. Before embarking on that mission, Bush devoted his
extraordinary intellect and laser-like study habits to the task of becoming
perfectly fluent in Russian. He then penetrated the KGB where his
disinformation set in motion the implosion that led to collapse of the
Soviet Union.
"But what about his appearance with the Alabama senate campaign?," one might
ask. There is a simple and straightforward answer: the campaign worker was a
double, placed as a cover for Bush’s heroic counter-intelligence work in the
Evil Empire.
The double was so effective, that he joined the Secret Service, and now
follows Bush everywhere, in disguise, of course,
This explains the strange incident at the Florida school on 9/11.
What actually happened was that word of the first World Trade Center impact
arrived while Bush was in transit to the school. Springing immediately into
decisive action, Bush then ordered the double to stand in for him at the
school, while The Commander in Chief took charge and headed back to DC,
heedless of the personal danger.
Meanwhile the double, not a very bright fellow, forgot his lines and
suffered a seven-minute actors' block.
And that's the honest truth.
If you believe it, then surely you will have no trouble believing the Swift
Boat Veteran's uncorroborated tales based on alleged 35 year recollections,
and contrary to official documents written and testimony taken at the time
of the events.
Remember, you read it first in The Crisis Papers.
ABOUT POLLS
In the current Newsweek’s “Conventional Wisdom” we find, next to “Bush:”
Bad numbers on economy, Swift Boat
charges shredded and Iraqi insurgents unbowed – yet he gains. Go figure.
And where does the CW arrow point? Straight
up! “Go figure.”
About those poll numbers, the Center for American Progress’ ever-cheerful
public opinion guru, Ruy
Teixeira,** tells us “don’t
worry, be happy:”
The Los Angeles Times poll released
Thursday August 26th has created substantial consternation among
democrats. Not only the mainstream media, but many pro-democratic
writers and commentators have accepted the polls' apparent message that
the sleazy attacks on Kerry's wartime record have been successful and
have allowed Bush to overtake Kerry in the presidential race.
The bad news is that this perception has been widely accepted. The good
news is that it's fundamentally wrong.
We’ve often suspected that Teixeira’s news is too good to be
true. But he may have a point here. He continues: “The four major polls
conducted since August 20th do not reveal any consistent or substantial
pro-Bush swing such as would be expected from a successful attack on John
Kerry's war record and character during the week and a half before.”
The latest tally in www.polingreport.com** of
the nine leading polls bears this out: Bush leads in four, Kerry in three,
and two dead-even.
We’ve seen this all before. In our late-April blog, having read that “Polls
show that Bush has retaken the lead,” we looked at www.polingreport.com**
and found that of the eighteen polls listed, Kerry led in eleven, and Bush
in seven.
So once again, the so-called “librul media” picked the poll most favorable
to Bush and proclaimed a “trend.”
Now look further at the PollingReport.com’s more
comprehensive listing** of 15 polls, and the result is Kerry 8, Bush 4,
and tied 3. (“Likely voters” and not identified as “likely or “registered”).
These are all with Nader included, which works to Kerry’s disadvantage. Many
of these, however, show only a point or two of difference, which means a
statistical tie.
Another interesting finding: Kerry generally polls better among “registered
voters” than among “likely voters.” Don’t quite know what this signifies,
but if one wants to further bias the findings in Bush’s favor, then by all
means quote the “likely voters.”
It is beginning to appear every more plausible that polls are deliberately
being used as tools of political persuasion, in behalf of the Bushistas.
How is this possible?
Let’s assume that the counting is completely copasetic. Even so, polls can
be deliberately biased. First, by selecting a sample that is skewed. Second,
by the phrasing of the question. And third, by the context of the questions
(i.e., the question(s) that preceded, or even the pollsters’ instructions).
And finally, as we have seen, pick among the array of several
polls, the one that best supports your political bias.
Until quite recently, we trusted the polls, believing that
the market-value of the polls depended upon their reputation for reliability
and upon their “track record” of prior performances.
But now, with ever-more bias, slanting and spinning evident in the media,
we’re beginning to take these polls with a pound of salt.
A CRISIS PAPERS BOUQUET FOR ASHLEIGH BANFIELD
A familiar face reappeared on Bill Maher’s HBO show last week: Ashleigh
Banfield.
Remember Ashleigh? She’s the bespectacled tele-bimbo, formerly with MSNBC.
“Formerly” – and therein
lies a tale.
Back when I was watching MSNBC (I haven’t in almost a year), she was just
another pretty face. But then I began to notice a difference. She took on
tough assignments, including front-line reporting in Afghanistan. And who
can forget her reporting on 9-12, a couple of blocks from Ground Zero,
during which, in the background, WTC Building 8 collapsed. Ashleigh didn’t,
and proceeded with a thoroughly articulate and professional report.
Clearly there was some well-functioning grey matter behind that pretty face.
Also, an appreciable fund of professional integrity, which she displayed on
April 24, 2003 in her Landon Lecture at Kansas State University. In
that lecture, Banfield,
recalling the opening coverage of the Iraq war, took the corporate news
media to the woodshed:
The TV show we gave you was exciting.
It was entertaining. I hope that the legacy it leaves behind doesn't
give only that impression. War is ugly and dangerous, and we didn't see
that....
...what didn't you see? You didn't see where those bullets landed. You
didn't see what happened when the mortar landed. A puff of smoke is not
what a mortar looks like when it explodes, believe me. There are horrors
that were completely left out of this war. So was this journalism or was
this coverage-? There is a grand difference between journalism and
coverage, and getting access does not mean you're getting the story, it
just means you're getting one more arm or leg of the story. And that's
what we got, and it was a glorious, wonderful picture that had a lot of
people watching and a lot of advertisers excited about cable news. But
it wasn't journalism, because I'm not so sure that we in America are
hesitant to do this again, to fight another war, because it looked like
a glorious and courageous and so successful terrific endeavor, and we
got rid oaf horrible leader: We got rid of a dictator, we got rid of a
monster, but we didn't see what it took to do that....
What you read in the newspapers and what you see on cable is not what
they see there. We can't blame these poor people for not liking the
United States. All they know is we are crusaders ... . All they know is
that we want their oil. They are very suspect to who these new
liberators are.
Banfield’s finest hour as a TV News correspondent was just
about her last.
Soon thereafter, an unidentified “MSNBC Spokesman” released the statement:
"She and we both agreed that she didn't intend to demean the work of her
colleagues, and she will choose her words more carefully in the future."
Whereupon Banfield was “reassigned” to the programming boondocks, and thence
out the corporate door.
So the next time some media PooBah waxes eloquently about our “free press,”
think of Ashleigh Banfield.
Also, ex-MSNBC, top-rated talk show host, Phil Donahue. (But that’s another
story.)
Let’s hope we will someday have a news media worthy of honest and principled
journalists such as Ashleigh Banfield.
A disclaimer: For those offended by the apparently
sexist verbiage -- "tele-bimbo," "pretty-face," etc. -- I intend this as an
indictment on my part of the sexism of the cable news media. Perhaps you
too are offended by the exclusion from the cable screens of talented
journalists who might look out of place in the pages of Victoria's Secret.
September 21, 2004
“CATASTROPHIC SUCCESS”
If the English teachers’ Committee on Doublespeak were still around, they
would surely award their George Orwell Prize to George Bush, for the
following gem, offered recently in a Time Magazine interview:
"Had we to do it over again, we would look at the consequences of
catastrophic success –– being so successful, so fast, that an enemy that
should have surrendered or been done in, escaped and lived to fight
another day,"
A thousand of our soldiers dead in the field, and an uncounted more dying
in hospital of their wounds. An additional unreported thousands Americans
wounded. Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis dead. At a cost of more than
$200 billion, and counting.
And he dares to call this a “success”!
Bush expresses surprise that the Iraqi Army did not stand and fight against
the invading “coalition,” but that they instead “escaped and lived to fight
another day.” What is truly surprising is that anyone could imagine a
different course of events.
The Saddam Hussein’s military budget was about one billion dollars – one
four-hundredth of that of the United States. Furthermore, his military was
crippled by the loss of the Gulf war.
And so, if Bush and his neo-con warriors had an iota of capacity to see
through the eyes of their adversary (an essential component of any competent
military strategy), they could have predicted the present and ongoing
“catastrophic success” in Iraq.
As I wrote for The Crisis Papers a year ago (Now We Are the Redcoats).
Faced with an imminent invasion by the United States military (sorry,
“Coalition”), would Saddam, with a military budget one four-hundredth
that of the United States, prepare his pitiful army for a conventional
showdown on the Iraqi deserts with American tanks, jet fighters, cruise
missiles, etc.? If so, he would be a fool.
Or might he, like [the North Vietnamese] General Vo Nguyen Giap, concede
the first inning, and prepare for the guerilla war to follow? Say what you
will about Saddam: he was a tyrant, a brute, and a mass murderer. Granted.
But he was not a fool.
Saddam Hussein clearly understood that Phase One would soon end with the
American occupation of Iraq. So his army gave token resistance, fell back,
then shed its uniforms, blended into the civilian population, and prepared
for Phase Two, which is now in progress.
From the flight deck of the Abraham Lincoln, George Bush proclaimed
“mission accomplished” –– that with the “capture” of Baghdad, we had
“won the war,” just as General Howe proclaimed the end of the American
rebellion with the capture of New York in 1776.
Sadly, the war continues, and the prospects for our side are grim...
In Iraq today, friend and foe look alike. If the American soldier
hesitates, the fedayeen will take the first shot, and another American
casualty will be added to the list. But if he shoots first, his target may
be a twelve-year old boy on the roof, a photographer lifting his camera,
or a family rushing to get home before the curfew. More dead innocent
Iraqis. More rage against the invaders. All to the advantage of the
resistance.
This is how an entire population is redefined by the occupying army from
“the gratefully liberated,” strewing flowers before their “valiant
liberators,” to a pervasive threat, whereby each individual must be
presumed guilty until proven innocent.
To be sure, among the so-called “insurgents” are many criminals, thugs,
die-hard Saddamists, and newly-imported jihadists. But do not doubt that
many are ordinary Iraqi citizens, some of whom have lost friends and
family members to their “enemy.” And they are doing exactly what the
bravest of our own citizens might do in a similar situation: they are
taking up arms against the foreign invaders and occupiers. They want their
country back. They wish it to be an independent and a sovereign country,
and not a resource colony and military base for a foreign power that does
not share their culture and religion, and that has little regard for the
welfare of the conquered.
Why couldn’t the Bush gang foresee this “catastrophe”? And why not those
in the media, the punditocracy, and the general public, somehow persist
in supporting him today?
Just as Saddam could not possibly win a conventional war against the United
States and “coalition” military, the United States is quite unlikely to win
against the Iraqi resistance.
In today’s Christian Science Monitor, Brad Knickerbocker quotes Ivan Eland:
Guerrilla warfare is the most underrated and the most successful form
of warfare in human history... It is a defensive type of war against a
foreign invader. If the guerrillas don't lose, they win. The objective is
to wait out your opponent until he goes home.
Accordingly, the only wise course is for our military to leave, the
sooner the better.
September 21, 2004
ABOUT THE POLLS.
Would Gallup, the oldest and most prestigious of the polling organizations,
risk its rock-solid reputation by becoming a player rather than an observer
of the presidential contest?
It seems absurd, and so I was not inclined to believe it.
But now, I’m not so sure. Just look at the evidence.
I have just downloaded the latest tally by PollingReport.com** of
the seven leading poll results. Six show a difference of no more than four
points (one poll, Harris, gives Kerry a one-point lead). The “outlier” is
Gallup: 54%-40% Bush. Gallup has been the Bush-plus outlier in fifteen of
the last seventeen weeks (I recently read, but can’t find the source).
Now this is interesting: Gallup’ four-point margin of error (50-44) doesn’t
touch Bush’s best showing among the other six (NBC/Wall Street Journal at
50-46). An “outlier” to be
sure!
How is this possible?
“The Left
Coaster”** asked Gallup to send
their sample breakdowns, and therein found the answer. (Follow the link
above for the figures). This is what the “Coaster” reports:
This morning [September 17] we awoke
to the startling news that despite a flurry of different polls this week
all showing a tied race, the venerable Gallup Poll, as reported widely
in the media (USA Today and CNN) today, showed George W. Bush with a
huge 55%-42% lead over John Kerry amongst likely voters. The same Gallup
Poll showed an 8-point lead for Bush amongst registered voters
(52%-44%). Before you get discouraged by these results, you should be
more upset that Gallup gets major media outlets to tout these polls and
present a false, disappointing account of the actual state of the race.
Why?
Because the Gallup Poll, despite its reputation, assumes that this
November 40% of those turning out to vote will be Republicans, and only
33% will be Democrat. You read that correctly.
In an Air America Radio interview, Democratic polling expert
Ruy Teixiera pointed out that if the parties were sampled evenly, the Gallup
figures would conform with the other polls, and show a tied race, within the
margin of error.
Where on earth does Gallup get those figures of 40-33 in favor of the
Republicans? A search of several articles has failed to provide an
explanation.
Surely Gallup hasn’t found validation for that 40-33 GOP advantage in recent
elections. Al Gore, let us never forget, got half a million more votes than
Bush in 2000. The 2002 mid-term elections were virtually even..
In fact, as
John Zogby reports,** recent election returns show an advantage to the
Democrats:
If we look at the three last
Presidential elections, the spread was 34% Democrats, 34% Republicans
and 33% Independents (in 1992 with Ross Perot in the race); 39%
Democrats, 34% Republicans, and 27% Independents in 1996; and 39%
Democrats, 35% Republicans and 26% Independents in 2000.
To my knowledge, no other polling organization has such a
lopsided oversampling in favor of the Republicans
Assuming that Gallup’s tallying of the poll results is entirely accurate, if
they assume that 40-33 GOP advantage, their conclusion is still junk. As any
student of formal logic will tell you, valid inferences from false premises
yield unsound conclusions. More bluntly, GIGO: garbage
in, garbage out.
For the life of me, I can’t understand why Gallup is oversampling the
Republicans. Maybe Gallup can provide a benign explanation. But until it
does, I am inclined to suspect the worst: Gallup has decided to become a
“player” in this election – for team Bush.
A series of bad and deteriorating polls for Kerry can set off a “bandwagon
effect.” It could also discourage Kerry voters and incline them to remain at
home during election day.
If Gallup was the only polling organization in the field, the results of
these poll numbers could be devastating to the Kerry campaign. With
virtually all other polls showing a close race, Gallup’s numbers might still
be devastating – but only to the Gallup organization.
In 1936, The Literary Digest conducted a poll based on two million returned
postcards from a mailing that the Digest claimed was sent to one quarter of
all the voters. The projection: a landslide for Republican Alfred Landon,
with 57% of the votes and 370 electoral votes. In fact, the landslide went
to Roosevelt with 62% of the votes.
Soon thereafter, the Literary Digest went out of business.
If Gallup is in bed with the Repubs, it deserves the same fate.
DON’T COUNT ON THE DEBATES.
I vividly remember what
I was thinking exactly four years ago: “Just wait ‘till the debates.
Gore will clobber Bush!”
Many Kerry supporters are entertaining the same expectation. “Hope springs
eternal.”
Better sober up and take another look at the 2000 debates. As it turned out,
in the debate contest of Gore versus Bush,
Gore won handily. But in the contest of Gore versus Bush
plus Media, it was Gore who was, well, gored.
The Gore supporters figured that with his advantages of experience,
eloquence and intellect, Gore would clean Bush’s clock. And on debating
points, he did just that. Read the transcripts of the first, second, and third debates,
and you will see what I mean. [Original links broken. Perhaps
available elsewhere].
“Flash polls” immediately after the debates confirm this judgment – the
immediate public reaction favored Gore.
But then the mighty media spin machine started cranking, and when it was
through, the polls were reversed. And so, today, the media consensus is that
Bush “won” the 2000 debates.
What do you remember about those debates? Quite possibly the following: Debate
One – Gore’s “sighs” and rude
behavior. Debate Two –
Gore was stiff, subdued, overly polite (in response, no doubt, to the press
criticism of Debate One). Debate
Three (the “Town Meeting”) –
Gore “invaded Bush’s space.” In short, no substance, just “drama criticism,”
focusing on Gore's "poor performances." Bush was given a complete pass.
Quite possibly, Gore was sabotaged in the first debate, when, during Bush’s
remarks, Gore’s microphone was apparently turned up and “cutaway shots”
showed Gore’s exasperation. Those shots and those “sighs” were then shown
repeatedly in video clips.
The post-debate extravaganzas were very damaging to the Gore campaign. In
one memorable case, Republican operative Frank Luntz (not identified as
such) conducted a “focus group” discussion of the just-completed debate. Up
front, he asked the group which candidate came across as more “likeable.”
When they voted for Bush, Luntz proclaimed Bush the “winner” of the debate.
A member of that group, Lisa Ramsey, later blew the whistle on Frank Luntz’
con:**
I was part of Frank Luntz' "focus
group" that pitted ten Republicans against ten Democrats.
We were told to come to a hotel in West Palm Beach an hour before the
show. Upon arrival, we were checked off a list and segregated by party.
I was close enough to the Republicans to see a man passing out "talking
points" to his fellow panelists -- telling them that it would be great
if they could incorporate them into whatever they said -- and to make it
sound personal.
I was outraged and tried to get a copy. I must have looked like a
liberal, so they sent me back to my corner. I approached one of the
producers about it, only to be blown off.
About a half an hour before the show, we were taken to the room with the
cameras. Each side had a few more people than they actually needed, so
Frank and the producer started to hand pick the participants and show
them to their seats.
Interestingly, I was passed over initially (perhaps they smelled a
trouble maker). I made it on when a gentleman had to recuse himself. I
could have sworn that he said that he was a lawyer and they said they
didn't allow lawyers, but I could be wrong.
So here we sat for what was said to be a "sound check." The guy next to
me explained in whispers that this was actual an "attitude check" and
that the producers were identifying who might possess a brain along with
an attitude. During the show, those folks would be avoided and
interrupted at all costs, my new friend said, unless they sat on the
Republican side.
All said, the show looked like a one-sided Jerry Springer show ... with
the well dressed and rehearsed Republicans winning sizable airtime with
the fascist talking points. I found the whole experience very
disturbing. Recently, I read an article which identified Mr. Luntz as a
GOP pollster.
The “likeability factor” must have been the subject of a
talking-points memo distributed beforehand to the whore-media, for it came
up time and again. As Mark Crispin Miller observed:
On CNN... after the third encounter on
October 17, Bob Novak got the ball rolling by suggesting that "there
might have been a defeat for Gore on the likeability factor' ... From
there, Jeff Greenfield took the ball and ran a long way with it,
wondering whether 'Gore's clear decision to be aggressive, to try to
define very sharp differences' might make him see 'assertive and tough
minded' or 'rude and smug' -- although 'we're going to have to wait
forty-eight hours or so to find out.' '' The 'analysts' at CNN said not
one word about the substance of the candidates' exchange." (The Bush
Dislexicon)
Facts, evidence, competence, enlightened self-interest -- all
trumped by "bad vibes." Substantive ideas and coherent arguments set aside
in favor of empty, focus-group-tested slogans ("compassionate
conservatism,": "reformer with results," "a uniter, not a divider"). And
finally, Bush was presented to us as a "more agreeable" person. The
President of the United States as Prom Date.
The essential strategy of the 2000 debates was identical to the GOP strategy
today: misdirection: “Swift Boats Vets for Truth,” “flip-flips,”
“Rather-gate,” and now, Lord help us all, wind-surfing.
Misdirection, the favorite
device of the stage magician, is the key to understanding how Gore’s victory
was turned to defeat in the 2000 debates. Therein, Gore was clearly the
master of the substance, the argument structure, and the language. He
addressed (albeit in too much detail and elaboration) issues of acute and
relevant concern to the public. Bush, in contrast, sputtered and strung
together incoherent fragments of his stump speech, struggled to fill out his
allotted two minutes, all the while reminding us that in fifty-four years he
had somehow failed to take full control of the English Language. Immediate,
"unspun," public reaction confirmed this impression. Then the pundit and
spin-doctor circus was brought in as we were all told what we "really" saw
in the debates, and what we should "really" think of them. Gore's totally
accurate account of a crowded schoolroom and his innocent error about a
visit to a Texas flood was amplified into "proof" of his hopeless
prevarication. Frank Luntz’ “focus groups" of allegedly "ordinary citizens,"
harped on Gore's sighs and posture, and on Bush's "likeability," as all
substantial issues were effectively shut out of serious reflection and
discussion.
Among the rules of the upcoming debates are no physical contact between the
candidates and no cutaway shots. Apparently the Kerry handlers are trying to
block some of the GOP tricks from 2000. No matter. The media and GOP
spinners will find other tricks, and no doubt are working on them right now.
If the Kerry campaign is now prepping their candidate on issues and debating
points, while paying no to attention to “atmospherics,” then once again the
Democrat is fated to win the debates and drop like a stone in the polls. To
win, the Democrats must carefully study the past debates and devise
counter-strategies.
The Kerry team must understand, first and foremost, that these debates are
not the Oxford Union. They must look outside the “frame” of “debating,” and
within the frame of “selling the product.”
And they must demand the fairest possible treatment by the media. They won’t
get an even break, but they might at least improve the odds.
We can help by independently contacting the media – in particular, the
networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) and the cable channels (MSNBC, CNN – forget about
FOX) – and demanding fair treatment of the Democratic candidates.
I did, however, have this to say last week: “To my knowledge, no other
polling organization has such a lopsided oversampling in favor of the
Republicans.”
Well, now my “knowledge” has been enriched by a September 18 New
York Times article by Adam
Nagourney and Janet Elder, and by the Air American Radio fallout that
followed. It seems that the September 18th New York Times/CBS poll, showing
and eight to nine percent Bush advantage (varying with “likely” or
“registered” voters), used a sample of which 28% voted for Gore and 36%
voted for Bush in 2000. This means that had the poll used a sample with an
even number of Gore and Bush voters – reflecting, of course, the actual 2000
vote -- that poll would have yielded a statistical tie.
When Sam Seder of Air America Radio found out about this sample, he went
ballistic on his “Majority Report” program. (There is nothing in the
broadcast spectrum quite like a ballistic Sam Seder – a wonder to behold).
Seder’s outburst generated the
following e-mail exchange** between an AAR listener (Hank Chinaski) and
the Times’ Adam Nagourney:
Adam,
In the latest Times poll, participants were asked: "Did you vote in the
2000 presidential election..." "If you voted, did you vote for Al Gore,
or George W. Bush?" 28% had voted for Gore, 36% for Bush. That gives
gives you a poll that is DISTORTED IN FAVOR OF THE REPUBLICANS, which
was UNREPORTED by you. Adam, you either showed extreme journalistic
incompetence by not KNOWING that, OR you are involved in a COVER-UP of
the faulty polling used by the Times.
Which is it?
Nagourney replied:
Is there a choice No. 3? How about
this: Whenever you ask that question in a poll -- who did you vote for
last time -- the results do not mirror what actually happened. People
misremember/misreport who they voted for, and say they went with the
winner. Sorry if you're not happy with the findings of our poll, but
there really is no reason to insult me over it.
Adam
Is this Gallup’s reason for their mysteriously unbalanced
GOP/Dem ratio? We still don’t know. However, Nagourney’s “explanation” has
to be one of the weirdest journalistic cop-out’s that I’ve ever encountered
– and believe me, I’ve seen some whoppers in my time.
So let’s take a closer look at the Nagourney “faithless poll subject”
theory.
-
I am reminded that soon after the
Nixon resignation, it was widely reported that it was difficult to find
anyone who would admit to having voted for Nixon-Agnew. (Remember
Agnew?). Today there are abundant reports of voters who regret their
votes for Bush in 2000 and who are determined this time to vote against
Bush. One rarely hears of individuals who voted for Gore in 2000 who
have “seen the light” and will vote for Bush this time. Admittedly, this
is all anecdotal evidence. Even so, it suggests that if there any mis-recollection
or lying amongst the sample, there is at least as much reason to believe
that it will be manifested in actual 2000 Bush voters “recalling” that
they voted for Gore – the opposite effect of that posited by Nagourney.
-
Nagourney suggests: “People
misremember/misreport who they voted for, and say they went with the
winner.” How does he know this at
all! Far less, how can the pollsters assign a precise number to
this “misreporting.” Do the pollsters include, among their questions:
“Are you lying to me?” Gimme
a break! This statistic smells “Limbaugh-istic” – or, as Al Franken
indelicately puts it, directly “out of one’s butt.”
-
If, as Nagourney suggests (and Gallup
and/or NBC/ABC perhaps assume) that there is such widespread lying afoot
amongst their samples, why should they, or we, have any confidence that
their poll projections are not also based upon widespread but
unconfirmable lying by their polling subjects? Ergo, why should we pay
any attention to them at all?
Nagourney's "explanation" is offered totally without
foundation. It is implausible on its face, and it conveys a compelling hint
of desperation.
We have yet to encounter an explanation from Gallup of their
extraordinary Republican oversampling.
Bottom line: I still can not remotely imagine a benign explanation for the
Gallup, and now the CBS/NYT, plus-GOP skewing of the poll samples. There
remains a malevolent explanation: (a) to initiate a “bandwagon effect”
toward Bush, while (b) discouraging Kerry voters from going to the polls.
But my mind remains open: If there is some other plausible reason why Gallup
and ABC/NYT would deliberately use a GOP-skewed sample utterly detached from
historical evidence, I’d sure like to hear about it.
In the meantime, take heart: The pollsters generally talk to previous voters
(which is how they identify the “likely voters”). But now, reports are
coming in of a surge in new registrations, heavily weighted in the
Democratic areas. (See Ford Fessenden, “A
Big Increase of New Voters in Swing States, NYT, September 26). These
individuals, presumably, do not take part in the Gallup and NYT polls.
And finally, the Gallup and CBS/NYT polls are still the “outliers.” Most of
the other polls show a tight - and tightening race.
The essential contest remains: Kerry vs. Bush/Media, and
Bush vs. Kerry/Reality. "Bush' brain," Karl Rove, will continue to attempt
to keep the Real World at bay, through lies and distractions, and hope that
his magical mystery tour will somehow hold up for the next five weeks.
Kerry must hope that reality breaks through the media
curtain, and the essential messages get through -- namely, if Bush gets his
second term:
-
Kid, you're going to be drafted, and
perhaps killed in Syria or Iran.
-
Sis, you'd better forget about that
college degree.
-
Dad, you are likely to lose your job.
-
Grandma, what will it be, your
prescriptions or your food?
-
Ma'm, like it or not, your pregnancy
will go to full term, and there will be no welfare assistance after your
baby is born.
-
Citizen, you'd better watch what you
say. (Ari Fleischer has given you fair warning).
-
And bloggers, enjoy the free internet
while you can. Soon we'll be selling the internet to
Rupert Murdock.
Kerry has three shots at getting that message directly to the
voters -- i.e., the debates. Immediately following those debates, the media
spinners will get to work to tell us what we heard and to tell us what to
think.
Just like 2000.
(See "Don't Count on the Debates," below, and Paul Krugman's "Swagger
vs. Substance").
September 30, 2004
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS:
Regarding John Kerry, Nicolle Devenish,** Bush’s Campaign Communications
Director said:
“Someone who blinks when things get hard is not the right person to win
the war on terror. They are preaching retreat and defeat in the face of
real challenges from an enemy bent on our destruction. I think that’s bad
for the troops, it’s bad for allies, and it’s bad for our country.”
Someone who blinks when things get hard?
Think: “The Pet Goat” and seven catatonic minutes.
Think: Bronze Star: Pulling Jim Sassman out of the Mekong
River, under enemy fire.
Retreat and defeat in the face of real challenges?
Think: 9/11. Air Force One. Down the rabbit hole at SAC, Omaha.
Think: Silver Star: Turning the Swift boat and charging the enemy.
You really don’t want to go there, Nicolle.
WHO IS BEHIND “MEMO-GATE”?
About a week ago, The New York
Times’ Maureen Dowd described
the belief that Karl Rove was behind the Dan Rather, 60 Minutes memos, as a
“paranoid fantasy.”
Count me among the paranoids.
While I am by no means convinced of the Rove Theory, I have some small
suspicions.
Keep in mind that Rove has done this sort of thing before. Shortly before a
Texas debate between Rove’s inarticulate client and his silver-tongued
opponent, Rove claimed to have discovered a “bug” behind a picture in his
office. Due to the short battery life of the bug, it was incapable of
causing harm, and so was almost certainly “planted” by Rove himself. Because
of the distracting publicity, attention was diverted from the debate, and
Rove’s client won.
Then again, just before the 2000 Presidential debates, a GOP briefing tape
was delivered to the DNC headquarters. It was returned unopened, but not
before the GOP trumpeted the story and thus, once again, distracted
attention from the debate.
So is it far-fetched to suspect that he might try a similar stunt, just as
the Bush AWOL was threatening once again to break out into the open?
From an advance excerpt of Wednesday's 60 Minutes interview that we heard on
NPR's "All Things Considered,", we learned that Rather’s source was retired
Colonel Bill Burkett, who has earlier claimed to have witnessed the
destruction of embarrassing portions of Bush’s records by members of his
staff. (Bush was Texas Governor at the time). Burkett refused to disclose
his source of the memos, but insists that he did not write them.
Is Karl Rove the culprit? We ask the key question: Qui
Bono? – who benefits from
this disclosure?
Whether or not Rove was behind this caper, he could not have asked for a
better outcome.
It was a “three-bird-shot.” First, it discredited Dan Rather, who has had a
long-term ongoing feud with the Bush family. Second, it discredited Col.
Burkett, who has been leveling serious charges against Bush and his staff.
And finally, and most significantly, it has diverted attention from the
explosive issue of Bush’s misbehavior and shirking of duty during his
self-abbreviated service with the Air National Guard.
In his brilliant and comprehensive article in Salon.com, “Bush
in the National Guard: a Primer,”** Eric Boehlert conclusively
demonstrates, along with many others, that even if the memos are forgeries,
the case against Bush is essentially untouched. The questions of his missed
medical exams, his loss of flying status, his absence from required service
– all this remains unanswered and unrebutted.
But no matter. As far as the general public is concerned, whenever anyone
brings up the issue of Bush’s guard service, we are likely to hear “but
the memos were fakes!” Irrelevant
– but nevertheless, effective.
Even so, the Bush AWOL issue will not go away, nor should it.
Still better if Karl Rove is found, before the election, to have been the
evil genius behind “Memo-gate.”
A LETTER TO MY FRIENDS IN RUSSIA:
Дорогие Друзья!
I have been devastated by the news of the slaughter of the
innocents in the Beslan school in southern Russia. And in Moscow, the siege
of the theater, and the car bombing of a Metro station. My heart goes out to
the surviving families and friends.
The world appears to be going mad, all around us.
The Iraqi people are clearly telling the world that they do not wish to be
occupied by the American armed forces. But our boy-president is not
receiving that message, and his circle of international criminals persist in
their determination to make Iraq a permanent military base and resource
colony.
So more innocent Iraqis are being sacrificed. Also innocent are the American
soldiers, the vast majority of whom have no quarrel with the Iraqis, and
want nothing more than to return home to their families.
Meanwhile, the American media, overwhelmingly owned and controlled by
Republican supporters of the Bush regime, has so distorted the "news," that
more than half of our population approves of the Iraq occupation (or
"liberation," as the Bush regime would have us believe). Neither are many
Americans aware or concerned about the very poor opinion the rest of the
world has of our president and his administration.
My compatriots that support Bush in this war are not, for the most part,
evil people. But they are profoundly misinformed.
Prospects for deliverance from this folly in the November election are not
good.
However, those of us, throughout the world, who are possessed of knowledge
and of conscience, have no choice but to persist in our dissent and
struggle.
As I have often written before, our struggle appears to be hopeless: as
hopeless as Gandhi's struggle against the British Empire; as hopeless as
Martin Luther King's protest against racial injustice in the American south;
as hopeless as Nelson Mandella's fight for majority rule in South Africa; as
hopeless as Andrei Sakharov's struggle for reform and liberty in the Soviet
Union.
Yet all of these persisted and prevailed.
I have read that there are now two "great powers" in the world today: the
United States on the one hand, and the "great power" of international
conscience throughout the world (including the United States, of course).
That latter power took to the streets of the world by the millions, just
before the outbreak of the this dreadful Iraq war. It remains, dormant at
the moment, but ready to rise again when the time is right.
I hope and trust that it will do so soon, before many more innocent lives
are sacrificed to the cruel folly that is at work in Baghdad, in Beslan, in
Chechniya, in Palestine.
We are united in this struggle, as common soldiers in the "great power" of
world conscience. Never forget, that you have many allies amongst the
American people, who will not abandon the cause, or their consciences,
whatever the outcome in our November election.
Наилучшик Пажеланий (Best
Wishes)
Ernest Partridge
BY WAY OF COMPARISON:
Since taking office as Vice President, Dick Cheney has received over half a
million dollars of “deferred compensation” from Halliburton. Also, his
wealth is directly tied to the stock value of that company. As surely
everyone knows by now, Halliburton, and its subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and
Root, have overcharged the US government and have wasted several billions of
dollars.
Dick Cheney was renominated without opposition for a second term as Vice
President.
In 1958, Sherman Adams, President Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff, was forced to
resign when it was discovered that he had accepted a gift from a Boston
business man, Bernard Goldfine.
The gift?
An overcoat.
ABOUT NAOMI KLEIN’S “BAGHDAD YEAR ZERO”
If you want a glimpse of what Bush-Cheney and the radical right has in store
for us, take a look at Russia in the 1990s, and Iraq today. Russia was, and
Iraq is, an experiment in Milton Friedman utopianism: minimal government and
free-market absolutism.
In Russia, the Soviet state industrial wealth, distributed “evenly” to each
Russian citizen, ended up in the hands of a very few super-rich oligarchs.
In an extraordinarily important Harper’s Magazine article,
“Baghdad Year Zero,”**
Naomi Klein details how right-wing market dogma crashed and
burned in Iraq when confronted with brute reality. Here are a few opening
and closing paragraphs. Be sure to read all of this astonishing article as
soon as you get the chance.
Iraq, [John McCain] said, is "a huge pot of honey that's attracting a
lot of flies." The flies McCain was referring to were the Halliburtons and
Bechtels, as well as the venture capitalists who flocked to Iraq in the
path cleared by Bradley Fighting Vehicles and laser-guided bombs. The
honey that drew them was not just no-bid contracts and Iraq's famed oil
wealth but the myriad investment opportunities offered by a country that
had just been cracked wide open after decades of being sealed off, first
by the nationalist economic policies of Saddam Hussein, then by
asphyxiating United Nations sanctions.
* * *
The honey theory of Iraqi reconstruction stems from the most cherished
belief of the war's ideological architects: that greed is good. Not good
just for them and their friends but good for humanity, and certainly good
for Iraqis. Greed creates profit, which creates growth, which creates jobs
and products and services and everything else anyone could possibly need
or want. The role of good government, then, is to create the optimal
conditions for corporations to pursue their bottomless greed, so that they
in turn can meet the needs of the society. The problem is that
governments, even neoconservative governments, rarely get the chance to
prove their sacred theory right: despite their enormous ideological
advances, even George Bush's Republicans are, in their own minds,
perennially sabotaged by meddling Democrats, intractable unions, and
alarmist environmentalists.
Iraq was going to change all that. In one place on Earth, the theory would
finally be put into practice in its most perfect and uncompromised form. A
country of 25 million would not be rebuilt as it was before the war; it
would be erased, disappeared. In its place would spring forth a gleaming
showroom for laissez-faire economics, a utopia such as the world had never
seen. Every policy that liberates multinational corporations to pursue
their quest for profit would be put into place: a shrunken state, a
flexible workforce, open borders, minimal taxes, no tariffs, no ownership
restrictions. The people of Iraq would, of course, have to endure some
short-term pain: assets, previously owned by the state, would have to be
given up to create new opportunities for growth and investment. Jobs would
have to be lost and, as foreign products flooded across the border, local
businesses and family farms would, unfortunately, be unable to compete.
But to the authors of this plan, these would be small prices to pay for
the economic boom that would surely explode once the proper conditions
were in place, a boom so powerful the country would practically rebuild
itself.
The fact that the boom never came and Iraq continues to tremble under
explosions of a very different sort should never be blamed on the absence
of a plan. Rather, the blame rests with the plan itself, and the
extraordinarily violent ideology upon which it is based.
* * *
The free market will no doubt come to Iraq, but the neoconservative dream
of transforming the country into a free-market utopia has already died, a
casualty of a greater dream--a second term for George W. Bush.
The great historical irony of the catastrophe unfolding in Iraq is that
the shock-therapy reforms that were supposed to create an economic boom
that would rebuild the country have instead fueled a resistance that
ultimately made reconstruction impossible. Bremer's reforms unleashed
forces that the neocons neither predicted nor could hope to control, from
armed insurrections inside factories to tens of thousands of unemployed
young men arming themselves. These forces have transformed Year Zero in
Iraq into the mirror opposite of what the neocons envisioned: not a
corporate utopia but a ghoulish dystopia, where going to a simple business
meeting can get you lynched, burned alive, or beheaded. These dangers are
so great that in Iraq global capitalism has retreated, at least for now.
For the neocons, this must be a shocking development: their ideological
belief in greed turns out to be stronger than greed itself.
Iraq was to the neocons what Afghanistan was to the Taliban: the one place
on Earth where they could force everyone to live by the most literal,
unyielding interpretation of their sacred texts. One would think that the
bloody results of this experiment would inspire a crisis of faith: in the
country where they had absolute free reign, where there was no local
government to blame, where economic reforms were introduced at their most
shocking and most perfect, they created, instead of a model free market, a
failed state no right-thinking investor would touch. And yet the Green
Zone neocons and their masters in Washington are no more likely to
reexamine their core beliefs than the Taliban mullahs were inclined to
search their souls when their Islamic state slid into a debauched Hades of
opium and sex slavery. When facts threaten true believers, they simply
close their eyes and pray harder.
Don’t think for a moment that we aren’t due for a similar fate if the
American voters give George Bush a second term, and Grover Norquist realizes
his dream of “drowning government in the bathtub.”
October 1, 2014
WHY CAN’T KERRY “GET HIS MESSAGE OUT?”
Time and again we hear the complaint, from political friends and foes and
from the media, that John Kerry’s campaign is suffering because “he can’t
seem to get his message out to the public.”
This is a common topic of conversation on Air America Radio, and the pundits
never seem to tire of telling about it.
Well, what’s wrong with Kerry? Why can’t he convey his message to the
American people? Does he in fact have a message?
Funny that the pundits, and the mainstream media should ask? As
if they had nothing to do with it!
In fact, Kerry does have a message – loud and clear. You can hear it if you
wait patiently for a Kerry speech on CSPAN, or find the text of a speech
with Google, or if you go straight to the DNC** and
the Kerry Campaign **websites.
Unfortunately, you have to take the trouble to seek out the message. The
media will not give it to you.
Put it another way: Suppose Kerry has a clear and compelling message for the
American people. How would they know it? He can’t sit down for a private
chat with each and every American voter – there are more than a hundred
million of them. Nor can he stand on a street corner and shout. No, under
present conditions, he must “get his message out” past the corporate media
curtain. And the media is not cooperating. Instead of giving us the
substance of the candidates’ “messages,” they are, once again, dealing with
“the game” and “the horse-race.”
Now, at last, with the debates, Kerry gets his chance to talk directly to
the American people. He’d better do a damned good job of it, for immediately
after the debates, the media whore “spinners” will come in with their
instant (and suspicious) polls and their phony “focus groups” to tell us
what we really saw and how we really should think. In 2000, they applied
their alchemy and succeeded in turning Gore’s debate victories into defeats.
So nothing less than a knockout by Kerry will do the job.
Can there by any further doubt that the corporate media is
ganging up on John Kerry, just as it did on Al Gore four years ago?
The media gave several weeks of free publicity to the demonstrably false
accusations of the “SwiftVets” against John Kerry. At the same time, the
media avoids an investigation and exposure of George Bush’s undeniably
disgraceful derelictions during his self-abbreviated “service” in the Air
National Guard. Instead, the media has sidetracked the issue with by
focusing on the trivial irrelevancy of “the Rather memos.” And CBS has
compounded its offense by canceling a critical 60 Minutes examination of
Bush’s case for going to war in Iraq.
Lies about Kerry vs. the truth about Bush. The authentic war hero vs. the
deserter – and who do you suppose comes out ahead?
We know the answer, just as we know that this could never happen if the
media were truly independent, unbiased, and dedicated to reporting the
facts.
And don’t even get us started on the media’s treatment of the Iraq war,
homeland security, corruption, civil liberties, and the economy.
Responsible journalism has been driven from the network and cable news
channels, and from the pages of the commercial newspapers, to the fringes of
the small-circulation magazines and to the internet. Meanwhile, responsible
journalism survives abroad, where we must often look to find out what is
happening in our own country.
And so those of us who strive for “regime change” must deal with two
adversaries: the Bush regime and the Republicans on the one hand, and the
servile media on the other.
If the deck appears to be hopelessly stacked against Kerry, Edwards and the
Democrats, think back again to the 2000 election. Al Gore was smeared with
ridiculous and groundless allegations (remember “inventing the internet”?).
Bush’s manifest disqualification – his desertion from the National Guard,
his business failures, his dismal record as Texas governor – were all
treated as “out of bounds” by the media and thus ignored. During the
debates, Gore cleaned Bush’s clock on matters of substance, only to have the
pundits and spin-meisters focus on theatrics and turn public opinion around.
And yet, let us never forget, despite all that, Gore won that election –
only to have it stolen from him by Kathryn Harris, Bush’s brother, and five
felonious Supreme Court justices.
Kerry may be battling both Bush and the media. But Bush is arrayed against
both John Kerry and the real world. If the Rovian Wurlitzer keeps public
attention focused on such trivia as allegedly forged memos, ”flip-flops,”
wind-surfing and Theresa’s hair, Bush will win. But if the reality of Bush’s
lies, his illegal war and its casualties, his raiding of the federal
treasury, the impoverishment of the middle class, and the unprecedented
corruption, incompetence and maladministration of his regime, the trashing
of the environment, are at last brought to public attention, Bush’s days in
his ill-gotten office are numbered.
“Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:3)
Eventually, the truth will out. But will it “out” in the next month? That’s
the crucial question.
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
(H. W. Longfellow)
October 4, 2004
THE DEBATE: WHO’D A-THUNK IT?
“Atmospherics” and “drama criticism,” which turned Al Gore’s 2000 victory
into defeat, secured John Kerry’s decisive victory in the first presidential
debate.
At this website I have complained repeatedly about the media’s sabotage of
Gore’s candidacy through its redirection of public attention from the issues
and the candidates’ qualifications for office, to such trivia as sighs,
“invaded personal space,” and “likeability.”
Even so, it would be useful to examine the “atmospherics” of last night’s
debate, not because it should be
important, but because, unfortunately, it is important
to the voting public.
For this time, unlike four years ago, the Democrat won the debate, not only
on issues and qualification, but on appearances as well. Thus it is unlikely
this time that Kerry’s triumph last night win will be reversed by the media
spin that follows.
The early polls, as you probably know by now, awarded a decisive victory to
Kerry. By nine points according to ABC, and a whopping eighteen points
according to CBS.
But here’s the delicious irony: the same “theatrics” that defeated Gore,
crippled Bush this time around.
Remember the inflated commentary about Gore’s “sighs,” his facial
expressions, his posture? Because I did, I was relieved to read that
“cutaway shots” would be disallowed this time. However, it turns out that
in fact both contestants were shown on a split screen – to Bush’s great
disadvantage.
As many early commentators have noted, while Kerry spoke, Bush looked
impatient, intimidated, and at times displayed his vacant “pet goat” face.
As Salon’s Scott Rosenberg observed:
I just finished watching George Bush
sigh at least a half dozen time – as well as grimace, pout and otherwise
express his exasperation at John Kerry’s inexplicable failure to
pontificate or gasbag beyond the 2-minute limit Bush’s handlers had
insisted upon.
While Kerry stood ramrod-straight behind his podium, Bush
leaned and held on to his podium as if for dear life. There’s a message
there. Confident self-possession and control contrasted with grasping
dependence.
I watched the CBS and ABC post-debate analyses with some foreboding, as I
recalled the shameless spinning of 2000. (I couldn’t bear to watch the cable
channels, though I saw a few minutes of CNN’s Aaron Brown -- not too bad, as
it turned out). Best of all, these network appendixes were brief – a half
hour. Peter Jennings, to his great credit, banned the partisan spinners from
his half-hour, and his analysis was refreshingly unbiased and journalistic.
CBS began with balanced “spins” by John McCain and Joe Biden. Bob
Schieffer’s verdict of a “draw” was refuted by the poll, and by the
reactions of the pre-selected six “undecided voters.”
As I noted just yesterday in this blog, with this debate,
at last ... Kerry gets his chance to
talk directly to the American people. He’d better do a damned good job
of it, for immediately after the debates, the media whore “spinners”
will come in with their instant (and suspicious) polls and their phony
“focus groups” to tell us what we really saw and how we really should
think. In 2000, they applied their alchemy and succeeded in turning
Gore’s debate victories into defeats.
Well, he nailed it. Moreover, the GOP spinners (at least the
few I saw) were remarkably subdued. They spewed out their expected
pronouncements of victory, but you could see immediately that their hearts
were not in it and that they were, in fact, more than a little bit
embarrassed about the roles they were called upon to play. On the Daily
Show, Rudi Giuliani’s happy talk was ruthlessly skewered by Jon Stewart. The
fearful GOP spin machine of 2000 sputtered and groaned without apparent
damage to Kerry.
In the remaining debates, Bush is bound to be under extraordinary pressure,
as Kerry's attack is directed toward to Bush's weakest flank: domestic
issues. And as we found out on 9/11, Bush does not respond well to pressure
Bush has been wounded and he knows it, and he has discovered that he has a
formidable opponent. Worst of all, he simply does not have the resources to
effect a recovery – he does not, because he never has. No one knows this
better than George W. Bush.
Bush will now pay the opportunity costs tallied by those wasted hours and
years in the Houston and New Haven bars, away from his contractual
obligations with the National Guard, and in the vacuous offices of the
corporations he ran into bankruptcy.
For when he stands behind the podium in the presidential debates, he stands
alone – Poppy, Jim Baker, and Prince “Bandar-Bush” cannot help him. And this
time, at last, not even the whore media will be able to bail him out.
And he will stand opposite a man of proven courage, intellect, knowledge,
and experience in public service.
When the alpha male of the wolf pack grows old, or is wounded in the hunt,
the younger wolves, previously cowed into submission, combine to bring down
the leader. The same phenomenon is seen in the fall of despotic regimes –
witness the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty in Russia, of apartheid in
South Africa, of Soviet Communism. The "establishment" leadership projects
strength and resolution even as the foundation rots from within. Then
follows a public perception of vulnerability, followed by collapse. What at
first is assumed to be impossible is then suspected of being possible,
whereupon it becomes irresistible.
George Bush was diminished in the first debate, and will not recover in the
second and third debates. The defense of Bush by the media appears to be
less resolute than it was four years ago (though it is too early to be
sure). The polls, which now show a slight lead for Bush, also show that a
majority of American voters do not approve of the direction that the country
is taking, and want new leadership. Much of Bush’s “support” is by default –
due to an absence of an alternative.
Now that alternative is emerging, and as Kerry gains strength his candidacy
will generate still more strength – a “positive feedback.”
In a newly published article, written before the debate, John
Zogby** writes that, despite
the poll numbers, it is Kerry’s election to lose. All the more reason for
Kerry’s supporters to redouble their efforts and contributions, lest the
advantage of this breakthrough be lost.
October 5, 2004
PUTTING THE FINGER ON THE KERRY-MANICURE STORY.
Fox News’ Carl Cameron posted and then withdrew an article in which he
quotes John Kerry as saying: “women should like me! I do manicures." There
were other unflattering alleged quotes, but I won’t repeat them, since it is
apparent now that Cameron made them up.
But here’s a surprise for you: I know with near certainty that John Kerry
does his own manicure, almost daily.
Reflection upon his masculinity?
Absolute zero.
You see, Kerry is reputed to be an accomplished classic guitarist. If this
is so, then while he is actively practicing and playing his guitar, he
simply must give constant attention to the fingernails of his right hand.
This is as “effeminate” as a champion skier’s meticulous attention to the
waxing and edging of his skis, a hockey player’s concern for the edges of
his skates, or a sax player’s personal shaping of his reed.
I know. For over thirty years, I was a performing classic guitarist, and I
can testify that the length and shape of the right-hand fingernails, within
a tolerance of a fraction of a millimeter, is essential to top performance
on that most challenging of instruments. (The optimum length, by the way,
appears quite normal: approximately 1mm beyond the tip of the finger).
And no one – absolutely no one – is better qualified to file and to shape
those nails than the guitarist himself. I assure you that no serious classic
guitarist will ever tell you otherwise.
So there may be a germ of truth to that ridiculous Fox News story about
Kerry’s manicures.
The great guitarist, Andres Segovia, once said that more people around the
world play the guitar than any other instrument, and that fewer people
around the world play it well than any other instrument.
If John Kerry is among the latter group, he has my profound respect. I know,
I’ve been there.
THE DEBATE: WHO’D A-THUNK IT?
“Atmospherics” and “drama criticism,” which turned Al Gore’s 2000 victory
into defeat, secured John Kerry’s decisive victory in the first presidential
debate.
At this website I have complained repeatedly about the media’s sabotage of
Gore’s candidacy through its redirection of public attention from the issues
and the candidates’ qualifications for office, to such trivia as sighs,
“invaded personal space,” and “likeability.”
Even so, it would be useful to examine the “atmospherics” of last night’s
debate, not because it should be
important, but because, unfortunately, it is important
to the voting public.
For this time, unlike four years ago, the Democrat won the debate, not only
on issues and qualification, but on appearances as well. Thus it is unlikely
this time that Kerry’s triumph last night win will be reversed by the media
spin that follows.
The early polls, as you probably know by now, awarded a decisive victory to
Kerry. By nine points according to ABC, and a whopping eighteen points
according to CBS.
But here’s the delicious irony: the same “theatrics” that defeated Gore,
crippled Bush this time around.
Remember the inflated commentary about Gore’s “sighs,” his facial
expressions, his posture? Because I did, I was relieved to read that
“cutaway shots” would be disallowed this time. However, it turns out that
in fact both contestants were shown on a split screen – to Bush’s great
disadvantage.
As many early commentators have noted, while Kerry spoke, Bush looked
impatient, intimidated, and at times displayed his vacant “pet goat” face.
As Salon’s Scott Rosenberg observed:
I just finished watching George Bush
sigh at least a half dozen time – as well as grimace, pout and otherwise
express his exasperation at John Kerry’s inexplicable failure to
pontificate or gasbag beyond the 2-minute limit Bush’s handlers had
insisted upon.
While Kerry stood ramrod-straight behind his podium, Bush
leaned and held on to his podium as if for dear life. There’s a message
there. Confident self-possession and control contrasted with grasping
dependence.
I watched the CBS and ABC post-debate analyses with some foreboding, as I
recalled the shameless spinning of 2000. (I couldn’t bear to watch the cable
channels, though I saw a few minutes of CNN’s Aaron Brown -- not too bad, as
it turned out). Best of all, these network appendixes were brief – a half
hour. Peter Jennings, to his great credit, banned the partisan spinners from
his half-hour, and his analysis was refreshingly unbiased and journalistic.
CBS began with balanced “spins” by John McCain and Joe Biden. Bob
Schieffer’s verdict of a “draw” was refuted by the poll, and by the
reactions of the pre-selected six “undecided voters.”
As I noted just yesterday in this blog, with this debate,
at last ... Kerry gets his chance to
talk directly to the American people. He’d better do a damned good job
of it, for immediately after the debates, the media whore “spinners”
will come in with their instant (and suspicious) polls and their phony
“focus groups” to tell us what we really saw and how we really should
think. In 2000, they applied their alchemy and succeeded in turning
Gore’s debate victories into defeats.
Well, he nailed it. Moreover, the GOP spinners (at least the
few I saw) were remarkably subdued. They spewed out their expected
pronouncements of victory, but you could see immediately that their hearts
were not in it and that they were, in fact, more than a little bit
embarrassed about the roles they were called upon to play. On the Daily
Show, Rudi Giuliani’s happy talk was ruthlessly skewered by Jon Stewart. The
fearful GOP spin machine of 2000 sputtered and groaned without apparent
damage to Kerry.
In the remaining debates, Bush is bound to be under extraordinary pressure,
as Kerry's attack is directed toward to Bush's weakest flank: domestic
issues. And as we found out on 9/11, Bush does not respond well to pressure
Bush has been wounded and he knows it, and he has discovered that he has a
formidable opponent. Worst of all, he simply does not have the resources to
effect a recovery – he does not, because he never has. No one knows this
better than George W. Bush.
Bush will now pay the opportunity costs tallied by those wasted hours and
years in the Houston and New Haven bars, away from his contractual
obligations with the National Guard, and in the vacuous offices of the
corporations he ran into bankruptcy.
For when he stands behind the podium in the presidential debates, he stands
alone – Poppy, Jim Baker, and Prince “Bandar-Bush” cannot help him. And this
time, at last, not even the whore media will be able to bail him out.
And he will stand opposite a man of proven courage, intellect, knowledge,
and experience in public service.
When the alpha male of the wolf pack grows old, or is wounded in the hunt,
the younger wolves, previously cowed into submission, combine to bring down
the leader. The same phenomenon is seen in the fall of despotic regimes –
witness the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty in Russia, of apartheid in
South Africa, of Soviet Communism. The "establishment" leadership projects
strength and resolution even as the foundation rots from within. Then
follows a public perception of vulnerability, followed by collapse. What at
first is assumed to be impossible is then suspected of being possible,
whereupon it becomes irresistible.
George Bush was diminished in the first debate, and will not recover in the
second and third debates. The defense of Bush by the media appears to be
less resolute than it was four years ago (though it is too early to be
sure). The polls, which now show a slight lead for Bush, also show that a
majority of American voters do not approve of the direction that the country
is taking, and want new leadership. Much of Bush’s “support” is by default –
due to an absence of an alternative.
Now that alternative is emerging, and as Kerry gains strength his candidacy
will generate still more strength – a “positive feedback.”
In a newly published article, written before the debate, John
Zogby writes that, despite
the poll numbers, it is Kerry’s election to lose. All the more reason for
Kerry’s supporters to redouble their efforts and contributions, lest the
advantage of this breakthrough be lost..
October 7, 2004
THE ELECTRIC PRESIDENT:
Like my partner, Bernie
Weiner, I am
intrigued by a theory that has emerged from the fringes of left-wing
fantasyland, and is slowly acquiring some plausibility and exposure.
Was George Bush, in the first debate, “wired for sound?” Did he have a
listening device which fed him directions and cues during the debate?
While there is no solid evidence, there are several intriguing clues. A
mysterious bulge in the back of Bush’s suit jacket. Those awkward pauses
during his delivery. And a strange interjection of “let me finish,” sixty
seconds into a ninety second response, when neither Lehrer nor Kerry gave
any indication of an interruption.
But I’ll let others supply the grounds for this theory. (Begin with Bernard
Weiner's blog, then follow the links).
This intriguing notion of “the wired President” reminds me of another
incident.
Several years ago, James Randi, a former magician and a MacArthur "Genius
grant" awardee, engineered a masterful debunking. A televangelist named
Peter Popov displayed an amazing ability to walk up to total strangers in
his audience, address them by name and describe their life histories and
their ailments in detail. Then one of Randi's assistants intercepted a
wireless message from Popov's wife to a listening device in Popov's ear. The
wife read out information that the audience members had previously written
on a personnel form. Randi's crew then combined the audio track of Mrs.
Popov's sweet nothings into Popov's ear, with the video of the revival
meeting.
That clip was played on The
Tonight Show (during the
Carson era, I believe). I have seen it, and it is devastating.
Back to time-present. Just imagine someone capturing the signal from Karl
Rove or Karen Hughes (or whomever) to Bush during the debate. Suppose he did
so for the first hour of the debate, and then, during the final half-hour,
broadcasted a loud jamming signal into Bush's ear.
With all the internet “chatter” about “the wired Shrub,” we can be confident
that if in fact Bush used a listening device, the Bush crew is aware of the
danger of an intercepted signal.
This puts Bush in an agonizing dilemma. On the one hand, continue to use the
device in which case, there is a danger of exposure. On the other hand, give
it up – cut the “lifeline” and leave Dubya on his own behind that lectern.
Maybe we will, at long last, encounter the unscripted Bush, facing ninety
minutes of time to fill.
Could be very interesting!
Which leads us to .....
THE WIZARD OF OZ MOMENT.
There were times last Thursday when George Bush seemed to be edging toward a
“Wizard of Oz Moment” – when Toto would pull away the curtain, and Dubya
would be revealed to all as the pathetic, over-achieving, empty-headed phony
that he truly is. It may still happen. He has two more turns at the plate.
Both literature and history provide many examples of the high and mighty
being exposed, whereupon their careers, power and celebrity go into
free-fall.
-
In the play and movie, Inherit
the Wind, “Matthew
Harrison Brady” (patterned after William Jennings Bryan), adored by the
good Christian citizens of Hillsboro (“the buckle of the Bible Belt”),
overplays his role and reveals himself as a pathetic old windbag.
-
In Herman Wouk’s “Caine Mutiny,”
Captain Queeg, a dangerously incompetent and neurotic naval officer, is
provoked into a psychotic meltdown when put on the witness stand in a
Court Martial. Case closed. (See Bruce Ticker's latest: "Like
Captain Queeq: Is Bush going bonkers?).**
-
Senator Joe McCarthy’s, whose wild
accusations of disloyalty and treason, spread a pall of terror
throughout the federal government, was stopped cold by an exasperated
old Boston Lawyer, Joseph Welch. (“Have you no sense of decency, sir?
At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”). A courageous
broadcast journalist, Edward R. Murrow, delivered the coup
de grace.
-
An exposure of hypocrisy is often the
silver bullet that brings down the sanctimonious. Witness the cases of
Jimmy Swaggart and of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.
Progressives who have read Molly Ivins, James Moore and other
biographers of George Bush, and who have followed Bush’s career, know full
well that the man has been placed far above his level of incompetence. He
doesn’t read, he is incurious, he is dogmatic, he is sociopathic, and he is
guided by impulse and instinct – his “gut.” He has been shielded from
contrary opinions and surrounded by sycophants and pre-selected adoring fans
– a “bubble-boy” as some have called him.
Now he must stand alone, alongside a rival with a first-rate intellect,
extensive experience in government, and the courtroom savvy of a seasoned
prosecutor. And he must stand alone, unprotected and unmediated, before the
public. He was cruelly cut up at the first debate, and now there is blood in
the water as he returns for two more.
The pressure on George Bush today must be unbearable for he is well aware,
as are his handlers, that he is in desperate need of personal resources that
he does not have, and never had. Unlike John Kerry, he does not stand up
well under pressure – he has not turned a swift boat into enemy fire.
Throughout his life he has been bailed out by his daddy and his daddy’s
friends. Now he is trapped. There is no escape. He is Captain Queeg, alone
on the witness stand, as the brilliant lawyer, like Barney Greenwald in the
Caine Mutiny, approaches to finish him off.
Could this be George Bush’s Wizard of Oz moment? When, at last, this tragedy
turns to farce?
Maybe, just maybe.
I just know that I wouldn’t want to be in Karl Rove’s shoes right now.
October 9, 2004
PRAVDA ON THE POTOMAC REVISITED:
It’s been almost a year and a half since I’ve watched MSNBC – until last
night.
The last straw, back in April, 2002, was a “report” of a speech by John
Kerry, wherein he called for a “regime change” in Washington. Not an
original turn of phrase, to be sure. But it sufficed to set off the partisan
alarm bells at MSNBC.
Thus we were treated to the spectacle of two (so-called) “reporters,” Keith
Olberman and Norah O’Donnell, proclaiming that Kerry’s “regime change”
remark was “extreme rhetoric” that was certain to cause Kerry more damage
than Nixon’s “I am not a crook” and Clinton’s “I did not have sex with that
woman.” (An accurate recollection: I took notes at the time).
“That does it,” I told my wife, “no more MSNBC.” She agreed fully. I then
fired off the following e-mail to MSNBC:
EXTREME RHETORIC! EXTREME RHETORIC!
EXTREME RHETORIC!
Flashed across the screen, while Keith Olberman and Norah O'Donnell
spewed out the most disgraceful display of partisanship that I have ever
seen on a TV screen, outside of a political attack ad.
Come to think of it, this WAS a political attack ad.
That settles it. MSNBC is nothing more than a conduit of political
propaganda straight from the RNC -- the Chairman of which was featured
on this outburst.
NEVER AGAIN will I watch MSNBC, except to check in now and then to
identify the sponsors that I will boycott.
Announce and broadcast an in-depth and candid investigation of George
Bush's AWOL from the Air National Guard, or his substance abuse, or his
violation of securities laws, or the rigging of computer voting machines
by Sen. Hagel and in Georgia, and all is forgiven.
I am confident that it will be a cold day in Hell before I see such a
thing on MSNBC.
I kept to my resolve until Tuesday night, following the
Edwards-Cheney debate. Word had come back to me that Keith Olberman was now
the voice of reason on MSNBC, and I had heard that Chris Matthews had
recently even given some Bushistas a tough grilling.
So I tuned into MSNBC and apparently a parallel universe. There I
encountered Matthews, and a panel comprising Andrea Mitchell Greenspan, Joe
Scarborough, and Newsweek’s Jon Meachem.
This time, I did not record the spectacle and did not take notes. But
Salon’s Eric
Boehlert** captured the gist of
it, and his account fully accords with my recollection:
The Cheney group hug began before
Edwards had even exited the debate stage in Cleveland, with NBC reporter
Andrea Mitchell declaring, "Dick Cheney did awfully well in putting John
Edwards in his place." MSNBC host and former Republican congressman Joe
Scarborough, who didn't flinch in naming Sen. John Kerry the debate
winner last week, declared, "There's no doubt about it, Edwards got
obliterated by Dick Cheney." (Perhaps he was trying to appease his
right-wing fans who, he later remarked, flayed him alive for giving the
debate to Kerry last week.) Newsweek's managing editor Jon Meachem
chimed in that Edwards seemed like "Kerry-lite," while host Matthews
skewered Edwards in a strangely personal way, reminiscent of the way
Matthews hounded President Bill Clinton throughout the impeachment
process.
"I don't think this well-rehearsed and well-briefed senator from North
Carolina was ready for the assault," said Matthews, who insisted, "Dick
Cheney was loaded for bear tonight. He went looking for squirrel and he
found squirrel" in the form of Edwards. He later suggested Edwards often
looked stunned, as if he'd been "slapped" by Cheney's devastating
debating technique. Matthews also demanded to know if the "liberal
press" would admit "Cheney won."
Then Boehlert correctly reported that “nowhere else on the
television landscape -- not even on Fox News -- was Cheney crowned the
winner. Most pundits saw the debate as an obvious draw.”
So once again, MSNBC rejoins FAUX-NEWS on my sh*t-list.
Maybe I’ll watch MSNBC again some day.
Maybe Hell will freeze over.
DICK CHENEY vs. JOHN EDWARDS AND REALITY.
My immediate, pre-spun response: If I had watched the debate with absolutely
no independent knowledge or opinion as to the facts presented by the
contestants, I would have called it essentially a draw.
But I am much more a word-person than a drama critic. Had I paid closer
attention to appearances – had I cut out the sound and focused on the images
– I would have recognized that Edwards clearly had the advantage. He spoke
directly to Gwen Ifill, and to the camera (i.e., the viewing audience).
Cheney spoke as if the microphone were in his lap. Edwards was energetic and
his face showed both attention and enthusiasm. Cheney’s expression ranged
from passive to pissed-off, to bored.
Cheney’s body-language bespoke: “Why should I have to waste my time with
this uppity pretty-boy? Who the hell does he think he is, demanding that I
explain myself?” That’s not a good message to convey to a public which the
Vice President presumably serves. But then, the concept of “public service”
is alien to Cheney’s thought processes.
Unfortunately for Cheney, there is a real world outside of the debate, and
reality will prove to be his undoing. It is already happening.
For Cheney, with no apparent scruple, strung together a breathtakingly bold
sequence of evasions, half-truths, and damned lies. This was morally wrong,
of course. But he did all this as if no one would bother to fact-check his
whoppers. This was worse than wrong, it was monumentally stupid.
So now, Cheney’s debate performance is beginning to fall apart, and with it
the credibility of Cheney and of the Bush campaign. Specifically:
-
Immediately after the debate, Cheney’s
claim that he was then meeting Edwards for the first time, was directly
refuted by Edwards’ wife. Now there are photos and video clips of
previous meetings of Cheney and Edwards circulating in the internet.
While this is a trivial matter by itself, the boldness of the lie and
the certainty of its refutation serve as damning evidence of Cheney’s
mendacity.
-
Cheney claimed that he frequently
presided over the Senate. In fact, the records show that he did so only
twice during his term.
-
Cheney said that he had never claimed
that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks. Citations
of his numerous suggestions to the contrary are conspicuous in the
press.
The discovery and elaboration of Cheney’s lies is a gift to
Kerry/Edwards that keeps on giving. The democrats will put all this to good
use – you can count on it! Just visit the website of the DNC,www.democrats.org ,
and see for yourself.
In 2000, Al Gore was seriously damaged by the false charge that he was a
“serial exaggerator,” or worse, a liar. (Remember “inventing the internet”
and “discovering Love Canal,” etc.?) This time the charge falls upon the
Republicans, and this time it is well-deserved.
But more significant to the Kerry campaign than Cheney’s lies, was Edwards’
(and Kerry’s) opportunity, at last, to face the public directly and to
present some fundamental facts that have heretofore been effectively
obscured by a GOP-accommodating media..
A year ago, two thirds of the public believed that Saddam Hussein was
directly involved in the 9/11 attacks, and that number is now only slightly
below half. The Republicans are still relentlessly promoting this myth, and
for good reason. Who would not want to invade Iraq, if one were convinced
that Saddam was behind the attacks? (I am reminded of a TV spot I saw,
featuring the actor and ex-Senator Fred Dalton Thompson. “Why are we in
Iraq? Two words: nine-eleven.” Shameless!)
At last, Kerry and Edwards are telling the voters directly what the
Republicans and the media will not: “Saddam didn’t attack us, Osama bin
Laden attacked us.” (Kerry, First Debate).
Similarly, millions of American voters are hearing for the first time from
the Democratic candidates that there are no WMDs in Iraq, that the
“coalition” is largely a myth, that the median family income is down by
$1500 and that more than a million jobs have been lost, and so on.
As we’ve said before in this blog: Kerry-Edwards have two opponents –
Bush/Cheney, and the media. Bush/Cheney likewise have two opponents –
Kerry/Edwards and the real world.
At long last, with the debates, reality is joining the battle.
Summing up: It was
Cheney’s task to halt the erosion of support set in motion by the first
Kerry-Bush debate. In this, he failed totally. In addition, the GOP-media
spin-machine that was so awesomely effective in 2000 has failed to reverse,
or even significantly stall, the Democratic victories in the first two
debates. Kerry is in a commanding position for his Friday debate.
Bush, on the other hand, is damaged goods. He must stand alone (perhaps even
without the advantage of his listening device). The resources he needs to
recover and regain the initiative he does not have, and his life history
indicates that he never did. It is difficult to imagine many more voters
switching from Kerry to Bush, and abundant reason to presume voter shifts in
the opposite direction.
The beast is wounded and cornered, and
therefore very dangerous!
Look for more smears and an October surprise.
October 30, 2004
ELECTION 2004: A PRE-MORTEM
(The second half of this blog is "absorbed" in this week's
essay. EP)
If the election were fair, John Kerry would win convincingly. But due to GOP
voter intimidation and other dirty tricks, it will not be a fair election.
Even so, if those dirty tricks were of the ordinary sort – lost ballots,
tossed registrations, precinct delays by “observers,” Kerry would still
likely squeak through, albeit without Florida. (Kerry can win without
Florida if he takes every Gore state plus one more – any one, however
small).
My greatest worry is that the touch screen voting machines (tallying 30% of
the votes) will, through their secret codes and unverifiable returns, throw
the election to Bush, and will also keep the GOP in control of the Senate
and the House. If so, this atrocious crime against our democracy can never
be proven, unless the perpetrators confess and produce documentary proof
from the files of Diebold and ES&S. On the other hand if the paperless
machines are completely honest and accurate, that too can never be proven.
Nonetheless, compelling statistical evidence of fraud is still possible.
Read on – I will explain this later in this blog.
Late polls indicate a statistical tie, with slight improvements in Kerry’s
numbers. However, experts that know much more than I do about such things,
tell us that two factors bode ill for Bush. First of all, undecideds
generally “break” more than two to one for the challenger, especially when,
as now, there is widespread dissatisfaction with the incumbent. Second, most
polls report that Bush’s approval ratings are in the 45%-47% range, and no
presidential candidate with ratings below 50% has been re-elected.
Because of the following under-reported factors, I suspect that the Kerry’s
reported poll numbers under-rate him from three to five points.
First, Karl Rove’s
strategy of appealing to “the base” may turn out to be a blunder. That mine
has played out, and there is little more ore to be found. Moreover, the
“fund of fundies” may be shrkinking, as
a few good Christians are at last coming to appreciate that while Jesus had
nothing whatever to say about abortion or homosexuality (not to mention the
capital gains tax), he was quite explicit about the virtue of pacifism and
humility, and about the ungodliness of wealth and hypocrisy. [See my "How Would Jesus Vote?"].
Second, while I was at
first skeptical about “the Jimmy Breslin Cell Phone Theory,” it has gained
some plausibility in my mind. Breslin, you may recall, said that the poll
numbers were wildly off because pollsters never called cell-phone users. It
happens that cell phone users are disproportionately young, and the young
are strong for Kerry.
Third, an unusually large
number of new registrations and, presumably, new voters (neither tallied in
the pollster’s “registered voters” and “likely voters” totals) are solidly
for Kerry.
Fourth, the intensity factor: it is probable that the pro-Kerry
(largely anti-Bush) voters are, in general, much more motivated than the
Bush voters, and thus more likely to turn up at the polls. Many republicans
have come out for Kerry and others, unable to bring themselves to vote for a
Democrat, will sit this one out.
Finally, “the suspicion
factor,” detailed in my previous blog, below. Thanks to John Ashcroft, Tom
Ridge, Ari Fleischer (“be careful what you say”) and Bush himself (“with us
or against us”), the paranoia level is elevated amongst the population. As a
consequence, perhaps a small but significant number of pro-Kerry citizens
might be a tad reluctant to reveal their preferences over the phone to a
total stranger, claiming to be a pollster.
These are five un-polled plus-factors for Kerry, and if just two or three of
them are valid, Kerry’s poll numbers may be significantly under-rated. Apart
from the aforementioned “dirty tricks” and e-voting fraud, I can’t think of
any unpolled factors favoring Bush.
This adds up to about a ten-point blowout for Kerry in an honest election.
But the GOP dirty tricks might reduce that to 51-48-1 (Others) – still a
win.
Now to the Joker in the deck:
THE-VOTE MENACE
As the election draws ever closer, we seem to be hearing less and less about
the issue of “black box voting” – paperless touch screen computerized voting
machines. That neglect is most unfortunate, for these machines could well be
the sole factor in transforming a fair Kerry victory into another stolen
election for Bush.
Elsewhere I
have examined this problem at some length, so I will simply summarize
here the problem with e-voting.
-
Because the machines produce no
independent paper record of the voting, it is impossible to validate the
tally with a recount.
-
The software that collects, totals and
records the votes is “proprietary” – i.e., secret and the exclusive
property of the manufacturers of the machine. There is no independent
assurance that the vote totals are not systematically distorted.
-
The machines can be easily “hacked” –
vote totals changed, leaving no evidence of the tampering. This is not
speculative: several demonstration “hackings” have been performed.
-
Digital files from the individual
precincts are then collected in tabulating centers, where there are
still further opportunities for undetectable partisan tampering with the
returns.
-
The owners and manager of the three
leading e-voting companies – Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia – are all
partisan Republicans.
If you are still not convinced, watch the movie “Votergate.” This
link will take you directly
to it. Warning: this movie could cause some sleepless nights between now and
Tuesday.
Over that past few years, and especially since the 2000 election, there has
been a determined effort by dedicated citizens and computer professionals,
to develop a reliable and auditable system of computer voting. Congressman Rush Holt of New Jersey proposed a
bill requiring paper validation of all computer voting. It failed in
committee. There remain several methods whereby the validity of e-voting
machines might be determined – parallel voting, simulated voting with
machines from precincts randomly selected, etc. (For my suggestions, follow
this link and see the PostScript below).
With few exceptions, these safeguards have not been adopted, due to the
opposition of Republican lawmakers and officials. (Causes one to wonder,
doesn’t it?)
When asked why the citizens should accept the reported vote tallies of these
machines, the answer from the manufacturers and politicians has been simple
and blunt: “Trust us!” That’s all they have to say, because that’s all they can say,
given the secrecy of the software codes and the lack of any independent mode
of verification.
There is one remaining avenue of confirmation of e-voting returns:
statistical analysis. It’s a bit complicated, so bear with me.
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF E-VOTING
The remaining mode of assessing e-voting – after the election – is patterned
after classical statistical studies of the deterrent effect of capital
punishment. They are basically of two types: parallel and longitudinal.
In a parallel study,
two states are selected, alike as possible in terms of socio-economic and
cultural factors, differing most notably in that State A has the death
penalty and State B does not. If capital punishment is a deterrent, this
would show up in lower murder rates in the state with the death penalty.
In a longitudinal study,
a single state that has adopted, or alternatively has abolished, capital
punishment is examined. If the death penalty deters, then murder rates will
drop when capital punishment is adopted, and will rise when it is abolished.
(Most studies, parallel and longitudinal, have indicated little or no
deterrent effect. But let’s steer clear of that controversy. We have other
fish to fry here).
Now let’s apply these techniques to the e-voting question.
Parallel: We select two
clusters of precincts or counties which have very similar socio-economic and
cultural profiles and which, before e-voting (preferably the 2000 election),
had very similar election results. One cluster, “the control,” still employs
auditable voting equipment (punch cards, optical scanners, paper ballots,
etc.). The other cluster uses paperless e-voting. Compare the results.
Longitudinal: Select
precinct or county clusters that used auditable methods in 2000 and have
adopted e-voting for this election. Still better if they were polled before
both elections. There should also be a minimal amount of shift in the
population profiles in the ensuing four years. Then compare the results.
Very soon after the election, a “quick and dirty” comparison could be
produced of the Bush-Kerry vote split in the 30% e-voting states, counties
and precincts, on the one hand, and the split in the 70% of “other” returns.
However, if the e-voting returns yielded sharply higher percentages for
Bush, it could be claimed that these machines were in more Republican areas.
More refined analyses would follow the “parallel” and “longitudinal” methods
described above.
The September 16th edition of Economist.com** published
a very helpful color map of the United States, indicating the distribution
of the various voting methods. Some states are completely committed to
e-voting (Georgia, Nevada, New Jersey, Kentucky). But many are “patchwork”
with e-voting among several other methods. Of these, the “battleground
states” should be given close attention. The most likely candidates, then,
are Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and those most important states, Pennsylvania,
Ohio and Florida.
Now consider the following scenario: Counting only the 70% non e-voting
returns, Kerry scores a 55-43 landslide (2% for “others”). The e-voting
machines alone give Bush a 20% advantage. Combined, each candidate takes his
respective “safe states,” and Bush wins, by the slimmest of margins, just
enough battleground states to top 270 electoral votes, and to take the
election. Kerry, like Gore in 2000, wins the popular vote.
Add to this, continuing job losses, declining median income, soaring health
and gas costs, continuing deficits with offsetting rises in interests rates,
a revival of the draft and mounting casualties in foreign wars,
international ostracism – all this the likely result of a second Bush
administration and a President stubbornly “staying the course.” How long
would the public put up with this, knowing that it had been cheated in two
consecutive national elections – that, in effect, their democracy had been
stolen from them?
After all, ours is a society that once knew freedom and
prosperity for the middle class.
SO WHY VOTE?
If the electronic e-vote fix is in, then why bother to vote next Tuesday?
First of all, we don’t know this for certain. So it would be wise to vote on
the chance that the unverifiable, paperless voting machines are, for all
that, on the up-and-up.
Second, whenever possible, opt for the paper ballot rather than the e-vote
machine. (We can do this in California. Presumably elsewhere as well).
Third, if your ballot is auditable (not an e-vote), then by all means vote
so that we can rack up a large auditable Kerry majority. The larger that
majority, the more conspicuous the fraud built into the e-voting software.
The more conspicuous the fraud, the less legitimate the stolen election.
Finally, if the Diebold-ES&S-Sequoia cheaters underestimate the strength of
the Kerry tide, their “fixes” might not withstand the flood of votes.
Then, post election, let’s all do our damndest to outlaw non-auditable
voting machines.
POSTSCRIPT: E-VOTING –– MORE
COUNTERATTACKS.
(From the August 12 blog).
Face it, Rush Holt’s bill will not make it. We’re not going to get federally
mandated paper verification of “paperless” voting. The Congressional
Republicans will see to that.
If the GOP manufactured and secretly coded machines “convert” every fourth
Kerry ballot to Bush, and if the software, after doing its dirty deed,
reverts to “normal,” we’ll not be able to prove the fraud. There will be no
record. To be sure, the final returns will show a “remarkable” discrepancy
between the pre-elections polls and the final results, but that won’t
matter. They did so in Georgia in 2002 indicating a probable “fix,” but we
were told to “get over it” and alas, we did.
But all is not lost. Here are two proposals that would serve to validate the
accuracy of the e-votes, and they would both be quite affordable and
available in time for the election.
(1) As the polls are about to open, one out of ten e-vote machines are
chosen at random, “pulled” from the polling stations, and subjected to a
simple input-output test. If the software is “fixed,” this will show up in a
discrepancy between the input and the output. The stations and the machines
would be selected by lot and on the spot, so that no advance “unfixing”
could be done.
(2) A few polling stations would be selected by lot, immediately before
polls open. These stations would NOT be identified beforehand to the public
or press. At these stations, voters would vote BOTH by paper ballot and
e-vote machines. The results would then be compared.
The “validation teams” would include individuals of both parties, and they
would be selected from a pool of volunteers, so that they could not be “got
at” beforehand.
If such a simple and inexpensive method of validation were proposed and the
Republicans objected, the citizens would be entitled to an explanation.
And we’d all have still more reason to be very suspicious.
November 8, 2004
THE PROFESSOR HITS THE BULLS-EYE.
Every now and then, someone makes a simple remark that puts things into
clear perspective – that pushes the “Aha!” button – that turns on the
cognitive light bulb.
Princeton Philosopher Peter Singer did just that on Al Franken’s radio show
a couple of weeks ago, when he said:
To the right-wing “conservative,” “evil” is a noun.
To a liberal, “evil” is an adjective.
Wow! What in insight!
To the regressive, then, “evil” is an independent force, like gravity or
electricity – a “thing.” Thus it is something that one can “go to war”
against.
To the progressive, “evil” is a quality that is found found in particulars –
“evil” persons, “evil” doctrines, “evil” governments, “evil” policies.
Which conception of “evil” is best conceived to engender practical and
effective policies to improve the human condition?
Don’t ask me! Far better that you think it over yourselves.
(I don’t call myself “The Gadfly” for nothin’).
BUSH’S ROE DILEMMA.
Now that the GOP Regressives control the Congress and the White House, and
soon will have a solid majority on the Supreme Court, is Roe
v. Wade a goner?
Don’t count on it!
In fact, Bush & Co. may have backed themselves into an exquisite dilemma.
It has to do with what political scientists call “salience” – a fancy word
for the relative importance a voter attaches to an issue.
It is well-known that a large majority of women voters endorse “pro-choice”
over anti-abortion. But the reason that opposition to Roe carries so much
political clout is that to “pro-life” voters, the abortion issue is at the
top of their list of concerns. It is a sine
qua non – an issue that
categorically requires a candidate to have the “right” position. In this
respect, it is like “gun control” to an NRA member.
In contrast, abortion is generally further down the priority list to the
pro-choice proponents. A politician’s anti-abortion position is often
“forgiven” if that candidate is “right” on other liberal issues. Witness
Dennis Kucinich.
But if Roe is
overturned, you will see the “choice” issue rise to the top of concerns of
millions of voters. A majority of women voters will be aroused, angry, and
eager for retaliation. The pro-life voters will be pleased, of course, but
they are already on the GOP reservation, so the Republicans will have little
additional support to gain from them.
In short, the GOP benefits from an unfulfilled promise to overturn Roe, as
long as it remains unfulfilled – like the mule coaxed to move forward by a
carrot, always in front of his nose, but always just out of reach. But once
the mule grabs and swallows the carrot, he will have no further incentive to
move ahead.
On the other hand, suppose the Bushistas choose to prolong this charade and
to avoid the wrath of the pro-choice majority, despite Bush’s clear promise
and ability to abolish Roe. The anti-abortion crowd may soon come to realize
that they’ve been had, and then will depart the reservation.
The unfulfilled promise of abolition worked well while the GOP had the
excuse that the Democrats in the Congress and the liberals on the Supreme
Court were keeping Roe v. Wade alive. Now they no longer have that excuse.
Hence the dilemma: they lose if they don’t deliver to the far right
abolitionists, and they lose if they facilitate the overturning of Roe v.
Wade.
It will be interesting to see how the Busheviks deal with this dilemma.
A SECRET BALLOT?
When I arrived at my Southern California polling station to vote last
Tuesday, I found the damnable paperless touch-screen voting machine. And so,
of course, I opted for the paper ballot.
Then I became aware of just how far we have drifted away from the principle
of the secret ballot.
Along with the paper ballot, I was given a green envelop, into which I was
instructed to place the ballot. On the envelope was a warning that the
ballot would not be counted unless the required information was written on
the envelope.
What information? Name, address, party affiliation, polling station number,
with signature required.
If that is a secret ballot, then George Bush is an honest politician, and a
uniter, not a divider.
And yet, I’ve heard not a word of protest about this.
During the Fascist rule of Mussolini, the ballots of Il
Duce's party were printed in the red, white and green of the Italian flag.
All others were in plain white. The voters then signed in and picked up
their chosen ballot in plain sight of the officials. Surprisingly, the
overwhelming number selected the colored ballots.
Now we'd never do that sort of thing in the good old US of A,
now would we?
Seems that we've come awfully close here in California.
November 9, 2004
IS THIS THE SMOKING GUN THAT PROVES THE ELECTION WAS STOLEN?
You may have heard, as I have several times, that in last week’s election,
the exit polls conducted in areas with paper or otherwise auditable ballots
gave very accurate predictions of the final tallies. (Exit polls are
generally reputed to be very accurate). However, exit polls in areas with
paperless touch-screen voting machines gave projections that on average
showed Kerry totals about 5% above the final tallies – i.e., that these
machines gave Bush 5% more votes than projected by the exit polls.
Those findings, if sufficiently widespread, consistent and authenticated,
would give overwhelming support to the accusation that this election was
rigged.
The reports that I have seen are widespread and consistent. What I have not
found is authentication. Time after time, these reports fail to cite sources
and documentation, without which they might as well have as much credence as
one of Rush Limbaugh’s “instant statistics” (“from Rush’s butt,” as Al
Franken inelegantly puts it).
Now, I’m not saying that “the 5% factor” is undocumented. Only that I have
not seen the documentation. If anyone can supply it, I will be grateful. In
the meantime, I will continue to search for this documentation.
But now I may have found what amounts to “smoking gun” evidence that the
Florida election was sufficiently rigged to have thrown that state to George
Bush, and with it the Presidential election.
From a website called
“TheSquanderer.com”** we have the following charts, comparing the returns
from Florida counties with touch-screen machines, and those with optical
scan machines. It turns out that the much-suspected “e-vote” machines were
in fact reliable and accurate. However, the optical scan machines went
wildly askew in favor of George Bush.
|
"E-Touch" Voters
Approx. 3.86 million total voters
in these counties
Kerry's Base: about 1.57 million votes*
Bush's Base: about 1.44 million votes*
Kerry's final tally: about 1.98 million votes
26.5% more than his given base
Bush's final tally: about 1.85 million votes
28.6% more than his given base
Conclusion:
Close race, as expected,
unaffiliated voters nearly evenly split
between the two candidates
* - based on the number of registered Democrats or
Republicans,
adjusted for turnout
|
"Optical Scan" Voters
Approx. 3.42 million total voters
in these counties
Kerry's Base: about 1.43 million votes*
Bush's Base: about 1.34 million votes*
Kerry's final tally: about 1.45 million votes
Less than 1% more than his given base
Bush's final tally: about 1.95 million votes
45.8% more than his given base
Conclusion:
Virtually every unaffilated voter
would have had to have gone for Bush!
What are the odds??
* - based on the number of registered Democrats or
Republicans,
adjusted for turnout
|
The e-voting machines, then, serve as a “control” against which the
deviations of the optical scan machines may be compared.
I have no idea who or what “the squanderer” is. But it may not matter. These
figures are obtained from the official Florida election returns, then
compiled with simple grade-school arithmetic. (The official Florida state
returns may be found here**, and
listing by party affiliation
found here**). If the numbers on the table above can be replicated from
the official state records, it proves with a near statistical certainty that
the returns from the optical scan machines were altered to “rob” John Kerry
of half a million votes.
Bush/Cheney carried Florida by 381,290 votes. The optical scan irregularity
cost Kerry half a million votes.
Ergo: An accurate count would have given Kerry the state of
Florida, and the Presidential election.
Game, Set, Match!
Of course, there were many other irregularities in Florida. However,
virtually all of them favored the Bush/Cheney ticket.
The issue could be settled conclusively if the paper optical scan ballot
were counted by hand. But the Florida Secretary of State, Glenda Hood
(appointed by Jeb Bush), refuses to release the ballots for inspection.
Why am I not surprised?
I’ve seen the official totals by county and party affiliation, and you can
too if you follow the links above. However, I haven’t taken the time to
check the sums reported by “The Squanderer.” Even so, with the all the
necessary official documentation clearly at hand it is highly unlikely that
the figures on the table have been “fudged.” I am confident that we can
accept them..
If so, that’s about as close to a “smoking gun” as you can ask for.
A final note: Those half million votes are about one-seventh of Bush’s
national popular vote lead. Florida recorded 7.5 million of the 114 million
votes cast nationwide.
For more, see
Kathy Dopp’s research at the site: “Surprising Pattern
of Florida's Election Results.** Several important links are included.
See also Thom Hartman:
“Evidence mounts
that vote was hacked.”**
Sam Parry:
Bush’s
“incredible” vote tallies.
THE ESSENTIAL MESSAGE OF THE PIPA STUDY
On October 21, the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) of the
University of Maryland released a report, “The Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters.”** The report
concluded that the Kerry supporters were in general, correctly apprized of
the facts about the Iraq War, and that the Bush supporters were not. Put
bluntly, that the Kerry supporters were oriented to the real world and that
the Bush supporters (like their candidate) were living in a fantasy world.
Let’s focus our attention on the Bush supporters:
Is it your impression that experts mostly agree that before the war,
Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction?
Experts Mostly Agree: 56%
Experts Divided: 18%
(Most experts agree that Iraq had no WMDs).
As you may know, Charles Duelfer, the chief weapons inspector selected
by the Bush administration to investigate whether Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction, has just presented his final report to Congress. Is it your
impression he concluded that, just before the war, Iraq had:
Weapons of Mass Destruction: 19%
Major WMD Weapons Programs: 38%
(The Duelfer Report stated that Iraq had neither WMDs or major WMD
programs)
Is it your impression that Iraq:
Was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks? 20%
Gave Al Qaeda substantial support: 55%
(There is no evidence that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks or
gave substantial support to Al Qaeda)
And now the payoff:
If, before the war, US intelligence services had concluded that Iraq
did not have weapons of mass destruction and was not providing substantial
support to al Qaeda do you think the US:
Should not have gone to war: 58%
Should still have gone to war for other reasons: 37%.
It clearly follows that if the American public, and the Bush supporters in
particular, had been aware of the facts about Iraq, far fewer of the
identified Bush supporters would have voted for him. In other words, Bush
owes his “victory” to the ignorance of his supporters. Of course, the Bush
campaign and the right-wing media echo chamber did their best to perpetuate
these myths.
These statistics reveal the delinquency of the news media. In more
enlightened times, the primary allegiance of the media was to neither party
nor to any candidate – its allegiance was to the facts. It was not a
journalist’s concern how the facts might damage one party or the other, and
it was not a journalist’s responsibility either to cause or avoid damage to
candidates or parties. As Sgt. Friday famously said: “Just the facts,
M’am.”
By failing to discharge that responsibility, the corporate media were, in
effect, collaborators with the Bush/Cheney campaign.
But you knew all that already, didn’t you?
WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?
Intrigued by the concern of Christian evangelicals about “the values issue”
in the Presidential campaign, Colorado State University philosopher Philip
Cafaro decided to do some research. He read the Gospel of St. Luke.
There he found:
Passages where Jesus enjoins
forgiveness and humility: 15.
Passages where Jesus discusses gay marriage: 0.
Passages where Jesus insists that we aid the poor: 8.
Passages where Jesus discusses abortion: 0.
Passages where Jesus exhorts us to practice universal brotherhood
and further peace in the world: 10.
Passages where Jesus discusses stem-cell research: 0.
Prof. Cafaro's findings concur with what I found two years ago when I read
through all four gospels in order to find out What
Would Jesus Do? (See
also my"How Would Jesus Vote?"). )
Three of Jesus’ teaching stick in my mind:
Blessed are the peacemakers: for
they shall be called the children of God.
(Matt. 5:9)
I was hungred and ye gave me meat:
I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me
in. Naked and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in
prison, and ye came unto me.... Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye
have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it
unto me. (Matt. 25:35-40).
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! For ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long
prayer; therefore ye shall receive thy greater damnation. (Matt. 23:14)
November 24, 2004
THE IMPROBABILITY OF THE DEMOCRATIC DEFEATS
IN THE 2002 GEORGIA ELECTIONS.
The following is statistical analysis of the Georgia Senatorial and
Gubernatorial elections of 2002, as promised in my current CP essay:
Why we must not "Get Over It". My very limited study of statistics was
way, way, back in my undergraduate days. No doubt the statistical. pros will
find much to criticize here. However, I am confident that a fine statistical
analysis will come to roughly the same conclusion: namely, that the GOP
“victories” in the Georgia 2002 election were extremely improbable, and that
my conclusions are correct within an order of magnitude. “Close enough for gummint work”
The “lead in” which follows, is a shameless auto-plagiarism from that essay.
There is abundant statistical evidence that e-voting manipulation and fraud
were at work in the 2002 mid-term elections. Within days of the 2002
election, the New Zealand website
Scoop compared the final polls and
the actual results of 19 contests (five Governor, four House, ten Senate).
The results:
-
“14 races showed a post opinion poll swing towards the Republican
Party (by between 3 and 16 points)
-
“2 races showed a post opinion poll swing towards the Democratic
Party (by 2 and 4 points)
-
“In three races the pollsters were close to correct
-
“The largest post opinion poll vote swings occurred in Minnesota and
Georgia...
-
“All the post polling swings in favour of the democratic party were
within the margin of error.
-
“Several of the post polling swings in favour of the republican
party were well outside the margin of error.”
The Georgia races are particularly interesting, not
only because they had the largest post-poll swings, but also because most of
the state used paperless Diebold DRE machines. In the senate race, Max
Cleland led Saxby Chamblis by 2 to 5 points in the polls. Cleland lost, by 7
points – a swing of 9 to 12 points. In the Gubernatorial race, Democrat Roy
Barnes led Republican Sunny Perdue by nine points, only to lose by seven
points – an incredible shift of 16 points.
In the interval between the final polling and the election, there were no
startling events that could explain these discrepancies. That being the
case, the statistical probability of a random deviation of twelve points
(Cleland/Chamblis) and sixteen points (Barnes/Perdue) ranges from one in
several ten-thousands to one in several hundred thousands.
The “margin of error” in polls with large samples is
approximately the same
as what statisticians call “standard deviation.”
Assume the following:
-
an equivalence between margin of error and standard deviation.
-
the probabilities of polling error are in accordance with normal
distributions (i.e., the so-called “bell curve”).
-
the margin of error of the Georgia polls was four points.
This means that “shift” in the Cleland/Chamblis race was from two-plus to
three standard deviations. In the Barnes/Perdue race, the “shift” was four
standard deviations.
In a normal (“bell
curve”) distribution:
The probability of exceeding two standard deviations: Two percent. (.02)
The probability of exceeding three standard deviations: three-tenths of a
percent. (.003)
The probability of exceeding four standard deviations: three-thousands of a
percent. (.00003).
The probability of a deliberate “fix” in the secret (“proprietary”) Diebold
software: undetermined.
Diebold’s assurance of the accuracy of their equipment: “Trust us!”
E-VOTING –– MORE COUNTERATTACKS.
(From the August 12 blog).
Face it, Rush Holt’s bill will not make it. We’re not going to get federally
mandated paper verification of “paperless” voting. The Congressional
Republicans will see to that.
If the GOP manufactured and secretly coded machines “convert” every fourth
Kerry ballot to Bush, and if the software, after doing its dirty deed,
reverts to “normal,” we’ll not be able to prove the fraud. There will be no
record. To be sure, the final returns will show a “remarkable” discrepancy
between the pre-elections polls and the final results, but that won’t
matter. They did so in Georgia in 2002 indicating a probable “fix,” but we
were told to “get over it” and alas, we did.
But all is not lost. Here are two proposals that would serve to validate the
accuracy of the e-votes, and they would both be quite affordable and
available in time for the election.
(1) As the polls are about to open, one out of ten e-vote machines are
chosen at random, “pulled” from the polling stations, and subjected to a
simple input-output test. If the software is “fixed,” this will show up in a
discrepancy between the input and the output. The stations and the machines
would be selected by lot and on the spot, so that no advance “unfixing”
could be done.
(2) A few polling stations would be selected by lot, immediately before
polls open. These stations would NOT be identified beforehand to the public
or press. At these stations, voters would vote BOTH by paper ballot and
e-vote machines. The results would then be compared.
The “validation teams” would include individuals of both parties, and they
would be selected from a pool of volunteers, so that they could not be “got
at” beforehand.
If such a simple and inexpensive method of validation were proposed and the
Republicans objected, the citizens would be entitled to an explanation.
And we’d all have still more reason to be very suspicious.
THE FUNDIES FALL SHORT
In his
Village Voice article,
"It's the
Wealth, Stupid!"** Rick Perlstein gives strong evidence that the
"values" issue and the evangelicals did NOT deliver the election to Bush. He
then proposes that Bush owes his election to the "haves" and "have mores" --
"people making over 100 grand."
His first point is compelling. His second is plain balderdash -- as can be
readily appreciated by a casual examination of his numbers.
If "the Jesus vote" and "the have/have-more vote" do not account for that
eight million, and no other identifiable voting group seems to do the trick,
then one is strongly drawn to the conclusion that those extra eight million
came, not from the ballots of qualified voters, but rather out of the
"proprietary" software of Diebold & brothers. In a word, the election was
stolen.
Perlstein thus dismisses the significance of "the Jesus vote:"
On his blog Polysigh, my favorite political scientist, Phil Klinkner,
ran a simple exercise. Multiplying the turnout among a certain group by
the percent who went for Bush yields a number electoral statisticians call
"performance." Among heavy churchgoers, Bush's performance last time was
25 percent (turnout, 42 percent; percentage of vote, 59 percent). This
time out it was also 25 percent—no change. Slightly lower turnout (41
percent), slightly higher rate of vote (61 percent).
He then asks,
Where did the lion's share of the extra votes come from that gave
George Bush his mighty, mighty mandate of 51 percent? "Two of those
points," Klinkner said when reached by phone, "came solely from people
making over a 100 grand." The people who won the election for him—his only
significant improvement over his performance four years ago—were rich
people, voting for more right-wing class warfare.
Perlstein continues:
Their portion of the electorate went from 15 percent in 2000 to 18
percent this year. Support for Bush among them went from 54 percent to 58
percent. "It made me think about that scene in Fahrenheit 9/11," says
Klinkner, the one where Bush joked at a white-tie gala about the "haves"
and the "have-mores": "Some people call you the elite," Bush said. "I call
you my base."
Time to take out the pocket calculator.
The total 2004 vote was just over 114 million. The 3% increase in "wealth
votes" comes to 3.42 million. Of these, Bush increased his support by 4%.
That comes to a mere 136,800 votes.
And we're asked to believe that Bush owes his election to "the haves and
have mores"? Not even close.
So where did those extra eight million votes come from, if not from the
Jesus-folks?. Where else but from "cyber-votes."
I await (so far in vain) for a more plausible explanation.
November 28, 2004
Which Exit Polls? Earlier or Later?
On this question, perhaps more than any other, the statistical case for
election fraud may turn.
The early CNN/Mitofsky exit polls indicated a Kerry victory in Florida,
Ohio, and enough additional states to give Kerry a winning 300+ Electoral
College total. The popular vote was projected to be a Kerry win with an
exact reversal of Bush's "official" margin: 51%-48%. (Steven
Freeman,** and
Parry and New York
Times). These projections almost exactly duplicated the final Zogby
poll. It is noteworthy that Zogby's 2000 poll proved to be the most
accurate.
The later "adjusted" exit polls showed a Bush Victory in Florida and
Ohio, and in the Electoral College totals. The national projection for the
popular vote matched the official outcome: 51%-48% for Bush.
Steven
Freeman's statistical argument employs the early poll numbers, as
does the Scoop.co.nz of the "red shift" (toward Bush) between the exit
polls and the final results.
The mainstream media, by assuming the final results to be valid, pose the
question: "why did those early exit polls go wrong?" Dissenting
critics, such as Dr. Freeman, assume the accuracy of the early exit polls,
which then casts suspicion on the final tally.
My inclination is to trust the early polls. Attempts to dismiss these strike
me as unconvincing after-the-fact rationalizations. One explanation, for
example, is that the morning voters were disproportionately female and thus
biased toward Kerry. But as
Jonathan
Simon points out this hypothesis does not hold up to closer scrutiny.
Moreover, the gender-bias and other conjectures fail to explain why the
early polls accurately predicted the final tallies in the "safe" states and
in states with auditable ballots, and yet were wildly off-target (and
consistently in Kerry's favor) in the crucial "battleground states" such as
Florida and Ohio.
The later polls were contaminated with incoming data from the actual
tallies. Thus they were analogous to placing bets on the Super Bowl, late in
the fourth quarter. Las Vegas casinos won't stand for that, and neither
should we. More specifically, the use of the later polls to validate the
election results constitutes a circular argument. As Steven Freeman puts it,
a citation of the later exit polls "[uses] data in which the count is
assumed correct to prove that the count is correct."
Clearly, there is an urgent need for some very careful and scrupulous
analyses of both the early and the late poll numbers. Unfortunately, the
polling firms, Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, refuse to
release the raw data from the early polls. My Google search has failed to
locate much evidence of a critical assessment of the comparative validity of
the early and later exit polls. Given the crucial importance of this
question, that neglect is very unfortunate.
LIFE IN THE FUNDIES' THEOCRACY
The Christian Fundamentalists, who tell us that every word in the Bible
is the literal Word of God, believe that our laws should follow strict
Biblical principles. The following item that has been circulating in the
internet, raises some intriguing questions for the theocrats.
Drs. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Bob Jones -- can you
help us out here?
1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female,
provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine
claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify?
Why can't I own Canadians?
2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus
21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for a
daughter?
3. I know that a man is allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her
period of menstrual uncleanness--Leviticus 15:19-24. The problem is, most
women take offense when they're asked if they're unclean.
4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a
pleasing odor for the Lord--Leviticus 1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They
claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2
clearly states that he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to
kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?
6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an
abomination (Leviticus 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than
homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there degrees of
abomination or are Christian Conservatives excepted?
7. Leviticus 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have
a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my
vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?
8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around
their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Leviticus 19:27.
How should they die?
9. I know from Leviticus 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes
me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Leviticus 19:19 by planting two
different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made
of two different kinds of thread (cotton-polyester blend). He also tends to
curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the
trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them (Leviticus
24:10-16). Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair,
as we do with people who sleep with their in-laws (Leviticus 20:14)?
(1/1/2005 It is now apparent that the author of the first
seven questions is J. Kent Ashcraft. The final three were added later.
For more clarification,
follow this
link).
