Real America
by digby
After 34 years with LTV Steel I was forced to retire because of a disability. Two years later, LTV filed bankruptcy. I lost a third of my pension and my family lost their health care.
Every day of my life I sit at the kitchen table across from the woman who devoted 36 years of her life to my family and I can’t afford to pay for her health care. What’s wrong with America and what will you do to change it?
Via Think Progress and McJoan.
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Those Also Serve Who Campaign For Daddy
by digby
I’m looking forward to hearing the right wing explosion over this unpatriotic comparison between some rich daddy’s boy driving a Winnebago around Iowa with soldiers in Iraq dodging IED’s in a Humvee.
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Wednesday defended his five sons’ decision not to enlist in the military, saying they’re showing their support for the country by “helping me get elected.”
Romney, who did not serve in Vietnam due to his Mormon missionary work and a high draft lottery number, was asked the question by an anti-war activist after a speech in which he called for “a surge of support” for U.S. forces in Iraq.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, also saluted a uniformed soldier in the crowd and called for donations to military support organizations. Last week, he donated $25,000 to seven such organizations.
“The good news is that we have a volunteer Army and that’s the way we’re going to keep it,” Romney told some 200 people gathered in an abbey near the Mississippi River that had been converted into a hotel. “My sons are all adults and they’ve made decisions about their careers and they’ve chosen not to serve in the military and active duty and I respect their decision in that regard.”
He added: “One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected because they think I’d be a great president.”
Romney’s five sons range in age from 37 to 26 and have worked as real estate developers, sports marketers and advertising executives. They are now actively campaigning for their father and have a “Five Brothers” blog on Romney’s campaign Web site.
Romney noted that his middle son, 36-year-old Josh, was completing a recreational vehicle tour of all 99 Iowa counties on Wednesday and said, “I respect that and respect all those and the way they serve this great country.”
God bless the USA.
I think I’ll just head on over to TBOGG’s place. He’s been “Five Brothers” blogging for months and has followed the “Mittmobile” on its intrepid trek through Iowa from the beginning.
Here’s just a little taste:
Meanwhile Josh&Jen continue their whirlwind “99 Counties But A Bitch Ain’t One” tour of Iowa with stops by a sign, another sign, a county fair (where Josh&Jen bought the kids some fried sugar and then Jen threw up again), and a drugstore where Josh used Grace to break in to get Jen some Pepto.
As for the other boys, well it looks like Mitt had to let them go because they were dragging the campaign down and he needed to lighten up the load.
I had heard that Fred Thompson was going to pick one or two of them up on waivers but he didn’t have the money. The good news is that Mike Huckabee is holding auditions for a new campaign son since the old one isn’t working out.
‘Tagg Huckabee’. I like that. I think he’ll work out as long as he doesn’t dance because then he would be going to Hell. Or Arkansas. One of those.
The Banality Of Dick Cheney’s Evil
by digby
Read this amazing piece by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker. But gird yourself. It’s one of the worst things you’ll ever read about your government, and that’s saying something:
“The C.I.A.’s interrogation program is remarkable for its mechanistic aura. ‘It’s one of the most sophisticated, refined programs of torture ever,’ an outside expert familiar with the protocol said. ‘At every stage, there was a rigid attention to detail. Procedure was adhered to almost to the letter. There was top-down quality control, and such a set routine that you get to the point where you know what each detainee is going to say, because you’ve heard it before. It was almost automated. People were utterly dehumanized. People fell apart. It was the intentional and systematic infliction of great suffering masquerading as a legal process. It is just chilling.'”
[…]
“A former member of a C.I.A. transport team has described the ‘takeout’ of prisoners as a carefully choreographed twenty-minute routine, during which a suspect was hog-tied, stripped naked, photographed, hooded, sedated with anal suppositories, placed in diapers, and transported by plane to a secret location. A person involved in the Council of Europe inquiry, referring to cavity searches and the frequent use of suppositories during the takeout of detainees, likened the treatment to ‘sodomy.’ He said, ‘It was used to absolutely strip the detainee of any dignity. It breaks down someone’s sense of impenetrability. The interrogation became a process not just of getting information but of utterly subordinating the detainee through humiliation.’ The former C.I.A. officer confirmed that the agency frequently photographed the prisoners naked, ‘because it’s demoralizing.”
[…]
Ramzi Kassem, who teaches at Yale Law School, said that a Yemeni client of his, Sanad al-Kazimi, who is now in Guantánamo, alleged that he had received similar treatment in the Dark Prison, the facility near Kabul. Kazimi claimed to have been suspended by his arms for long periods, causing his legs to swell painfully. “It’s so traumatic, he can barely speak of it,” Kassem said. “He breaks down in tears.” Kazimi also claimed that, while hanging, he was beaten with electric cables. According to sources familiar with interrogation techniques, the hanging position is designed, in part, to prevent detainees from being able to sleep. The former C.I.A. officer, who is knowledgeable about the interrogation program, explained that “sleep deprivation works. Your electrolyte balance changes. You lose all balance and ability to think rationally. Stuff comes out.” Sleep deprivation has been recognized as an effective form of coercion since the Middle Ages, when it was called tormentum insomniae. It was also recognized for decades in the United States as an illegal form of torture. An American Bar Association report, published in 1930, which was cited in a later U.S. Supreme Court decision, said, “It has been known since 1500 at least that deprivation of sleep is the most effective torture and certain to produce any confession desired.”Under President Bush’s new executive order, C.I.A. detainees must receive the “basic necessities of life, including adequate food and water, shelter from the elements, necessary clothing, protection from extremes of heat and cold, and essential medical care.” Sleep, according to the order, is not among the basic necessities. In addition to keeping a prisoner awake, the simple act of remaining upright can over time cause significant pain. McCoy, the historian, noted that “longtime standing” was a common K.G.B. interrogation technique. In his 2006 book, “A Question of Torture,” he writes that the Soviets found that making a victim stand for eighteen to twenty-four hours can produce “excruciating pain, as ankles double in size, skin becomes tense and intensely painful, blisters erupt oozing watery serum, heart rates soar, kidneys shut down, and delusions deepen.”
Marty Lederman at Balkinization points out another sick dimension to this scheme:
I have repeatedly argued here that there is no justification for keeping secret what interrogation techniques the CIA is permitted to use. In particular, it is absurd to “classify” something that is revealed to people outside the government who have no duty of confidentiality, i.e., to the detainees on whom the techniques are used. Those persons are free to disclose the information to others, as they have now done to Red Cross interviewers. Because of this, it becomes necessary to detain these persons, in isolation, presumably forever, in order to impose a prior restraint on their speech concerning their knowledge of what our government has done to them. In a strange sort of circular logic, the interrogation becomes the justification for indefinite detention, even long after the interrogation ends. Thus, as Jane writes, “[t]he utter isolation of these detainees has been described as essential to America’s national security,” so that they cannot reveal what happened to them.
Years ago I wrote a post in which a prisoner discussed very similar torture techniques. That prisoner wasn’t some alleged Muslim fanatic:
Those illustrations and some of the comments are by former POW Mike Mcgrath about his time in the Hanoi Hilton. Other comments are from the transcript of Return With Honor, a documentary about the POW’s during the Vietnam War. How silly of me to compare the US torture scheme with North Vietnam’s.
It’s very interesting that all these guys survived, in their estimation, mostly because of their own code of honor requiring them to say as little as possible, fight back as they could and cling to the idea that they were not helping this heartless enemy any more than they had to.
As I read the vivid descriptions of these interrogation techniques of sleep deprivation, sensory manipulation, isolation, stress positions and dietary manipulation I had to wonder whether they would be any more likely to work on committed Islamic jihadists than they were on committed American patriots.
The American POWs admitted that they broke under torture and told the interrogators what they knew. And they told a lot of them what they didn’t know. And over time, they told them things they couldn’t possibly know. The torture continued. Many of them, just like the reports from Gitmo, attempted suicide. They remained imprisoned never knowing when or if they would ever be set free.
That was one of the reasons I was so aghast that John McCain helped create that grotesque military commissions bill. He knew about this scheme if I did. I assume he knew much more. It’s true that this is a CIA rather than a pentagon program, but really, what’s the difference.? these programs were all hatched and supervised by the same insane man named Dick Cheney.
Tonight I heard David Shuster take Joe Biden to task for suggesting in the debate tonight that the Republicans have “ruined” this country, claiming that “ruin” suggests irreparable harm and “that’s a stretch.” It is not a stretch. The systematic nature of this thing, with doctors and psychiatrists as willing accomplices, is exactly the banality of evil that Hannah Arendt described. Ruin is the perfect word to describe what they have done.
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Fake News For Jesus
by digby
I just watched a recording of last Sunday’s Meet the Press and found that the round table included a “journalist” from the Christian Broadcasting Network. You know, the one run by screaming nutball, Pat Robertson?
Think Progress wrote:
The problem is not Brody’s appearance on the program per se, but rather that Meet the Press has an established record of featuring more conservative journalists than progressive journalists during its roundtables.
Well, the conservative skew is a problem, but there is also a problem with having a “reporter” on the panel who works for a “news” network that broadcasts crazy Armageddon fantasies and endless lies. CBN actually makes FOX look professional.
But Howie Kurtz loves the guy, just as he loves all conservative shills:
Brody occupies an unusual niche. He is a reporter for the Christian Broadcasting Network who has forged good relations with Democrats. He is a wisecracking blogger who is part of Pat Robertson’s religious empire. And he was raised as a Jew, although he now believes in Jesus Christ as his lord and savior.
Brody is, in short, a Christian journalist with chutzpah.
While his reports appear not just on a daily CBN newscast but on Robertson’s “700 Club,” Brody says, “I bury my head and do my job. I’m talking to Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals, people on both sides of the aisle. I’m kind of in my own world. . . .
“The perception by Democratic candidates — and it’s not the reality — is that it’s just a conservative religious audience,” Brody says at the network’s modern Washington bureau on M Street NW. “My fervent desire is to explain to them that there’s a treasure-trove of people out there waiting to hear from them. They can’t pigeonhole CBN.”
Right. From the Columbia Journalism Review:
Evangelical news looks and sounds much like its secular counterpart, but it homes in on issues of concern to believers and filters events through a conservative lens. In some cases this simply means giving greater weight to the conservative side of the ledger than most media do. In other instances, it amounts to disguising a partisan agenda as news. Likewise, most guests on Christian political talk shows are drawn from a fixed pool of culture warriors and Republican politicians. Even those shows that focus on non-political topics — such as finance, health, or family issues — often weave in political messages. Many evangelical programs and networks are, in fact, linked to conservative Christian political or legal organizations, which use broadcasts to help generate funding and mobilize their base supporters, who are tuning in en masse. Ninety-six percent of evangelicals consume some form of Christian media each month, according to the Barna Research Group.
[…]
CBN’s founder, Pat Robertson, who started this trend in the late 1970s by converting the 700 Club into a 60 Minutes-style magazine, says he originally considered making it a music showcase. But he decided news and talk would bring more viewers. “News provides the crossover between religious and secular, and it bridges the age gap,” he explains. Robertson continues to see news and current affairs as a means to an end. “If you buy a diamond from Tiffany’s the setting is very important,” he says. “To us, the jewel is the message of Jesus Christ. We see news as a setting for what’s most important.”
[…]
Many Christian broadcasters attribute the success of their news operations to the biblical perspective that underpins their reporting in a world made wobbly by terrorist threats and moral relativism. “We don’t just tell them what the news is,” explains Wright of the NRB. “We tell them what it means. And that’s appealing to people, especially in moments of cultural instability.”
Think Progress ended their post with this:
“We’ll be watching to see if a progressive is booked to balance Brody.”
I’m afraid that the only progressive “journalists” who could satisfy that requirement would have to be from The Daily Show.
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Inalienable Dream
by digby
For all those people living lives of quiet desperation in the corporate ghettos, this (via Perlstein) will come as no surprise:
How do people get ahead in the workplace? One way seems to be by making their subordinates miserable, according to a study released Friday.
In the study to be presented at a conference on management this weekend, almost two-thirds of the 240 participants in an online survey said the local workplace tyrant was either never censured or was promoted for domineering ways.
“The fact that 64.2 percent of the respondents indicated that either nothing at all or something positive happened to the bad leader is rather remarkable — remarkably disturbing,” wrote the study’s authors, Anthony Don Erickson, Ben Shaw and Zha Agabe of Bond University in Australia.
Despite their success in the office, spiteful supervisors can cause serious malaise for their subordinates, the study suggested, citing nightmares, insomnia, depression and exhaustion as symptoms of serving a brutal boss.
The authors advocated immediate intervention by industry chiefs to stop fledgling office authoritarians from rising up the ranks.
Hah. This kind of thing is a value in the business world, a sign of “toughness.” A willingness to come through a torturous boot-camp still striving for success at all costs and then turn it on your underlings is what they call being a “team player.”
This stuff is so far off the radar screen of discussions of what it is to work in America it’s as if it’s from a foreign planet. That study can really only be discussed in terms of whether it’s really efficient for a business to operate with a bunch of depressed, traumatized employees, not whether it’s morally decent to reward despicable behavior and treat your fellow humans like lackeys. The boss owns your ass and you do what the boss wants or you quit. If you can…
We talk a lot about “freedom” in America but it has a very restricted meaning in our culture. You can own a gun. But in a million subtle little ways, the average workers in this culture must subject themselves to daily humiliation and accept its soul deadening effect and they aren’t even allowed to complain about it. What choice do most of us have? You have kids, you worry about being able to live like a human being when you are too old to work and your choices narrow anyway. The price you pay in America today for debt, error and risk is very high and getting higher. So you submit. And without the potential of losing employees due to bad treatment, no business feels any real obligation to treat them with respect. Why bother?
To me, it’s all part of the Big Con, as Perlstein would say. The right makes a fetish out of freedom, but in practice they are institutionalizing a different kind of servitude through things like “bankruptcy reform” and union busting and privatization and vetoing of government guaranteed health care. Even this housing bust will no doubt turn out fine for wealthy lenders who will be able to declare corporate bankruptcy, while many ordinary people will not be allowed to walk away at all from their second mortgages or, in some states, their primary mortgage if they go bankrupt. Today, too many people become a prisoner of the American dream, completely trapped in jobs and careers that destroy their humanity and damage their psyches because the risks of doing anything unsafe in our “winner take all” society tie them in knots.
I’m sure there are many people who disagree with this and who believe that if you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps you can move up or out. Some do. But for a large number of people, the psychological break that’s required to be the biggest asshole in the office is too much and entrepreneurial risks of leaving are too high, so they turn into machines, just trying to get through the day and not think too much until they can get home and have a drink or play a video game or just stare into space until they have to get up and do it all over again.
Our culture has become so viciously competitive that even our most sophisticated organizations are operated by little more than the law of the jungle (on the macro as well as the micro level.) This is why we need worker’s rights, universal health care, a decent enforceable work week, reliable retirement programs — all these things allow the average American worker to do more than just survive in the competitive world in which we live. It gives them a chance to pursue happiness, which, last I heard, is still one of the fundamental promises of our nation:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Inalienable, not discretionary. And certainly not at the discretion of a bunch of mid-level bureaucratic tyrants and a system that forces people to indenture themselves for something like health insurance.
Nobody wants to talk about this because it’s somehow “soft” to think that people who don’t work in the fields or factories are suffering. Maybe so. But there are many millions of Americans whose futures are seriously compromised, deeply in debt, filled with fear that they will lose everything because of one wrong word to some sadistic jackass who sits in a corner office. If that’s the middle class American Dream then I’d suggest it’s not worth having.
And, needless to say, when it comes to big boss jackasses, mine owners have always been at the very top of the list.
The president of the Utah mine where six miners are missing has been vocal against more regulation of the coal industry, even going as far as to call Sen. Hillary Clinton “anti-American” for suggesting the nation needed a president who is for workers’ safety.
During an interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto in May, Robert Murray responded to a comment from Clinton, who asked a crowd whether they were ready for a president who is “pro-labor and will appoint people who actually care about workers’ rights and workers’ safety.”
“Bob, do you view this rhetoric as pro-labor, anti-business, what?” Cavuto asked Murray.
“Absolutely not,” Murray responded. “I view it as anti-American. These people should — are misleading the American worker then they talk about jobs. These are the people advocating draconian global warming conditions that are going to drive American jobs to foreign countries and raise electric rates for everybody on fixed incomes.”
[…]
The Mine Safety and Health Administration has cited Murray’s mine in central Utah with more than 300 violations since January 2004, including 118 “significant and substantial” violations that are considered serious enough to cause injury or death.
Murray, who testified against regulation of the energy industry as part of effort to combat global warming, said the changes to the coal industry would cause losses of high-paying mining jobs and would be “extremely destructive” to the nation.
If you didn’t catch him ranting raving on CNN earlier today, try to get a replay. The man would have made an excellent plantation overseer.
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It’s For Our Own Good
by digby
Many thanks to Dover Bitch for filling in while I was gone. This post asked what I thought of the FISA bill and what I think should be done. It’s so depressing it’s hard to write about, but here it is.
I am still trying to figure out what really happened, but the simple answer is that the intelligence community, in the person of Michael McConnell, convinced a non-trivial number of Democrats that the boogeyman was comin’ ta’ kill us all in our beds in August and if they didn’t allow the most incompetent administration in history to have even more power, American deaths could not be prevented.
Yesterday I supported two measures to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. These measures were considered against the backdrop of heightened concerns from our nation’s intelligence community abut the threat of international terrorism. The ramifications of the two amendments before us last night were not political. Instead they related to the urgent demands of national security. I chose to heed those warnings. We now have six months to work in earnest to bring full accountability to the process.
This distinction and the threats to national security were stated clearly by Admiral McConnell as well as four of the eight Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. These members, Senators Feinstein, Mikulski, Bayh, and Bill Nelson, have extensive experience on intelligence matters and are respected champions of civil rights and liberties. They chose to give significant weight and deference to the intelligence community on FISA reform, and so did I.
I believe him. I don’t think it was political. I think he and the others sincerely believes that. And that’s profoundly distressing.
Arthur and some others have recently called me out for being a ridiculous and useful idiot for the Democrats and it’s hard to argue with them. It’s certainly not that I cheerlead them for these police state votes, but it is true that I continue to support Democrats generally. I honestly don’t know what else to do.
I am not by philosophy or temperament a “bring down the state” kind of person and that tends to make me look for reason in unreasonable actions and try to affect change through the political channels that currently exist. Persuasion, education, discussion, blah, blah, blah. And I’m not a naif. I know craven politicians are craven and suspect them of selling out to any number of interests for any number of reasons. So, I’ll tend to try to find ways to change their political calculations under the assumption that they have no real substance to begin with.
In this case,however, I don’t think any of that is true. When it comes to the encroaching police state, the politicians of both parties have shown their true colors and their shirts are a disturbing shade of coffee.
The idea that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi supposedly “allowed” themselves to be punk’d again on a constitutional atrocity with scare stories and slick legislative strategy is indefensible and at some point you have to assume that it isn’t just political malpractice or even spinelessness. When you see this legislation, on the heels of the passage of the Military Commissions atrocity last fall, you cannot escape the conclusion that the Democrats agree with the administration that the government must have unfettered authoritarian power to “keep the country safe.”
Sure, a good many of them voted against it. But the Democrats control the agenda now and no legislation passes without the leadership’s approval in this congress. They approved it. The pander wasn’t to the red staters. It was those who voted against it who were pandering — to us. If the Dems had wanted to stop Reid and Pelosi from putting this atrocity up for a vote they could have. They didn’t.
And not only did they approve it, they refused to pass the bill that everyone agrees was sufficient to update the FISA rules alone and granted the administration its latest power grab instead. What could have been a real debate about who, in fact, is keeping the country safe and free, they turned into a political failure that makes them appear even weaker than before. And in the process of doing this, they were willing to give Alberto Gonzales the power to eavesdrop on his political opponents — themselves. (Considering what we know about what he and others have done at the DOJ, it’s absurd to assume he won’t, isn’t it?)
The powers that have now been legally invested in the executive branch, the military commissions and this new warrantless wiretapping authority, can be used by anyone. That means that on one level at least, the unitary executive theory has found bipartisan acceptance — the fourth amendment is as quaint as the Geneva Conventions. Every single vote along these lines that ostensibly are done to “protect” us, is a step toward the authoritarian power that lies at the heart of Dick Cheney’s wet dream. This has been done with almost no real debate or discussion, since our representatives have chosen to also codify the ridiculous secretiveness that continues to hold that even though we know what we know about this from the front pages of the New York Times, they still can’t discuss it openly. Certainly, they didn’t deem to share with us (again) why there was such a rush after years and years of not moving the uncontroversial aspects of this legislation and ramming through yet another constitutional assault in the dead of night.
After 9/11, you expected overreach. The country was traumatized and the government did not know the extent of the terrorists plans. I didn’t like it, but I understood that in the early days there would be some activities that would have to be re-examined when the smoke cleared and our normal functions would have to be restored. It’s happened before. But we are five years down the road and rather than being repudiated now that we’ve caught our breath, they are being embedded into our new police state apparatus, with the willing cooperation of a Democratic majority.
Here is the question that has never been asked after those horrible weeks in 2001. How much risk are Americans prepared to live with? After 9/11, the leaders of this country used a fleeting sense of panic to inculcate in the nation’s collective mind that the government has a responsibility — and the ability — to literally do everything they conceivably could to prevent another terrorist attack, including usurping some of our most basic freedoms. They presented Islamic terrorism as an existential threat to our nation that was so dire that our country itself was in danger of being “taken over” unless the government had the power to throw out all the constitutional guarantees that we take for granted. “The constitution isn’t a suicide pact,” remember? Everything they did from that point on was sacred and secret — they never looked back. The people, of course, are assumed to be too simple to understand the stakes.
With yet another assault on the constitution dutifully passed, this time with a Democratic majority, I have to say that it’s clear from where the existential threat really comes and it’s a lot closer to home than al-Qaeda. It’s coming from within, from a governing class of both parties who are creating a national security apparatus that is going to end up squeezing the lifeblood of liberty right out of this country — all in the name of keeping us safe.
They treat us like children, never asking our permission, assuming that we are so desperate to be “safe” from the boogeyman that we just want to crawl up in Big Brother’s big ole lap and snuggle up for a long sleep while they take care of all the “bad guys.”
Welcome to Americaland, a Freedom Theme Park Corporation, where Daddy says if you are innocent you have nothing to worry about.
* For a terrific sense of how insane this legislation really is, check out the lying sack of garbage who defended it on last night’s Newshour. It is one of the most shameless, in-your-face, youcanbelievemeoryoucanbeliveyourlyin’eyes, performances I’ve seen in some time. The expert who was arguing the sane side, was so non-plussed by his blatant lies that she was reduced to sputtering that he couldn’t have read the actual legislation.
I’m so proud that the Democrats felt that it was a good thing for the country that they align themselves with fascist gasbags like this man. I feel so fucking safe I can hardly breathe.
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Who Are We?
by digby
For a variety of reasons, time mostly, I did not have a chance until today to really catch up on the news and see what was going on in the world, much less how the media had interpreted the Yearly Kos convention, so sorry for the dearth of posts.
First, the gathering was very enjoyable. For such a vituperative, angry mob of leftist revolutionaries, you all sure are a bunch of cuddly huggers. (It was lovely and I enjoyed meeting every one of you.)
I have to say that I was a little bit non-plussed by this article in the Washington Post today saying that it was nothing but a bunch of middle aged white men. It reminded me of a scene from the HBO show “Six Feet Under” where Kathy Bates takes her recently widowed pal into a department store for some recreational shop-lifting, chiding her for not fully taking advantage of the fact that middle aged women are completely invisible. Perhaps being a member of that contingent myself, I noticed that there were a great many of them present at this convention (and I think I hugged every one of them.) They were present in large numbers at every event I attended, listening attentively and asking probing questions. Next year maybe we can all wear bells or something so the press will know we’re there.
So, there’s that. I also mingled and drank with a passel of gay men and women of all ages. I was on a panel with James Rucker of Color of Change and sat with several African American bloggers during one of the workshops. I had a long conversation about immigration with a latino blogger. So, except for the rather surprisingly large number of DC journo-wonko-politico professionals, it wasn’t a Dockers-clad monolith by any means.
Still, this was a predominately white and middle aged crowd, even among the attendees. But that’s because it cost a bundle to go to this thing and middle aged white people are the most likely to have both the freedom and the cash to spend on hotels and expensive meals without an expense account. If you are young and have a normal job, they frown on letting you run off to “do your thing” during the work week, even if you can afford it. If you have young kids it’s a big deal to get away for a short time and you might just think something other than an arid convention hall would be a better place to spend your money and time with your family. (Convention day care might be a thought — maybe some trips to the zoo while mom and dad watch the political animals?) And of course, people of color are perpetually on the fringe of the mainstream political conversation and also likely to be feeling the financial pressure, so they were underrepresented and we need to think about how to change that.
But I think we might also need to open our eyes and really see what’s around us and where we can go with it. Ezra went to a lot of panels and hung out with the wonks (as I would expect him to do) and he found that the convention was completely different than the one I experienced — the netroots are a bunch of wonks! Ed Kilgore found a bunch of moderate Democrats. I found a bunch of enlightened readers and fellow bloggers who like to drink beer. Is it possible that we’re all right? I think maybe so…
The netroots as a whole don’t normally organize ourselves around the normal social signifiers or political alliances. We can’t. Online identity is a strange and amorphous thing anyway, and the desire to participate in politics doing it cannot be easily analyzed by the usual human shorthand. We just don’t know enough about why and how people really use this thing to make sweeping judgments about what we really “mean,” certainly not based upon a conference that only a very small segment of the netroots attended, (many of whom are paid political professionals of one kind or another.)
That conference, fun as it might be, is a tiny, tiny corner of the netroots universe and I don’t think should be used as a proxy for anything in the larger movement. The only way I can see that the netroots really organize at this point, is around a common world view. It’s not policy or personality or even party. It’s about how we see our role as citizens and how we think our society and government should work. Wonk work is necessary to sort all that out into coherent programs and political agendas, of course. Real life organizing is required to turn this energy into votes. Communicating ideas and critiquing the political scene is necessary to educate and learn. But none of those things defines what’s going on here in any precise way. The best I can do is say that it is (for most people outside the professional political sphere anyway) an empowering, social and political movement that has the potential to rearrange the way we normally build coalitions. (Not exactly a bumper sticker, is it?)
I don’t honestly know how diverse this group is in the usual terms. I’m sure it is lacking, due to the fact that this technology has been largely the province of the middle aged white people until fairly recently. But I also believe that this netroots world view holds that divergent cultural and ethnic identities strengthen our country and our politics. I fully expect that the future of the netroots will include the full spectrum of progressive America.
And we’ll all be {{}}ing like crazy.
Update: Jane has some thoughts on this too, unsurprisingly.
Update II: I’m feeling quite under the weather today and so this post is not my best. Jerri in the comments found some of the things I wrote to be racist and I want to apologize. I would like to believe that my work over the years would give me some credibility on these issues, but ultimately you are only as good as your last post.
I only meant to use the fact that I sat with African American bloggers to illustrate that, contrary to the WaPo article, there were African Americans at the conference. I see now that it appeared that it was being “very white” of me to say that I shared my exalted space. On a better day, I would have caught that.
I also said that we need to work on diversity, meaning all of us together, not that “we” the white people, should give it a thought or two after cocktails at the club some day. I should have spent more time developing that part of the post, but I lost the thread. It ended up sounding like an afterthought, which again, was not my intention.
Like I said, it’s a bad post. I’m not feeling well, so please take everything in it with a grain of salt. I didn’t mean to insult anyone.
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GOP soothsayers
by Dover Bitch
Josh Marshall picks up on a key Ron Paul moment in Sunday’s debate:
It’s sort of obvious now that he said it. But I had not quite thought of it that way. The same people now continually raising the stakes on the price of redeployment from Iraq with increasingly lurid tales of genocide, ethnic cleansing and regional implosion are pretty much exactly the same people who gamed us into this mess in the first place with another bunch of fairy tales.
It is — and has been — obvious. Outside the GOP base, the people who dreamed up this nightmare have no credibility, whatsoever. Even if someone had the ability to accurately predict the future of Iraq, why would anyone think these people could? They’ve already demonstrated they possess the opposite of ESP.
Paul is right to mention Vietnam, the last example of a prophesied domino effect that was never to be. Somehow, nothing quells the war mongers’ imaginations, though, when it comes to impending doom. The Washington Times’ Tony Blankley delivered the ultimate domino rant on KCRW’s Left, Right & Center back in January:
Nobody can predict. But an awful lot of experts who are not supporters of the president think there’s a high likelihood that if civil war breaks out completely and were not there to contain it in any way, that Turkey will get sucked into Kurdistan, that Syria will be lapping over to support the Shias, that the Saudis, Egyptians and other Sunni countries will be giving more and more support to the beleaguered Sunni 20 percent. And in the middle of all this of course is little Israel, which according to the London Times last week, a paper of some repute having been in business for a few centuries, that they have a plan, not that they’re necessarily planning to execute, they have a plan to use nuclear weapons to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Now, you can’t… you know, plus 19 million barrels of oil flowing through the Hormuz Straights, keeping the world’s economy functioning, all in jeopardy, the Saudi oil fields, which are unfortunately for the Saudis or those Sunni country, the Shias happen to live on the Saudi oil, the danger there… so that is the most flammable possible setting.
Amazing how nobody in the White House Iraq Group or any of the president’s supporters ever considered that a possibility before the invasion. At least, they never said as much. Some, like Jonah Goldberg, weren’t too concerned:
Obviously, Saddam’s overthrow could destabilize the region, but since when is stability the highest standard for American foreign policy? Destabilizing a stable system of cruelty and oppression sounds pretty good to me. We’re all for destabilizing the mob, right?
Excellent analysis. Of course, Goldberg is now using the potential for post-departure chaos as a rhetorical weapon against the left:
Liberals used to be the ones who argued that sending U.S. troops abroad was a small price to pay to stop genocide; now they argue that genocide is a small price to pay to bring U.S. troops home.
Nobody is making the argument Goldberg assigns to liberals and, beyond that, there’s little reason to believe our current strategy in Iraq is sustainable.
But let’s face it, nobody who said this can claim to truly care about the Iraqis:
Q: If you’re the leader of a peaceful and prosperous nation which serves as the last best hope of humanity and the backbone of international stability and a bunch of fanatics murder thousands of your people on your own soil, what’s one of the smartest thing you can do?
A: Knock the crap out of Iraq.
Why Iraq? Well, there are two answers to that question.
The first answer is “Why not?” (If it helps, think of Bluto burping “Why not?” in Animal House.)
The second answer: Iraq deserved it.
Now. Here’s the important part: Both of these are good answers.
More compassion from Goldberg:
“In the weeks prior to the war to liberate Afghanistan, a good friend of mine would ask me almost every day, “Why aren’t we killing people yet?” And I never had a good answer for him. Because one of the most important and vital things the United States could do after 9/11 was to kill people.”
The people who support this war don’t care about the Iraqi death tolls. They’re not motivated by any kind of real fear for the Iraqis’ well-being. Of the millions displaced, only a few hundred have been allowed into the United States. The Iraqis are second-class citizens in their own country. Instead of concern for any Iraqis who might have been abused, the Right attacks anybody who alleges misconduct. They attack the credibility of any serious efforts to quantify the loss of Iraqi lives.
I’ll not be lectured on compassion or history by any of them. But my point is that, aside from their cataractous crystal balls and pathological lack of empathy, the proponents of this debacle all have ample motives to push this looming-crisis meme, even if they don’t actually believe it (assuming they even bothered to consider its validity as opposed to marketability).
We hear about the risks of leaving, but the risk of staying is clear. Every single day our troops are in Iraq, they are an unfortunate incident away from triggering a war with Iran. Thanks to the Lieberman Amendment passed a few weeks ago, our troops now have a Congressional mandate to increase their potential interaction with Iran. The last thing the PNAC signatories want to see happen is our troops leaving that powder keg. Anything they say to dissuade our egress should be viewed through that lens.
And for whatever GOP dead-enders there are whose thirst for blood is nearly quenched, there has to be a set-up for the “I told you so” that will inevitably come with every death after we walk. The “party of surrender” must be held to account for every problem that ensues after the order to leave is signed. The GOP enablers who allowed Bush to turn Iraq into the mess it is today won’t be satisfied until they pin all the responsibility on the liberals.
Could the Iraqis suffer more if we leave? It’s a possibility. But they don’t want us there and the fools who started this war and the lunatics who want to expand it just can’t be taken seriously when the question is debated.
Vote ’em out
by Dover Bitch
Digby is in transit from Yearly Kos and it is unfortunate because today is one of many that I would be refreshing this page to see what she has to say.
I’ve really got nothing. Nothing that hasn’t already been said by Glenn Greenwald, Meteor Blades or Jack Balkin.
There’s really as little to add to all that as there is life left in our Constitution at this point. Personally, I thought this part was pretty good while it lasted:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The Democrats have seriously alienated a significant portion of their base and they will not replace those voters with the Fox News viewers they sought to appease. It’s not easy to win an argument (if it’s possible at all) against people who claim there’s no difference between the parties. Right now, the results are the same as they were seven months ago.
The goal, however, has to be to change the composition of the Democratic Party. There is no alternative that has a better chance of success. The only other choice is to give up. Why do that?
We need better Democrats. There are too many right now who are totally worthless.
UPDATE: Howie Klein, as usual, is providing solutions.
Saturday Night At The Movies
Bless CC and its Vanilla Suburbs
By Dennis Hartley
“Wake up, goddammit!” As far as daybreak salutations go, that may not be as sanguine as, let’s say, “goooood morning, Vietnaaam!”, but for D.C. radio personality Ralph “Petey” Greene, it was all part of “keepin’ it real” for the better part of two decades. In the new biopic, “Talk to Me”, director Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) tackles the true story of the ex-con who became an immensely popular DJ, community activist, comedian and TV show host in the Washington D.C. market from the mid 1960s up until his death in 1984. Don Cheadle (who co-produced) delivers another amazing performance…and it’s a good thing too, because it is the saving grace in a film that might otherwise play out like a glorified episode of “WKRP in Cincinnati” (more on that later).
His portrayal of the fast-talking, streetwise Greene grabs your attention from the get go, as we find Greene working his first DJ gig-broadcasting live and direct from the warden’s office over a jailhouse P.A. system. Judging from his fellow inmates’ reactions, it becomes clear that Greene has a natural gift, not only for being hugely entertaining, but perfectly articulating what his audience is thinking as well. In 1966, Greene is released, and through a series of machinations (and sheer chutzpah) manages to ingratiate himself with Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor), program director of D.C. “soul” station WOL. Against his better judgment, Hughes puts his job on the line and gives the motor-mouthed hustler a shot in the air chair. Greene’s on-air debut is dramatized in a somewhat apocryphal manner (did he really open the mike and refer to Berry Gordy as a “pimp” right out of the starting gate, much to Management’s chagrin?) but the scene is adequately representational of a pivotal point in radio history where some DJs were transitioning from the Wolfman Jack/Murray the K/Cousin Brucie school to becoming “real” personalities with an actual world view.
Before long, Greene’s daily delivery of candid ruminations on the social issues of the day and the urban black experience in general strikes a chord with the D.C. radio audience. Dewey Hughes soon senses an even larger potential for Greene to parlay his talents into stand up comedy and TV as well, offering to manage his career (when I watched the reenactment of Greene’s D.C. TV talk show, I couldn’t help but wonder if Greene was the inspiration for Chris Rock’s recurring SNL character “Nat X”; right down to the lingo, the dashiki, the giant ‘fro and the oversized rattan chair!).
The film’s most powerful scene arrives on the night of Martin Luther King’s assassination, which became the catalyst for Greene’s social activism. Cheadle really gets to show off his considerable acting chops to full effect in this segment. Unfortunately, the final third of the film descends into the type of standard biopic clichés that have sunk other potentially great films (“Bird” and “Ray” come to mind). Haven’t we sat through enough of these tired “Behind the Music” story arcs? I would have liked to have seen a bit more attention to detail in the depiction of the radio station milieu. Let me confess upfront that this is a pet peeve because I have worked in the radio business since 1974, so I tend to get nitpicky about technical inaccuracies (don’t worry, I won’t bore you with itemized minutiae about equipment and studio layouts!). Oh, and by the way-if I see one more movie set at a radio station that features a scene where a DJ defiantly barricades himself inside the studio and continues to talk while Management and/or security guards struggle to force the door open, I’ll rip off my headphones and run screaming into the sunset. It just doesn’t happen (that often).
I want to stress however, that the film is worth watching for two major reasons. Cheadle and Ejiofor. They are both tremendously charismatic and talented actors, demonstrating an onscreen chemistry that I think could turn them into a Newman-Redford sized juggernaut, should they decide to work together again (with some better scripts, I hope). There are some good supporting performances worth mentioning, particularly from Taraji P. Henson, who portrays Greene’s long suffering girlfriend, Vernell Watson, with much aplomb (and a nod to Pam Grier). Cedric the Entertainer hams it up rather amusingly as late night DJ “Nighthawk” Bob Terry (recalling Venus Flytrap on “WKRP”). I’m sad to say that Martin Sheen is squandered as the cartoonish GM, who gets to fume and sputter and pound on the studio window whenever Greene’s antics get too risqué and scream cornball lines like “What in the blue blazes do you think you’re doing!?” I thought I would sign off this week by handing the mike over to Petey himself: “I’ll tell it to the hot, I’ll tell it to the cold, I’ll tell it to the young, I’ll tell it to the old, I don’t want no laughin’, I don’t want no cryin’, and most of all, no signifyin’. Achtt! This is Petey Greene’s Washington.” Amen.
Radio, Radio: FM, American Hot Wax, Talk Radio, Private Parts, Good Morning Vietnam, Play Misty for Me, Comfort & Joy, Choose Me, Amy’s Orgasm, Pump up the Volume, Times Square, Left of the Dial, Voice Over (1983), The Fisher King, Vanishing Point, Down by Law, The King of Marvin Gardens, Grosse Pointe Blank, Radio On, American Graffiti, Radio Days, A Prairie Home Companion, WUSA
