Month: August 2008

Furriners

by digby

On Sunday Cokie Roberts implied that Hawaii was too foreign and exotic for Obama to vacation there and suggested that he should go to Myrtle Beach. Today, Nancy Pelosi says that she’s changing her stance on drilling and this is what she gets from her Republican colleagues:

REP. LYNN WESTMORELAND (R), GEORGIA: She’s elected by the San Francisco mentality. And I think most of the American people, no matter whether you live in Ohio, North Carolina, Minnesota, or Georgia, or wherever would understand that her constituency is a little left of where this country is.

This is really starting to annoy me. Saying “San Francisco mentality” and derisively calling someone “a French-speaking socialist from Boston, Massaschusetts,” and refering to Hawaii as “foreign” is considered completely appropriate for public discourse in this country. They issue these little bon mots in a derisive tone, suggesting that anyplace that votes in a somewhat liberal fashion (even though they often vote Republican too) is somehow unAmerican. And yes, I realize that there are liberals who are rude and dismissive of Southerners, but you don’t hear it coming from politicians or media figures. They wouldn’t dare say anything like this about Mississippi or South Carolina in public.

This is nasty stuff and it’s one reason why I’m so skeptical of this new commitment to comity and reaching across the aisle. It’s hard for me to see how we can feel any confidence that they will negotiate in good faith. Republicans don’t consider liberals to even be Americans — and the media and a good portion of the Democratic party agree with them.

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The Scooter Effect

by digby

I can’t tell you how shocked I am:

Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Tuesday rejected the idea of criminally prosecuting former Justice Department employees who improperly used political litmus tests in hiring decisions, saying he had already taken strong internal steps in response to a “painful” episode.

Two recent reports from the Justice Department inspector general and its internal ethics office have found that about a half-dozen officials at the Justice Department — all but one now gone — systematically rejected candidates with perceived “liberal” backgrounds for what were supposed to be non-political jobs and sought out conservative Republicans.

In a speech Tuesday morning to the American Bar Association in New York, Mr. Mukasey acknowledged that some critics and commentators have called on the Justice Department to take what he called “more drastic steps” in dealing with the scandal, including prosecuting those at fault and firing those hired through flawed procedures.

“Where there is enough evidence to charge someone with a crime, we vigorously prosecute,” he said. “But not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime,” he said. As the inspector general’s report acknowledged, the hiring violations were such a case, because the wrongdoing violated federal civil service law, but not criminal law, he said.

“That does not mean, as some people have suggested, that those officials who were found by the joint reports to have committed misconduct have suffered no consequences,” Mr. Mukasey said. “Far from it. The officials most directly implicated in the misconduct left the Department to the accompaniment of substantial negative publicity.

“Their misconduct has now been laid bare by the Justice Department for all to see,” he continued. “As a general matter in such cases, where disciplinary referrals are appropriate, they are made. To put it in concrete terms, I doubt that anyone in this room would want to trade places with any of those people.”

Somehow, I think these folks will be well taken care of by corporate America or wingnut welfare, don’t you? “Negative publicity” from the liberal media is a badge of honor. In fact, in their circles, they are heroes. Like Scooter Libby.

That is not to say that there won’t be a crackdown on any such activity under a Democratic administration. If the Obama justice department tries to fire anyone, even if they are found to be sending private emails directly to Karl Rove, they will be accused of “partisanship” and there will be a volcanic wingnut hissy fit. The safest jobs in the US government are now for right wing, social conservative non-political appointees and civil servants.

The Democrats have achieved the worst of both worlds: conservatives will pay no price for the blatant politicization of the government during the Bush administration and the Democrats will be powerless to clean house once the government is in their hands. That worked out well.

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Trojan Donkeys

by digby

I hear that members of the Religion Industrial Complex are taking credit for the abortion plank in the platform, even as they are vowing to change it. (Apparently, they want more emphasis on the “Juno Option” and want to restore the pithy “safe, legal and rare” language and insert some sort of “conscience clause” which will no doubt imply that people who are pro-choice are without conscience.) But nonetheless, they are crowing that they are responsible for the language about reducing poverty for women and supporting maternal care (which is quite a stretch considering that those policies been a mainstay of Democratic politics for decades.)

If we were dealing with people who were operating in good faith (no pun intended) and a media that wasn’t completely brain dead on these issues,I would consider it a victory. If religious leaders like Jim Wallis want to take credit for feminist initiatives, then that’s probably something we should let them do if it means bringing more people over to the liberal agenda. Welcome to the big tent. But sadly, I don’t believe for a minute that that’s the intention and neither do I think it will bring over anyone who has previously rejected the Democratic party on religious grounds. Unless they’ve been in a cave for the last few decades, anyone who cares about alleviating poverty for women enough to vote on the issue is already a Democrat. It’s clear that these political operatives are trying to leverage their alleged constituency (which they lied about delivering in 2004 and 2006) in order to give themselves a seat at the table from which to push anti-abortion policy.

I am sure they are sincere about alleviating poverty for women. And I’m sure they are sincere about wanting to provide services for those women who opt for the “Juno Option.” But I am equally sure that they want to make abortion illegal. They do not say otherwise. They are using this promise of millions of evangelical votes to gain clout within the party. And they are pros at using the prevailing media misunderstandings about religion’s dominance in the political system to spin their influence as being determinative in elections.

Meanwhile, the right conveniently attacks the problem from the other direction. From “HuckPac” (which I have to say makes me giggle each time I see it — especially when it’s accompanies by a “family values” message.)

We now know he voted against the state equivalent (in the committee which he chaired) of the federally passed “Born Alive Infants Protection Act.” To put that in perspective, the House and Senate of the U.S. Congress voted unanimously six years ago to pass it and not even NARAL campaigned against it. Yet Barack Obama did in the Illinois legislature.

If you are a pro-life conservative, this vote is chilling. We cannot risk an Obama presidency and we certainly cannot risk a Democrat President and Democrat Congress working together to pass an anti-life agenda. This is why Huck PAC’s mission is to help elect strong pro-life Representatives and Senators that will fight back against the Democrats’ extreme anti-life agenda. Candidates like Luke Puckett, John Cornyn, Jim Inhofe, Sam Graves and many more. Candidates unafraid to embrace the principles of their faith and fight for these ideas in the Congress. Life is a cornerstone issue. I will continue to fight for it. I will continue to campaign for candidates who will fight for it. We cannot, we must not tire in our support for pro-life candidates. Today I urge you to make a contribution to Huck PAC of $10 or more in support of Life. Fighting For Our Values,

Mike Huckabee

The left and the right pincers of the anti-abortion movement are slowly squeezing together.

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Neocon Train To Georgia

by digby

It would appear that the Russian crisis is winding down. I guess Putin proved that you don’t want to mess with Moscow. (Maybe Bush really did see into his soul — and saw himself.)

Whether or not the US encouraged or discouraged both parties remains obscure. This article, (which dday also links in his discussion below) indicates that some members of the Bush administration are putting out the word that they didn’t encourage Georgia, but rather discouraged them — and anyway, they thought Russia would only “crack a few heads” in Osettia, and that would be that. Others continue to to believe that the US was encouraging Georgia with promises of support. As with so many things in the Bush administration the truth will emerge sometime down the road and it will probably be even worse than the current speculation.

But one thing seems to me to be a sure thing. Yesterday, I wrote that whatever the cause of the crisis and whatever the US involvement, you could see the outlines of a neocon propaganda program taking place before our eyes. And here we go:

Robert Kagan: War in Georgia is just Putin’s first step

The details of who did what to precipitate Russia’s war against Georgia are not very important. Do you recall the precise details of the Sudeten Crisis that led to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia? Of course not, because that morally ambiguous dispute is rightly remembered as a minor part of a much bigger drama.

The events of the past week will be remembered that way, too. This war did not begin because of a miscalculation by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. It is a war that Moscow has been attempting to provoke for some time. The man who once called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the (20th) century” has re-established a virtual czarist rule in Russia and is trying to restore the country to its once-dominant role in Eurasia and the world. Armed with wealth from oil and gas; holding a near-monopoly over the energy supply to Europe; with a million soldiers, thousands of nuclear warheads and the world’s third-largest military budget, Vladimir Putin believes that now is the time to make his move.

[…]

Putin has been determined to stop and, if possible, reverse the pro-Western trend on his borders. He seeks not only to prevent Georgia and Ukraine from joining NATO but also to bring them under Russian control. Beyond that, he seeks to carve out a zone of influence within NATO, with a lesser security status for countries along Russia’s strategic flanks. That is the primary motive behind Moscow’s opposition to U.S. missile defense programs in Poland and the Czech Republic.

His war against Georgia is part of this grand strategy. Putin cares no more about a few thousand South Ossetians than he does about Kosovo’s Serbs. Claims of pan-Slavic sympathy are pretexts designed to fan Russian great-power nationalism at home and to expand Russia’s power abroad.

Unfortunately, such tactics always seem to work. While Russian bombers attack Georgian ports and bases, Europeans and Americans, including very senior officials in the Bush administration, blame the West for pushing Russia too hard on too many issues.

[…]

Diplomats in Europe and Washington believe Saakashvili made a mistake by sending troops to South Ossetia last week. Perhaps. But his truly monumental mistake was to be president of a small, mostly democratic and adamantly pro-Western nation on the border of Putin’s Russia.

Historians will come to view Aug. 8, 2008, as a turning point no less significant than Nov. 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell.

Russia’s attack on sovereign Georgian territory marked the official return of history, indeed to an almost 19th-century style of great-power competition, complete with virulent nationalisms, battles for resources, struggles over spheres of influence and territory, and even — though it shocks our 21st-century sensibilities — the use of military power to obtain geopolitical objectives. Yes, we will continue to have globalization, economic interdependence, the European Union and other efforts to build a more perfect international order.

But these will compete with and at times be overwhelmed by the harsh realities of international life that have endured since time immemorial. The next president had better be ready.

Can you feel his excitement at the idea of fighting the Russians again? These are worthy enemies, unlike that pissant Saddam or those half-assed terrorists. Why if we play our cards right we can have WWXXIVII (we must be up to that by now, right?) with both Russia and China, just like their adolescent wet dreams.

The neocons think very long term and always rigidly refuse to change their analysis no matter what the facts or circumstances dictate. Even the fall of the Soviet Union wasn’t enough to change their view, not really. Everyone remembers that in 1992, Paul Wolfowitz famously wrote a defense document that reemerged as the neocon PNAC manifesto “Rebuilding America’s Defenses.” That original document contained a plan to repel a Russian military assault on a former republic:

Senior Defense Department officials have said the document will be issued by Defense Secretary Cheney this month. According to a Feb. 18 memorandum from Mr. Wolfowitz’s deputy, Dale A. Vesser, the policy guidance will be issued with a set of “illustrative” scenarios for possible future foreign conflicts that might draw United States military forces into combat.

These scenarios, issued separately to the military services on Feb. 4, were detailed in a New York Times article last month. They postulated regional wars against Iraq and North Korea, as well as a Russian assault on Lithuania and smaller military contingencies that United States forces might confront in the future.

I believe that this event in Georgia will become the crucible for the long awaited Russian portion of their program. If John McCain becomes president he will be happy to lead the charge, despite the fact that he has not been a traditional neocon. For him, all wars are good, but as a conservative, fighting the evil empire was his life’s most important work. As he’s shown in this crisis, he is happy to be as bellicose and as aggressive as any neocon would ever want.

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The Power Of Not Being Reviled

by dday

So Russia starts bombing targets inside Georgia, the United States huffs and puffs to no avail. Then French President Sarkozy hops on Easyjet and stops off in Moscow, and within a matter of hours, in fact just after he lands, Russia calls a cease-fire.

MOSCOW — President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia announced Tuesday that he had ordered a halt to his country’s military operation in Georgia, although he did not say that troops were pulling out and he insisted that Russian forces were still authorized to fire on enemies in South Ossetia.

The president said Russia had achieved its military goals during five days of intense fighting, which has seen Russian troops advance into Georgian territory and which brought strong denunciations from President Bush and other Western leaders.

Now, there are scattered reports of continued fighting here and there. And Sarkozy was just beginning cease-fire talks and didn’t exactly provoke this. But basically, what you have is a country that maintains good relations and holds a little thing called influence, and another country that has, well, nothing of the kind.

I should note that, according to Jonathan Landay at McClatchy, (h/t K-Drum) we begged Saakashvili not to attack Georgia (which I don’t totally believe) and we “had an understanding” with the Russians that they would limit themselves to fighting in South Ossetia and not beyond those borders. That’s just kind of stupid, to expect the Russians not to want to dominate their sphere of influence.

UPDATE: Here’s the smartest take on reconciling the Landay article about US entreaties to Georgia, from Robert Farley:

The other possibility is that the Americans said different things than the Georgians heard. This happens ALL THE TIME in international politics; motivated bias on the part of Saakashvili may have led him to believe that the Americans were making encouraging noises, because he wanted to believe that the Americans were encouraging him. Indeed, this would go a long way to explaining how the Georgians were certain of US support, despite the fact that there was no compelling reason for the Americans to give support.

That sounds right to me. Of course, it could also be standard “nobody could have anticipated ass-covering.

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Just For Fun

by digby

I’ve often posted emails from a rightwinger who calls himself “The Intellectual Republican” and sends around his thoughts on various issues. This one is about Princeton sociologist Larry M Bartels’ important book about income inequality, Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age

From June Cleaver To Madonna

This book is yet another socialist tome from the 1960’s hippie, university mono-culture. The entire point: democracy should produce equal economic results, is wholly anti-American. If the Constitution had said that the goal of democracy was to affect equal economic outcomes throughout our society the theme of the book would have been perfectly compatible with America. But, for some reason, our founders, who created the greatest, wealthiest country in the history of humanity, forgot that little detail in the Constitution. In fact, it seems not to have occurred to anybody until Karl Marx conjured it up out of a deranged mind that eventually could be held directly responsible for impoverishing 100’s of millions and killing 100-200 million people. Despite the deadly failure of every socialist gov’t since Marx, the university mono-culture still imagines that its’ wisdom can perfect the socialist formula in America even as the billions in Russia, China, and India turn toward the capitalism that our founders miraculously gave us, and away from the socialism that Marx gave them.

One can only wonder how liberals are so blind to what is happening so obviously right under their own noses. Recently, I had dinner with a friend who suggested a Republican understanding of America different from the one commonly suggested by university liberals. She teaches elementary school in the South Bronx. She told me about how some of her students had recently immigrated from Bangladesh where just 2 weeks before the start of the semester they had lived, literally, outside; with no modern conveniences including electricity, toilets, or running water. But somehow, she said, those students were performing better than native Americans who were born in the South Bronx. How could this be? The answer is simple: the South Bronx is the most liberal place on earth. Native American kids bring that culture with them to school. They feel the liberal, Marxist, Democratic entitlement attitude in their souls. In their souls they are victims or the children of victims who are entitled to have their needs met by their victimizers. Why should they work hard in school when Marx instructed them long ago: “to each according to his needs”.

Conversely, the Bangladeshi kids have the American, colonialist, capitalist attitude. They and their families are thrilled to be free in a capitalist country where they can create and enjoy their own lives based on what they can provide for themselves, not based on what they are “entitled” to from more productive people. Serendipitously, in a capitalist system, to provide for oneself one has to, firstly, provide more for other people. Hence, capitalism has produced the greatest wealth for all, although not the same quantity of wealth for all at any given time. After all, some have just arrived from Bangladesh, and some who arrived a long ago are just liberals.

Additionally, the author bemoans the loss of union jobs in America. To the author, it is intuitively obvious that unions jobs are good jobs because they are higher paying jobs that, accordingly, result in more equal democracy. Completely and wholly lost is the idea that in a free,wealthy, capitalist society one should get wages or prices that other free people agree to pay for one’s goods and services since other people provide an impartial point of view about what goods and services, at what prices, actually constitute a standard of living improvement for the purchaser. When liberal professors or socialist gov’t bureaucrats makes those choices they choose wrong and standards of living go down, rather than up, as history has repeatedly shown us.

The liberal, union principle is that one gets whatever one can by blackmailing one’s employer for higher wages. Forgotten is that, 1) everyone, including union members, must then pay more for expensive union made goods, thereby eliminating any net gain, 2) blackmail, rather than greater productivity, as a means to get ahead, diminishes an individual’s, company’s, and economy’s focus on productivity, competitiveness, and wealth creation, 3) non-union companies and countries will have lower prices and more competitive products so that unionized companies will ultimately go bankrupt and cost the blackmailing union members their jobs.

For example, American liberals now seems poised to lose GM, Ford, and Chrysler and the millions of jobs that they directly and indirectly provide, in large part because of unions. So why on earth do university liberals still imagine that unions and socialism are a good thing? The answer is that it is only way for them to participate in a free capitalist society that functions very precisely and well without their irrelevant academic disportment. They can come up with childlike and absurd new theories and arguments to promote old fashioned socialism, and try to foist them upon us, but in the end they can’t educate one child in the South Bronx or produce one competitive automobile.

If equality is the real issue, why do the top 1%, under Bush, now have to pay 40% (up from 32% prior to Bush) of all Federal Taxes? Why do the poor get free health care and education through high-school, in addition to numerous other entitlements, without which their lives would not be sustainable? Why did Bush introduce the first $2 Trillion budget and then the first $3 Trillion budget if not to help the poor in America? Why did Bush introduce the Prescription Drug Bill – the costliest entitlement since the 1960’s – if not to help the poor? The issue isn’t that the poor need more economic democracy, it’s that liberals (some of whom are truckling or confused Republicans) have declared war on the poor with their caring, preposterous, and counterproductive programs. The liberal attitude toward education and unions constitute two of the many battles in the liberal war against the poor.

At another time one might mention how liberal, hip hop, feminist, welfare culture destroyed the idea of love and family in poor America by replacing June Cleaver with Britney Spears and Madonna so that most kids are now born single impoverished mothers, but that’s another battle in the liberal war on the poor that, again, would only be exacerbated by “economic democracy.”

I feel so dirty.

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What’s The Matter With Georgia

by digby

This situation is very difficult to unravel, but at this moment it appears that the Georgians miscalculated and the Russians are using it as an excuse to overthrow the Georgian government — or at least inflict some terrible pain on the country.

Matt Yglesias, at his new digs at Think Progress, has predictably been making some sharp observations (just scroll down — and say hi.) He points to this very troubling piece by Fred Kaplan in Slate:

It’s heartbreaking, but even more infuriating, to read so many Georgians quoted in the New York Times—officials, soldiers, and citizens—wondering when the United States is coming to their rescue. It’s infuriating because it’s clear that Bush did everything to encourage them to believe that he would. When Bush (properly) pushed for Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, Putin warned that he would do the same for pro-Russian secessionists elsewhere, by which he could only have meant Georgia’s separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Putin had taken drastic steps in earlier disputes over those regions—for instance, embargoing all trade with Georgia—with an implicit threat that he could inflict far greater punishment. Yet Bush continued to entice Saakashvili with weapons, training, and talk of entry into NATO. Of course the Georgians believed that if they got into a firefight with Russia, the Americans would bail them out.

Yglesias adds:

This highlights, I think, some of the limits of the kind of bluff-and-bluster approach to foreign policy that seems popular among conservatives these days. Or, rather, it highlights the fact that popular as bluster-based policymaking is on the American right it can have some extremely high costs and that, tragically, a large proportion of those costs can wind up being borne by the people who were nominally supposed to be the beneficiaries.

When I read the Kaplan piece I couldn’t help but be reminded of the fallout from Gulf War I, when Poppy’s promises were met with blank looks during the Shia uprising. It was horrible for the Iraqis. It was a great benefit, however, to the neoconservatives who pimped that story for years as some sort of failure of American honor which led to … well, you know.

If Bush, Cheney and their oil buddies (they only seem to get really excited these days when there’s a bunch of oil or pipelines at stake) have been making promises the US can’t keep, it only serves to create a sort of martyr cause for them to use down the road. In fact, it’s possible that’s the whole point. Push for NATO, push for military involvement, push for permanent presence. That seems to be the neoconservative longterm energy plan —- rule the world. Same as it ever was.

Oh, and the conservos should probably soft peddle the self-righteous screeching about how the Russians broke the law and invaded for the purpose of “regime change” and occupation. I’m pretty sure we recently trademarked that particular move.

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It’s Time To Talk About Katrina

by dday

There’s been a lot of reflection on the fact that Barack Obama’s nomination as the Democratic Party’s candidate for President will fall on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. But there’s another, more recent milestone associated with the late August time frame. The day after August 28, 2008 will be the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, and the third anniversary of the catastrophic levee failure that caused a man-made disaster in one of America’s great cities.

The aftermath of Katrina and Gulf Coast reconstruction has been confined to the outer edges of the Presidential election debate, if it has any presence at all. This is hauntingly familiar to me. In May 2004, the Abu Ghraib pictures first reached the public eye, and after the round of assurances that they were the work of “a few bad apples,” the issue receded, and the Democratic nominee remained silent about it for the duration of the fall campaign. Abu Ghraib (and to a lesser extent, Enron) was the Great Unmentionable of the 2004 Election. I’m sure you can come up with a thousand reasons why, but a lot of them went to this pervasive myth that Democrats didn’t want to insult the military when their nominee was running on his military record. Never mind that we now know that Abu Ghraib and other torture scandals came directly out of the White House and were often carried out by contractors and the CIA.

I’m seeing Katrina become the Abu Ghraib of 2008, and there’s undeniably a racial component to that. We have a disaster that completely discredits conservative theories of governance, but because it disproportionately affected poor black people in New Orleans, our African-American nominee, who has to play by the Jackie Robinson Rules, would be presumed by a clueless media to be stirring up racial warfare, or “playing the race card,” or whatever.

It would be a crime if Katrina got lost in the national conversation this year. The failure in the Gulf was not solely attributable to President Bush, it was a conservative failure, a full blooming of their beliefs in laissez-faire, “you’re on your own” government that can be drowned in the bathtub, as well as shock doctrine politics in the aftermath, which approve of housing projects to be bulldozed to make way for developers, which foreground the whims of the rich and connected to take precedence over the needs of the struggling and the suffering.

In fact, there’s a new documentary being released right before the anniversary of the storm that could catalyze this conversation, and I had the privilege of seeing a preview yesterday. Trouble The Water, a Sundance Grand Jury prize-winner directed and produced by the producers of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine, follows two residents of the 9th Ward, Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband Scott, as they survive the hurricane and the flood and struggle to survive what comes after. Kimberly picked up a video camera just a week before the storm and documented the events of August 29th from her attic, eliciting stunning footage and an entirely new perspective. First of all, the conservative myth that black Katrina victims were a bunch of whiners and moaners while white flood victims in Iowa “worked together” and showed their true American-ness is revealed as utter bullshit. Kimberly and Scott, along with their fellow residents left behind in the 9th Ward, were nothing short of heroic, saving their neighbors, pulling them from their houses and eventually bringing them to safety. One man, who used an old punching bag as a life raft to save dozens of people, remarks in the film “I never thought God had a purpose for me until that day.” This is the story of a community brought together by the violence of the flood and the neglect of the government, forced to become their own first responders.

At one point, in an episode that I certainly never heard before, Kimberly and Scott walk about a mile through the water to a near-abandoned Navy base that was marked for closure and had hundreds of beds. With several dozen 9th Ward residents at the gates, the Navy personnel pulled out ammunition, cocked their rifles and turned their guns on the crowd, saying “Get off our property or we’re going to start shooting.” Months later the base received a COMMENDATION from Bush for “protecting the integrity of the base.”

At its heart, this is actually a deeply conservative in some respects. Thrust into extraordinary circumstances, this couple, which has stayed together for 10 years and raised a family, made their own opportunities, in the face of a government that seemed to be actively working against them, and lifted themselves up in the face of adversity, returning to New Orleans and literally rebuilding the city (Scott becomes a contractor). They entered the storm hustlers and came out activists, organizers, and community symbols. They reflected the best values of America and proved more than deserving of equality of opportunity and access to pursue their dreams.

But that never came. And so while this is a very empowering and affecting film, it also reveals the hollow heartlessness that conservative policies reflect. The makers of Trouble the Water, including executive producer Danny Glover (who was on hand at yesterday’s screening) see this film as an opportunity to broaden the conversation and ignite community development and organizing around the underlying issues that the failure of the levees forced into the public consciousness. As Glover said:

“When the hurricane struck the Gulf and the floodwaters rose and tore through New Orleans, it did not turn the region into a Third World country… it revealed one.”

You can do something to further the goals of this powerful film. But the most important thing you can do is to not let this region and this catastrophe be forgotten. This is the first Presidential election since Katrina, and despite that the issues have been almost invisible in the national debate. Aside from the fact that John McCain was celebrating his birthday with George Bush and some cake on the day of the storm, and indeed his entire record with respect to post-Katrina reconstruction, there are serious issues surrounding reconstruction and the suffering of the urban underclass, that never reach the highest levels of the debate because those most affected are essentially voiceless. This film amplifies that voice, and we should all contribute to that effort by refusing to let Katrina fall down the memory hole.

Trouble the Water opens in these cities starting August 22 and throughout the fall. Don’t miss it, petition your local theaters for a screening, request a copy for your own organization and tell this story to everyone you know.

UPDATE: Just as an FYI, Katrina does make an appearance in the Democratic platform, and it’s an OK statement as far as it goes:

For many in America, Hurricane Katrina conjures up the memory of a time when America’s government failed its citizens. When the winds blew and the floodwaters came, we learned that for all of our wealth and power, something wasn’t right with
Washington. Our government’s response during Hurricane Katrina is a national shame–and yet three years later, the government has still failed to keep its promise to rebuild.

The people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are heroes for returning and rebuilding, and they shouldn’t face these challenges alone. We will partner with the people of the Gulf Coast to assist the victims of Hurricane Katrina and restore the region economically. We will create jobs and training opportunities for returning and displaced workers and contracting opportunities for local businesses to help create stronger, safer, and more equitable communities. We will increase funding for affordable housing and home ownership opportunities for returning families, workers, and residents moving out of unsafe trailers. We will reinvest in infrastructure in New Orleans: we will construct levees that work, fight crime by rebuilding local police departments and courthouses, invest and hospitals and rebuild the public school system.

Fine. Now say that every day on the campaign trail for two months.

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Freedom Fighters

by digby

I saw this NYT op-ed from the Secretary of State in Connecticut and just couldn’t figure it out.

WHAT is the secretary of Veterans Affairs thinking? On May 5, the department led by James B. Peake issued a directive that bans nonpartisan voter registration drives at federally financed nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and shelters for homeless veterans. As a result, too many of our most patriotic American citizens — our injured and ill military veterans — may not be able to vote this November.

I have witnessed the enforcement of this policy. On June 30, I visited the Veterans Affairs Hospital in West Haven, Conn., to distribute information on the state’s new voting machines and to register veterans to vote. I was not allowed inside the hospital.

Outside on the sidewalk, I met Martin O’Nieal, a 92-year-old man who lost a leg while fighting the Nazis in the mountains of Northern Italy during the harsh winter of 1944. Mr. O’Nieal has been a resident of the hospital since 2007. He wanted to vote last year, but he told me that there was no information about how to register to vote at the hospital and the nurses could not answer his questions about how or where to cast a ballot.

I carry around hundreds of blank voter registration cards in the trunk of my car for just such occasions, so I was able to register Mr. O’Nieal in November. I also registered a few more veterans — whoever I could find outside on the hospital’s sidewalk.

There are thousands of veterans of wars in Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf and the current campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan who are isolated behind the walls of V.A. hospitals and nursing homes across the country. We have an obligation to make sure that every veteran has the opportunity to make his or her voice heard at the ballot box.

Connecticut’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, and I wrote to Secretary Peake in July to request that elections officials be let inside the department’s facilities to conduct voter education and registration. Our request was denied.

The department offers two reasons to justify its decision. First, it claims that voter registration drives are disruptive to the care of its patients. This is nonsense. Veterans can fill out a voter registration card in about 90 seconds.

Second, the department claims that its employees cannot help patients register to vote because the Hatch Act forbids federal workers from engaging in partisan political activities. But this interpretation of the Hatch Act is erroneous. Registering people to vote is not partisan activity.

If the department does not want to burden its staff, there are several national organizations with a long history of nonpartisan advocacy for veterans and their right to vote that are eager to help, as are elected officials like me.

It seemed really bizarre that the Bush administration would want to deny disabled veterans the right to vote. It’s true that they have a full program in place to suppress the vote, but it’s aimed at Democrats. Disabled veterans are usually a pretty reliable conservative constituency, even if they do depend on tax money. (But hey, only the most rigid libertarians openly believe that the government shouldn’t take care of veterans, right?) Why wouldn’t they want these guys to vote?

But then I saw this and maybe it makes more sense …

The [disabled]veterans, at Bally’s for their national convention, gave him a tepid reception, especially considering McCain’s life story. The Arizona senator was a Navy pilot shot down over Vietnam, tortured and held as a prisoner of war for 5 1/2 years.

Just one of 14 veterans interviewed by the Sun after his speech said he is a certain McCain voter, and the nonpartisan group’s legislative director expressed concerns about McCain’s proposed “Veterans’ Care Access Card.”

[…]

John Von Schlicher, 87, of Florida, said he will support McCain. Schlicher sharply criticized the Democratic-controlled Congress for not funding VA hospitals. (Spending on veterans benefits will increase 11 percent this year.)

Other veterans, such as James Jewett and Jay Johnson of Texas, expressed misgivings about McCain using the occasion to attack his opponent so fiercely.

Duke Hendershot, a double amputee retired Marine who served in Vietnam, supported McCain’s run for president in 2000 but is undecided this year.

“John just isn’t the same as he used to be. He’s not his own man,” said Hendershot, who lives in San Antonio, Texas. “A lot of that has to do with how he’s wanted this job so bad for so long that he’s tied himself to President Bush.”

He said McCain’s embrace of Bush, whom Hendershot called a “draft-dodging coward,” is even more perplexing because of the rivalry between the two candidates during the 2000 campaign.

My Dad, who is 86, thinks McCain is too old to be president.(of course he hates Obama even more…) Maybe this constituency, which has had hands on experience with the Bush administration’s malfeasance isn’t such a reliable voting bloc this time. It’s hard to see any other good reason why the administration would issue such a dumb order.

I’d love to see the Obama campaign make an issue of this one.

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Dialing For Health Care

by digby

Health Care For America Now is going to be an important group over the next year as Democrats roll out some kind of national health care plan. (We hope…) regardless of whether you support the HCAN plan or something more akin to Edwards’ and Clinton’s plans or maybe even single payer, having some institutional push to at least keep it high on the agenda is vitally necessary. Today they are announcing a new initiative that’s worth getting involved in.

82% of Americans think our health care system needs a “major overhaul.” On top of that, over 90% of Americans [pdf] think the next President and Congress should improve the quality, affordability and of health care. With the worsening economy continuing to be the top issue for most Americans, this hope for change isn’t hard to understand. American health care spending is projected to reach a full 1/5th of our GDP by 2015, which means by then, we’ll be spending twenty cents of every dollar we make on health care. Health care premiums have risen 86% between 2000 and 2006 while wages only rose 20%, putting the strain on working families. Health care costs continue to be the #1 cause of bankruptcy in America. Americans are paying $217 million for health care per hour. Meanwhile, insurance industry profits have risen 1,000% in the past five years. According the to Government Accountability Office, health care reform is necessary to keep our country on the right track:

“Rapidly rising health care costs are not simply a federal budget problem,” the GAO report says. “Growth in health-related spending is the primary driver of the fiscal challenges facing state and local governments as well. Unsustainable growth in health care spending also threatens to erode the ability of employers to provide coverage to their workers and undercuts their ability to compete in a global marketplace.”

Quite simply, with rising health care costs (including $50 billion per year to pay for insurance industry advertising) being born out by working families and American businesses, health care is a top economic concern. To keep American workers at their best, and to keep American business competitive in the world, something has to change…So, Congress, which side are you on? Are you with us for quality, affordable health care for all? Or are you with the insurance companies, working to preserve our broken system?We’ve set up a quick and easy way for you to contact your Members of Congress and ask them if they support our vision for health care reform. Just click here and enter in your phone number and address. Choose the elected official you want to talk to and in a few moments, we’ll call your phone and connect you automatically. Over the next few weeks, we want to make 100,000 calls to Congress, asking every Member which side they are on. We need your help to do it, so please click here to call! Once your done with your call, tell us what happened so we can keep track of where Congress stands. As of today, we’re proud to announce Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), are with us. The rest, so far, are unknown. You can see the full list here. Health care is a priority for the American people. It’s a priority for Nancy Pelosi. It’s up to us to make sure it’s a priority for Congress as well. Please take a moment, call your Members of Congress, and ask them which side they are on. Oh, and if you have a blog or website, you can help spread the word about this campaign by embedding the widget you see above on your site. Just copy and paste the code at this link.

We’re all obsessed with the election campaign and that’s understandable. But we need to start thinking beyond it and start priming the pump for our priorities. It’s going to be a very crowded agenda in the next congress and I think most of us would still like to see health care be at the top of the list. I know it’s a tough one, but it’s always going to be tough. There are big money interests aligned against all progressive policies, so there’s no sense in being afraid of that.

If representatives get enough phone calls they may just realize that this is something on which they — and the new president — are expected to take action.

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