Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

A Bold Proposition

Atrios continues to argue with some in our party that we Democrats should not turn abortion into a scarlet letter. He is so wrong. We need to get serious about winning by dolefully expressing regret and guilt for believing what we believe or we will be wandering in the lonely 49% wilderness forever. And, nowhere is it more important to show contrition and self-hatred than on the issue of abortion. It is, after all, icky.

But simply framing abortion as a shameful “right that ends in sorrow” rather than a “difficult decision that brings relief”, is a fools game. And while the Democratic “orthodoxy” on abortion inherently allows for people who are personally opposed to abortion, like John Kerry, to run for national office as long as he doesn’t advocate outlawing abortion entirely for others, everyone agrees that the Republicans are much less “orthodox” because they allow some politicians from liberal states run as pro-choicers to get elected even if they could never in a million years win the nomination of the Republican party for president. (I know that’s a little bit strange, but it’s one of those quirks in our system, kind of like the electoral college.) Therefore, to win it is logical that we must not only shed our orthodoxy and take the pro-life cause as our own, we must take it even further than the Republicans.

Here’s my proposition:

Let’s not be cowards and merely advocate for a culture of disgrace and dishonor for women who have abortions. I agree that it’s important that they should be publicly humiliated and forced to admit that they have done something very, very bad. That’s always healthy and people will respect us more if we do that. But,the other side will rightly retort that just because you feel guilty for something doesn’t excuse it, right? So, let’s get out ahead of an issue for once. Let’s be really bold and call for total abolition and follow up with tough criminal penalities for any woman who has one.

This is where the GOP orthodoxy is weak. The pro-life position is that abortion is murder. But many pro-lifers also believe in exceptions for rape and incest. That makes no sense. If it is murder to abort a child in the womb because it is fully human and endowed with all the same rights as any other person, then it can’t be right to make an exception and kill it simply because of the way it was conceived. Would we think it was ok to kill a one year old if we found out that it was the product of rape or incest? Of course not.

This position implies that the circumstances of conception or the lifelong emotional consequences for the woman bearing an unwanted child can be taken into consideration. Why shouldn’t she simply take her rapist or her father’s child to term and simply give it up for adoption? The fetus has inalienable rights. The woman should deal with that just the same as she should deal with giving up her fourth child for adoption because she can’t afford another mouth to feed and her birth control failed. It’s tough, but she’ll just have to get over it.

And really, if abortion is murder, shouldn’t the woman be criminally liable for murdering her own child? Why is it that pro-life advocates never insist on that and instead place the entire burden on the doctor? Would we accept that a woman who hired someone to murder her 6 month old was not criminally liable for that act? Of course not.

They say it’s murder, but they have “exceptions.” They want to make it a crime but don’t want to make the perpetrator of that crime responsible. These people are practicing … moral relativism.

If I didn’t know better, I might think that Republicans secretly believe that ending an unwanted pregnancy is different from murder after all; that it isn’t an absolute choice between right and wrong. Indeed, they seem to think that it is complicated by circumstances and morally nuanced. Certainly, the fact that they refuse to call women who have abortions “murderers” indicates that they think pregnant women are in a unique position in human experience making judgment by absolute legal standards difficult for society to accept.

And that is our opening, folks. Just as the foreign policy wonks think that we should outflank the neocons on foreign policy by fighting the GWOT with the ferver of a Christian crusader, I think we should simultaneously make a play for the fundamentalists who truly do believe that the woman is a murderer if she has an abortion. The stoning and burning crowd is ripe for the picking if we are only bold enough to do what is necessary to prove that we are sincere. Rove and pals won’t be expecting it.

Then the media will call us the big tent party and we can run against the Republicans for being pro-choice, unpatriotic and soft on crime! Cool, huh?

Seriously, folks, if we can adopt this, the global crusade for democracy and the creationism curriculum into our platform I think we might just be able to finally get that crucial 2% that we need to win. And then we’ll be able to get something done for the progressive cause — like paying off our crippling debt with a combination of brutal spending cuts in social programs and tax increases on the middle class. (And there’s always end it don’t mend it on affirmative action and privatization of SS if we still need to triangulate.)

Tough Guys

This article in The Times seems to validate my theory that Bush saw Kerik as some sort of alter ego. It doesn’t elaborate on his insistence on relying on his gut and therefore overruling the necessary vetting, but I’ll bet you he did. These guys aren’t usually sloppy about these things and this was outrageously sloppy. It has the mark of Codpiece all over it.

Ouch!

“Time chose Bush for sticking to his guns (literally and figuratively)…”

Super glue? Grape jelly? How?

Raising The Future Fascists Of America

I admit that I have a soft spot for animals. The idea of beating a dachshund with a belt to make it mind literally makes me sick. And then it makes me want to do the same thing to the man who felt the need to exercize his sadistic control fantasies on a small dog:

“Please don’t misunderstand me. Siggie is a member of our family and we love him dearly. And despite his anarchistic nature, I have finally taught him to obey a few simple commands. However, we had some classic battles before he reluctantly yielded to my authority.

“The greatest confrontation occurred a few years ago when I had been in Miami for a three-day conference. I returned to observe that Siggie had become boss of the house while I was gone. But I didn’t realize until later that evening just how strongly he felt about his new position as Captain.

“At eleven o’clock that night, I told Siggie to go get into his bed, which is a permanent enclosure in the family room. For six years I had given him that order at the end of each day, and for six years Siggie had obeyed.

“On this occasion, however, he refused to budge. You see, he was in the bathroom, seated comfortably on the furry lid of the toilet seat. That is his favorite spot in the house, because it allows him to bask in the warmth of a nearby electric heater…”

“When I told Sigmund to leave his warm seat and go to bed, he flattened his ears and slowly turned his head toward me. He deliberately braced himself by placing one paw on the edge of the furry lid, then hunched his shoulders, raised his lips to reveal the molars on both sides, and uttered his most threatening growl. That was Siggie’s way of saying. “Get lost!”

“I had seen this defiant mood before, and knew there was only one way to deal with it. The ONLY way to make Siggie obey is to threaten him with destruction. Nothing else works. I turned and went to my closet and got a small belt to help me “reason” with Mr. Freud.”

What developed next is impossible to describe. That tiny dog and I had the most vicious fight ever staged between man and beast. I fought him up one wall and down the other, with both of us scratching and clawing and growling and swinging the belt. I am embarrassed by the memory of the entire scene. Inch by inch I moved him toward the family room and his bed. As a final desperate maneuver, Siggie backed into the corner for one last snarling stand. I eventually got him to bed, only because I outweighed him 200 to 12!”

I don’t suppose that picking the dog up and carrying him to his bed would have been nearly as satisfying, either.

The identity of the man who takes pride in repeating this story and using it as an example of good child rearing should come as no surprise when you learn that it comes from the pen of none other than James Dobson, the latest self-annointed moral leader of America. It’s a passage from “The Strong Willed Child”.

This is the man who is leading a moral crusade in America along with another famed animal abuser George W. Bush.

Animal abuse is well known to be the one consistent precurser behavior of serial killers.

Wish I’d Said That

The Sideshow is on a tear today. Avedon’s got a number of really good posts up, but this one is a barn burner:

What they love is their hatred of liberals and liberalism. And hating liberalism is hating America. Make no mistake about this: the foundation of America is liberalism. Our form of government, from the very beginning, is liberal democracy. And, while they talk about how they love America while liberals do not, and how it is conservatives who adhere strictly to the Constitution, it is also abundantly clear that when they are given an opportunity to prove such things, they do the reverse.

[…]

What makes it so easy to hate France, and any other nation that shows every sign of being a liberal democracy, is that they’ve got liberal democracy. In the parlance of conservatives, any government that shows a concern for the welfare of its people is practically a communist state. But, wait:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

And that, my friends, is the organizing principle of liberalism. The “general Welfare” and “the Blessings of Liberty” are meant to be the goal of the United States of America – it says so in the very first sentence of the Constitution. It is the obligation of the government to “secure” these things for us.

But France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have “socialized medicine”, so they are obviously indistinguishable from Stalinism, to hear conservatives tell it. That’s why it was so easy for conservatives to start accusing Bill and Hillary Clinton of being communists when they campaigned for “Hillarycare”. Although they sometimes claimed to despise this program because it was supposedly complicated or bureaucratic, the truth is that they opposed it precisely because it might actually work. The same reason they despise Social Security, which clearly does work. Because such programs promote the general welfare.

This is why conservatives must lie about what they are doing. They are trying to destroy Social Security while claiming they mean to save it. They have to lie, because no one with any sense, or any concern for our nation, would want them to succeed at destroying it. They make up reasons why any proposed national health insurance plan would fail, because they do not want one to succeed. They claim they want to stop abortion “to save lives” while instituting programs that are known to increase the likelihood of unwanted pregnancy and abortion. They empty our treasury and cut taxes to the rich while claiming to “improve” our economy. They construct a program of theocracy while claiming it’s in aid of “freedom of religion”. They claim to be “Constitutional constructionists” while stripping the Constitution of any meaning. They even restrict our travel and threaten to remove our citizenship for political reasons while claiming to “protect our freedoms”.

Oh, they hate America, there’s no question of that. The only question is why liberals hesitate to say so.

I think it’s because liberals believe in our system so dearly that it’s been very hard for us to wrap our minds around the idea that our government is seriously under threat from within. This is a very frightening proposition. You feel a little bit crazy for even thinking it. In this way, we are the victims of faith-based thinking, too. We just can’t seem to accept what we are seeing before our very eyes. We think that our system is so strong that it can withstand anything.

Impeachment, stolen election, terrorist attack, trumped up war, media dominance all in less than a decade. It’s happening.

Check Him Out Now

We doin’ big pimpin, we spendin’ cheese

We doin’ big pimpin’ up in DC

CNBC Sunday, 8 PM EST

Be there or be square. Wolcott’s on Tina Brown.

(Well, not literally. I don’t think, anyway. Better watch, just in case.)

Crusaders For Freedom

Via Talk Left I see that 44 percent of Americans think that we should limit the civil liberties of American Muslims. And, waddaya know:

The survey also examined the relation of religion to perceptions of Islam and Islamic countries and found the more religious a person described themselves, the more negative their views on Islam.

The amount of attention paid to TV news also had a bearing on how strongly a respondent favored restrictions.

“The more attention paid to television news, the more you fear terrorism, and you are more likely to favor restrictions on civil liberties,” said Erik Nisbet, a senior research associate with Cornell’s Survey Research Institute who helped design the survey.

While researchers said they weren’t necessarily surprised by the overall level of support for restrictions, they were startled by the correlation with religion and exposure to television news.

“We need to explore why these two very important channels of discourse may nurture fear rather than understanding,” Shanahan said.

Shanahan said researchers expected the correlation with party affiliation.

In each of the four instances, Republicans favored restrictions by an almost 2-to-1 margin over Democrats and Independents.

“We need to explore why these two very important channels of discourse may nurture fear rather than understanding,”

That’s a tough one. Cui bono?

What’s The Hurry, Junior?

One of my commenters makes the point that the belief that there is a social security crisis will not be easily dismissed and that’s probably true. Kevin Drum points out that Democrats, too, have found it useful over the years to say that there was a looming crisis. I suspect that they never imagined that the Republicans would be so audacious as to run up huge deficits and then turn around and lobby for privatization with no intention of paying for transition costs. As we know, this isn’t your father’s GOP.

So perhaps we need to look at who and how they plan to sell this baby and fashion some specific responses. As far as I can tell it’s Codpiece running with a version of their patented “he’s got WMD, the sky is falling hurry, hurry, hurry.” “The crisis is now!” the president veritably shrieked at his sycophantic little sideshow this week.

During the Clinton health care debacle, one of the most clever things the Republicans did was to connect the dots between the Clinton scandals and the health care plan. By saying that the Clintons had no credibility because of WhitewaterTravelOfficeZoeBaird or whatever, they were able to raise questions about his ability to manage a huge change in the economy. They used doubts about his character to make people nervous about his plan.

Donkey Rising shows some new numbers from the Ipsos-AP poll and the Quinnipiac University poll that show Bush remains in deep doo-doo on the Iraq question.

On Iraq, in the same poll, 48 percent approve and 50 percent disapprove of Bush’s handling of Iraq. But among independents, 66 percent disapprove. And in the latest Quinnipiac University poll, Bush’s approval rating on Iraq is very poor 41/55 but an even worse 37/58 among independents.

In the Ipsos-AP poll, 47 percent believe it is likely that a stable, democratic government will be established in Iraq, compared to 51 percent who don’t. But only 36 percent of independents believe a stable government in Iraq is likely.

Finally, the Q-poll finds the worst numbers ever on whether going to war with Iraq was the right thing for the US to do or the wrong thing. Just 42 percent now say we did the right thing, while 52 percent say it was the wrong thing. And independents have an even harsher judgement: they say war with Iraq was the wrong thing to do by 55-37.

We should take a page from the Republicans and start connecting the dots between Iraq and social security. Just as with Iraq, Bush is going to try to ram through this legislation quickly by playing Chicken Little. Democrats should make that observation and remind people that he does not have any credibility when it comes to defining a crisis, (also known as an “imminent threat.”)

There are plenty of doubts about Bush out there. We need to make use of them instead of starting over from scratch with every single issue. The public clearly does not support Bush’s Iraq policy and national security is his strong suit. He and the republicans have even less credibility on domestic issues.

The minority Republicans were able to convince people that Clinton’s “character” problems meant that he could not be trusted with a huge program change in the midst of what people geniunely believed was a crisis at the time. I submit that Democrats have ample ammunition to draw the parallel between Bush’s rush to war and Bush’s rush to privatize and they can make a case that his judgment is faulty when it comes to defining a future crisis and that he, therefore, cannot be trusted with a huge change in social security.

“But everybody says there’s a social security crisis!”

“Yeah, “everybody” said Saddam had WMD, too, and nobody said it louder or more often than President Bush. Let’s slow down here and be careful. A lot of people depend on social security and I don’t think we need to rush into privatizing that program like he rushed us into invading Iraq.”

Similarities

Via THE DAOU REPORT I see that some on the right are seeing some similarity between the American left and bin laden:

ARTHUR CHRENKOFF NOTES that Osama is sounding familiar. “bin Laden is moving one step further along the path of the great ideological – or at least rhetorical – convergence between the angry left and the angry Islamofascism . . . And thus Osama becomes yet another billionaire complaining about the growing gap between the rich and the poor, a sort of George Soros with a Closed Society Institute.”

Yes, the secular left is in cahoots with the Islamic fundamentalists. We have so much in common. (I hear Osama’s a big believer in civil liberties and women’s rights.)

This is not to say that bin Laden’s rhetoric doesn’t have a lot in common with some Americans, on a very fundamental level. I noticed this some time back and made note of it:

We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history. May he guide us now.”

In the end, I advise myself and you to fear God covertly and openly and to be patient in the jihad. Victory will be achieved with patience. I also advise myself and you to say more prayers.

“Our prayer tonight is that God will see us through and keep us worthy …Hope still lights our way, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.”

God Almighty says: “Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah, and those who reject faith fight in the cause of evil.”

“There is power — wonder-working power — in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people.”

Verily, Allah guideth not a people unjust.

“The American people have deep and diverse religious beliefs, truly one of the great strengths of our country. And the faith of our citizens is seeing us through some demanding times. We’re being challenged. We’re meeting those challenges because of our faith.”

God Almighty says: “Oh ye who believe! If ye will help the cause of Allah, He will help you and plant your feet firmly.”

“After we were attacked on September the 11th, we carried our grief to the Lord Almighty in prayer.”

Obey Him, be thankful to Him, and remember Him always, and die not except in a state of Islam with complete submission to Allah.

“The role of government is limited, because government cannot put hope in people’s hearts, or a sense of purpose in people’s lives. That happens when someone puts an arm around a neighbor and says, God loves you, I love you, and you can count on us both.”

The jurisdiction of the socialists and those rulers has fallen a long time ago. Socialists are infidels wherever they are, whether they are in Baghdad or Aden

“I ask you to challenge your listeners to encourage your congregations to work together for the good of this nation, to work hard to break down the barriers that have divided the children of God for too long. There is no question that we can rid this nation of hopelessness and despair, because the greatest of America is the character of the American people.”



Before concluding, we reiterate the importance of high morale and caution against false rumors, defeatism, uncertainty, and discouragement.

“What I’m saying is, the days of discriminating against religious groups just because they’re religious are coming to an end. I have issued an executive order banning discrimination against faith-based charities and social service grants by federal agencies.”



Allah is sufficient for us and He is the best disposer of affairs.

“And we are a courageous country, ready when necessary to defend the peace. And today, the peace is threatened. We face a continuing threat of terrorist networks that hate the very thought of people being able to live in freedom.”



We also stress to honest Muslims that they should move, incite, and mobilize the [Islamic] nation, amid such grave events and hot atmosphere so as to liberate themselves from those unjust and renegade ruling regimes, which are enslaved by the United States.

“They hate the thought of the fact that in this great country, we can worship the Almighty God the way we see fit. And what probably makes him even angrier is we’re not going to change.”



Muslims’ doctrine and banner should be clear in fighting for the sake of God. He who fights to raise the word of God will fight for God’s sake. So fight ye against the friends of Satan: feeble indeed is the cunning of Satan

“We face an outlaw regime in Iraq that hates our country.”



Needless to say, this crusade war is primarily targeted against the people of Islam.

“A regime that aids and harbors terrorists and is armed with weapons of mass murder. Chemical agents, lethal viruses, and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Secretly, without fingerprints, Saddam Hussein could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own. Saddam Hussein is a threat. He’s a threat to the United States of America. He’s a threat to some of our closest friends and allies. We don’t accept this threat.”



We are following up with great interest and extreme concern the crusaders’ preparations for war to occupy a former capital of Islam, loot Muslims’ wealth, and install an agent government, which would be a satellite for its masters in Washington and Tel Aviv, just like all the other treasonous and agent Arab governments.

This would be in preparation for establishing the Greater Israel.

“My attitude is that we owe it to future generations of Americans and citizens in freedom-loving countries to see to it that Mr. Saddam Hussein is disarmed.”

This is a prescribed duty. God says: “[And let them pray with thee] taking all precautions and bearing arms: the unbelievers wish if ye were negligent of your arms and your baggage, to assault you in a single rush.”

“It’s his choice to make as to how he will be disarmed. He can either do so — which it doesn’t look like he’s going to — for the sake of peace, we will lead a coalition of willing countries and disarm Saddam Hussein.”

Regardless of the removal or the survival of the socialist party or Saddam, Muslims in general and the Iraqis in particular must brace themselves for jihad against this unjust campaign and acquire ammunition and weapons.

“But should we need to use troops, for the sake of future generations of Americans, American troops will act in the honorable traditions of our military and in the highest moral traditions of our country.”

Amid this unjust war, the war of infidels and debauchees led by America along with its allies and agents, we would like to stress a number of important values

“In violation of the Geneva Conventions, Saddam Hussein is positioning his military forces within civilian populations in order to shield his military and blame coalition forces for civilian casualties that he has caused. Saddam Hussein regards the Iraqi people as human shields, entirely expendable when their suffering serves his purposes.”



“…we realized from our defense and fighting against the American enemy that, in combat, they mainly depend on psychological warfare. This is in light of the huge media machine they have. They also depend on massive air strikes so as to conceal their most prominent point of weakness, which is the fear, cowardliness, and the absence of combat spirit among US soldiers.

“We’re called to defend our nation and to lead the world to peace, and we will meet both challenges with courage and with confidence.”

If all the world forces of evil could not achieve their goals on a one square mile of area against a small number of mujahideen with very limited capabilities, how can these evil forces triumph over the Muslim world?

“There’s an old saying, ‘Let us not pray for tasks equal to our strength. Let us pray for strength equal to our tasks.’ And that is our prayer today, for the strength in every task we face.”



…we remind that victory comes only from God and all we have to do is prepare and motivate for jihad.

“I want to thank each of you for your prayers. I want to thank you for your faithfulness. I want to thank you for your good work. And I want to thank you for loving your country. May God bless you all, and may God bless America.”

O ye who believe. When ye meet a force, be firm, and call Allah in remembrance much (and often); That ye may prosper. Our Lord. Give us good in this world and good in the Hereafter and save us from the torment of the Fire. May God’s peace and blessings be upon Prophet Muhammad and his household.

US

Them