For The Trees

Who is our economy FOR, anyway?

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About the Authors:
Dave Johnson
John Emerson
Richard Reich
Thomas Leavitt

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OK, That's Over, So Where Were We?

A while back the press was closing in on a number of issues of corruption involving both the President and Vice President and it started looking like Bush and Cheney were in some real legal trouble. But suddenly there were a lot of great big terror alerts, everyone look over there, everyone get scared, there's a big scary dragon, glorious leader will slay the dragon that is making you all scared, run around, run around, kill Iraq, frenzy, frenzy, kill Hitler, war, war, glorious leader HOORAY, HOORAY -- whatever. So tonite Bush is going to tell us that He has led us to Glorious Victory and the "threat to the United States from Baghdad has ended." OK. Well that's out of the way, then. So where were we? Oh yeah, Bush and Cheney and Harken and Haliburton and conflicts of interest and SEC investigations and insider trading and tax evasion and corporate corruption, and a whole bunch of other things were starting to hit the news. Take a look at BuzzFlash's Bush Harken insider trading collection. Remember the stories about Harvard bailing out Bush at Harken? There's more here from The Nation. What about Cheney's business dealings and the SEC investigation of his dealings at Haliburton? Remember hearing about Bush and Harken setting up offshore subsidiaries to dodge paying their taxes? I remember I had several questions. Does it all just go away? Is that how the American system of justice works now? Or is it time to start looking at this again, pick up where we left off?

--- Posted at 4/30/2003 02:32:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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It's Privacy They Have A Problem With

Read this story in today's NY Times, Republican Lawmakers Back Senator in Gay Dispute. This is a story about Republicans standing behind Sen. Santorum's bigoted comments about gays. But toward the end is this:

Mr. Santorum, who did not speak in public today, has refused to apologize and said that his remarks were more directed at the right to privacy rather than homosexuality. He said his position was shared by a majority of the Supreme Court in upholding a Georgia antisodomy law in 1986.

Got that? They justify this by saying that they don't just have a problem with gays, they have a problem with PRIVACY! So if you thought you were safe from the Republican jihad against gays because you aren't gay, (or perhaps you're one of those right-wing gays who is well hidden in the closet), you're wrong. It's PRIVACY that Republicans have a problem with. YOUR privacy.

--- Posted at 4/30/2003 10:25:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Virtual March May 22

Please go read the latest about the May 22 Virtual March and tell others about this! Actually, I'll help you read it:

MAY 22: VIRTUAL MARCH TO SUPPORT THE TROOPS Those of us on the left got accused of not supporting the troops when we questioned or opposed the war in Iraq. Now it's time we show that we support the troops. The budget proposed by President Bush, as augmented by the Senate proposes:

"...to cut VA spending by $15 billion over 10 years, starting with $463 million slashed from next year’s budget. Legislators claim they’re cutting fraud, waste, and abuse. But Joe Fox Sr., head of Paralyzed Veterans of America, who calls the cuts “an in-your-face insult to the veterans of this country,” says the reduction will slam the poorest disabled veterans and cut GI Bill benefits for soldiers who are currently serving in Iraq. The plan could also mean the loss of 9,000 VA physicians in a shorthanded VA system, he says... "[Bush's budget] includes a $150 million aid cut to schools attended by military dependents and support for billions in VA reductions..."

The cuts already enacted in VA funding have delayed enrollment of certain veterans in their promised health coverage. The government said last year that it would not make good on pension promises made to veterans of past wars who have now reached retirement age. And the families of the children whose education funding will be cut often make less than $10,000 per year. On May 22nd, the last real business day for Congress before the Memorial Day weekend, an unofficial, loosely-knit "Coalition of the Worried" is encouraging a "Virtual March to Support the Troops." We need to let our military know, to let our representatives know, that we care about the troops all the time. Whether they are on the battlefield or lying sick in a hospital. Whether they are planning for their children's future, or retiring after a long, full life. On May 22nd, please call your representatives in Congress to repeal this cut in support for our troops. Call in favor of fully funding the VA, schooling for military kids, and fulfilling retirement promises made to veterans of past wars. If you can't get through the first time, try again later. Our goal is to flood the phonelines with polite and respectful advocates who support our troops even when we are at peace. If you are only able to take part via fax or email, congress.org will help you find and contact your representatives and send a message either way. They will also have the phone numbers of your representatives' local offices if you can't get through to the DC office lines. To leave a message with the DC office of your representatives, you can call the Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121 Let's keep those Capitol Hill phones busy that Thursday.

--- Posted at 4/29/2003 03:00:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Dancin to Dean

The Dean techno mix. No kidding. And it's good. Click here to download directly.

--- Posted at 4/28/2003 04:15:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Corporate Personhood and Silencing of Dissent

Lisa over at Ruminate This is going off about corporate personhood, and the consequences when big corporations decide they want to silence dissent, like what has happened to the Dixie Chicks. And she has some suggestions on what to do about it. Go read, and thanks to tendentious for pointing this out.

--- Posted at 4/28/2003 03:30:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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The Right's Goals

William Greider has a great piece in The Nation, Rolling Back the 20th Century talking about the goals of the right, and how they are doing in their drive to reach them.

--- Posted at 4/28/2003 02:13:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Voting Machines in International Herald Tribune

Britain to Launch Electronic Voting Systems. From the story:

The basic problem in current electronic voting systems, the security experts say, is the lack of an audit trail that would enable all voters to verify for themselves in real time that their vote was recorded as they intended and was counted as they intended. In addition, they say, there needs to be a publicly available electronic ballot box that can verify that the announced vote total is an accurate tabulation of all the votes cast. This must all be done in a way that maintains the secrecy of each individual's ballot. About 500 computer technologists in the United States have signed a resolution put forward by Dr. Dill warning that no electronic voting system should be adopted that does not have these protections. A list of the signers and their affiliations is at verify.stanford.edu/EVOTE/endorsements.html. None of the voting systems that are being used in Britain or elsewhere meet these requirements, Dr. Dill said, though it is technically possible to have such a system using advanced cryptographic techniques. Jim Adler, the president of VoteHere, a company in Seattle that has provided the software for six of the local elections now under way in Britain, acknowledged that the security protections did not meet the highest standards. "Governments often make usability-security tradeoffs," he said, "and you can see that in the U.K." In a separate e-mail, he elaborated: "There is no requirement for voters to be able to verify that their vote was `cast as intended' or for election observers to verify that all ballots were `counted as cast.' The technology exists, but the U.K., so far, has not required it." Mr. Adler, who is in the business of selling electronic voting systems, said: "I applaud the Avi Rubins and Rebecca Mercuris." He said their critiques of current voting systems were correct.

--- Posted at 4/28/2003 01:12:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Howard Dean House Parties

I attended two Howard Dean house parties yesterday. Both included conference calls with Gov. Dean. Take a look at The Dean Speech and you'll understand why people are excited about Dean's candidacy for President. He would be a great President AND he can win. I'm heading out for the day so I'll write more later.

--- Posted at 4/27/2003 09:34:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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The Disappeared

Does anyone know what's up with DailyKos? Update - They're back.

--- Posted at 4/27/2003 08:29:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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They Lied

This post over at Daily Kos talks about Bush officials admitting they lied about weapons of mass destruction, because they wanted a war for "a global show of American power and democracy". This Daily Kos post, the stories it links to, and the comments following are not just worthy of a read, they are worthy of telling others to read as well. I just did.

--- Posted at 4/25/2003 01:58:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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No Sharon Bush Book After All

Over at skimble.

--- Posted at 4/25/2003 01:49:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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U.S. Reporter Who Protested Iraq War Fired

U.S. Reporter Who Protested Iraq War Fired tendentious covers this. Go there.

--- Posted at 4/25/2003 01:38:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Howard Dean House Parties Tomorrow

This is a little bit short notice, but this story in today's news prompts me to write -- GOP: Dean's Support of Gays Will Hurt Him

WASHINGTON - Supporters of Howard Dean's presidential campaign will be celebrating Saturday's third anniversary of his signing of the nation's only law giving gay partners the same legal rights as married couples. The loudest cheering, though, might come from Republicans. Dean, a former Vermont governor, is touting his signing of the civil unions law. His campaign is helping organize more than 50 fund-raisers at the homes of supporters across the country Saturday to celebrate the anniversary, with Dean making conference calls to the guests. Several of Dean's rivals for the Democratic nomination also are speaking out in support of increased rights and acceptance of gays. But many Republicans say strong support for gays will backfire in the general election and help President Bush (news - web sites) win more conservative and southern states. Richard White, a Republican state senator from Mississippi, said any candidate talking about gay rights might as well not even visit his state. "The people down here, they are not going to put up with that kind of stuff," White said. "We're not prepared for all that in Mississippi or anywhere else in the southern states."

Ah yes, the Party of the Confederacy trying to tell us all how to live our lives. Read the article, there's more. Tomorrow (Saturday) is National House Party Day for Howard Dean, starting several days of events to, as the campaign puts it, "Celebrate the 3rd Anniversary of Governor Dean signing the Vermont Civil Union Law and his stand as a Democratic Presidential candidate for equal rights". House parties are local events in people's houses to bring together supporters and raise funds for the campaign. There are also larger (fundraising) events in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York during the week. I know that in San Francisco there is a "Greet Dean" rally outside before that event, Tuesday. That's at 6pm in front of the Ferry Building. Click this to find a house party in your area. Use the pop-up menu next to "City:" to choose the city nearest you. There is also a Dean for America Students page listing campus events. From the page: Campus action across the country on April 26th:

Berkeley University. . .Scream for Dean and Ice Cream! Carleton College. . .BBQ with Live Bluegrass Music College of Charleston. . .Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream University of Chicago. . .Donuts for Dean Georgia Students for Dean. . .Wild Poster Campaign! Harvard. . .Posters! Posters! Posters! University of Houston. . .Scream for Dean and Ice Cream Lewis and Clark. . .Rock for Dean Concert University of Pennsylvania. . ."Meet & Greet" with Ben & Jerry’s Stanford. . .Dean and Ice cream!!! SUNY Albany. . .Friendly Dinner at Friendly’s Diner University of Tennessee, Knoxville. . .Cook-out for Dean Tulane College. . .Liberalpalooza Promo University of Wisconsin at Madison. . ."Party in the Park" Promo

--- Posted at 4/25/2003 09:31:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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High Taxes on the Rich are GOOD FOR a Consumer Economy

In a comment to the Gephardt Health Care piece below someone wrote something about Europe giving people health care helps their economy do well "despite" their high tax rates. That set me off. I wrote:

What do you mean Europeans do well "despite" their high taxation? If you look at our history and compare tax rates with economic growth, you're in for a surprise. But maybe not a surprise, if you think about us as a consumer economy, and when the tax base is shifted upward the burden of supporting the government is less on the broad mass of consumers, so they are better able to support the consumer economy. High taxes on the rich are GOOD FOR a consumer economy. Concentration of the wealth at the top is BAD FOR a consumer economy. AND on top of that, the way they USE the tax dollars is better for the people there. Health care, pensions, etc. After all, who is our economy FOR?

And one more thing. Taxes don't "take money out of the economy." That's just focus-group crap that sounds good as long as you don't start thinking for yourself. Taxes on the rich put money back into the economy. Here's how: If you tax a rich person, and spend that tax money building a road, what you get is you employ a hundred people and you also get a road. Maybe a better example is if you tax the rich and use the money build a solar power plant you employ a thousand people, get a source of renewable energy, stop importing so much damn oil from the Middle East, and also stop putting so much damn carbon into the atmosphere! (Tax the rich MORE and use LESS oil! If Bush or Cheney read THAT their heads would explode!)

--- Posted at 4/24/2003 03:31:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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It's What They DO, Not What They SAY

I left a comment in response to this post over at Daily Kos, discussing why there have been no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq.

You gotta learn to just ignore what these guys say -- EVERYTHING they say -- and look only at what they DO. What they SAY is only intended to obscure and confuse. Never mind what they say. If you pay attention to what they say you risk getting lost in the fog and smoke. They are really good at fog and smoke. The ONLY way to learn what these guys are about is to watch what they are doing. What they DID was invade Iraq, seize the oil fields and the oil ministry - AND NOTHING ELSE.

Bush shows up in New York after 9/11 and promises billions of dollars for reconstruction and for the fire and police departments. It never shows up. Bush says his tax cuts won't cause deficits, as a way of getting Congress to vote to pass the tax cuts. Of course, they caused the biggest deficits in history. Bush does a photo-op at an environmental site, later they cut the funding. Bush talks about being the "Education President" and later cuts funding. Bush talks about patriotism and supporting the troops, then cuts the budget for veterans' benefits. Need I continue? The only relationship between what these guys say and what they do is they say whatever is necessary to trick the public into believing one thing while they do another thing. Under the Soviet system, people came to realize that they could not trust government sources of news. They learned to look for what was being done. Under Saddam Iraqis learned to trust what they saw instead of what they heard. By now the pattern is clear. By now we should all be learning not to waste our time and energy refuting their arguments. That's just getting yourself bogged down in the fog and smoke. That's just looking "over there" when they point their finger and shout, "Look over there!" Their "facts" and arguments are just trees. See the forest. The forest is this: they lie. They just lie. They say whatever their polls and focus groups tell them to say. Learn to see only what they do.

--- Posted at 4/24/2003 12:01:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Virtual March for Veterans Update

I previously posted about a "Virtual March" to support restoring the funds cut from the Veterans' benefits budget. The Watch has posted a more detailed piece on the subject and has reset the date to May 22. Please go read. This is such a great way to show our support for "the troops" where it counts. The chickenhawk Republicans and their propaganda machine crow about their "patriotism" and then turn around and cut veterans' benefits. This is a chance to seize their issue, publicize their hypocrisy AND, most important, to help out the vets.

--- Posted at 4/23/2003 04:34:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Dean Calls For Santorum To Step Down

Over at the Dean Call To Action Weblog, Dean says,

Yesterday, I called on President Bush and the Republican Party leadership to condemn Senator Rick Santorum for his deeply offensive remarks comparing homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. As additional reports have come to light, revealing a disturbing history of inflammatory, anti-gay rhetoric by Senator Santorum, the deafening silence of President Bush and his party has become inexcusable. Sen. Santorum has refused to apologize for his repugnant remarks, calling his comments “a legitimate public policy discussion.” Gay-bashing is not a legitimate public policy discussion; it is immoral. Rick Santorum’s failure to recognize that attacking people because of who they are is morally wrong makes him unfit for a leadership position in the United States Senate. Today I call on Rick Santorum to resign from his post as Republican Conference Chairman. Once again, I call on President Bush to repudiate Sen. Santorum’s remarks. The President of the United States must represent all Americans, regardless of race, gender, class or sexual orientation. In a nation dedicated to equality under the law, everyone must be equal under the law. By refusing to stand up for gay Americans under attack by members of his own party’s leadership, this President sends a message that intolerance and bigotry is acceptable. That is not acceptable.

The next entry below that one has Dean's remarks yesterday on the subject, including:

It is a policy that must end, and it is a policy that will end with a Dean Presidency. This Saturday, April 26th, marks the third anniversary of the signing of the Civil Unions bill in Vermont. I signed that bill because I believe no human being should be treated with less dignity than others simply because that person belongs to a different category or group. I also believe that, as Americans, it is our duty to speak up when others are treated wrongly—especially when others are treated wrongly by a member of the Senate leadership.

--- Posted at 4/23/2003 10:47:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Gephardt - Repeal Tax Cuts, Provide Health Insurance

Washington Post: Presidential candidate Dick Gephardt called for completely repealing Bush's tax cuts, and providing a tax credit to pay for employers to provide health care for all employees. In the story is a quote from "an operative from a competing campaign":

"There isn't going to be a single candidate who disagrees with the goal that Gephardt has laid out," said an operative from a competing campaign. "However, by taking money out of the economy, which is what his plan would do, he will be criticized not only by the right, but by some Democrats, and by any economist worth his salt. The debate prior to this point has been about rolling back the unenacted portions of the tax cut, in large part because it is commonly understood by experts that taking money out of the economy in the midst of a downturn would only exacerbate that downturn."

Now let's see if we can guess which competing campaign would exactly quote Bush, saying that "taxes take money out of the economy." Could it be ... LIEBERMAN? As a matter of fact, the tax CUTS take money out of the economy, causing layoffs of government workers as well as layoff of workers at companies that supply the government, and spending cuts by those laid-off workers in all the places they otherwise spend money, like clothing andgrocery stores, etc. and on like that through the economy while the Bush tax cuts just hand money to idle rich who then put the money in offshore accounts. On the other hand, this health care plan, paid for by repealing the tax cuts, would put $200 billion a year INTO the economy. I wonder if "any economist worth 'his' salt" -- and maybe some female economists as well -- would disagree with that? From the story,

The Gephardt campaign asked Kenneth A. Thorpe, chairman of the health policy and management department at Emory University -- and a former Clinton White House adviser -- to do an analysis of the proposal. Thorpe concluded that the plan would cost about $214 billion a year and cover about 30 million of the nation's 41 million uninsured, resulting in about 97 percent of the population being insured.

Not quite universal health coverage, but a big step.

--- Posted at 4/23/2003 10:42:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Virtual March To Support Veterans

The Watch is leading a "Virtual March" May 1 to restore funding for Veterans' benefits recently cut by Congress.

Tell the government that if they're going to wrap their agenda in some kind of concern for people in uniform, they better show some serious concern for people in uniform.

This is such a great idea I hope that you'll tell everyone about this, send e-mails, etc, asking people to phone their representatives on May 1, demanding restoration of full veterans' benefits!

--- Posted at 4/22/2003 06:16:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Sweet'N Evil

pseudorandom asks if the sugar industry is evil.

--- Posted at 4/22/2003 12:46:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Blatant Corruption

Over at Open Secrets you can see how all of the companies invited to bid on Iraq building contracts are major Republican Party donors. Companies were not even allowed to bid on projects if they were not big donors, and everything was done in secret! This is blatant corruption! This is blatant abuse of office. It is right out there in our faces, saying "you can't do anything about it so shut up!" And how come I have not heard every single Democrat screaming their lungs out about this? I wrote about this the other day, but it is just so bad, so blatant and so corrupt that I want to write about it again. I am restraining myself from using bold and italics. Thanks to Bitter Shack of Resentment for making me angry all over again.

--- Posted at 4/21/2003 04:02:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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How Did I Miss This?

How did I miss this from April 9 when I read Ruminate This almost every day? Must have been something big going on the last few weeks... Go see for yourself what I'm talking about.

--- Posted at 4/21/2003 02:36:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Thom Hartmann On The Radio

Thom's show starts today and I'm listening right now. You can listen over the internet! Go to ieamericaradio.com and click where it says "Listen Live" over on the left. You can also listen to Peter Werbe and Mike Malloy. Seeing the Forest has pointed to a number of articles by Thom Hartmann.

--- Posted at 4/21/2003 09:31:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Luntzspeak.com

Luntzspeak.com

--- Posted at 4/21/2003 09:19:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Voting Machines

Voting Machines, at Slashdot. (Good, if you know what Slashdot is and how it works. Otherwise ... ?)

--- Posted at 4/20/2003 03:36:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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'A Chill Wind is Blowing in This Nation...'

For anyone who hasn't yet read this -- please go read it. 'A Chill Wind is Blowing in This Nation...', Transcript of the speech given by actor Tim Robbins to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on April 15, 2003. Here is an excerpt:

A chill wind is blowing in this nation. A message is being sent through the White House and its allies in talk radio and Clear Channel and Cooperstown. If you oppose this administration, there can and will be ramifications. Every day, the air waves are filled with warnings, veiled and unveiled threats, spewed invective and hatred directed at any voice of dissent. And the public, like so many relatives and friends that I saw this weekend, sit in mute opposition and fear.

And look at the great photo, too. I post this as much for you have a handy source for the speech, and can forward it to others, as for you to read it yourself. (Like The Dean Speech that I posted a source for previously.) Things that others should read. Things that can move people to think about making a difference. Things you should be passing around, as a way of making a difference yourself. As Robbins says later in his speech, "A bully can be stopped, and so can a mob. It takes one person with the courage and a resolute voice." What I'm saying here is, Go be that voice!

--- Posted at 4/20/2003 02:19:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Good One at Bartcop

There's a good one over at Bartcop.

--- Posted at 4/18/2003 11:10:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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An Amplifier Of Our Own

Michael Finley's weblog worldgonewrong amplifies on something I wrote recently about the need for a "left wing" Message Amplification Infrastructure to counteract the "Wurlitzer" of the right. (I wrote something here as well.) Also, the watch weblog addresses a related issue a the piece titled Framing the Message. Please read these two pieces. Ruminate This and Wealth Bondage have also written repeatedly on this subject. (Bloggers -- Please let me know if I missed you and I'll add you to this list.) (Update - Digby at Hullabaloo was writing this while I was woprking on the piece you are reading.) I am glad to see more weblogs writing about this issue of forming an organization that works to move people toward a more progressive perspective. It is so important to spread the word, and get people talking about the need for this. If you look at why the right has become so powerful and successful you see that they have a well-coordinated and well-funded web of organizations that pump out carefully crafted, coordinated right-wing propaganda to the masses, following long-term strategies, slowly moving public attitudes to the right, thereby generating UNDERLYING SUPPORT for their overall ideology. This is not about just PR and advertising for particular current issues, this is about the long-term ever-ongoing push of their overall ideological framework -- slowly pushing the public ever onward to the right with a steady drip, drip, drip of messaging. The messages are pounded out day after day, through books, magazine articles, talking points read by talk show hosts, TV pundits, newspaper commentaries, and many other outlets. The resulting shift of general underlying public attitudes then translates into ready-to-go support for their issues, their organizations, and finally, into votes for their politicians. THIS is how they have done it, and this is how we can do it, too. The solution - the way to win our country back - is to develop an infrastructure of our own that works to change underlying public attitudes in a general way, thereby supplying support that strengthens and reinforces progressive and moderate organizations, issues, and leaders in general. Here's a brief description of the goal of the Commonweal Institute, that I sent to someone just this morning:

Commonweal is a think tank/communications organization that will work to bring positive progressive/moderate messages to the broad general public, working to change underlying attitudes. Think of Commonweal as a Heritage Foundation of the left. Commonweal will generate ongoing, long-term, thing-tank-based, strategic messaging specially developed for specific target audiences using metaphorical analysis, linguistic translation, aimed at changing underlying attitudes of the general public.

Commonweal is an organization working to help the public understand and support progressive and moderate positions in general, bringing them back from the right, and thereby bringing support for our (moderates and progressives) organizations, issues and leaders. This is the component that is missing from "our side's" approach to reaching our goals. This is "infrastructure" because this general issue work, directed at moving the general public away from the right in general, will underlie and support the work of all kinds of other organizations and leaders. And these organizations and leaders will be able to use the work of Commonweal, getting talking points and other messaging that has been developed by messaging and communication experts. To put it in a simpler way - if that rumored liberal talk-radio network gets started, Commonweal will give them things to say that is put together in ways that resonate with the general public. Take a look at the credentials of the communications specialists on Commonweal's advisory board. Specifically, people like George Lakoff, Laurie Dorfman, Efrain Fuentes, Celinda Lake, Harvey Gotliffe, Geoffrey Nunberg, Paul Ray, Brooke Warrick, David Zucker, and Joan Blades. This will help you understand the nature of what they mean by "communications organization." (The Framing the Message piece over at the watch discusses the works of George Lakoff.) Here's the endorsement Commonweal Institute recently received from House Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi:

"In these challenging times, we need an advocacy think tank like Commonweal Institute to communicate our principles and programs in ways that will resonate with the broad public and empower citizens to take a more active role in our democracy. Commonweal takes a strategic approach to advancing issues in a way that will help decision-makers be proactive in confronting the challenges of the future."

From Jim Hightower:

"It's always good to put your brain in gear before you put your mouth in motion. The folks at the Commonweal Institute do the heavy mental lifting so agitators like me can arm ourselves on the front lines of the ideological battles taking place every day in America. For too long progressives have walked fearful of their shadows, whimpering and whining about what's wrong and fighting amongst themselves over crumbs. With the help of the Commonweal Institute, that time is over."

Congressman Mike Honda:

"Moderate and progressive members of Congress need a substantial resource that can develop public support for our whole range of issues in a timely fashion, and defend our gains from right wing attacks. The Commonweal Institute is positioned to be that organization. I hope to see them grow quickly."

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich

"America needs a true marketplace of ideas, not a one-sided monologue by the right. At a time when airwaves and emails are filled with conservative voices, the Commonweal Institute is more important than ever."

Imagine a public environment where people trying to bring environmental or peace issues to the public's attention, or running for office, don't have to start from scratch explaining why it is good to support strengthening community, protecting the environment, helping the poor, etc.! Imagine if each of us didn't have to constantly be on the defensive, fighting the widespread ideological nonsense spouted by Rush Limbaugh, before we even get a chance to start talking about what we believe in. Wouldn't it be nice to have an organization doing that for you? Working in the background to improve the public's attitudes about progressive/moderate ideals? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to be PROUD to say you're a "liberal" or a "moderate" or a "lefty?" It isn't up to the Democrats or the Greens or moderate Republicans to change people's underlying attitudes - politicians RESPOND to the public, and it is a mistake to blame them for what is going on or rely on them to fix it. Here is what I am trying to say today. This "infrastructure" concept is the solution that I have come to believe is the answer to the problems we face, and I think that anyone engaging in a comprehensive analysis of what is going on will also come to this conclusion. But this is a somewhat complicated issue, and it seems to take some time to understand. As more of us discuss what is going on and how the right has moved the public over time, and talk about the need for this approach, more people understand what we're saying and come to agree. And different and better ways to explain the concept will surface. Bloggers - please write about this. People - please talk to people about this. Funders - please fund this. It may be the most worthy cause.

--- Posted at 4/18/2003 10:33:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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President Dean

Presidential Candidate Howard Dean has a piece over at Common Dreams today, Bush: It's Not Just His Doctrine That's Wrong. Here's how it begins:

When Congress approved the President’s authorization to go to war in Iraq – no matter how well-intentioned – it was giving the green light to the President to set his Doctrine of preemptive war in motion. It now appears that Iraq was just the first step. Already, the Bush Administration is apparently eyeing Syria and Iran as the next countries on its target list. The Bush Doctrine must be stopped here.

Go read more. And here's where to find his official weblog.

--- Posted at 4/17/2003 03:56:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Look Busy

Over at Liberal Oasis, Look Busy.

--- Posted at 4/17/2003 03:25:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Only Donors To The Party Need Apply

The construction contracts for "rebuilding Iraq" are being awarded a special way. A company is not even allowed to bid on a project unless invited.

According to the Centre for Responsive Politics, the invited bidders together contributed almost $3.6m during the current election cycle, mostly to the Republicans. The amounts, though individually not large, are part of the process of ensuring a seat at the table, said Charles Tiefer, professor of law at Baltimore University and an expert in government contracting.

The process of ensuring a seat at the table -- money to The Party. The Republican Crony Club. This is flat-out, blatant, in-your-face corruption -- and if you complain you are branded as a traitor to the country. And there is nothing you can do about it; there is no one but Party cronies in any kind of position to investigate this sort of thing. This should be spoken of by every single progressive elected official until every member of the public is informed! The right did that under the direction of Newt Gingrich. But look where that got them.

--- Posted at 4/17/2003 02:55:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Redlining America

There is a good piece over at Black Commentator, exploring the possible economic consequences of Bush alienating the world.

Only a fool would not assume that last weekend's St. Petersburg summit of Germany, France and Russia was not consumed with the nuts and bolts of erecting defenses against American geopolitical aggression. And only foolish heads of state would admit it. Every actor in each emerging or mature economy is compelled to pursue alternatives to doing business with America, the rogue state that recognizes no rules but its own declarations. China's economy has surpassed Japan's and remains a command system, able to move as a body to favor or disfavor the United States if her political will is tested. The redlining of the U.S. has begun. Like the banker who smiles broadly as he denies that such a thing as redlining exists, then offers his card and his sincerest Good Luck, the world can simply pretend that nothing hostile to U.S. interests is occurring. The effect will be as devastating as redlining the ghetto, a place that is depressed because nothing good happens there.

--- Posted at 4/17/2003 02:32:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Was The Museum Looting Planned?

Take a look at this story in London's [Correction - Glasgow's] Sunday Herald, from April 6, US accused of plans to loot Iraqi antiques. (Hint - the museum was looted after April 6.) There is a reason that Mike Malloy, on his radio show, talks about "The Bush Crime Family". From the Sunday Herald story:

FEARS that Iraq's heritage will face widespread looting at the end of the Gulf war have been heightened after a group of wealthy art dealers secured a high-level meeting with the US administration. It has emerged that a coalition of antiquities collectors and arts lawyers, calling itself the American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP), met with US defence and state department officials prior to the start of military action to offer its assistance in preserving the country's invaluable archaeological collections. The group is known to consist of a number of influential dealers who favour a relaxation of Iraq's tight restrictions on the ownership and export of antiquities. Its treasurer, William Pearlstein, has described Iraq's laws as 'retentionist' and has said he would support a post-war government that would make it easier to have antiquities dispersed to the US. ... News of the group's meeting with the government has alarmed scientists and archaeologists who fear the ACCP is working to a hidden agenda that will see the US authorities ease restrictions on the movement of Iraqi artefacts after a coalition victory in Iraq.

Now, combine that report with this, from CNN:

They now believe, because of some of the evidence that they have found, that some of the items were taken [by art and cultural] professionals. Among other things they found were glass cutters that they said are not sold in Iraq. They are looking into that.

Keep in mind that the Pentagon was fully aware of the need to protect these treasures, and had promised to do so.

"I thought I was given assurances that sites and museums would be protected," Gibson said. Instead, even with U.S. forces firmly in control of Baghdad last week, looters breached the museum, trashed its galleries, burned its records, invaded its vaults and smashed or carried off thousands of artifacts dating from the founding of ancient Sumer around 3,500 B.C. to the end of Islam's Abbasid Caliphate in 1258 A.D.

So, they promised to protect the museum, but when the looting was happening they instead refused. Meanwhile professionals from outside Iraq were ready to enter the museum and take what they wanted. Does this sound like the looting of the museum was planned and coordinated with Bush officials? Would this really be a surprise? Thanks to Cursor, and especially, pfaffenBlog. Please go read pfaffenBlog's much more thorough look at this! Thursday Update - San Jose Mercury News, Experts: Looters Had Keys to Iraqi Vaults:

"It looks as if part of the looting was a deliberate planned action," said McGuire Gibson, a University of Chicago professor and president of the American Association for Research in Baghdad. "They were able to take keys for vaults and were able to take out important Mesopotamian materials put in safes." ... "I have a suspicion it was organized outside the country, in fact I'm pretty sure it was," said Gibson. He added that if a good police team was put together, "I think it could be cracked in no time."

It really looks like there's something to this! One problem, however, where the guy says, "if a good police team was put together" -- fat chance the Bush administration will want to investigate.

--- Posted at 4/16/2003 04:24:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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skimble

I love visiting skimble. Always good stuff there.

--- Posted at 4/16/2003 04:06:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Who's Your Daddy?

I think "Who's Your Daddy?" is a great name for a weblog. tendentious says it's "relentlessly stupid!" Who is right? Leave a comment. Update - he informs me he meant that I am "relentlessly stupid!" Leave a comment.

--- Posted at 4/16/2003 02:39:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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The Wurlizter

Go read about the Wurlitzer at worldgonewrong.

--- Posted at 4/16/2003 02:11:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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SARS Deaths - Uh Oh

I have been reading this report over at The Agonist. It looks like the SARS death rate is higher than we have been thinking. To sum up -- we have ben comparing the total number of reported cases to the current number of deaths. The problem is that a SARS case shows up and is reported 1-3 weeks before death, so we really should be comparing the number of deaths with the number of cases reported 1-3 week previous. To understand this, hypothetically suppose the number of deaths is 100 and the number of reported cases is 2000. That makes it appear that the death rate is 5%. But if these 100 deaths represent 1000 SARS cases 2 weeks back, then the death rate is really 10%. Go read the report. Update, from the report:

Close personal contact or being directly in front of a person with SARS, who is coughing or sneezing, is likely the most common way that SARS spreads. SARS can likely be transmitted by other means, and these are under investigation. "Coronavirus, when it causes the common cold, is most commonly transmitted by hand," said Dr David Heymann, of the World Health Organisation. Worries about airborne transmission seem unfounded. Droplet spread is more likely, with fomite spread (transfer by objects) being possible. There is an interesting current theory about the ‘Amoy Gardens apartment complex’ cluster of cases. The speculation is that feces (containing coronavirus particles) leaked from a broken sewage pipe, causing puddles. The victims walked through the puddles, to their apartments. When they got home, they took off the shoes (contaminating their hands) and then ate or touched their eyes, noses, or mouths before washing their hands. Wash your hands, a lot!

Wash your hands, a lot! Start making it a habit now.

--- Posted at 4/16/2003 12:32:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Repeal the 22nd Amendment

Something else I was going to write about -- the Republicans have introduced a resolution to repeal the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution. This is the amendment that limits Presidents to two terms. (Think Clinton in 04.) But I see that Blah3 is covering this, so go take a look. (Scroll to "While you weren't looking....")

--- Posted at 4/15/2003 04:08:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Preventative War to Prevent Just What Exactly?

I was going to write about the term "preventative war" when there really was nothing we were preventing. Iraq's military obviously was not a serious threat to anyone. (The administration knew this, saying in advance that conquering Iraq would be a "cakewalk.") Iraq obviously did not use chemical or biological weapons during the war. And so far not so much as a small canister of tear gas has been found. So what were we preventing that justifies calling this a "preventative" war? I was going to write about this, until I came across this transcript of a Washington Post online question and answer session with Mel Goodman, Senior Fellow, Center for International Policy covering the same subject and saying so well what I have been thinking. So I suggest taking a look. I just heard President Liar on the radio saying, "Iraq was a haven for terrorists, with an arsenal of weapons that threatened the world." Oh really?

--- Posted at 4/15/2003 02:54:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Just an Arm of the Republican Party

From this story in today's San Jose Mercury News:

KUWAIT - To understand the philosophy of Jay Garner, the retired American general charged with rebuilding Iraq, look to Vietnam. If the United States had fought the Vietnam War the way it fought the conflict in Iraq, Garner says, America would have won. ``They should have taken the war north . . . instead of waiting for it to come south,'' the former three-star general said Monday. ``If Bush had been president then, we'd have won Vietnam.''

I wonder about the appropriateness of such a blatant partisan political statement. (Never mind that we dropped more bombs on North VietNam than all of Europe in WWII, and never mind the threat of war with the Soviet Union...)

--- Posted at 4/15/2003 01:23:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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The Goldman Environmental Prize

I attended the Goldman Environmental Prize ceremony last night in San Francisco. I was planning to write about it when I got home last night, but it was late and I was, frankly, somewhat inebriated. From the Goldman Prize website: "The Goldman Environmental Prize is given each year to six environmental heroes - one from each of six continental regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Island Nations, North America and South/Central America." Think of it as the Nobel Prize for environmental achievement. It was an impressive ceremony in San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House, followed by a reception at City Hall. (Yes, Mayor Willie Brown does wear very, very nice suits.) I have to tell you that I never before been to a reception where the people ran out before the food and bar. The smoked salmon didn't even run out! The ceremony was hosted by a previous Goldman Prize winner, Jane Akre. If you follow that link and read some of the stories you will learn that she was an investigative reporter fired by Fox TV for refusing to read a script that contained intentional falsehoods favorable to Monsanto Corp. A Fox network attorney had placed false information in a story about bovine growth hormone, or BGH, manufactured by Monsanto. The initial report by Akre said that medical experts had found a number of potential problems from the use of this genetially-engineered product. The report that aired said that BGH was the most-tested product in history. Akre refused to read this script. Initially she was offered a six-figure payoff to keep her mouth shut. (Remember that -- reporters are offered six-figure payoffs to lie about corporations.) She refused and was fired. She sued, won, but recently lost on appeal. The appeals court ruled that it is OK for Fox to intentionally mislead their viewers. (Remember that, too.) A short video explaining what happened to her is available here, scroll down and click on her name in the 2001 video clips. Nancy Pelosi talked for a bit. She is a very impressive and pleasant person. Please visit the website to read about this year's six winners and why they won. (Click on each of the six photos.) Also go here to see short videos about each. They are quite an impressive group of people. I'll write a bit about the American Prize winner Julia Bonds, who is fighting to stop mountaintop removal coal mining. Mountaintop removal is just that - they take the entire top off of a mountain. The waste (all of the mountain that is not coal) fills up what had been valleys and streams, ruining the local water. All of this done by a bullying big corporation that pushes everyone around, forces them to move from their homes, and pays off local politicians. From a press release describing her achievement:

In 2001, Bonds and her family became the last residents to evacuate from her own hometown of Marfork Hollow where six generations of her family had lived. Marfork had been virtually destroyed by mountaintop removal mining, which involves completely blasting off the tops of mountains so that huge machines can mine thin seams of coal. Mountaintop removal mining completely annihilates streams and forests, and causes extensive flooding and blasting damage to homes. The pollution from mining and the toxic chemicals used in the preparation of coal for market have been linked to rising asthma rates and other serious respiratory ailments, particularly among children, including Bonds’ grandson. Residents who live near the mining blast zones also suffer from traumatic stress. Slurry dams thick with heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury and lead routinely overflow into watersheds, contaminate drinking water and drive toxic sludge into residents’ backyards. As a result, thousands of local residents have been driven out of their homes. Mountaintop removal mining has also been catastrophic for Appalachia’s waterways. Coal companies routinely dump the tons of mountaintop debris into nearby valleys and streams. Today, more than 1,000 miles of Appalachian headwater streams have been completely buried and 300,000 acres of the world’s most diverse temperate hardwood forests have been obliterated by so-called “valley fill.” Bonds, who previously had worked as a waitress and manager at Pizza Hut and for convenience stores, now devotes 90 hours a week to protect Appalachia and the people who live there from the ravages of mountaintop removal mining. The catalyst for her activism, she says, was the day her grandson stood in a stream in Coal River Valley with his fists full of dead fish and asked, “What’s wrong with these fish?” Since then, her dedication and success as an activist and organizer have made her one of the nation’s leading community activists confronting an industry practice that has been called “strip mining on steroids.” Bonds’ primary nemesis is Massey Energy, the nation’s fifth largest coal producer and the company responsible for the destruction of Marfork and many other Appalachian towns. Richmond, Virginia-based Massey, has one of the worst environmental and safety records in the country. In 2000, it was responsible for the worst environmental disaster in Southeastern history when a slurry spill released over 250 million gallons of coal sludge in Martin County, Kentucky. Massey currently runs numerous mountaintop removal strip mines throughout Appalachia and holds a number of pending permits to mine along the Coal River Valley. Operating from a small storefront on a shoestring budget, Bonds has scored a number of important victories despite enormous industry opposition. Foremost among them is the critical partnership she forged with the United Mine Workers Union over overweight coal trucks. Coal trucks routinely bearing twice the legal load barrel down narrow, steep highways and through towns, endangering drivers, beating up the roads and cracking house foundations. The monster trucks have been responsible for fourteen deaths in the past two years, including a brother and sister who were crushed to death when a coal truck forced their vehicle into another oncoming truck. Thanks to the mineworkers’ union and community pressure, Bonds and other activists filled a lawsuit against coal operators that will force companies to haul safe and legal loads. Bonds is currently working with activists to launch a national grassroots campaign that asks people to write postcards to the governor of West Virginia pledging that they will not visit the state until outsized coal trucks are banned. In a testament to her vigilant monitoring of mining-related violations and advocacy efforts, Bonds has also been instrumental in winning important concessions from the State Mining Board, which recently imposed a 30-day suspension on a polluting Massey mine and set tougher protections for local communities against mine blasting. These victories have come at a price to her personal safety. Bonds routinely receives threatening, anonymous phone calls that intensify whenever she plans a protest. She and other activists have been threatened by armed security guards on Massey’s payroll when they show visitors, including journalists, sites that have been devastated by mining. As Massey pours hundreds of thousands of dollars into an ad campaign to whitewash its image in mining country, Bonds is organizing faith groups and local activists to picket Massey’s annual stockholders meeting set for mid-April. In an attempt to avoid the public outcry about their operations, Massey refuses to divulge the location or date of their shareholder meeting until the last moment. Bonds is also pushing for public hearings about the Bush Administration’s final Environmental Impact Statement on mountaintop removal mining. Because of the involvement of Steven Griles, a former mining industry lobbyist turned second in command at the Department of Interior, activists doubt the statement will paint an accurate portrait of the real threats and costs of mountaintop removal. Bonds is also galvanizing grassroots response to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on mountaintop removal, which was issued on January 29, 2003. The ruling, based on an appeal brought by the Bush Administration, overturned a landmark federal court ruling that banned mountaintop removal mining on the grounds that it violates the Clean Water Act. Since the new ruling, West Virginia has been bombarded with new mountaintop removal mining permits. Bonds and other local citizens are fighting these permits in the courts. Bonds is fighting the Bush administration on a number of fronts as President Bush continues to support a national energy plan that is far too reliant on continued coal production. His victory in the presidential elections was due in part to his upset in West Virginia, which has been credited to the efforts of James H. Harless, a local timber and coal magnate who was awarded a spot on Bush’s transition task force on energy and who now sits on Massey’s board of directors. "Julia is lifting up a region of the U.S. often forgotten by the rest of the country," said Carolyn Johnson, staff director of the Citizens Coal Council. "Julia has figured out a way to communicate the message of what's happening to this area. She brings in politicians and other activists to see the effects of mountaintop removal mining. Julia knows the risks of doing this work; she's constantly threatened. But she knows that she is giving people living in the coalfields voice and power nationwide." “When powerful people pursue profits at the expense of human rights and our environment, they have failed as leaders,” Bonds has said. “Responsible citizens must step forward, not just to point the way, but to lead he way to a better world.”

Julia Bonds gave a powerful acceptance speech. She is an excellent speaker. I hope that she runs for the Senate. Sen. Byrd is very old and is likely to retire. She was a waitress and she should be a Senator. Julia Bonds is clearly the right person for that job!

--- Posted at 4/15/2003 09:42:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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The Liar President II

Just came across this, U.S. Cold Shoulder Likely for Iraq War Opponents, which contains this:

A day after the younger Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien put off a planned May 5 meeting in Canada -- citing the demands of Iraq and denying tensions over Canada's opposition to the war -- the White House said the president would host "strong ally and close friend" Prime Minister John Howard of Australia at his Texas ranch May 2-3.

The liar.

--- Posted at 4/14/2003 02:48:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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The Liar President

Liar, Liar, over at The American Prospect. Excerpt:

It is no exaggeration to say that lying has become Bush's signature as president. The pattern is now well established. Soothing rhetoric -- about compassionate conservatism, about how much money the "average" American worker will get through the White House tax program, about prescription-drug benefits -- is simply at odds with what Bush's policies actually do. Last month Bush promised to enhance Medicaid; his actual policy would effectively end it as a federal entitlement program. More distressing even than the president's lies, though, is the public's apparent passivity. Bush just seems to get away with it. The post-September 11 effect and the Iraq war distract attention, but there's more to it. Are we finally paying the price for three decades of steadily eroding democracy? Is Bush benefiting from the echo chamber of a right-wing press that repeats the White House line until it starts sounding like the truth? Or does the complicity of the press help to lull the public and reinforce the president's lies? One thing is clear: If a Democrat, say, Bill Clinton, engaged in Bush-scale dishonesty, the press would be all over him. In the spirit of rekindling public outrage, here are just some of the president's lies.

Gotta go read it to see what they say about the particulars.

--- Posted at 4/14/2003 02:09:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Nation As Person Metaphore

Please read Metaphor and War, Again, By George Lakoff

--- Posted at 4/14/2003 01:26:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Syria Next

Yes, Syria really does appear to be next.

--- Posted at 4/14/2003 12:45:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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The Secret Cheney Energy Task Force

A question -- was the secret Cheney Energy Task Force a planning session for the invasion of Iraq? Were the invited corporations placing orders for particular buildings,bridges, etc. to be destroyed by bombing, and was Cheney parceling out rebuilding contracts in exchange for campaign donations or other compensation?

--- Posted at 4/14/2003 11:13:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Badges?

From this NY Times story (for the next 30 days, then you're on your own) U.S. May Have to Allow Others to Inspect Iraqi Arms:

But they added that the White House, which has resisted help from the United Nations in the search for weapons, may decide to ignore such legalities.

The Bush Doctrine, stated simply: "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges!"

--- Posted at 4/14/2003 08:32:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Tikrit

How many of you have been following Back-in-Iraq 2.0? I've been reading about Tikrit:

The fact of the matter is that Tikrit is “hot” as the journos here say. It is not “fine” as I thought it might be from CNN’s early footage. A Kurdish journalist and his crew that I’ve become friendly with were chased by men in black in black sedans later in the afternoon when they got within a few kilometers of the entrance of the city. Fedayeen. From Mustafa’s description of his pursuers, they sound like James Bond villains.

James Bond villains.

--- Posted at 4/13/2003 05:05:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Keep In Mind

Keep in mind that Iran attacked Iraq with gas during their war, and Iraq borders Iran and they remain hostile. Because of this gas masks and decontamination gear would necessarily be standard equipment for Iraq's military. When you read about discoveries of Iraqi gas masks, decontamination facilities and other precautions it does not necessarily follow that Iraq was preparing to use gas. I am not saying that Iraq did or did not have these weapons, I am pointing out that discoveries of chemical weapons gear does not necessarily mean they had or were going to use these weapons. Our forces also had gas masks and protective gear.

--- Posted at 4/13/2003 03:43:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Free Mike Hawash!

I posted this the other day, but the way I posted it ("You Could Be Next!") might have diminished its importance. Please go visit the Free Mike Hawash! site.

--- Posted at 4/11/2003 04:48:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Trauma

I've been thinking about our soldiers. It is unavoidable that for years they will be thinking about and reacting to the horrible death and destruction they have seen and/or participated in. Not just the inevitable civilian casualties but also the Iraqi soldiers that we killed and injured by the thousands. This will have a traumatic effect on a human being. Right now most of our soldiers are certainly pumped up, proud, thinking that they have gone on an important mission to protect the country and their loved ones from the terrible threat posed by Iraq to our national security. Thinking they have won a great and important victory to protect us and the world. Thinking that they have avenged the September 11 attack. But one day sooner or later many of them are going to realize that Iraq did not attack us on September 11, and that if Iraq even has any weapons of mass destruction they did not threaten the United States. And many will realize that a country that could fall in three weeks certainly posed no military threat to us. And they will read about the lucrative construction and oil contracts Bush's buddies and campaign donors are getting. How will they react? Back in January I wrote about a piece I had read that discussed the role of 'cognitive dissonance' in the public's support for Bush. What happens when the conditions for that dissonance fade? Will people feel tricked? Or will they require further dissonance in their thinking to avoid facing how they have been used and the feelings that will trigger? Either way, how will that play out? Will they need to become fanatical right wingers to justify how they were used and the damage it has done to them? Will they turn on those who sent them there? Will they withdraw from participating in our democracy?

--- Posted at 4/11/2003 10:08:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Winning

tendentious, on winning. Friday Update - I'm having an "Instant Message" conversation with the author of tendentious: (My end of this might be edited to make me look literate.)

tendentious: i was thinking of elaborations of my idea -- robert blake hires mike tyson, who proves his complete innocense by ko-ing the LA asst da in 1.8 seconds! Forest: That is really good. That is a REALLY good approach!!! Do it. tendentious: missed my chance. you can't retell a joke. Forest: Yes, you can. It's a blog. You can do anything you want. Forest: You can even post it as an update to the original post Forest: OJ certainly WAS innocent -- HE WON! Forest: In fact, maybe I'll update the "Winning" post that points to you, saying OJ WAS right - he WON. tendentious: exactly. but his innocense would have been more obvious to the commentators if johnny cochran had decked whats-her-name! Forest: Can I add what you just wrote - if you aren't going to use it? tendentious: you thief! but if you can do it, i guess you are NOT A THIEF! Forest: BINGO! tendentious: as long as you add this last bit. tendentious: go for it tendentious: describe our conversation. tendentious: except for where you offer to blow me. Forest: blow me

skippy - Notice how he avoids using capital letters to start sentences and proper nouns? Of course, he can steal it thanks to The Bush Doctrine: getting away with stealing it proves he originated it.

--- Posted at 4/10/2003 06:17:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Republicans Then and Now

How many readers are familiar with President Dwight D. Eisenhower? (How many younger readers know we had a President Eisenhower?) Eisenhower was the first Republican President since Hoover, and he is worth learning about. Here are some Eisenhower quotes.

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity." Canadian Club. Ottawa. Canada January 10. 1946 "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." "The Chance for Peace" Address April 16. 1953 "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it." TV Talk with Prime Minister Macmillan August 31. 1959

And then there is his "Farewell Address" of January 17, 1961, just before leaving the Presidency. It is worthwhile to take the time to read the entire address, but here are some excerpts:

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Eisenhower was a great leader who cared about our country and the world and the future of both -- rather than focusing just on the short-term gains of his political party. He warned of the consequences of "unwarranted influence" of a "military-industrial complex." How the Republicans have changed. Now Eisenhower's party is the military-industrial complex, and we see the consequences of the "disastrous rise of misplaced power" he warned us about.

--- Posted at 4/10/2003 09:56:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Republicans Still At It

This story in the Washington Post describes Wyoming Republican Representative Barbara Cubin's remark that, "One amendment today said we could not sell guns to anybody under drug treatment. So does that mean that if you go into a black community you can't sell any guns to any black person?" Right. All black people are drug addicts. So, naturally, North Carolina Democratic Representative Melvin Watt said the remarks were offensive to black people and demanded they be "taken down" from the record, meaning they are inappropriate for House debate. So how did the vote turn out? From the story, In a largely party-line vote, the GOP-controlled House voted 227 to 195 to uphold the chair's ruling that the remark fell within House rules. So, even after the Trent Lott episode, Republicans still are willing to go on the record with a vote that saying all Black people are drug addicts is "appropriate." Great. Republicans never forget who butters their bread: The South shall rise again! Abe Lincoln was a tyrant. The Civil War wasn't about slavery. Welfare Cadillacs. Welfare mothers have babies so they can get an extra $25 per month. States Rights. Etc. Heard it all before -- sick of it.

--- Posted at 4/10/2003 07:33:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Scoobie Explains Bennett

Please read The Truth about William Bennett, over at Scoobie Davis Online. To explain Bennett he does a bit of explaining of Moon as well. (Until links are working, just scroll to it. I'll fix the link later.)

--- Posted at 4/09/2003 03:27:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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"Reasonable" Democrats, Read This.

Tomasky Nails It. In Rupert Redux How the media magnate continues to take advantage of "reasonable" Democrats. Michael Tomasky shows just one example of how "reasonable" Democrats paved the way for unreasonable right wingers to stomp them. In the 1990s Rupert Murdoch needed to obtain a waiver allowing him to own the New York Post along with a local television station.

And to get the waiver, he needed backing from Democrats and liberal institutions. He needed Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.), who chaired the relevant committee at the time. He needed Mario Cuomo, then New York's Democratic governor, to help behind the scenes and to speak publicly about the importance of diverse viewpoints. And he needed major concessions from the paper's unions. This was March. Phone lines were worked furiously; one thing led to another, and by July, Murdoch had the players right where he wanted them.

He got the waiver. Then a few years later many Democrats helped pass the 1996 Telecommunications Act which largely got rid of cross-ownership rules and helped build the Murdoch-Fox empire. And how did Murdoch repay those Democrats?

Back when Hillary Clinton was running for Senate, a research assistant and I undertook a study. We looked at the unsigned editorials and the pieces by staff columnists (not those by guest op-ed columnists) of all three New York City dailies and asked, How have these papers and their writers assessed her candidacy? ... Results? The Times ran 24 favorable pieces, 25 neutral and 26 negative. The Daily News ran 19 positive, nine neutral and 23 negative. And the Post? Seven positive, 17 neutral. . .and 212 negative. And believe me, we were being generous with that seven. There's a lesson in this, and in the whole tale, for our side.

But I'll make you go read what that lesson is.

--- Posted at 4/09/2003 02:55:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Internet Joke

This just came in the e-mail; you probably already saw it:

Top 10 Reasons Dorothy Was Greeted As A Liberator ...And Our Army Wasn't 10. The Wicked Witch of the East actually HAD weapons of mass destruction. 9. Rebuilding contracts awarded locally to Lullaby League and Lollipop Guild. 8. Dorothy apologized. 7. Evil oppressor legally verified as "really most sincerely dead" rather than "maybe dead." 6. Dorothy got it that she wasn't in Kansas any more. 5. Did not install Toto as interim governor of Munchkinland. 4. Went home as soon as possible. 3. No interest in Munchkinland's natural resources. 2. Dorothy wasn't taking orders from the one with no brain. 1. No collateral damage.

--- Posted at 4/08/2003 04:13:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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For Page 16

You'll see this on page 16 of tomorrow's paper.

--- Posted at 4/08/2003 03:44:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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A Comment At No War Blog

Here is a comment I left in response to the discussion after my recent post at No War Blog. (Of course, edited to make me look better.) "Miltiades" is an Iraqi-American who left comments arguing that the war is good because it gets rid of Saddam:

DO NOT TELL TO ME WHAT OUR PEOPLES HURT CAUSED FROM IF YOU DO NOT LIVE THERE! I KNOW I SAY I SPEAK NO MORE. YOU ASUME YOU KNOW IRAQ. YOU DO NOT KNOW. SADDAM HAS KILLED MUCH PEOPLES IN IRAQ NOT AMERICA. AMERICA DID NOT TAKE OIL FIRST TIME AND I DO NOT THINK THEY TAKE OIL THIS TIME. MAKE NO MISTAKE SADDAM HUSSEIN IS VERY VERY EVIL MAN. HE CARES NOT FOR THE PEOPLES OF IRAQ ONLY HIS OWN POWER. IF YOU ARE NOT BORN IN IRAQ DO NOT TELL ME WHAT IRAQ IS LIKE AND WHO KILLS. LETTING SADDAM HUSSEIN STAY WILL ONLY CONTINUE IRAQI SUFERING. MY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SUFERING TO LONG. AMERICANS ARE ENDING SUFERING. MY FAMILY SAYS THIS TO ME. I DO NOT CARE WHO SADDAM WORKED FOR BEFORE KILLING IRAQI PEOPLES. INTERNET WILL TELL YOU ALL YOU WANT EVEN LIES. NO POLITICIAN IS ALL HONEST. THAT IS WHY I AM NO POLITICIAN. DO NOT TELL ME ABOUT MY HOME IF YOU HAVE NOT LIVED THERE. THAT IS ALL I WILL SAY NOW. THANK YOU FOR CHANCE TO SAY THESE WORDS.

Miltiades has a point. The "liberate the people of Iraq" justification for the war might have only come along recently, and is only a pretext for something they were going to do anyway (or perhaps we would have heard about it sooner than March), but it is VERY powerful. The focus groups that came up with this did their job well. Good work, General Rove! No one can disagree that getting rid of Saddam Hussein is a good outcome of this war. It is almost worth the war all by itself. But it is not worth destroying the entire structure of international law, the UN, NATO, as well as the relationships between the U.S. and the rest of the world, radicalizing Muslims and increasing the terrorist threat worldwide, along with all the other consequences of the war as conducted by Bush. Of course, if you look at the outcome of our adventure in Afghanistan, you see that the slogan and the actual intentions are not related in any way. In fact, in his last budget Bush included ZERO dollars for rebuilding Afghanistan and working toward a democratic government. He just ignored Afghanistan and everything he had promised and got away with it. But, again, getting rid of Saddam WILL be one outcome of this war, and people like Miltiades and his family will benefit from this no matter what comes next (assuming his family isn't bombed before the war ends.) And I only wish him the best!

--- Posted at 4/08/2003 03:31:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Greeley

Read about Greeley. And while you're there, read more Pedantry.

--- Posted at 4/08/2003 01:01:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Kill The Leader?

Thinking about how this war is being conducted, one thing occurred to me -- the effect on people under a certain age, who don't know how things have been done in the past. For example, for a large number of people under a certain age, they must think that war is about trying to kill (or sometimes capture, like Noriega) the leader of the enemy country by blowing up his house, civilian government buildings, even apartment buildings or restaraunts he might be in.

--- Posted at 4/08/2003 12:28:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Who Is Our Justice System For?

Nathan Newman writes about the Supreme Court today ruling that large lawsuit punitive damage awards for corporate crimes are "excessive," after recently ruling that a person receiving a life sentence for stealing $153 worth of goods is justified.

--- Posted at 4/08/2003 10:59:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Prosperity?

SOMEthing is just around the corner, but maybe it isn't prosperity.

WASHINGTON - Confronting new fears of recession, the Federal Reserve is refining an emergency economic rescue plan that includes further interest rate cuts and billions of dollars in extra cash for the banking system. The Fed's effort would be aimed at pulling the country out of a nosedive that has seen 465,000 jobs evaporate in just the past two months, raising fears among economists that the weak recovery from the 2001 recession is in danger of stalling out altogether.

Great.

Because of this, some economists believe the Fed will not wait until its May 6 meeting to put its plan into effect, opting to cut the federal funds rate through an emergency conference call, possibly as soon as this week. However, other analysts argue that the Fed will likely wait, hoping that the favorable tide of the war will bolster markets in coming weeks and restore confidence. "I think they will hold off cutting rates again to see if an early, successful conclusion to the war has the desired effect everybody is hoping it will have," said Zandi.

Right, the war will end "early" and everything will be roses. Never mind record levels of public, corporate and private debt. Never mind record low saving rates. Never mind record concentration of wealth. Never mind that all the new jobs are exported to other countries. Tax cuts for the rich, program cuts for the rest of us, and wars -- all laying on a bed of propaganda to keep the sheep in the corral so they can be sheared. Yep, that's a real prescription for prosperity, all right.

--- Posted at 4/07/2003 04:35:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Jobs In A World With High Unemployment

A friend sent me this e-mail she had received:

Our company is developing web sides for several companies last four years in Bangladesh and wants to explore selling Bangladesh website development services to the whole world. We are offering to recruit our company as the web development part of your company. We think if you make a business relationship with us you will be able to make more profit than what you do now or you can start a new web service business to your country. We can say that our service charge is the lowest but the quality is very high. Property of a Corporate Package: --------------------------------------------------- This package contains the following features: => Home Page => 9 Normal Link Pages. => One Feedback Page. => Necessary Logos, Graphics and Animation Development Tools --------------------------- => HTML => Macromedia Dreamweaver => Microsoft FrontPage => Macromedia Flash => Adobe PhotoShop => Adobe Illustrator => JavaScript => VB Script => ASP/PHP => Access/MySQL Database

Here comes the punch line:

Total Time for the Job: Two week Development and Designing Cost: ================================== Total cost of the web site design (Eleven pages) US $100 Additional per page Normal US $10 Additional per page ASP/PHP/Database Related US $35

Great prices, right? Every company in the country is being approached by hundreds of businesses around the world with offers similar to this. Many of them much more credible than the business that sent this e-mail. What this means is many fewer new U.S. web design jobs from now on. The same is happening with customer service jobs (both e-mail and phone centers), programming, and many other fields. They even have shops set up for analyzing medical x-rays. And yes, they are good. These are competent, educated people. India is graduating more engineering students each year than the United States and their schools are very good. What is going to happen to American standards of living? We enter this new era of globalization with incredibly high levels of national, corporate and personal debt. The problem with unregulated globalization is there are no protections against exploitation, and our world has pre-existing unemployment, forcing everyone to "race for the bottom" by trying to outbid those poorer than themselves. So Mexico is losing jobs to Thailand, which is losing jobs to VietNam, which is losing jobs to China and Bangladesh, where many people work for just enough to survive (or less). Meanwhile, because of the job loss, people everywhere can afford less and less, so the volume of trade drops along with prices and wages. AND the countries with no environmental regulations, worker protections, etc. have an economic advantage over those that care about their people and the earth. It is a recipe for a race to the bottom, with now winners except those who start out with the most. Short-term they benefit from paying lower wages -- until the customer pool dries up. But, of course, they've made a killing by then. What matters is getting that corporate jet next year, not killing of your industry five years down the road. If you pay attention to right-wing ideology (and I do) then you know they say that if someone will work for less than you, they should have the job and you should not, period, end of story. If they will work without health insurance, they should have the job. If they will work on a machine that might cut their hand off, and you won't, then they should have the job. They say the only criteria is corporate profit. I do believe that people in other countries have every right to jobs. I don't think it's right to say that just because they are not Americans we should protect our industries. However, there are beneficial ways to accomplish world economic growth. Those who, like me, are "opposed to free trade" are asking for worker safety protections, international minimum wages, the right to form unions, environmental protections - things like that. For that we are marginalized, scoffed at and called "anti-free-trade" fanatics. Why? Because those things threaten the short-term profits of the big corporations. Imagine if people in other countries were paid enough to purchase the things we make. Imagine what would that would mean for our prosperity as well as theirs! If they could buy refrigerators made here, and the shoes made there brought them enough to live better, what a world we would be making. This is what I want, and the anti-globalization people want. Update - I just saw this story, which says it all, Tax Returns Taking Passage Through India. From the story:

The accounting industry has recently begun using the burgeoning India outsourcing and technology markets to process American clients' returns. In some cases, the work being performed is replacing tasks of U.S. accountants.

What did I just tell you? Style note - OK I used all caps for one three-letter-word. I couldn't help it. Blow me.

--- Posted at 4/06/2003 02:40:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Why Did We Do This?

The justification for war with Iraq was that they have weapons of mass destruction and will use them against us. If they find chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, perhaps history will see this as a somewhat justified takeover of another country. So far they have not found them, and Iraq has not used them. If they do not find them, what are we doing there? How will history record this takeover of a country that did nothing to us? But here in America, Bush will be wildly popular for killing and injuring tens of thousands of the people who attacked the World Trade Center, whether they actually did or not. This LA Times poll tells the story. (Remember, to understand the message the right is spreading, don't listen to the words, instead find out what the intended audience HEARS.)

Nearly eight in 10 Americans now accept the Bush administration's contention — disputed by some experts — that Hussein has "close ties" to Al Qaeda (even 70% of Democrats agree). And 60% of Americans say they believe Hussein bears at least some responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — a charge even the administration hasn't levied against him.

That's eight in ten! Where are people getting their information? I think historians will see this as an important story. Democracy relies on the informed consent of the citizens. If the citizens are this badly informed we have already lost our democracy and the world is in great danger. The right can plant any idea into the public mind, cause an attack on any country to take their oilfields or whatever they have. I think we are in for a very rough period. Update - Daily Kos agrees with me, therefore they are billiant. Apparently not brilliant enough to link to Seeing the Forest, however, but I link to them so I guess it works out about even. Right? Note that I still have not used all caps, bold, italics or any other device to break up the pain text. I do not know how long I can hold out.

--- Posted at 4/05/2003 07:46:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Kerry Fights Back Against Republican Smear Attempt

From Kerry Lashes Out at Republican Criticisms:

"The Republicans have tried to make a practice of attacking anybody who speaks out strongly by questioning their patriotism," the Massachusetts senator said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "I refuse to have my patriotism or right to speak out questioned. I fought for and earned the right to express my views in this country." ... "I watched what they did to Max Cleland last year," Kerry said. "Shame on them for doing it then and shame on them for trying to do it now." Kerry also mentioned recent GOP criticism of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who said Bush's diplomatic efforts had failed "miserably" because he didn't secure a U.N. resolution for the war. Following a speech to the New York State United Teachers convention in Washington, Kerry said, "I'm not going to let the likes of Tom DeLay question my patriotism, which I fought for and bled for in order to have the right to speak out." ... Kerry said Republicans have no right to criticize him when they are cutting funds to veterans hospitals.

It's good to hear this!

--- Posted at 4/04/2003 02:50:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Using Akami?

Does your company's website depend on Akamai Technologies? Here's the kind of cusomter service you should expect from them.

--- Posted at 4/04/2003 01:17:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Voting Machines

Are American elections fixed?

Might it be possible that, due to GOP control of computer voting machines, the electoral ""fix"" is in, and that as a result nothing short of a revolution will ever budge the Republican Party from control of the Congress and the White House? In other words, is it not conceivable that our ""democracy"" is more than ""threatened""––it is in fact finished, done for, kaput? And we are not even aware of it?

And, in case you missed it, I wrote about a voting machines story in the Washington Post the other day.

--- Posted at 4/04/2003 12:57:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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No More NYTimes Archive

The New York Times online archive is no longer free. Any NYTimes stories and commentaries linked to by this weblog that are older than 30 days now display an abstract, and ask you for money to see the rest of the piece. This will dramatically affect weblogging.

--- Posted at 4/04/2003 09:51:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Iraq's Weapons

It strikes me that the arguments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are a lot like the right's accusations during the "Clinton Scandals" of the 1990s. It was a pre-ordained assumption that the Clintons were guilty of something, and that an investigation was required to find out just what it was. The lack of any evidence of wrongdoing was proof of a coverup. Every new disclosure was infused with sinister connotations. In the end it turned out that not one single accusation was true - it was all made fabricated as part of a campaign to destroy Clinton's presidency. The blowjob was not related to the initial accusations in any way. I don't know whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction or not. But have seen no evidence that they do, and I know that inspectors found no evidence. Gas masks found with Iraqi army units is not necessarily as sinister as it seems. Iraq was attacked with gas by Iran, so this would be standard equipment. And the U.S. has said they will be using CS and CN gas. I have seen many discussion of why the Iraqis haven't used chemical weapons yet. Perhaps the non-use of chemical weapons isn't part of a plot to draw the forces closer and then gas them, and isn't part of a propaganda plan to increase sympathy. Perhaps the non-use is because they non-possess. We'll see. Update - "Coalition" forces also have not yet found documents linking Iraq to 9/11. Update - "Coalition" forces have encountered resistance from Iraqis they are supposedly "liberating." Update - "Coalition" forces have not yet validated any other pretenses for this war, either. However, the oil fields have been secured and campaign donors are getting contracts to manage the oil fields and rebuild Iraq. So the operation is successful regardless of further events. Note to the commenter on the Hullabaloo piece below - I didn't use caps, I didn't use bold, I didn't use italics, and there are no exclamation marks in this piece. I think it looks like a lot of plain text that non-academics might choose to skip over. Yes, I used to be in marketing.

--- Posted at 4/04/2003 09:09:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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You Could Be Next!

UK Doctors Advised on Ethics of Circumcision Guess what disappeared. (Remember, this is a blog, deteriorating in reverse chronological order.)

--- Posted at 4/04/2003 07:39:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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You Could Be Next!

SARS death toll rises as Singapore woman dies

--- Posted at 4/04/2003 07:38:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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YOU Could Be Next!

More Companies Cut 401(k) Contributions Retirement plans, "disappeared."

--- Posted at 4/04/2003 07:36:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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YOU Could Be Next!

Businesses Cut 108,000 Jobs in March Programmers, secretaries, and others, "disappeared" form cubicles and offices.

--- Posted at 4/04/2003 07:34:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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YOU Could Be Next!

Free Mike Hawash! A programmer at Intel, in Portland. "Disappeared."

--- Posted at 4/04/2003 07:30:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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A Comment I Left At Hullabaloo

I left a comment after this piece at Hullabaloo, Quisling Chalabi. It restates things I have written recently, so I'll repeat myself again. (Edited to make me look better, of course.) (Actually, completely reworked, but still sort of based on the comment.) Hullabaloo wrote:

"If Democrats operated like Republicans, every single Dem would be pounding the neocons at this moment. Salon would do a story a day. Bill Press would enlist Pat Buchanan in a rousing denunciation on each show. The backbench firebrands in the congress would hold press conferences. Oppo researchers would distribute literature about the wacky neocons to every journalist on the beat. "

My thoughts: I don't think it is about about Democrats and Republicans. In my opinion the Republicans are now just an extension of the Scaife/Coors/Bradley, etc.-funded web of ideological think tanks and advocacy organizations -- Heritage, Horowitz, Federalist Society, etc. -- that call themselves "movement conservatives." They have this magnificent "message amplification infrastructure" in place - the "Wurlitzer" - that is able to move the public more and more to the right, and their politicians just rest on top of that. I think that is really the key to understanding what is happening to us so I'll repeat it. The "Wurlitzer" moves the public more and more to the right, and their politicians just rest on top of that. Messaging and activities are coordinated at the "Wednesday night meetings." The organizations and people are unified because it ALL depends on the Scaife/etc. money, and, more importantly, because discipline is brutally enforced, often by ruining anyone who doesn't toe their line. Moderates and progressives, on the other hand, do not have any system (which I call "infrastructure") that is designed to reach the general public with messaging designed to move them back from the right, bringing UNDERLYING PUBLIC SUPPORT for their organizations and elected officials across the board. So while it appears to be the fault of a Democratic Party that can't muster a counterattack, it really is something else. I think the fault lies with the lack of understanding on the moderate/progressive side of the role of having an "infrastructure" in place, reaching out to the general public, supporting their elected officials, candidates and organizations. The right has been doing it for some time, providing us with a a model. (We can, however, skip the ruining-lives-of-those-who-don't-toe-the-line part.) It isn't the party that accomplishes this -- it's the web of ideological organizations and funders that do the "advance work" of messaging that sets up the public environment that UNDERLIES the party. The problem is that "we" don't HAVE one.

--- Posted at 4/03/2003 04:13:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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What Is The White House Hiding?

Thinking it Through wants to know what is the White House hiding?

--- Posted at 4/03/2003 10:19:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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The Dean Speech

Here is a link to online video of the Howard Dean speech at the California Democratic Convention. After it loads into RealPlayer, slide the bar over until the counter reads 24:28, which will skip you past the Edwards speech. If you watch this speech you will understand why you are hearing more and more about Howard Dean's candidacy for President. You'll see that there is hope for the next election AND for making real progress on the issues that we care about after he is elected. Watch this speech and even you Greens will want to vote for Dean! I will support whichever candidate the Democrats nominate, because we need to win and start to repair the damage the right is doing to the country and the world. (Well, I admit that if Leiberman is nominated, even I might be tempted to vote Green.) But right now, among the announced candidates, I have come to support Dean. Watch this speech and you will see why!

--- Posted at 4/03/2003 09:46:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Who Is Our Economy For?

Jobless Claims Highest Since April 2002:

WASHINGTON - New claims for unemployment benefits shot up last week to their highest point in nearly a year as businesses made work forces leaner amid a muddled wartime economic climate. The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications jumped by a seasonally adjusted 38,000 to 445,000 for the week ending March 29. That represented the highest level of new claims since the week ending April 13, 2002.

Yesterday's news was Factory Orders Dip, Worst in Five Months, and the stock market was up 215. This news is even worse, so the stock market will probably go through the roof today! Update - In addition the services sector has pulled back big time! Services Pull Back Sharply - Report:

The pull-back in services, coupled with data this week showing contraction in manufacturing, a hefty drop in factory orders and a big jump in jobless claims, have revealed a grim picture of the economy's health as U.S.-led forces approach Baghdad.

Meanwhile, did anyone see the report on ABC News last night about all the older workers who are losing their pensions because the companies did not properly fund the pension programs, or are going out of business, or converting the pensions to a "cash" plan? Who IS our economy for, anyway?

--- Posted at 4/03/2003 06:33:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Dean Meetup

I just returned from a Howard Dean "Meetup" in San Francisco. (They happen monthly in many localities -- you should go -- see the Dean Meetup icon on the left, below the blogroll and BuzzFlash headlines.) There was a very good turnout. They played a tape of Dean speaking to the California Democratic convention, and I have to tell you that speech was one of the most inspirational speeches I have seen in a very long time! Dean CAN win, and if he wins he CAN return our country to us. I'm tired now, and will try to write about the meetup tomorrow.

--- Posted at 4/02/2003 09:40:00 PM by Dave Johnson

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Sane?

Read this USA Today story, Strain of Iraq war showing on Bush, those who know him say and tell me if Bush is sane.

Bush believes he was called by God to lead the nation at this time, says Commerce Secretary Don Evans, a close friend who talks with Bush every day. His history degree from Yale makes him mindful of the importance of the moment. He knows he's making "history-changing decisions," ... "He knows that we're all here to serve a calling greater than self," Evans says. "That's what he's committed his life to do. He understands that he is the one person in the country, in this case really the one person in the world, who has a responsibility to protect and defend freedom."

(Thanks BuzzFlash.)

--- Posted at 4/02/2003 11:35:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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We Urgently Need Our Own "Message Amplification Infrastructure"

There is a story in Salon, Daschle's SOS, about the right's response to Tom Daschle's criticism of how Bush's failure of diplomacy got us into a war, and an e-mail Daschle sent out asking for people to speak up for him:

As the war abroad continued to escalate last week, the nation's leading Democrat requested help for someone else under attack: himself. In response to Republican criticism, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle's reelection committee sent out an e-mail last Thursday to union presidents and other supporters asking for them to "take the time to defend Senator Daschle from his critics." The e-mail, obtained by Salon, noted that after Daschle "criticized the Administration's diplomatic efforts, the conservative attack machine went into full swing." On March 18, right before President George W. Bush issued his final ultimatum to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Daschle told an American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees audience that he was "saddened, saddened, that this president failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to go to war. Saddened that we have to give up one life because this president couldn't create the kind of diplomatic effort that was so critical for our country."

One paragraph in particular jumped out at me:

In many ways Daschle's note is symbolic of a larger problem for the Democrats: They need to both support our troops, lest they be painted as less than patriotic, yet they also need to point out the president's missteps, raise funds and prepare for the 2004 elections. This can create awkward situations -- ones that Republicans, better organized and funded, can easily exploit.

I think the "larger problem for Democrats" is that the right has a comprehensive, widespread "message amplification infrastructure" in place to repeat their message, pound on anyone or anything they don't like and promote anyone or anything they do like, AND MODERATES AND PROGRESSIVES DO NOT! This is the larger problem for Democrats - and Greens -- and moderates and progressives and environmentalists and anti-war activists and organizations of all stripes! The right's infrastructure has been called, among other things, "The Mighty Wurlitzer." This message amplification system repeats and repeats messages and literally shouts down any opposing opinions. (I say 'literally' because I have seen too many cable news shows where the right-wing spokesperson literally uses shouting as a tactic to drown out whatever an opponent tries to say.) This infrastructure enables the right, on a moment's notice, to trot out a string of supposedly independent "voices" -- organizations, websites, TV networks, talk-radio shows, experts, scholars and pundits -- to argue their side of any issue. This is why I call this an "infrastructure" -- because it is issue independent, and it is "turnkey," meaning it is in place and ready to go on short notice regardless of the issue! The right's "think tanks" prepare talking points and briefing papers that are widely faxed and passed out and downloaded. They crank up their in-place network of talk-show hosts, pundits, officeholders, etc., and give them their instructions, and away it goes. And they prepare articles and commentaries that are printed in their web of magazines and newspapers. This message amplification infrastructure completely overwhelms the efforts of moderates and progressives to get their own messages out to the public. Look at the result of their use of this message amplification system. Who can deny that we have an imbalance in our national discourse? Think about the bizarre and terrible situation our country is in: The government focuses on tax cuts for the rich while we have greater and greater deficits, the health care system is falling apart, our education system is badly underfunded, even our roads and bridges are in need of repair. We are not even funding our anti-terrorism efforts, yet the government's focus remains tax cuts for the rich and doing favors for the corporations that fund the right! Among other obvious results of this imbalance, we have an unelected President, and we are in an unnecessary war promoted by the right's web of organizations and media. People who object are called "unpatriotic," and even face severe economic consequences, like the Dixie Chicks and France. I attribute this imbalance to the right's domination of the national discourse, and that domination is the result of their powerful message amplification infrastructure. Nothing like this messaging infrastructure is in place for moderates and progressives. Yes, there are organizations and think tanks that address specific policy areas. The Economic Policy Institute and the Sierra Club are examples. But these are not linked, not coordinated, and do not draw on a common network of pundits, talk shows, and advocacy organizations. We must put such an infrastructure together for moderates and progressives! So how do we accomplish this? 1) Recognize the need for it, and inform others. This is the beginning of the process! Read this article about how the right developed the idea of forming their infrastructure (written from the right's perspective).

Envious conservatives watched the powerful liberal coalition of academics, think tank analysts, members of Congress, White House aides, interest group officials, and journalists run much of the business of the nation's capital and wondered: "Why can't we put together an operation like that?" And wondered some more. Yet the answer was clear: there was no conservative alternative to the Brookings Institution, the catalyst for many of the legislative successes of the liberals during the 1960s and early 1970s.

Well, the 1960's Brookings Institution was nothing compared to what the right has built since! We need to understand how the right has been so effective, and realize that we must set up a similar coordinated infrastructure that OUR leaders and organizations and institutions can draw on to get their messages out. Think about this, tell others about it. Write about it. 2) We must get this funded. Do you think this would be too expensive? Well, here is a surprise -- there is more money available on the moderate-progressive side than there is on the right! Yes, this is true. There is a great deal of private money that is given to environmental causes, civil rights, social justice, housing for the poor, economic opportunity for disadvantaged, and so many other programs that would be considered moderate/progressive. Much of this is done through a system of philanthropic foundations and organizations -- a system set up over the last 100 years since the time of Carnegie and Rockefeller. But we now live in a world where the things we care about are under organized attack, and the moderate and progressive organizations and institutions are not set up to defend themselves and their programs! Who would have thought that there would be an organized, well funded attack by ideologues who believe that helping the poor and protecting the environment and things like that are bad? But this is what is happening, and philanthropists need to understand that there has been a change in the public environment, and begin funding an infrastructure to counter this. The problem with traditional philanthropy is that the public environment of support for these programs has been changed by the efforts of this right-wing message amplification infrastructure. The nature of traditional philanthropy, with its "program funding" is under attack. Program funding, which came about as a way to best apply limited resources, is no longer as effective. In business terms, there is a poor return on investment (ROI) resulting from the effects of the right's attack operation. For example, $5 million put into a "save the redwoods" project is wasted if one right-wing judge rules that the trees can be cut, or a right-wing government rules that the best way to fight forest fires is to remove the trees! Wouldn't it have been better to put $500,000 into an infrastructure that generally counters the right's attack, working to bring public support back toward the center, so that the other $4,500,000 could be effective? This is how the right has been so effective - by building a message amplification infrastructure - and we should fight back and counter their attack. If you know people who give money to organizations, or people who work at philanthropic foundations, please talk with them about this problem of the goals of traditional philanthropy being under attack, and how to respond. Important - read also Don't Blame the Democrats. There is more coming on this subject!

--- Posted at 4/02/2003 09:43:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Why I Am Not A Green

Light blogging? Well it isn't working out that way. (I've noticed that the best way to get the writing going is to actually POST that you aren't writing much...) After posting that there would be light blogging, I read the most recent comment to the Biden to Peace Movement , "F%&K You!" piece from the other day. Here's is most of the comment:

The least significant of the two points, is the longtime stance he just cited by linking to his archive, that "Ralph Nader is a Scab". After Clinton and Gore cut everyone off welfare in 1996; stumped for the "Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty" act that same year; after Al was instrumental in selling vast tracts of Federal land to oil companies; after they failed to do anything about CAFE mileage standards for eight years; (look up Senate Resolution #98 of 1997 if you think Al's participation in the Kyoto treaty was anything more than a joke); after Al's steadfast support of Star Wars; Joe Lieberman's steadfast support of Tort "Reform," etc., etc., etc., well I'm sorry but I believe it was the Democrats who walked away from my picket line and not vice versa. That march continues to this very day. (I'm going to enjoy listening to the Democrats in 2004, trying to convince me that Joe Lieberman is our only hope to restore world peace and fight corporate corruption.) But that's a minor point. The more important point is, a realistic analysis of Ralph Nader's impact on the 2000 shows that this fixation on blaming the Greens for "throwing" the election is without merit. Sure, Ralph got 2.8 million votes nationwide, and 98,000 in Florida. But according to CBS and MSNBC exit polls, roughly 10% of self-described "Democrats" VOTED FOR BUSH in the 2000 election, nationwide -- and roughly 12%, NEARLY ONE IN EIGHT, in Florida (again, CBS and MSNBC). Crunch those numbers and you can see: FIVE MILLION Democrats voted for Bush nationwide, almost twice Nader's total, and 350,000 Democrats voted for Bush in Florida, nearly four times Nader's number. So isn't this fixation with blaming Nader, shared by MediaWhoresOnline and Eric Alterman, among many others... isn't that just a smokescreen that lets Democrats ignore their own failures? Oh by the way, 8% of Republicans, nationwide and in Florida, voted for Gore, but I assume the Democrat's don't have a problem with that. So we have to ask the question, why were Republicans 92% confident in their candidate, while Democrats were only 90% confident (or, in Florida, 88% confident) in theirs?? This is not just an abstract statistical quirk for me. One of my own immediate family members, for example, describes herself as a "Democrat," but in 2000 she voted an all-Democrat ticket with Bush at the top. Since that time, she's become a Bush convert, listening to Fox news all the time, boycotting the French, and so forth. Which leads me to the opinion: as Jim Hightower says, when you raise a hunger for steak among the voters, they're going to pick the sirloin over the ground chuck every time. When Democrats track to the Right, in a largely vain effort to pick up that elusive "undecided middle," they do NOT project an image that they are reasonable, bipartisan, open to democratic compromise. The message they project, to a sizeable chunk of the voters at least, is that they agree with the Republicans on crucial issues and are simply not being sincere about their opposition. Therefore the "undecided middle" votes for the people who project more conviction, and we end up with a situation like we did in November 2002. It is the weak-kneed Democrats (exempting the strong-willed ones, like the late great Wellstone, or Jesse Jackson Jr.), who are the ones, in my opinion, who end up getting Republicans elected in close races. Not the numerically less significant Greens. Get that 10% number down -- even a couple of percent!! -- before you accuse me of breaking solidarity.

THIS is my biggest problem with the Greens. I haven't heard ANY Greens put that kind of energy into attacking Republicans and their policies, EVER! This comment is entirely about things that happened in the past, and reads more like a Republican anti-Democrat tract than than about how do we accomplish those progressive goals that we share! Many Greens spend more time and energy attacking Democrats than they do trying to get their agenda passed. WHO BENEFITS from this kind of campaign against Democrats? The environment? The poor? Iraqi civilians? Civil rights? The economy? Workers rights? Let me confess a sin - I used to be registered as a Green, and I voted for several Green candidates. But for me, politics is about achieving certain goals -- protecting the environment, keeping peace in the world, bringing opportunity to the disadvantaged - things like that, things I call progressive goals and believe that Democrats and Greens share. These progressive goals are very important to me, and I look for the best way to get things done, to accomplish these goals. Initially I registered and voted Green to "send a message to the Democratic leadership" but eventually I realized that voting Green was actually threatening my goals by "splitting the vote" and I changed my registration back to the Democratic Party. Yes, I understand that some Democrats took corporate money and voted in ways I think were destructive to the overall cause. But I think it is more important to work toward my goals than to punish those Democrats for being less than perfect. Today I look at politics as an emergency! I lived through Nixon and Reagan, and now I am fortunate to have a job that allows me to study the right-wing movement, so I understand that the right is no longer engaged in anything resembling a democratic contest. I believe that today we face a terrible threat. My experience and study has led me to believe that many on the right are itching to round up people like me and put us into camps - or worse. Just spend a minute reading Ann Coulter or Michael Savage and you'll understand what I am talking about. And this is on top of the terrible destruction they are bringing to all of the things that I care about so much - the environment, world peace, opportunity for the disadvantaged, civil rights, corporate corruption, concentration of wealth, even basic civility! Some of the people in this government are the same individuals who helped Nixon subvert the electoral process, and who helped overthrow the Allende government in Chile, leading to the horrible repression that followed. Many of the people in this government are the same individuals who helped Reagan subvert the Constitution, and helped bring about the "secret wars" in Central and South America that brought death and torture to so many. ALL of the people in this government come out of the nasty, ultra-partisan "movement conservative" smear campaigns and destruction of our judicial system that occurred in the 1990s. These are not people who care for a minute about democracy or rights or community or civility or YOU! Today we face a real threat to our liberties and possibly even our lives, and I don't CARE what some Democrats did in the 1990's, I want to work in the most effective possible way to fight them, and to accomplish the progressive goals that I care so much about! This is why I am no longer a Green. Now to address some specifics in what the commenter wrote. The anti-Democrat facts in the comment are just wrong! An example - there would be no Kyoto treaty if Gore himself had not flown to Kyoto to persuade the attendees to vote for the treaty! I remember that, and if the writer had been working to achieve the goal of protecting the environment from global warming, the writer would be ready to acknowledge Gore's contribution - as do all major environmental organizations! How does it help Nader's argument if some Democratic voters voted for Bush? Doesn't this reinforce why we need those people who really understand the issues to hold solidarity, so we can accomplish those things we agree need doing? Is the writer unaware of the propaganda effort the Republicans put out to blur the distinctions between themselves and Democrats (assisted by the Greens)? OF COURSE a lot of people are persuaded to vote Republican! That's the battle we are in if we want to get anything done to help the environment, the poor and peace on earth! The Greens should be fighting alongside those who share their overall goals, not assisting those who want to destroy everything the Greens say they stand for. Update - I should have added sooner - I was at my talk on blogging, which went very well - that I think a solution we can all agree on is preferential balloting, also known as instant runoff voting (IRV). IRV lets you select a first and a second choice. If no candidate gets 50% the candidates with the lowest number of votes are eliminated and the SECOND choice on the ballots for those candidates is used. Here's how this works - If this had been in effect in Florida Nader and Buchanan (and others) ballots would have their second choices applied (most likely Gore and Bush). The Nader votes would have been applied most likely to Gore. The Buchanan votes would have been applied to Bush (or Gore in Palm Beach because of the mistakes). With IRV voting people can "vote their conscience", but their vote would COUNT TOWARD candidates who SHARE their values, instead of working against candidates who share their values. It helps everyone and is much more democratic than what we have now.

--- Posted at 4/01/2003 08:12:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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Light Blogging

I'm having one of those periods where I'm not writing much. Maybe I'm spending too much time read other blogs! Also, I'm giving a talk on blogging today and that's eating up time. So I guess I must declare this an official Light Blogging day.

--- Posted at 4/01/2003 08:01:00 AM by Dave Johnson

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