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SUNDAY 08.01.04 / 8:31 AM / LINK

Are we Riff or are we Raff?

In their continuing efforts at thought control and managing reality the Bush administration has been requiring oaths of fealty to get into one of their campaign events. They say it's for security reasons. I say, they don't want unpleasant TV. It's understandable. They want to exclude the riff-raff.

Should the Republicans remain in power and adopt similar tactics governing free movement around the country for, say, security reasons, the question we should be asking ourselves is, am I a Riff or a Raff?


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08.01.04 / 7:38 AM / LINK

Some interesting crunched numbers

Michael Kinsley crunched a few numbers and came up with some interesting results regarding the economy under both Republicans and Democrats.

From 1960 - 2000 (averages)*: Republican Years  Democratic Years  Real Growth  2.75%  4.9%  Unemployment  6.44%  5.33%  Spending ( per GNP )  20.87%  19.58%  Spending (excluding defence)  14.97%  13.76%  Inflation  4.85%  3.81%  Annual Deficit  2.74%  1.21%  Gov. Revenues ( taxes)  18.12%  18.39%  Personal Income (per cap)  $16,061  $15,565   *From the President's Economic Report, Feb 20004

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07.31.04 / 11:38 AM / LINK

Mr. Macho Mucho speaks

In one of those head-shakable moments that have blanketed the political landscape like a cloud of locusts since George Bush was appointed president, Mr. Macho Mucho says John Kerry hasn't done a helluva lot.

This from a silverspooned C-student frat boy drunk who avoided Vietnam like the plague by playing on privilege and even then skipped his cream-puff Air National Guard meetings. This from an under-achiever who then went on to play on privilege again in less-than-luminary business ventures, and finally ascended to the presidency, not by winning or by great accomplishment, but by court appointment. As I said, by court appointment.

Mr. Bush, you ain't no war hero.

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Stephen Hawking says, "Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory... Each time new experiments are observed to agree with the predictions the theory survives, and our confidence in it is increased; but if ever a new observation is found to disagree, we have to abandon or modify the theory."

Going on in this vein Hawking adds that scientists today think of the universe in terms of two basic theories - the theory of relativity and of quantum mechanics. Which is fine, we're allowed to have two of some things. It's still legal. So far, so good.

Now, since we have this genetic inclination to break things down into manageable bits we naturally went for a division of labor in theoretical physics. Therefore the theory of relativity deals with big things while quantum mechanics examines the tiny, tiny.

But "...these two theories are known to be inconsistent with each other," says Hawking, "they cannot both be correct."

Jeez.

To make matters worse Hawking then gets all scientifico-religious simultaneously (that is, simultaneous as long as everybody's standing still). He starts talking about a Unified Theory.

As Mr. Physics points out, "...ever since the dawn of civilization, people have not been content to see events as unconnected and inexplicable (most of us are not Taoists, apparently). They have craved an understanding of the underlying order in the world. Today we still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from (beyond Boonton or New Milford, that is. Or White Meadow Lake for that matter). Humanity's deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for our continuing quest. And our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in."

The truth is, that's a really tall order even for somebody with a brain like Hawking's. But even if he got lucky my guess is it wouldn't change much in the human give-and-take department. Did Relativity stop war? Did the advent of religion?

So it goes, as Vonnegut liked to say.

But as we continue on with Hawking the thing to keep in the back of our minds is that the make-or-break difference between his cosmic view and that of a dogmatic fundamentalist of any stripe is summed up when he says:

The validity of any world view is only good until a new observation is found to disagree, (then) we have to abandon or modify the theory.

This is not popular in the Bible belt --or the Koran belt for that matter. Or among certain politicians.

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07.24.04 / 3:49 PM / LINK


For Stephen Hawkings




All you need to know about time

If it wasn't for the arborvitae I wouldn't know a thing about time.
Watch them grow if you think there's such a thing as endless time.
And watch your kids grow if you're still unconvinced.
Take it to the end of the cycle, this watching.
These things will tell you all you need to know about time.


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07.24.04 / 10:40 AM / LINK

Of war & piece the truth just twists...

Short clip on article in the Washington Times: telegraphing coming indictments in Valerie Plame case?


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07.24.04 / 9:30 AM / LINK

Empathy as a tool

Molly Ivins has a good piece here about modern political tactics. In this case, as used in Republican circles to spin situations with such calculation the victims are not supposed to know what happened. Women, for instance.

As reported by Ivins, Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster and message-meister, was giving an empathy lesson to Bill Moyers in and interview on PBS's Now With Moyers. Luntz said his job "...is to 'set the context' and 'frame the debate,' which he learns how to do through focus groups, polls and dial sessions." But she adds that Luntz kept drawing the line at the word manipulation.

I guess we haven't reached the point yet when you'd want to come right out and say that what you do for a living is you're a professional political manipulator. But it's coming. Just give Republicans four more years...

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WEDNESDAY 07.21.04 / 10:05 PM / LINK

Republican Dupe?

Once an anti-corporate fighter, the terminally serious Ralph Nader accepts tainted funds from Republican deep pockets to help George Bush.

Help Ralph pull himself together.

REPUBLICAN DUPE?

Where's the old Ralph?


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07.21.04 / 10:21 AM / LINK

Terminal Centralization

They used to say, never bring up religion or politics in polite conversation. But now that both are being welded into a formidable monolithic ideology by the right wing we only have one minefield to avoid. And one abyss to fall into. One more market consolidation. You can thank free-market capitalism for terminal centralization.

In a essay by Robert Lavato at AlterNet he addresses the real danger of our contemporary national religio-politics.

His point is there's no counterpoint on the left to the intense ideology of the right that has co-opted religious fervor to gain and keep power. But the right should not feel smug about this because conflagrations sometimes have a way of consuming the torcher and bringing down the whole house. Fires are unruly and unpredictable.

Lavato says, "The inability of the anti-Bush forces to understand the depth of evangelical militancy may result in a fate similar to that of my parents who are thinking of moving away from their (very loud and uncompromising) church next door. Similarly, on those days when polls spike in Bush's favor, more than a few people respond with "I'm leaving the country if he wins" when they're asked for their "plan B." Lacking another realistic alternative and being reservedly committed to the Kerry campaign, many liberals and progressives are trapped between a muddy rock of mainstream Democratic Party politics and the millenarian hard place of a Bush second coming."

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07.21.04 / 8:14 AM / LINK

Even some Republicans don't like polluter protection

In New Hampshire, at least, some Republicans understand their best interests lie in keeping the planet viable. To keep the planet viable one of these, Russell Train (the EPA’s second chief under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford), said Bush’s record is so dismal he’s casting his presidential vote for Democrat John Kerry in November.

Train said, "It’s almost as if the motto of the administration in power today in Washington is not environmental protection, but polluter protection," he said. "I find this deeply disturbing."

Amen, and ain't that the truth.

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07.21.04 / 8:00 AM / LINK

The Leaf Turns

Garrison Keillor has an excellent essay here. He talks about a social contract. He talks about care and taxes. He talks about Republicans and Democrats. And he makes a good point.


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TUESDAY 07.20.04 / 12:32 PM / LINK

Al Qaeda's favorite foil, fomenter and recruiter

When Tom Ridge, our Chief Homeland Protector, alerted us last week that al Qaeda was looking to screw up the election by blowing up something very big again but couldn't say what, where, or how, all I could think was that Ridge himself was screwing up the election with another of his unspecific threat alert. Another closely related thought was that al Qaeda would not be blowing anything up to ensure that John Kerry was elected, but to make it almost impossible that George Bush would not be. And I'm sure many others had the same thoughts.

Why would al Qaeda want the president to continue in office? Because he's their perfect foil, fomenter, and recruiter. Paul Krugman agrees. Read his column in today's NY Times.


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MONDAY 07.19.04 / 12:47 PM / LINK

America's Fabulous proto-Fascists

How can you tell an American fascist from any other kind? You will know them by their works, to quote the Bible and paraphrase Henry Wallace (FDR's war-time Vice President) simultaneously.

What Wallace wrote in a commissioned article on the subject (NY Times on April 9, 1944): "The really dangerous American fascists are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."

What definition of fascism was Wallace using? It hardly matters since at least two of them fit the prevailing politics of the moment enough to make the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

Maybe he was using the classic definition of "fascist" - penned by Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile who wrote the entry in the Encyclopedia Italiana that said: "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." This was so apt an explanation that Benito Mussolini (who knew fascism well) affixed his name to the entry, and claimed credit for it.

Or maybe FDRs Veep was thinking of something along the lines of the definition later to be found in the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary. It noted that fascism is "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

See what I mean by fitting into the "...prevailing politics of the moment?"

As we find in this article by Thomas Hartman at CommonDreams.org, "Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this. In a 1923 pamphlet titled 'The Doctrine of Fascism' he wrote, 'If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government.' But not a government of, by, and for We The People - instead, it would be a government of, by, and for the most powerful corporate interests in the nation.' "

In this light consider what George Bush says to the corporate-studded, big-bang-for-their-bucks, white-tie-&-tux dinner gang in that clip in Fahrenheit 9/11, "This is an impressive crowd," says he. "The Haves and the Have Mores. Some people call you 'the elite'. I call you 'my base'. "

(What do we need, an engraved & personally delivered strategic operations plan to bury the poor and middle class in a 200-year-long ditch of history?)

Having made his case distinguishing government by the people from government by corporations Wallace then puts the lie to corporate Republican jingoism. As that astute war-time vice-president says, " If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States (and that was a mid-twentieth century estimate). There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. ... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead."

In the case of Enron, for instance, it lead to the California energy crisis (and the incidental rise of that Austro-Republican hard body) and the fleecing of millions of investors, among other excesses.


Articles on the spectre of American fascism:

Is America Becoming Fascist? --Anis Shivani "If the test of any theory is its predictive capacity, Bush's extreme risk-taking is better explained by the fascist model." Creeping Fascism --S. Rowan Wolf "...the fascist transformation of the United States has been long in the making. We have been moving towards this for over 20 years. GW is just taking us over the cliff, and he is doing it by promoting and enforcing a perverted patriotism, and promulgating a campaign of fear." A Whiff of Fascism --Father Andrew M. Greeley "...it is simply wrong to assume that the Constitution creates rights for American citizens that need not apply to foreigners. There are, as the Declaration says, certain inalienable rights with which the creator has endowed us, rights that are inherent in the nature of human nature. The Constitution does not create these rights. It merely confirms and validates them." Letter to a conservative young man --Mike Finley "Our current government is 'fascist' in the 1920s Italian sense of the word. It is a radical form of assisting the wealthy to increase and maintain economic power. This is not a good thing. It seeks to undermine democracy and turn the nation into a 'market' and nothing more."

Even the most heartfelt, Bush-supporting patriots among us sure will miss the water if the well runs dry


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07.19.04 / 12:47 PM / LINK

Ronald Reagan to endorse stem cell research at the Democratic National Convention

No, not the one deceased, the one still alive --the son. Republicans, of course are discrediting him.

"Ron Jr. has either allowed himself to be used or he's knowingly partaking in something whose purpose is to damage the party his father spent all of his adult political life in," said one-time presidential candidate Gary Bauer.

This is bad, I ask? Damaging this arrogant, over-reaching GOP is, rather, truly God's work.


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07.19.04 / 12:30 PM / LINK

Finger in eye, spit on shoes

In 2000 the Republicans in Florida stole the election. Of course Republicans deny this, but when you read all about it, particularly in Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, you have to have the piggish resolve of a dyed-in-the-wool pachyderm to avoid seeing the way it was. But that was then right?

Wrong. The president's brother --Governor of Florida, Jeb-- continues to stick his finger in our eye and spit on our shoes.

See it here at the Whiskey Bar

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07.19.04 / 10:28 AM / LINK

Cynic, fool, or bigot?

What a choice.

Read the editorial from the Capital Times here.

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07.19.04 / 8:47 AM / LINK

Half a dented truth is better than none?

...at least when you're under oath it seems ...and when you're military brass. The question examined here is how much dented truth fell from the lips of Army Generals Sanchez and Miller, and Col. Thomas Pappas, during the 9/11 hearings. All were involved in the Abu Ghraib mess.

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SUNDAY 07.18.04 / 4:28 PM / LINK

Representative speaks mind; representative is ruled out of order

Calling a spade a spade is a violation of house rules. At least that's the rule when a Democrat tells Republicans they stole the 2000 election.

As reported in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., and several other House Democrats have made that suggestion. They argue that some black voters were disenfranchised in 2000 and problems could occur again this fall.

What Brown said from the House floor was, "I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure it doesn't happen again," Brown said. "Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said, 'Get over it.' No, we're not going to get over it. And we want verification from the world."

The result from the majority party was not a rebuttal but an annihilation. Of her words, that is. From the House record, that is. Apparently political speech is inappropriate in the House of representatives.

This all followed from a request by Brown and others that the U.N. observe our election because there's some concern the nation may have another Kathrine Harris moment in 2004.

Sounds prudent to me.

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WEDNESDAY 07.14.04 /5:31 PM / LINK

What's a 24/7 commercial for the conservatives and the Republican Party?

Ten minutes of watching Fox news will tell you where they're not coming from. They're not coming from the school of responsible journalism. Yet too many Americans say Fox is their prime source of info about what's going on in the world. No wonder we're now more hated in some places than Osama. Rupert Murdoch is doing wonderful work in the kitchens of the right. Cooking up indigestion in the left while feeding either poison or pablum to the U.S. public depending upon the needs of the Bush administration.

But there's a documentary starting to make the rounds that exposes the Hannitys, Humes, and O'Riellys of Fox. It's called "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism." As reported by Don Hazen of Alternet, Outfoxed "...provides the viewer with a primer on propaganda techniques, documenting how the underlying goal of creating fear and uncertainty in the minds of viewers is achieved by use of language and repetition."

And media critic Jeffrey Chester describes the Fox News operation in the film: "Fox News Channel is a 24/7 commercial for the conservatives and the Republican Party."


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