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SUNDAY 10.3.04 / 1:13 PM / LINK / EMAIL

Anti-American capitalist oligarchs and money-grubbing sycophants

I just heard some regular guy in a radio interview say he gets most of his news from Fox and thinks he's "pretty well informed". This is what happens when media conglomerates are owned by anti-American capitalist oligarchs like Rupert Murdoch and operated by money-grubbing sycophant egotists like Sean Hannity.

OK, now that I've got that off my chest let me fill you in on where it comes from.

First there's the post at Talking Points Memo the other day about Fox's coverage of fabricated Kerry quotes --completely fabricated quotes passed off as real. And now this by Atrios.

Fox apparently interviewed as authentic a member of "Communists for Kerry" which is, "... a campaign of the Hellgate Republican Club, a tax exempt non-partisan public advocacy "527" organization. This "Kerry supporter" said things like "We're trying to get Comrade Kerry elected and get that capitalist enabler George Bush out of office,"

The purpose of the Hellgate (how's that for an appropriate moniker?) Republican Club is,"Informing voters with satire and irony, how political candidates make decisions based on the failed social economic principles of socialism that punish the individual by preventing them from becoming their dream through proven ideas of entrepreneurship and freedom."

Now put that yellow "journalism" together with the regular guys out there who think that Fox is tuning their minds to the pulse of reality, and no wonder the American Idea is heading onto the ashheap of history. It'll be an inside job, that's for sure.

As Atrios wonders, "Is anyone ever going to hold this network to any standard?"

It doesn't look like it. Murdoch is right up there with Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels when it comes to raping the truth.

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10.3.04 / 10:59 AM / LINK / EMAIL

Why fear something you already live with?

Those on the lower economic steps of the stairway to heaven have nothing to fear from the possibility of a new draft. Why fear something you already live with? Isn't a large part of fear the unknown?

“For Black, Latino, Native American, Asian and poor white youth, there is a powerful economic draft that forces our children into the military with promises of discounted higher education, benefits, job skills development and traveling the world," says activist, Sam Anderson. "The shrinking civilian job market with sweatshop labor conditions helps create this economic draft. “Hence, the proposed draft legislation does not have to be passed to ensure a multimillion populated standing army for the protection and promotion of imperialism and white supremacy.”

We know from stories like George Bush's pass into the Texas Air National Guard, that there are always ways the privileged manage to avoid nightmares the less-well-off face daily. In this world its always been about money, more and less.

Still, the vanishing middle class may want to get up to speed on some pending legislation --to be specific, the bills known as S89 and HR163, which are now in the Senate and House. These are bills to re-instate the draft.

The White House, of course, is keeping mum on this legislation --election year and all, but there it is. We're spread so thin militarily because of Bush's war we need more bodies.

As this story from Pacific News Service reports, "$28 million has been added to the 2004 Selective Service System (SSS) budget in preparation for the military draft."

What's more says Mr. Anderson “Once your child (male or female) reaches 15 or 16 years-old, in 2004 and beyond, they have to sign up for Selective Service"

Anderson explains this is because the administration and the Republican congress had buried a bomb in the No Child Left Behind law. When the bomb goes off it allows the military to pursue 14 and 15 year-olds. They can visit the house or their school, contact them by mail or e-mail.

"This is buried deep in the 600 pages of the law. If a parent doesn’t want this, then they must request an option out. But, what happened is that they set a date also buried deep in those pages. Some people fought it and won some relief, but you have to go to the high school and ask for an opt out. If the child does not sign up for Selective Service [later] they can be arrested and go to jail. This is not the draft, this is so that they have the names, so that if they have the draft, they can tap into it immediately.”

And don't look to Democrats for help on this according to Anderson. Both parties support it. Even though Congressman Charles Wrangle says the bill as proposed will be a "great equalizer", don't believe it, says Anderson who adds, "The draft has never been that in this country, to have every kid of a certain age signed up; children of the ruling class always got out, or were able to get certain privileged positions. The loop holes will always be there for the children of the rich.”

Pay attention, your life depends on it. Check out the Pacific News story.


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10.3.04 / 9:28 AM / LINK / EMAIL

Presidential Propheteering

For a religious look at the campaign, says Frank Rich in today's NY Times, the DVD, Faith in the White House, portraying George Bush as a modern day prophet is a must-have item.

"More than any other campaign artifact," Rich says, " it clarifies the hard-knuckles rationale of the president's vote-for-me-or-face-Armageddon re-election message. It transforms the president that the Democrats deride as a "fortunate son" of privilege into a prodigal son with the "moral clarity of an old-fashioned biblical prophet." Its Bush is not merely a sincere man of faith but God's essential and irreplaceable warrior on Earth. The stations of his cross are burnished into cinematic fable: the misspent youth, the hard drinking (a thirst that came from "a throat full of Texas dust"), the fateful 40th-birthday hangover in Colorado Springs, the walk on the beach with Billy Graham. A towheaded child actor bathed in the golden light of an off-camera halo re-enacts the young George comforting his mom after the death of his sister; it's a parable anticipating the future president's miraculous ability to comfort us all after 9/11. An older Bush impersonator is seen rebuffing a sexual come-on from a fellow Bush-Quayle campaign worker hovering by a Xerox machine in 1988; it's an effort to imbue our born-again savior with retroactive chastity. As for the actual president, he is shown with a flag for a backdrop in a split-screen tableau with Jesus. The message isn't subtle: they were separated at birth."

Notice how the title has two meanings one of which suggests we should have faith in the White House. But this is exactly the thing the American experiment was supposed to forestall. And this is exactly the reason you can't trust the religious to run a country without effective checks and balances. The rub is when all three branches of government and the news media share a sectarian view of the world. Then all bets are off. Then you risk getting something like Al Qaeda.

Let George pray all he wants in a closet (as scripturally advised by Jesus). Better yet, let him stay in the closet forever for that matter. But we cannot encourage him as a nation to undermine the constitution with his brand of belief.

The movie concludes with this voiceover,"Will George W. Bush be allowed to finish the battle against the forces of evil that threaten our very existence?"

Will the ubermench?

I don't know about the ubermench, but the way George is going about it, if there really is a God, the answer's, "No."


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10.3.04 / 8:53 AM / LINK / EMAIL

Letting Ideology Rule

Thomas Friendman's first commentary for the NY Times after his book-writing hiatus charges the Bush administration with being wrong, wrong, wrong, as John Kerry says. The core of his charge is this paragraph:

"...my time off has clarified for me, even more, that this Bush team can't get us there, and may have so messed things up that no one can. Why? Because each time the Bush team had to choose between doing the right thing in the war on terrorism or siding with its political base and ideology, it chose its base and ideology. More troops or radically lower taxes? Lower taxes. Fire an evangelical Christian U.S. general who smears Islam in a speech while wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army or not fire him so as not to anger the Christian right? Don't fire him. Apologize to the U.N. for not finding the W.M.D., and then make the case for why our allies should still join us in Iraq to establish a decent government there? Don't apologize - for anything - because Karl Rove says the "base" won't like it. Impose a "Patriot Tax" of 50 cents a gallon on gasoline to help pay for the war, shrink the deficit and reduce the amount of oil we consume so we send less money to Saudi Arabia? Never. Just tell Americans to go on guzzling. Fire the secretary of defense for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, to show the world how seriously we take this outrage - or do nothing? Do nothing. Firing Mr. Rumsfeld might upset conservatives. Listen to the C.I.A.? Only when it can confirm your ideology. When it disagrees - impugn it or ignore it."

Now it doesn't take an expert on the middle east to know that Bush has been 98% wrong about everything he's done in Iraq. If you stay reasonable tuned, ignore Fox news (especially), and distill what everybody else is saying, the average person will come up with the same conclusion. But it is good to hear Friedman, who had been supportive of the administration's move to invade, come right out and say these guys have let ideology rule --or they're "abstracted from reality", as pro-Bushman, David Brooks, just said.

This is what Bush really means when he says you have to be resolute and steadfast. You must never waver from ideology no matter what reality hits you in the head.


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SATURDAY 10.2.04 / 3:26 PM / LINK / EMAIL

A Jerry Falwell Moment

There are reports surfacing that super-religious Democrats believe recent hurricane devastation in Florida is God's punishment for the 2000 election debacle and the nationwide political catastrophy which followed it.

Devout Democrats in hair shirts and workboots are blaming it especially on Kathrine Harris. They said hurricane Ivan in particular was aiming at Harris. Jeanne was Ivan's backup and was set up to wipe out the former Florida Secretary of State if Ivan failed. Fortunately for Harris hurricanes are not all that smart (or God was using the same intelligence source as George Bush). Harris was out of the state at the time.

Republicans are appalled at the rumors. They deny God had anything to do with recent hurricane activity and rediculed the idea that God is after Florida because God is working for them. They suspect the widespread damage was instigated by Islamic terrorists.

"Poppycock!" said one irate member of the GOP.

"Donkeywash," said another.

"F*** them!" said Dick Cheney.

Jerry Falwell was spending forty days in the desert not having any luck trying to out-smart Satan and could not be reached for comment.


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10.2.04 / 12:06 PM / LINK / EMAIL

George Bush: It's hard being president.

Now we all know, it's hard work being president. George Bush made that abundantly clear Thursday night as he whined for the camera.

It's hard work. All the rationales you've gotta come up with and stuff. Lemme tell you, staying ahead of your prevarications is no job for a flip-flopper -heh, heh. You've got to constantly oversee your DLT (Department of Lie Tracking -for all you non-Republican folks), keep your crib notes up to date, cross reference dates, confirm your alibis ...look, you got to be constantly on your toes trying not to get tripped up by the truth. You got to be resolute. You got to be firm. It's hard. It's hard work.

It's hard reading casuality reports, massaging them (it's tough on the fingers), and trying to keep them out of the hands of Democrats and other evil-doers.

It's hard keeping a thousand flag-draped caskets out of site.

It's hard looking Dick in the eye and know you're not measuring up.

It's hard to talk to a weeping mother and controlling the natural human impulse to come clean and admit you've really screwed up.

It's hard not having your daddy to bail you out of a rough situation.

It's hard to keep your military absentee record under wraps. It's hard to keep coming up with new ways to threaten informants.

It's hard work trying not to smirk when you're soaking the middle class and the poor for government services at the very moment you're giving away the farm to the rich.

It's just not easy to get up here everyday and be monumentally two-faced! You think this is easy? You think I don't lose sleep at night? You think I don't have regrets? You think I don't wonder about my mistakes?

Well, ok. Not everything comes hard.


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10.2.04 / 7:44 AM / LINK / EMAIL

Resonating with people with bags over their heads

David Brooks in his NY Times commentary today sorts out the minds of John Kerry and George Bush. David is a Bush fan of course, so we'd expect him to be even-handed with his guy, but he does give Kerry his due.

Brooks says Kerry is a secularist and Bush is a moralist. He says Kerry is a rationalist while Bush is "...more abstracted from day-to-day reality."

John Kerry is "..much better at talking about realities," says Brooks. He likes to devise ways to do practical things like "..securing the Iraqi border." While Bush is not very good at "...the task of relating means to ends." Brooks says Bush doesn't seem to be able to orchestrate "... the institutions of government to achieve (his) desired goals."

In his sum-up Brooks suggests that even though George Bush is sometimes "incompetent" he's supported by 50% of the electorate because he's "moralistic" and "resolute". And that his incompetence and moralistic language "resonate" with people who have a "shared cast of mind."

Tell me if I've got this right. It sounds like Brooks is saying George Bush's unflinching 50% approval rating despite the evidence before our eyes is because half the voters think it's ok not to be rational or practical. They believe that not being able to bring government to bear on serious problems is nothing to worry about as long as you're moralistic. And that being abstracted from reality is not necessarily a bad thing especially if you never change your mind. And that not being able to relate means to ends is cool as long as your incompetence, abstraction, and moralism resonate with enough people with bags over their heads.

Based upon what Brooks says, Kerry seems to have the mind of a democratic leader while Bush's is more suited to dictatorship or heading a church, or both.

P.S. There ought to be more pro-Bush columnists like Brooks around.


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09.30.04 / 6:44 PM / LINKS / EMAIL

Storming Bush beaches


This marine's name is Steve Brozak. He's from NJ. and he's determined to defeat the Republican running for congress in his district. He says he's also running against the president and his administration for being arrogant incompetents. I like this about Steve. Semper Fi.

Mr. Brozak should know what he's talking about. As reported in Salon, this soldier is "A candidate who has actually served in the Middle East during the Iraq war, Brozak has seen the quagmire up close. A dark-haired, broad-shouldered man, he has a deep, authoritative voice and enunciates crisply -- it's easy to imagine him in uniform, barking orders. When he speaks of the Bush administration, though, it's with the stunned incredulousness of one who's seen all his assumptions about the world upended. Before the war, Brozak says, he wanted to believe his president. It barely occurred to him not to. Now, his voice gets heated when he talks about Iraq, which is the subject he talks about most. 'There were no weapons of mass destruction,' he says. 'There was no planning, just this sense of arrogance and contempt by the civilians in this administration.' "

Good luck storming Bush beaches Steve. Really. Good luck.

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THURSDAY 09.29.04 / 6:44 PM / LINK / EMAIL

Big Virtual Debate Tonight

In case you haven't heard there's a big debate tonight. It'll be a completely contrived event featuring two digital images not insulting each other, and will be run by a stupendous macro debugged by Karl Rove.

The shorter image will either be standing on a virtual platform behind a faux wood podium, or will be stretched heightwise to compete with his long, tall challenger. This will be done by a committee of right wing geeks operating image handles in Adobe Photoshop from a remote location near Dick Cheney's old hideout.

To guard against potential image-damaging virtual comments by the shorter of the two antagonists, software by Diebold, Inc. has been developed to make everything come out ok. This is a tweaked version of the same software they've put together for their voting machines to make sure elections turn out ok.

In addition a new "language straightening tool" has been added to the debate program toolbar to untangle any tortured syntax by the image with the virtual smirk that may or may not make it through the application's speech buffer.

Rest assured there'll be no ugly personal encounters. Rest assured as much of reality as possible will be obscured.


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09.29.04 / 6:34 PM / LINK / EMAIL

The Wizard of Id says, "Good News or No News."

In it's chronic endeavor to turn truth into fiction, or have it disappear altogether, George Bush wants to make the news media even more ignorant than it already is.

The Washington Post says, "...the administration is moving to 'curtail distribution' of reports that show the situation in Iraq growing worse." Besides lies of commission, the administration wants to pump up its program of lies of omission.

"Keep the people in the dark" is their motto, and the darker the better. They don't want to get the idea circulating that this has been a democracy or anything.

Attacks in Iraq are up says the Post. But George says things are good there. If he thinks what's happening in Iraq is good he must be working for the insurgents.

A religious fanatic mole in the White House! Someone tell the CIA.


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SUNDAY 09.25.04 / 7:30 AM / LINK

The Guantánamo tribunals are going well

The Wizard of Id's Military tribunals are going well according to an article in today's NY Times.

As reported there "Although the first full war crimes trial before a military tribunal at Guantánamo is not scheduled to begin until December, officials acknowledge that the process is in turmoil and say there will be substantial changes made in coming weeks to restore credibility."

For those not up with current Bushlish, the phrase "is in turmoil" means "is going well".



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09.25.04 / 7:24 AM / LINK

And the war is going well

The Wizard of Id's war is going well. 7 Iraqis and 4 U.S. marines die not chasing down Osama bin Laden.

For those not up with current Bushlish, the phrase "7 Iraqis and 4 U.S. marines die" means "is going well".


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09.25.04 / 7:14 AM / LINK

A what-if scenario with current implications

We went to war in the 1940s and defeated Nazism. But what if we hadn't? According to Frank Rich novelist Phillp Roth plays with that idea in his soon-to-be-published book and invokes this moment.

Sounds like something to look for. Publish date Oct. 5.


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SATURDAY 09.24.04 / 6:36 AM / LINK

A futher descent into Schizolandia

Right winger Charles Krauthammer goes after John Kerry in this column for dissing allies. This is an apologist for big-time ally-basher Bush talking.

The Washington Post headline for the commentator's remarks is: The Art of Losing Friends.

Ha!

Does Krauthammer have any credibility in this? I don't think so.

MY HEAD IS SWIMMING DEPT:

Well Krauthammer is one thing, but George Bush claiming the high ground in the area of ally bashing is an incredible thing to behold --or should be. But of course it's not. We've become innured.

Still, get this: "You can't lead this country if your ally in Iraq feels like you question his credibility." That's Bush talking.

So is it just certain allies that can't be questioned? Who decides which allies you can dis? Is this a purely presidential prerogative? Can average people participate, or is this option only open to Republican corpigarchs?

These guys are right out of Wonderland. Humpty-dumpties all. And effective ones at that.

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09.24.04 / 6:36 AM / LINK

The fruits of ham fists and stiff minds

Good piece here by Matt Miller. Miller has a debate answer for John Kerry when he's asked about where he stands on getting rid of Saddam and the war.

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FRIDAY 09.24.04 / 7:21 AM / LINK

Whose world is he talking about?

The news from Iraq gets worser and worser, but George's picture of it gets rosier and rosier? Who's the hallucinator or con man here? Who's naked as Christine Aguilera?

As Bob Herbert puts it, "As the situation in Iraq moves from bad to worse, the president, based on his public comments, seems to be edging further and further from reality. This is disturbing, to say the least. The news from Iraq is filled with reports of kidnappings and beheadings, of people pleading desperately for their lives, of American soldiers being ambushed and killed, of clusters of Iraqis being blown to pieces by suicide bombers, and of the prospects for a credible election in January tumbling toward nil."

Or, coming at George Bush's consistent departure from reality from a slightly different angle, this is Paul Krugman's version:

"Mr. Bush claims that Mr. Kerry's plan to secure and rebuild Iraq is 'exactly what we're currently doing.' No, it isn't. It's only what Mr. Bush is currently saying. And we have 18 months of his administration's deeds to contrast with his words."

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09.24.04 / 6:59 AM / LINK

Family Traditions 1: sticking it to the underclass

A citizens initiative will be on Florida's November ballot to raise the minimum wage by $1 an hour. But true to family tradition the president's brother is against it. The president himself is keeping mum for the moment (looming campaign ...votes of Florida's less-then-wealthy), but does anyone have any doubt where he stands on it?

As for brother Jeb, we find this at the St. Petersburg Times:

Gov. Jeb Bush, opposes it. "The governor has been and is committed to bringing high wage jobs to the state, but he believes setting an arbitrary number on the minimum wage will actually have an adverse affect and cost the state jobs," a spokeswoman said.

Family Traditions 2: contempt for constitutions

As the NY Times reports:

Gov. Jeb Bush's efforts to keep a brain-damaged woman alive against her husband's wishes all but collapsed on Thursday, when the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the law letting the governor order her feeding tube reinserted violated the separation of powers guaranteed by the state's Constitution.

Maybe Jeb will take it to the U.S. Supreme Court which seems to have a predisposition to favor Bush fortunes.


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09.24.04 / 6:28 AM / LINK

The Unfeeling President

A friend sent me this article by E.L. Doctorow. For me it harkens back to that moment during one of the 2000 campaign debates. A smirking Bush then appeared somewhat gleeful at the thought of putting people to death.

I think that moment and what it expressed is what Doctorow is writing about in his essay.

He says

"..this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man."


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WEDNESDAY 09.22.04 / 9:48 AM / LINK

The Wizard of Id get's his viscera up for U.N. speech

Appealing to his United Nations-hating base, George Bush scolds it for not doing things his way. And he does it at a time we could use help from the rest of the world.

An editorial from the NY Times on the subject here.

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TUESDAY 09.21.04 / 9:48 AM / LINK

The Wizard of Id, and no backsies

E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post asks a simple question.

If Kerry's ethics during the Vietnam war are in the pit to be mauled, then why not George Bush's of the same period? If swift-boaters can question the motives of one candidate, is there any reason the other can't be questioned as well?

There's a lot of talk of democracy swirling on bitter winds these days. But what Dionne suggests with his question is, if it's politically incorrect to question George Bush's actions on a range of questions steming from his ability to disappear into thin air in a flight suit when he was young, then that's the only place you'll be finding democracy ...in the wind ...blowing away.

Ask yourself, what are we really? Are we really a democracy these days? Not sure?

Maybe we're an oligarchy. A plutocracy? An aristocracy?
Warm, warm, and warmer.

Maybe we're a corptocracy. Hot.
Top down management by a monied elite.

And if we're not there yet, we'll be deciding in November if this is where we wanna go. Huge Decision, and no backsies. It's the big one.

Though the stakes are sky high it's very hard to get any purchase against George Bush. The Republican myth and macaroni machine has miraculously (or diabolically) turned him into a bungling, underachieving, catastrophically successful Wizard of Id. Complete with smoke, mirrors, and sycophant munchkins.

John Kerry pushed the volatile "vietnam" button and got singed by a blast of flashback. The chickenhawk muck and mire machine saw to that.

So now is there any reason to hope that with Bush leaning on the "character" button, maybe --just maybe, we'll finally see something like that swift-boat backsplash that just might tar this president's slinking covert ass?

Nah, not with the near-total foxzation of American media corporations. I mean the ones that hire attractive stooges to do schtick delivering the overwhelming bulk of the pop info stream. Some call it news.

...you know, the talking heads on flaggy backgrounds. The song and dance people of newsland. The self-interested apologists for the hiest.

You don't think you'll be hearing Sean Hannity asking George Bush to admit he was a war-time malingerer, do you? He wouldn't muddy his suit. You'll sooner see Donald Trump having a good hair day.

Anyway, read the Dionne piece, it's to the point ...not that the point enters the fray much anymore.


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