I’ve been reading about these really lame political attacks by Republicans lately. What the fuck is wrong with these people? We’ve got whackjob Count Chocola trying to get Dems to denounce MoveOn.org; which primarily serves to bring attention to MoveOn’s attack on the Count. We’ve got national Republicans attacking a Dem for accepting five hundred bucks from one of the disgraced Keating Five Senators; despite the fact that the ever honorable John McCain was another of those disgraced Senators. We’ve even got total nutbag Curt Weldon attacking a Dem for having his young daughter’s tumor treated at the wrong fucking hospital. What the hell is the matter with these people? I’m not even complaining about the audacity of these attacks. That comes with the territory. I mean, they wouldn’t be Republicans if they weren’t douche bags. But I’m talking about how totally weak and embarrassing these attacks are, to the point that they actually backfire and put the accusers on the defensive. These aren’t the attacks that got them the Whitehouse and control of Congress. These are the kind of attacks that keep them up late at night, long after they’ve lost the election. Needless to say, this isn’t Rove at his best.
But I couldn’t think of what the hell got into them to make them suddenly suck at this so much, and then it came back to me: These dummies don’t have any other choice. Too often, we fall for the myth that our Republican attackers would be just as vicious and effective no matter what the attack is or how valid it is. But that’s simply not the case. Some attacks are better than others. But our problem was that things were just aligned better for the Republican position, rhetorically anyway. People might like our positions better, but the GOP is usually better positioned to win arguments. That’s what they’re good at and is their number one priority. But now they’ve lost all that, thanks to the inevitable fall of Bush and all things Republican. No matter how bad things were for them or how incompetent or corrupt they were, they could always rely on Bush’s popularity and Rove’s attack plans to carry them through. (And yes, all Republican politicians are either incompetent, corrupt, or both (ala, the Dukestir).)
But all that’s over now and these dopes are stuck trying to figure out how to win on their own. There is no grand national strategy that the Republicans can continue to bludgeon us with. There’s no more “I’m with Bush” ticket. Iraq is a disgrace. National Security is a joke. The Medicare Drug Plan was hated, bloated, and expensive. Even taxcuts don’t sound quite so good anymore. It’s every man for himself, these days. And this is the way things have to be. In the end, the Republicans are just wrong and they’ll continue to shoot themselves in the foot every time.
The Republican Problem
But this isn’t some fluke of our current batch of Republicans. This goes to the core of Republicanism itself. This is a basic design flaw with their entire system, because overall, the policies they want to institute aren’t the ones that the voters want. The essence of Republicanism is a con-game against society; the few exploiting the many. That’s what it’s all about. But unfortunately, the ideal model they have in mind is actually a third-world nation, and they don’t even know it. They want a dictator. They want top-down authority. They want a rigid class system based on economic power, which is based on the rigid class system. To them, the enemy is shared power. They want it all for themselves. And that is the exact antithesis of democracy and goes against the very reasons why America is the best.
Perhaps they believe that America’s greatness is due to their own actions or maybe they really do believe that America is so successful because their god just likes us better. But the better answer is that it’s the shared power itself that gives us our key advantage (among other important things). People are just more willing to make things work and do a better job if they believe they’ll be getting something good out of it. Even poor working-class folks support a strong capitalist system that works against them, solely based upon their dreams of some day being rich themselves and benefiting from it. And the less power and control people have, the more they’ll hate life and the less things will work. And that’s exactly where the Republicanism leads us.
In the short term, Republicans have harnessed that powerlessness for their own advantage (particularly with the terrorism thing, for which they want to be the only answer); but even that can’t last. Eventually, even the Republican base will want to reap the benefits of the Republican revolution, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing now. They were only willing to sacrifice for Bush when they thought they’d eventually be gaining bigtime; and now that they’re ready to collect their reward and greater power, they’re finding that it’s just not there for them. The Republican Party gained more power, but the typical Republican has less. And the more obvious that becomes, the less power the Republicans will have to wield. Even Congress itself has only been playing opossum because they believed they’d get more by being Whitehouse stooges; but as Bush’s powers dwindle, they’re finding themselves needing to grab some of the power for themselves. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t find this soon enough.
Republicanism
But worse for Republicans is that their “Screw em all” attitude isn’t really very conducive to winning elections, so they have to resort to lame-brained fundraising schemes, faux populism, and outright deception. Even the pork-barrel spending that annoys much of their fiscal conservative base is necessary to get Congressmen to vote for bills which are otherwise against their better interests. The corruption they engaged in that got them into so much trouble was exactly what they needed to do to be elected and enact their agenda. This wasn’t a fluke of personality. These were all requirements of the Republican system. That’s what it’s all about.
Sure, DeLay didn’t need a golfing jaunt to Scotland and the Dukestir didn’t need to live on a lobbyist’s yacht; but to them, that was all part of their agenda. Republicans believe in taking what they can get, and these guys were just following the dictates of their belief system. These were the natural perks for a job well done. But as for the other stuff, like budget busting taxcuts, reluctance to cut spending, and WMD lies; these are all necessities. To have been honest would have meant defeat.
And even the Iraq debacle was destined to go badly, due to Republicanism. Of course they’d hire corrupt contractors and “misplace” billions of dollars. Of course they’d hire ideologues with more zeal than intelligence. Of course they’d be heavy-handed and piss-off potential allies. Of course they’d ignore the facts on the ground and believe that they can shape Iraq and Iraqis like Play-Doh. This is all par for the course. This is what being Republican means. It’s about always getting the free lunch. It’s about manipulating everyone, knowing that nobody else is capable of manipulation or guile. It’s about ignoring unpleasant things and knowing that they’ll eventually just go away. There are no problems that can’t be dismissed as propaganda, when you’re a Republican.
And so should it surprise us that Republicanism appeals to so many people? Who doesn’t want the freedom to do whatever they want; while restricting everyone else? Who doesn’t want to live in a fantasyworld where all your problems are somebody else’s fault and yet you still get to attack others for lacking personal responsibility? Who doesn’t want an excuse to treat others poorly, while blaming the victim for the poor treatment? To paraphrase a cliché, being Republican means never needing to be forgiven.
And is it any wonder that many Christians are attracted to this system? In some ways, it’s little more than a thinly veiled application of the whole belief-prayer system they already believe in. Think happy thoughts and you’ll get happy things. Maybe that’s also why Republicans have such a hard time getting a lock on the Catholic vote. There can be no free lunch when you’re already born guilty. Also fitting is that Catholics believe that they have to do good things to obtain their heavenly reward; whereas Protestants believe that they just have to think the right thoughts. And that totally plays into the Republican’s egocentric view of life. But eventually, the piper has to be paid; and unlike God, Republicans don’t have the advantage of delaying their reward until the afterlife. No, their piper bill is way overdue and is about to be sent into collections.
Bad or Worse
So none of this is out of the blue or unexpected. It was just a matter of time until everything caught up with them. And now everything is, and they’re totally screwed. They know they’re supposed to attack, but attack what? They can’t still keep beating the patriotism scam, and even the religion scam is running out of steam (that’s not to say that religion is a scam, per se; only that the Republican use of religion is most certainly a scam). They’re out of rhetoric and have fallen victim to one of democracy’s big advantages: There’s always another election. You can only scam people for so long before everything comes back around again.
So they’re left to their own devices in individual campaigns, and they have no idea of how to do it. But even that’s an expected outcome of Republicanism. Perhaps had they learned how to win office on their own merits and arguments, they would have better trained to do it on their own. But the people the Republicans picked aren’t freethinkers who know how to do their own thing. They’re followers. Rubber-stamping sycophants who were chosen for loyalty and their ability to look good while repeating Rove’s lines and following Bush’s lead. They’re just like the attractive news anchor who can’t talk when the Teleprompter breaks. And now all that’s catching up with them and they’re just figuring that out. They know that they don’t want to resort to Bush’s help, but they don’t know what else to do. This stuff isn’t easy anyway, and now they’re on the defensive.
And in the end, nothing will help. They keep dropping in the polls, and the question isn’t whether they’ll do badly in November, but how badly. Sure, they’ll lose seats in Congress, but the question is whether they’ll lose control. Their best bet right now would be to somehow move the election to May and hope for the best. Time is against them, and the longer things go on, the worse they’ll do. But that’s not a good answer either. But that’s the whole point. The reason Republicans have been left with no good arguments or attacks is the same reason why intelligent, honest people can’t be Republican. They’ve acted as if they had discovered some great new way of winning; but they’ve only ended up repeating all the old mistakes again, and only now have they begun to realize how expensive all of those free lunches really were.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Public Intoxication
What are your feelings about drunk driving and getting caught? Is that an unpardonable sin, or is that just a normal occurrence that you’re just glad isn’t a bit more normal? What about for a politician? Does that make them worse? Are they less capable of governing or legislating because they got caught driving while drunk? And isn’t it the getting caught part that’s important? I mean, who hasn’t drove drunk? Only folks who don’t drink haven’t driven drunk (drunk being defined as the legal limit (usually 0.8%) and not your own standard (ie, being shitfaced). And do you really want to trust somebody who doesn’t even drink? I mean, really? There’s nothing wrong with drinking in moderation, and it’s quite possibly even good for you. And so should we hold it against our teetotaling politicians? Maybe, maybe not. But I fail to see how we should hold it against a politician, merely for being unlucky enough to get caught driving while drunk. Hell, I can even see holding it against them for being unlucky; but the getting caught thing just doesn’t do it for me. And unless we can know that somebody has never driven drunk, then all we’re really talking about is an issue of luck.
But then again, I’m completely against this “public individual” idea anyway. The idea that because somebody becomes famous, we automatically get permission to dig into their private lives and discuss the most intimate details of their lives is simply wrong. But not only do people feel that way, they act as if they have a right to full access of our public individuals’ lives. But again, that’s just not right. Governing is a job. Legislating is a job. Movie making and singing and performing are jobs. Just like any other job. Sure, we need to know something about them to vote, but it should remain focused on what they’re going to do on the job; not what they do in private. Plenty of great men (and probably women) have done lousy things in their private lives, yet that didn’t deter them from doing a great job. And it doesn’t matter if they occasionally make themselves public in order to perform that job; that doesn’t give us special rights to delve into their lives.
And that’s the thing, we know that this behavior is wrong. It’s wrong to delve into other people’s lives and seek out intimate details and gossip them to everybody. We all do it, but we know it’s wrong. And while it is done, there are certain rules about gossiping in private life and there are some things that are just off-limits. But for some reason, people use the idea of celebrity as an excuse to by-pass those rules and fully engage in these bad practices. Imagine if somebody liked you so much that they wanted to snap pictures of you all the time and sell them to others. Totally off-limits. I don’t care how good looking you are or how interesting your life is; that’s just wrong. And yet people do that to celebrities all the time.
And this “celebrity” excuse is really getting out of hand. It’s been standard practice that anybody famous is fair game. But they’ve recently switched things around so that if you’ve done anything that’s worth gossiping about, then you’re an automatic celebrity. The very fact that people want to talk about you dictates that they’re allowed to do so. But it makes about as much sense as the original argument, so I guess we can’t really complain. I mean, what is it exactly about being a public figure that says everything about you is public? That once you’ve done a movie that makes you famous, you’ve implicitly denied any right to privacy for the rest of your life? Why shouldn’t we just use the same rules for everyone; and just admit that everyone is fair game all the time? And yet, we know that’s wrong. We know that we shouldn’t be delving into other people’s personal lives and gossiping about them; so why shouldn’t we extend that courtesy to our public figures?
And what about drunk driving? Sure, it shows a certain lack of good judgment, but what is it that we’re worried about here? That they’re going to be legislating in Congress with a good buzz going on? And is that so wrong? Winston Churchill spent the better part of two decades in a liquor-induced coma (or the British equivalent there of); and yet he helped lick fascism almost single-handedly and wrote some damn fine historical books. You tell Winston Churchill about drinking in office! Tell Winston Churchill about drinking in office! If you’re lucky, he’ll puke on your shoes and spit in your eyes. And is that really enough to demand that he be removed from office? I mean, there’ll always be another pair of shoes, but there’s only one WWII.
And finally, it hasn’t escaped my attention that the biggest attackers of drunk driving politicians are almost always that politician’s opponents; while the politician’s supporters generally don’t seem concerned enough about it to even bother remembering that it happened. And the cynic in me tells me that perhaps these attacks are mostly politically motivated. And so it is with all these exposed private lives. Why? Because it’s easier than addressing substance. It’s much easier to cite your opponent’s DUI or bestiality conviction than it is to frame your own argument; but isn’t that reason enough to resist rewarding such tactics?
And sure, we probably have a right to know if one of the candidates is a heroin addict; but I’m not exactly sure what’s so wrong with having engaged in bad behavior decades earlier, especially if that behavior has no real impact on the guy’s job performance. And too often, what gets these guys in trouble is the cover-up. From Bush’s National Guard absence to Ben Domenach’s WaPo blog flop, the big problem wasn’t the prior offenses but the current cover-up. Even now, neither of those creeps has been entirely honest about their past record, and while the old offense is somewhat irrelevant for the new job; a current cover-up really does look bad. But the problem is that you can never know if your cover-up’s going to be busted, and they prefer to play the odds and hope for the best. But if people stopped caring about these prior mistakes…ah, fuck it. This was originally started as a drunken rant about drunk driving laws late last night, and while I extended it quite a bit today, I’m really tired of writing this. You can just imagine your own spectacular ending.
P.S. Don’t bother leaving comments about how you’ve never driven while drunk or that you don’t drink at all, because I’m just not having it.
But then again, I’m completely against this “public individual” idea anyway. The idea that because somebody becomes famous, we automatically get permission to dig into their private lives and discuss the most intimate details of their lives is simply wrong. But not only do people feel that way, they act as if they have a right to full access of our public individuals’ lives. But again, that’s just not right. Governing is a job. Legislating is a job. Movie making and singing and performing are jobs. Just like any other job. Sure, we need to know something about them to vote, but it should remain focused on what they’re going to do on the job; not what they do in private. Plenty of great men (and probably women) have done lousy things in their private lives, yet that didn’t deter them from doing a great job. And it doesn’t matter if they occasionally make themselves public in order to perform that job; that doesn’t give us special rights to delve into their lives.
And that’s the thing, we know that this behavior is wrong. It’s wrong to delve into other people’s lives and seek out intimate details and gossip them to everybody. We all do it, but we know it’s wrong. And while it is done, there are certain rules about gossiping in private life and there are some things that are just off-limits. But for some reason, people use the idea of celebrity as an excuse to by-pass those rules and fully engage in these bad practices. Imagine if somebody liked you so much that they wanted to snap pictures of you all the time and sell them to others. Totally off-limits. I don’t care how good looking you are or how interesting your life is; that’s just wrong. And yet people do that to celebrities all the time.
And this “celebrity” excuse is really getting out of hand. It’s been standard practice that anybody famous is fair game. But they’ve recently switched things around so that if you’ve done anything that’s worth gossiping about, then you’re an automatic celebrity. The very fact that people want to talk about you dictates that they’re allowed to do so. But it makes about as much sense as the original argument, so I guess we can’t really complain. I mean, what is it exactly about being a public figure that says everything about you is public? That once you’ve done a movie that makes you famous, you’ve implicitly denied any right to privacy for the rest of your life? Why shouldn’t we just use the same rules for everyone; and just admit that everyone is fair game all the time? And yet, we know that’s wrong. We know that we shouldn’t be delving into other people’s personal lives and gossiping about them; so why shouldn’t we extend that courtesy to our public figures?
And what about drunk driving? Sure, it shows a certain lack of good judgment, but what is it that we’re worried about here? That they’re going to be legislating in Congress with a good buzz going on? And is that so wrong? Winston Churchill spent the better part of two decades in a liquor-induced coma (or the British equivalent there of); and yet he helped lick fascism almost single-handedly and wrote some damn fine historical books. You tell Winston Churchill about drinking in office! Tell Winston Churchill about drinking in office! If you’re lucky, he’ll puke on your shoes and spit in your eyes. And is that really enough to demand that he be removed from office? I mean, there’ll always be another pair of shoes, but there’s only one WWII.
And finally, it hasn’t escaped my attention that the biggest attackers of drunk driving politicians are almost always that politician’s opponents; while the politician’s supporters generally don’t seem concerned enough about it to even bother remembering that it happened. And the cynic in me tells me that perhaps these attacks are mostly politically motivated. And so it is with all these exposed private lives. Why? Because it’s easier than addressing substance. It’s much easier to cite your opponent’s DUI or bestiality conviction than it is to frame your own argument; but isn’t that reason enough to resist rewarding such tactics?
And sure, we probably have a right to know if one of the candidates is a heroin addict; but I’m not exactly sure what’s so wrong with having engaged in bad behavior decades earlier, especially if that behavior has no real impact on the guy’s job performance. And too often, what gets these guys in trouble is the cover-up. From Bush’s National Guard absence to Ben Domenach’s WaPo blog flop, the big problem wasn’t the prior offenses but the current cover-up. Even now, neither of those creeps has been entirely honest about their past record, and while the old offense is somewhat irrelevant for the new job; a current cover-up really does look bad. But the problem is that you can never know if your cover-up’s going to be busted, and they prefer to play the odds and hope for the best. But if people stopped caring about these prior mistakes…ah, fuck it. This was originally started as a drunken rant about drunk driving laws late last night, and while I extended it quite a bit today, I’m really tired of writing this. You can just imagine your own spectacular ending.
P.S. Don’t bother leaving comments about how you’ve never driven while drunk or that you don’t drink at all, because I’m just not having it.
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Meeting Normal Standards
I can’t believe it:
The U.S. Defense Department's finances may not be able to meet normal accounting standards for several more years, possibly not until after President George W. Bush leaves office, a Pentagon official said on Friday.
Ok, so maybe I do believe it.
The U.S. Defense Department's finances may not be able to meet normal accounting standards for several more years, possibly not until after President George W. Bush leaves office, a Pentagon official said on Friday.
Ok, so maybe I do believe it.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Media Problems
This Josh Marshall post demonstrates three problems with the media today. I quote:
I know Mike Allen, the author of today's Time interview/article with DeLay. So I'm sure this was no more than an error made under tight deadline pressure. But, still, it's important to set the record straight.
Mike writes ...
DeLay was forced to vacate his post as majority leader because of a House Republican rule (known as "the DeLay rule," because it was enacted amid concern about his legal situation) that requires a leader under indictment to step down.
The first problem is the one of relationships. Josh knows Mike. And because of that, he has to give a benefit of the doubt on this one; one that probably isn’t warranted. Now, perhaps he was just vouching for Mike, showing that he’s not some GOP hack journalist. But that wasn’t an assumption that I’d make from this. My assumption was that Mike was too lazy to do research. But Josh can’t say that, because they have some sort of relationship. And because of that, Josh downplays the significance of Mike’s mistake.
That’s one big reason why I’m against friendships: Because they’re expected to take priority over business, politics, and the other important things in life. People are expected to do favors for friends and bend rules and whatnot. And that’s exactly how the modern media works. It’s just a big network of friends. You’ve got friends like Josh Marshall who forgive bad reporting based on friendship, and friends like Karl Rove who can count on getting their untainted words reprinted directly into our nation’s newspapers. While the right continues to complain about liberal bias, it’s obvious that the much stronger bias is towards the friend network.
And then there’s the bigger problem: Mike Allen didn’t know what the DeLay Rule was. I could understand if this was a typo or a badly worded paragraph, but that’s not the case here. He was fairly clear with what he wrote, and it wasn’t even close. Rather than the DeLay Rule being this sleazy move to help a sleazy guy, Mike writes of it as a positive move by Republicans with ethical concerns. Not only that, Mike doesn’t even seem to know that the DeLay Rule was reversed because it was such a political embarrassment. Then again, it’s possible that Mike just confused the DeLay Rule with the original rule that the DeLay Rule was supposed to overturn. But in any case, it’s obvious that Mike just wasn’t very familiar with this part of the story. But that didn’t stop him from writing about it.
And that’s the thing: I can understand minor errors and whatnot, but Mike Allen wasn’t even fucking close. Sure, tight deadlines and whatnot will lead to mistakes, and a reporter might not always have the time to do necessary research on everything. But what research was required? How can any political person not already know what the DeLay Rule was? It was a big deal. This wasn’t some obscure insider thing; this was a major story not too long ago. I can understand why Joe Public might not know about it, but a reporter who covers politics for one of the most important news magazines in America? How is that possible?
And it’s my theory again that these people really just don’t care about politics. It’s just a job. And at the end of the day, they don’t eat/breath/sleep politics like most of us do. And perhaps that’s the reason why they do such a poor job of covering politics. And so they have trouble covering topics like the DeLay Rule or the Nuclear Option, because it’s a foreign language to them. And just as you can’t really learn to speak a language until you immerse yourself in it, you can’t really cover politics unless you enjoy the topic and really get into it. Yet these guys don’t even know the basic vocabulary. So how can we expect them to understand the intricacies of what’s going on? They think they can just quote a bunch of people and call it a day. Why reinvent the wheel if you can just quote someone else’s?
Finally, while researching this, I saw the headline: Exclusive: Tom DeLay Tells Why He’s Quitting. Why he’s quitting?? Uh, duh. Because he’s totally screwed, that’s why. Anyone with a brain would know that. And yet if you read the whole piece, you’ll see that it’s just a giant blowjob to the guy. Of course, I guess that’s what they had to agree to in order to get this “exclusive”. But the question is what exactly is so great about getting an exclusive that’s entirely based on half-truths and outright lies? Does objectivism mean nothing? Is it perhaps that politicians get a free pass once they announce that they’re quitting politics? Probably. But I don’t think that’s why this story got written. This was written solely so Time could announce that they had an exclusive. I’m out of time right now, so I can’t really tie this up like I might like to, or even edit it properly. So just count this as my fancypants ending.
I know Mike Allen, the author of today's Time interview/article with DeLay. So I'm sure this was no more than an error made under tight deadline pressure. But, still, it's important to set the record straight.
Mike writes ...
DeLay was forced to vacate his post as majority leader because of a House Republican rule (known as "the DeLay rule," because it was enacted amid concern about his legal situation) that requires a leader under indictment to step down.
The first problem is the one of relationships. Josh knows Mike. And because of that, he has to give a benefit of the doubt on this one; one that probably isn’t warranted. Now, perhaps he was just vouching for Mike, showing that he’s not some GOP hack journalist. But that wasn’t an assumption that I’d make from this. My assumption was that Mike was too lazy to do research. But Josh can’t say that, because they have some sort of relationship. And because of that, Josh downplays the significance of Mike’s mistake.
That’s one big reason why I’m against friendships: Because they’re expected to take priority over business, politics, and the other important things in life. People are expected to do favors for friends and bend rules and whatnot. And that’s exactly how the modern media works. It’s just a big network of friends. You’ve got friends like Josh Marshall who forgive bad reporting based on friendship, and friends like Karl Rove who can count on getting their untainted words reprinted directly into our nation’s newspapers. While the right continues to complain about liberal bias, it’s obvious that the much stronger bias is towards the friend network.
And then there’s the bigger problem: Mike Allen didn’t know what the DeLay Rule was. I could understand if this was a typo or a badly worded paragraph, but that’s not the case here. He was fairly clear with what he wrote, and it wasn’t even close. Rather than the DeLay Rule being this sleazy move to help a sleazy guy, Mike writes of it as a positive move by Republicans with ethical concerns. Not only that, Mike doesn’t even seem to know that the DeLay Rule was reversed because it was such a political embarrassment. Then again, it’s possible that Mike just confused the DeLay Rule with the original rule that the DeLay Rule was supposed to overturn. But in any case, it’s obvious that Mike just wasn’t very familiar with this part of the story. But that didn’t stop him from writing about it.
And that’s the thing: I can understand minor errors and whatnot, but Mike Allen wasn’t even fucking close. Sure, tight deadlines and whatnot will lead to mistakes, and a reporter might not always have the time to do necessary research on everything. But what research was required? How can any political person not already know what the DeLay Rule was? It was a big deal. This wasn’t some obscure insider thing; this was a major story not too long ago. I can understand why Joe Public might not know about it, but a reporter who covers politics for one of the most important news magazines in America? How is that possible?
And it’s my theory again that these people really just don’t care about politics. It’s just a job. And at the end of the day, they don’t eat/breath/sleep politics like most of us do. And perhaps that’s the reason why they do such a poor job of covering politics. And so they have trouble covering topics like the DeLay Rule or the Nuclear Option, because it’s a foreign language to them. And just as you can’t really learn to speak a language until you immerse yourself in it, you can’t really cover politics unless you enjoy the topic and really get into it. Yet these guys don’t even know the basic vocabulary. So how can we expect them to understand the intricacies of what’s going on? They think they can just quote a bunch of people and call it a day. Why reinvent the wheel if you can just quote someone else’s?
Finally, while researching this, I saw the headline: Exclusive: Tom DeLay Tells Why He’s Quitting. Why he’s quitting?? Uh, duh. Because he’s totally screwed, that’s why. Anyone with a brain would know that. And yet if you read the whole piece, you’ll see that it’s just a giant blowjob to the guy. Of course, I guess that’s what they had to agree to in order to get this “exclusive”. But the question is what exactly is so great about getting an exclusive that’s entirely based on half-truths and outright lies? Does objectivism mean nothing? Is it perhaps that politicians get a free pass once they announce that they’re quitting politics? Probably. But I don’t think that’s why this story got written. This was written solely so Time could announce that they had an exclusive. I’m out of time right now, so I can’t really tie this up like I might like to, or even edit it properly. So just count this as my fancypants ending.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Gay Military Pop Quiz
It’s time again for the weekly Biobrain Gay Military Pop Quiz. You have thirty minutes to answer these questions in the longest possible format. Grades are based solely upon verbosity and word usage. Cheating is acceptable, though cash payments must be received by midnight tonight. We also accept Paypal. Good luck.
Would you approve of a segregated military, keeping the straights separate from the gays? Would a gay-only barrack be considered a job perk? Would the armed forces become the new bathhouses of the 00’s? Would homophobe jackoffs prefer that the gay troops be sent in first, or last? Should the gay troops be allowed to design their own uniforms? Do you think that would be such a good idea? Would it be acceptable to only support the straight troops? What of people who only supported the gay troops? Would all this lead to a gay v. straight civil war? Is this the real reason why people object to gays in the military? How much more likely would Iran or other Muslim nations be to submit to international standards, were we to threaten to send them our gay troops? Do you think that would be such a good idea? Finally, should a gay military be led by gays all the way up to the top, including a Gay Joint Chiefs of Staff? Or would it be best if they eventually fell under the regular military at some point? And at what point should that be?
Bonus Question:
In fifty words or more, explain why it would not be appropriate to add the 101st Fighting Keyboarders to the gay military, though they are so totally gay. Be sure to pepper your answer liberally with the names of your favorite Keyboarder.
Would you approve of a segregated military, keeping the straights separate from the gays? Would a gay-only barrack be considered a job perk? Would the armed forces become the new bathhouses of the 00’s? Would homophobe jackoffs prefer that the gay troops be sent in first, or last? Should the gay troops be allowed to design their own uniforms? Do you think that would be such a good idea? Would it be acceptable to only support the straight troops? What of people who only supported the gay troops? Would all this lead to a gay v. straight civil war? Is this the real reason why people object to gays in the military? How much more likely would Iran or other Muslim nations be to submit to international standards, were we to threaten to send them our gay troops? Do you think that would be such a good idea? Finally, should a gay military be led by gays all the way up to the top, including a Gay Joint Chiefs of Staff? Or would it be best if they eventually fell under the regular military at some point? And at what point should that be?
Bonus Question:
In fifty words or more, explain why it would not be appropriate to add the 101st Fighting Keyboarders to the gay military, though they are so totally gay. Be sure to pepper your answer liberally with the names of your favorite Keyboarder.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Treasury Secretary Biobrain
Via Reuters:
Joshua Bolten, the incoming White House chief of staff, wants Treasury Secretary John Snow replaced with someone who can present the administration's message more forcefully, The New York Times reported on Thursday.
Gee, I always thought the Secretary of Treasury was supposed to do something. You know, like run the Department of Treasury or something. But apparently, it’s just sort of a cheerleading position which gives out forceful messages. No wonder all the best financial minds in the country want to work for Bush. Because they can finally stop thinking about all those boring financial things and start doing fun stuff, like giving speeches and hyping-up a financial plan that was created and implemented by other people, whose focus is entirely on political and ideological goals. Geez, who wouldn’t want that position?
The Times quoted Republicans as saying if a new secretary was picked from Wall Street, it would help reassure financial markets that are worried about growing budget and trade deficits.
Yeah sure, we could reassure financial markets by maybe doing something about those growing budget and trade deficits, but that would actually involve doing something, and we all know how difficult that is for the Bush Administration. Much better to just hire a better PR guy to reassure the worried markets. And again, with the Bush Admin’s excellent track record, we’re sure to get a fully competent guy who’s ready to take all the blame for things sucking, but who won’t be able to do anything about it except to cheer a little louder. We’re certain to get the best man for the job.
As an aside, doesn’t it seem pretty obvious at this point that the Bush Admin is simply engaging in a giant motivational experiment? To see if optimism and hope really are enough to pull us through? And don’t forget marketing and good public relations. Because it really seems like that’s all they’re going for these days. Just hype something up enough, and everything else will fall into place. Do you think they’ll finally give up on the experiment after they blow the mid-terms, or are we in this for the full eight years?
P.S. For the record, I would gladly accept Bush’s Treasury position and do a good job at it, simply for the privilege of getting to sign my name on all the money. That would be totally awesome. And if the Secretary doesn’t actually get to sign each bill personally, that would certainly stop once I got the job. And you can bet that I’d be rubbing it in everyone’s face every chance I got. Hell, I’d walk around with unsigned bills, and then when I paid people, I’d sign the bill right there in front of them. And they wouldn’t be able to do anything but roll their eyes and take my money. I’d be king of the world! Until, of course, the economy failed to improve, after which I’d get all the blame and be replaced by an even less competent cheerleader. But until then, I’d be king of the world!
Joshua Bolten, the incoming White House chief of staff, wants Treasury Secretary John Snow replaced with someone who can present the administration's message more forcefully, The New York Times reported on Thursday.
Gee, I always thought the Secretary of Treasury was supposed to do something. You know, like run the Department of Treasury or something. But apparently, it’s just sort of a cheerleading position which gives out forceful messages. No wonder all the best financial minds in the country want to work for Bush. Because they can finally stop thinking about all those boring financial things and start doing fun stuff, like giving speeches and hyping-up a financial plan that was created and implemented by other people, whose focus is entirely on political and ideological goals. Geez, who wouldn’t want that position?
The Times quoted Republicans as saying if a new secretary was picked from Wall Street, it would help reassure financial markets that are worried about growing budget and trade deficits.
Yeah sure, we could reassure financial markets by maybe doing something about those growing budget and trade deficits, but that would actually involve doing something, and we all know how difficult that is for the Bush Administration. Much better to just hire a better PR guy to reassure the worried markets. And again, with the Bush Admin’s excellent track record, we’re sure to get a fully competent guy who’s ready to take all the blame for things sucking, but who won’t be able to do anything about it except to cheer a little louder. We’re certain to get the best man for the job.
As an aside, doesn’t it seem pretty obvious at this point that the Bush Admin is simply engaging in a giant motivational experiment? To see if optimism and hope really are enough to pull us through? And don’t forget marketing and good public relations. Because it really seems like that’s all they’re going for these days. Just hype something up enough, and everything else will fall into place. Do you think they’ll finally give up on the experiment after they blow the mid-terms, or are we in this for the full eight years?
P.S. For the record, I would gladly accept Bush’s Treasury position and do a good job at it, simply for the privilege of getting to sign my name on all the money. That would be totally awesome. And if the Secretary doesn’t actually get to sign each bill personally, that would certainly stop once I got the job. And you can bet that I’d be rubbing it in everyone’s face every chance I got. Hell, I’d walk around with unsigned bills, and then when I paid people, I’d sign the bill right there in front of them. And they wouldn’t be able to do anything but roll their eyes and take my money. I’d be king of the world! Until, of course, the economy failed to improve, after which I’d get all the blame and be replaced by an even less competent cheerleader. But until then, I’d be king of the world!
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Death to Carnivals!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I DIDN’T WIN THE CARNIVAL OF THE LIBERALS!!! I DIDN’T WIN! I DIDN’T WIN! I THINK I’LL KILL MYSELF!!! I DIDN’T WIN!! To be fair, my submission was sent after the deadline, BUT WHO NEEDS FAIRNESS WHEN WE LOSE! I DIDN’T WIN!! THIS BLEW MY PERFECT STREAK OF SEVEN STRAIGHT WINS! THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE EIGHTH, BUT INSTEAD IT WAS MY DEFEAT! WOE IS ME!
But you can bet your bottom dollar that this won’t go unpunished. After this next Carnival hosted by the glorious Pharyngula (who is as sublime as life itself), the host will be none other than YOURS TRULY. That’s right, Doctor Biobrain was hornswaggled into hosting a Carnival, which would have technically broken my winning streak in any case. But now this all seems to play right into my hands. And there will certainly be a reckoning at that time. Oh yeah, hell to pay, to be sure. I’ve had serious thoughts of unleashing Doctor Snedley on this unsuspecting Carnival, and it looks like that might just be the prescription that the doctor ordered. Hell hath no fury like a blogger scorned.
But you can bet your bottom dollar that this won’t go unpunished. After this next Carnival hosted by the glorious Pharyngula (who is as sublime as life itself), the host will be none other than YOURS TRULY. That’s right, Doctor Biobrain was hornswaggled into hosting a Carnival, which would have technically broken my winning streak in any case. But now this all seems to play right into my hands. And there will certainly be a reckoning at that time. Oh yeah, hell to pay, to be sure. I’ve had serious thoughts of unleashing Doctor Snedley on this unsuspecting Carnival, and it looks like that might just be the prescription that the doctor ordered. Hell hath no fury like a blogger scorned.
Moussaoui the Human
Wow. This is the side of terrorism that you never hear of (or at least I never hear of):
A senior al Qaeda operative, known as Khallad, said Moussaoui broke security by phoning him every day during a trip to Malaysia in 2000. Khallad, who was connected with the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in east Africa and masterminded the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, was eventually forced to turn off his telephone.
In testimony from Riduan Isamuddin -- better known as Hambali -- a top member of Jemaah Islamiah, an Asian group linked to al Qaeda, Moussaoui was depicted as "not bright in the head and having a bad character."
"According to Hambali, Moussaoui managed to annoy everyone he came in contact with," Hambali's testimony said, adding that Hambali said he did not trust Moussaoui.
He said Moussaoui kept speaking of dreams he had to fly a plane into the White House. Moussaoui was also constantly suggesting operations Jemmah Islamiah members thought were "ridiculous," according to the testimony. Hambali said he eventually paid for a plane ticket to Europe in order to get Moussaoui to leave Malaysia.
Holy shit, I so totally know this guy, and they forgot to mention how he’s always bumming money all the time, inviting himself to other people’s houses, and is prone to drinking your last beer. Not that I’ve ever done anything as extreme as turning off my phone or buying them a ticket out of the country, but that’s just because I didn’t have the money for that kind of thing. And if you don’t know any guys like that, then you are that guy.
Terrorists are always seen as cold, calculating machines who are so filled with hatred that they don’t care about life or limb. Yet here we see Moussaoui painted as that annoying tag-along guy that keeps including himself in your plans because nobody else wants him included. And you can understand Khallad and Hambali’s frustration with dealing with this kind of guy. Really puts a human face on to the whole thing.
A senior al Qaeda operative, known as Khallad, said Moussaoui broke security by phoning him every day during a trip to Malaysia in 2000. Khallad, who was connected with the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in east Africa and masterminded the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, was eventually forced to turn off his telephone.
In testimony from Riduan Isamuddin -- better known as Hambali -- a top member of Jemaah Islamiah, an Asian group linked to al Qaeda, Moussaoui was depicted as "not bright in the head and having a bad character."
"According to Hambali, Moussaoui managed to annoy everyone he came in contact with," Hambali's testimony said, adding that Hambali said he did not trust Moussaoui.
He said Moussaoui kept speaking of dreams he had to fly a plane into the White House. Moussaoui was also constantly suggesting operations Jemmah Islamiah members thought were "ridiculous," according to the testimony. Hambali said he eventually paid for a plane ticket to Europe in order to get Moussaoui to leave Malaysia.
Holy shit, I so totally know this guy, and they forgot to mention how he’s always bumming money all the time, inviting himself to other people’s houses, and is prone to drinking your last beer. Not that I’ve ever done anything as extreme as turning off my phone or buying them a ticket out of the country, but that’s just because I didn’t have the money for that kind of thing. And if you don’t know any guys like that, then you are that guy.
Terrorists are always seen as cold, calculating machines who are so filled with hatred that they don’t care about life or limb. Yet here we see Moussaoui painted as that annoying tag-along guy that keeps including himself in your plans because nobody else wants him included. And you can understand Khallad and Hambali’s frustration with dealing with this kind of guy. Really puts a human face on to the whole thing.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Stereolab!!
Holy Shit! I saw Stereolab Friday night at La Zona Rosa in beautiful downtown Austin. Totally fucking awesome. I can’t recommend it enough. My whole body felt like a giant smile the entire time. They totally rocked the house. The only problem was that I had to stand up the whole time and it was pretty crowded where we were standing, and I’m getting to be an old man (34) who’s not so good standing up for however long the show lasted. But beyond that, it was definitely the second best show I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen a few good shows. I’ve seen Beck twice, once in a mosh-pit at Austin Music Hall during the Odelay tour, and a second time for Sea Change at the Bass Concert Hall (which was the absolute best show). I’ve seen Pink Floyd and Rush put on generically great shows, and saw Lenny Kravitz and The Cult put on great shows, back when Kravitz was opening for The Cult (I was there to see Kravitz, but The Cult was better). And I’ve even been mugged at a Public Enemy concert, which certainly fulfills my requirement of “street cred”. But the Stereolab show topped them all, or would have, had it been at the Bass Concert Hall. And the fact that the beer lines were too long and I’d lose my spot if I left to go get beer and would likely have never seen my wife again. But besides that, it was totally awesome. So if you have the opportunity to see them, I can’t recommend it enough. And if Stereolab isn’t coming to your town, sucks to be you. You can try to duplicate it by buying an awesomely loud stereo and adding a bit of distortion, but it’s still somehow not the same as being there. Some things never are.
Right-Wingers and the Sycophants who Love Them
Sorry gang, but my head’s not on straight lately. I loved this post when I first started writing it yesterday, but now I can’t stand to read any of it. And unfortunately, it’s unfinished. But I’m having trouble finding the time to do this shit lately (deep into tax season) so I’m sending this one out unfinished and fairly unpolished. I’ve got a few more posts in the pipeline I might send out unfinished, but if I don’t send them out that way, they probably won’t get out at all.
If you’ve got the time, I recommend reading this interview on Howard Kurtz’s appropriately named Reliable Sources (via Atrios). It’s interesting that, despite Kurtz’s insistence on pro-Bush balance, the reporters keep coming back to reality. Here’s Bush implicitly downplaying the importance of bad news in Iraq:
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Footage of children playing or shops opening and people resuming their normal lives will never be as dramatic as the footage of an IED explosion. They're capable of blowing up innocent life so it ends up on your TV show.
Uh, yeah, isn’t this the way it’s supposed to be? That death and explosions are more important than school openings? But it’s not just a coincidence that the dramatic footage is often more enthralling than the boring kind. And sure, some unnewsworthy items such as missing white women, car crashes, and fires also make for dramatic footage; but it’s hard to imagine a potential civil war in Iraq…aww who cares. This is my blog, and I’m arbitrarily ending this paragraph right now.
Working On One Level
But that wasn’t my main point. Everyone and his dog are hyping the reporters’ defiance to Kurtz and Bush’s “balanced” bullying. No, my main point was regarding an earlier incident of complaints of “one-sided” reporting; this time with right-wingers and the sycophants who love them complaining that someone would dare to report good news from Iraq.
Remember all the hubbub regarding Fahrenheit 9/11, and all the “debunker” sites that popped up? And one of their claims was that Michael Moore had glossed over Saddam’s evilness by failing to show the negative pictures of pre-war Iraq that we were already familiar with. Here we see on Dave Kopel’s infamously deceitful Fifty-Nine Deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11, deceit number 44 titled “Iraq before Liberation”: “Moore shows scenes of Baghdad before the invasion (read: liberation) and in his weltanschauung, it’s a place filled with nothing but happy, smiling, giggly, overjoyed Baghdadis. No pain and suffering there. No rape, murder, gassing, imprisoning, silencing of the citizens in these scenes.”
Nor was this trend limited to the brain-dead right-wingers. Heck no, brain-dead left-wingers were quick to get in on the action too. Here’s faux-liberal dipshit Richard Cohen regarding Moore’s atrocious oversight: “In fact, prewar Iraq is depicted as some sort of Arab folk festival -- lots of happy, smiling, indigenous people. Was there no footage of a Kurdish village that had been gassed? This is obscenity by omission.”
And just to show that Conventional Wisdom loves company, here’s Boston’s female-Cohen equivalent Ellen Goodman reciting the same point: “But at some point, I also began to feel just a touch out of harmony. Not even this alto believes that the Iraq war was brought to us courtesy of the Bush-Saudi oil-money connection. Not even the rosiest pair of my retro-spectacles sees prewar Iraq as a happy valley where little children flew kites.”
To further demonstrate the principle that great minds think alike, both Goodman and Cohen failed to refrain from the irresistible urge to pun; thus Cohen’s title of “Baloney, Moore or Less” compared with Goodman’s hilarious “Moore to the point.” Get it? The movie was directed by Michael Moore, so they used his last name as a witty replacement for the word “more”, even though the supposed puns lamely only work on one level. Yep, that’s why they get paid the Big Bucks and why blogs like mine don’t even have advertising. It’s not enough to recite the same talking points, you’ve also got to include faux-puns when describing such mundane matters like war, death, and deception. How else can people be bothered to read such things with their morning coffee? As they say, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
Propaganda v. News
Of course, none of these three examples are exact equivalents to Bush’s propaganda complaint. In fact, one might even see that the complaint against Bush’s one-sided good news is far stronger than that against Moore. I mean, the complaint against Moore was that he dared to show good news from Iraq. Yet it can be easily argued that it wasn’t necessary to show bad news, as everyone already knew the bad news. Everyone had already heard of the torture and brutality of the Saddam regime. Moore was merely showing that another side existed, and that there were happy people in Iraq who got hurt. That isn’t to suggest that Iraq was always a “happy valley” or an “Arab folk festival”. It helped establish a human element to the Iraq war and was intended to provide some contrast to the one-sided images we had routinely seen.
Moore himself says this (as quoted by ignoramus Dave Kopel): "This film exists as a counterbalance to what you see on cable news about the coalition. I’m trying to counter the Orwellian nature of the Big Lie, as if when you hear that term, the ‘coalition,’ that the whole world is behind us." And despite Kopel’s absurd protests to the contrary, that makes perfect sense. If everyone has already seen something, it’s not necessary to show them it again every time you’re discussing the topic. But somehow, Kopel failed to understand that, as a good percentage of the “deceits” he lists all fall within this category.
But Bush’s complaint is slightly different. He’s not arguing that we need to show the occasional good picture or story. He’s saying that these positive images should trump the bigger news stories. Or more specifically, he’s lamenting that these negative images are considered more important than the positive ones; but implicit in that is that he’s prefer things to be otherwise. He’d prefer that the negative images be replaced entirely. Even if he never specifically states that, can anyone seriously doubt that that’s not his intent?
But the parallels are even more tenuous. Because the negative anti-Saddam news stories were not actually news. They didn’t affect us directly at all. They were part of a propaganda campaign to get us to invade Iraq. And here we see house liberals like Cohen and Goodman griping in unison that Moore failed to show the same pro-war propaganda that we had been deluged with for years.
But the negative Iraq footage that dominates the news isn’t propaganda at all. That really is news. It is news when American soldiers die in combat. It is news when a mosque gets bombed. It is news when someone is beheaded. These things can be used for propaganda purposes, but the reporting itself really is news. The pro-war propaganda largely involved old offenses which had long since been forgiven by our government (eg, the gassing of Cohen’s Kurdish Village); while the negative Iraq news are all current events which are playing out in real time. In Iraq, we weren’t stopping active genocide. The threat sounded eminent, but the offenses were all old.
And that’s why it’s not entirely fair to cite Bush’s insistence of positive Iraq news as the equivalent of Moore’s footage of happiness in Iraq. Nor is the current bad news emanating from Iraq equal to the pro-war propaganda the Bushies were pimping before the war. But to the Bushies there is no difference. To them, it’s all propaganda. They only wanted negative images of Iraq because that helped their cause. And now, they only want positive images of Iraq because that helps their cause. And in fact, their biggest complaints against Fahrenheit 9/11 was that it was propaganda, and as such, every fact, opinion, or statement must obviously serve an ulterior purpose towards that propaganda. And that’s how the propagandists and the faux-liberals like Cohen and Goodman saw things. But if instead, one sees the movie as a collection of facts which were either unknown or forgotten about; it changes everything. Where propaganda, pre-conceived notions, and conspiracies weren’t underlying them of the movie; but rather an alternate
And the same goes for the negative news streaming out of Iraq. If one wants to find a connection and conspiracy behind all the stories, one will see it. But instead, if one see this as the
If you’ve got the time, I recommend reading this interview on Howard Kurtz’s appropriately named Reliable Sources (via Atrios). It’s interesting that, despite Kurtz’s insistence on pro-Bush balance, the reporters keep coming back to reality. Here’s Bush implicitly downplaying the importance of bad news in Iraq:
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Footage of children playing or shops opening and people resuming their normal lives will never be as dramatic as the footage of an IED explosion. They're capable of blowing up innocent life so it ends up on your TV show.
Uh, yeah, isn’t this the way it’s supposed to be? That death and explosions are more important than school openings? But it’s not just a coincidence that the dramatic footage is often more enthralling than the boring kind. And sure, some unnewsworthy items such as missing white women, car crashes, and fires also make for dramatic footage; but it’s hard to imagine a potential civil war in Iraq…aww who cares. This is my blog, and I’m arbitrarily ending this paragraph right now.
Working On One Level
But that wasn’t my main point. Everyone and his dog are hyping the reporters’ defiance to Kurtz and Bush’s “balanced” bullying. No, my main point was regarding an earlier incident of complaints of “one-sided” reporting; this time with right-wingers and the sycophants who love them complaining that someone would dare to report good news from Iraq.
Remember all the hubbub regarding Fahrenheit 9/11, and all the “debunker” sites that popped up? And one of their claims was that Michael Moore had glossed over Saddam’s evilness by failing to show the negative pictures of pre-war Iraq that we were already familiar with. Here we see on Dave Kopel’s infamously deceitful Fifty-Nine Deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11, deceit number 44 titled “Iraq before Liberation”: “Moore shows scenes of Baghdad before the invasion (read: liberation) and in his weltanschauung, it’s a place filled with nothing but happy, smiling, giggly, overjoyed Baghdadis. No pain and suffering there. No rape, murder, gassing, imprisoning, silencing of the citizens in these scenes.”
Nor was this trend limited to the brain-dead right-wingers. Heck no, brain-dead left-wingers were quick to get in on the action too. Here’s faux-liberal dipshit Richard Cohen regarding Moore’s atrocious oversight: “In fact, prewar Iraq is depicted as some sort of Arab folk festival -- lots of happy, smiling, indigenous people. Was there no footage of a Kurdish village that had been gassed? This is obscenity by omission.”
And just to show that Conventional Wisdom loves company, here’s Boston’s female-Cohen equivalent Ellen Goodman reciting the same point: “But at some point, I also began to feel just a touch out of harmony. Not even this alto believes that the Iraq war was brought to us courtesy of the Bush-Saudi oil-money connection. Not even the rosiest pair of my retro-spectacles sees prewar Iraq as a happy valley where little children flew kites.”
To further demonstrate the principle that great minds think alike, both Goodman and Cohen failed to refrain from the irresistible urge to pun; thus Cohen’s title of “Baloney, Moore or Less” compared with Goodman’s hilarious “Moore to the point.” Get it? The movie was directed by Michael Moore, so they used his last name as a witty replacement for the word “more”, even though the supposed puns lamely only work on one level. Yep, that’s why they get paid the Big Bucks and why blogs like mine don’t even have advertising. It’s not enough to recite the same talking points, you’ve also got to include faux-puns when describing such mundane matters like war, death, and deception. How else can people be bothered to read such things with their morning coffee? As they say, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
Propaganda v. News
Of course, none of these three examples are exact equivalents to Bush’s propaganda complaint. In fact, one might even see that the complaint against Bush’s one-sided good news is far stronger than that against Moore. I mean, the complaint against Moore was that he dared to show good news from Iraq. Yet it can be easily argued that it wasn’t necessary to show bad news, as everyone already knew the bad news. Everyone had already heard of the torture and brutality of the Saddam regime. Moore was merely showing that another side existed, and that there were happy people in Iraq who got hurt. That isn’t to suggest that Iraq was always a “happy valley” or an “Arab folk festival”. It helped establish a human element to the Iraq war and was intended to provide some contrast to the one-sided images we had routinely seen.
Moore himself says this (as quoted by ignoramus Dave Kopel): "This film exists as a counterbalance to what you see on cable news about the coalition. I’m trying to counter the Orwellian nature of the Big Lie, as if when you hear that term, the ‘coalition,’ that the whole world is behind us." And despite Kopel’s absurd protests to the contrary, that makes perfect sense. If everyone has already seen something, it’s not necessary to show them it again every time you’re discussing the topic. But somehow, Kopel failed to understand that, as a good percentage of the “deceits” he lists all fall within this category.
But Bush’s complaint is slightly different. He’s not arguing that we need to show the occasional good picture or story. He’s saying that these positive images should trump the bigger news stories. Or more specifically, he’s lamenting that these negative images are considered more important than the positive ones; but implicit in that is that he’s prefer things to be otherwise. He’d prefer that the negative images be replaced entirely. Even if he never specifically states that, can anyone seriously doubt that that’s not his intent?
But the parallels are even more tenuous. Because the negative anti-Saddam news stories were not actually news. They didn’t affect us directly at all. They were part of a propaganda campaign to get us to invade Iraq. And here we see house liberals like Cohen and Goodman griping in unison that Moore failed to show the same pro-war propaganda that we had been deluged with for years.
But the negative Iraq footage that dominates the news isn’t propaganda at all. That really is news. It is news when American soldiers die in combat. It is news when a mosque gets bombed. It is news when someone is beheaded. These things can be used for propaganda purposes, but the reporting itself really is news. The pro-war propaganda largely involved old offenses which had long since been forgiven by our government (eg, the gassing of Cohen’s Kurdish Village); while the negative Iraq news are all current events which are playing out in real time. In Iraq, we weren’t stopping active genocide. The threat sounded eminent, but the offenses were all old.
And that’s why it’s not entirely fair to cite Bush’s insistence of positive Iraq news as the equivalent of Moore’s footage of happiness in Iraq. Nor is the current bad news emanating from Iraq equal to the pro-war propaganda the Bushies were pimping before the war. But to the Bushies there is no difference. To them, it’s all propaganda. They only wanted negative images of Iraq because that helped their cause. And now, they only want positive images of Iraq because that helps their cause. And in fact, their biggest complaints against Fahrenheit 9/11 was that it was propaganda, and as such, every fact, opinion, or statement must obviously serve an ulterior purpose towards that propaganda. And that’s how the propagandists and the faux-liberals like Cohen and Goodman saw things. But if instead, one sees the movie as a collection of facts which were either unknown or forgotten about; it changes everything. Where propaganda, pre-conceived notions, and conspiracies weren’t underlying them of the movie; but rather an alternate
And the same goes for the negative news streaming out of Iraq. If one wants to find a connection and conspiracy behind all the stories, one will see it. But instead, if one see this as the
Friday, March 24, 2006
Ben's Big Excuse
Of “Box Turtle Ben”, Atrios writes:
The Redstaters have to be pissed, as they don't just see themselves as a blog, but as the nexus of the conservative political movement online.
Ha! That’s not how these people work. For them, the worst thing Ben did was to resign (though I doubt it was entirely his decision). And the only way they’d be pissed is if Ben confessed to everything and admitted that he was a paid-for GOP hack. But it doesn’t look like Ben’s doing any such thing. Instead, he’s blaming everyone else and demanding a big pity party…which he seems to be getting. Not only that, but they seem to be insisting that he did the honorable thing. But it doesn’t take much to realize that his whole act of “contrition” was just a turdload of excuses. Commenter “Singularity” at Digby’s blog does a good job summarizing Ben’s Bad Luck.
If they haven’t already, somebody will need to come up with an Excuse-Bullshit index; which ranks how likely something is to be bullshit based on the number of excuses the bullshitter gives. Looking over Ben’s Big Excuse, I think the ol’ Bullshit Meter is going off the charts. My favorite part: “I once caught an editor at the paper inserting a line from The New Yorker (which I read) into my copy and protested. When that editor was promoted, I resigned.” See, any old liar could pretend that someone else had inserted those phrases, but it takes a special kind of bullshitter to throw in the “I resigned” part. That kind of dramatic excessiveness is always good evidence that the bullshitter has such a slim grasp on reality that they have no idea of what sounds plausible.
But this is typical of the conservatives. They don’t fight. They fight back, always. Even if they have to instigate everything. That’s just their way. They’re the big bad victims of liberal oppression and this excuses all of their wrong doing. They don’t insult us; they insult us back. And everything is an offense. After all, we’re talking about a doofus who cites as proof of the MSM’s left-wing bias that they missed a Red Dawn reference; as if there’s some inherent right that everyone pick up on conservative cultural references. But that’s the level of depth of their paranoia. Everything’s a conspiracy. Everything proves them right. And everyone is working on the same level as them. It’s all propaganda and nothing is as simply as it seems.
BTW, is it really possible that liberals were seriously threatening his family and suggesting that they’d want to cut off his head? I suppose that’s possible, but it seems a bit odd. It’s my guess that this is just more right-wing hysteria. As if people said things which were obvious jokes (though probably rude jokes), and which he knew were jokes, but he cited as being serious in order to drum-up more sympathy from the right-wing patsies he tricked. It worked.
The Redstaters have to be pissed, as they don't just see themselves as a blog, but as the nexus of the conservative political movement online.
Ha! That’s not how these people work. For them, the worst thing Ben did was to resign (though I doubt it was entirely his decision). And the only way they’d be pissed is if Ben confessed to everything and admitted that he was a paid-for GOP hack. But it doesn’t look like Ben’s doing any such thing. Instead, he’s blaming everyone else and demanding a big pity party…which he seems to be getting. Not only that, but they seem to be insisting that he did the honorable thing. But it doesn’t take much to realize that his whole act of “contrition” was just a turdload of excuses. Commenter “Singularity” at Digby’s blog does a good job summarizing Ben’s Bad Luck.
If they haven’t already, somebody will need to come up with an Excuse-Bullshit index; which ranks how likely something is to be bullshit based on the number of excuses the bullshitter gives. Looking over Ben’s Big Excuse, I think the ol’ Bullshit Meter is going off the charts. My favorite part: “I once caught an editor at the paper inserting a line from The New Yorker (which I read) into my copy and protested. When that editor was promoted, I resigned.” See, any old liar could pretend that someone else had inserted those phrases, but it takes a special kind of bullshitter to throw in the “I resigned” part. That kind of dramatic excessiveness is always good evidence that the bullshitter has such a slim grasp on reality that they have no idea of what sounds plausible.
But this is typical of the conservatives. They don’t fight. They fight back, always. Even if they have to instigate everything. That’s just their way. They’re the big bad victims of liberal oppression and this excuses all of their wrong doing. They don’t insult us; they insult us back. And everything is an offense. After all, we’re talking about a doofus who cites as proof of the MSM’s left-wing bias that they missed a Red Dawn reference; as if there’s some inherent right that everyone pick up on conservative cultural references. But that’s the level of depth of their paranoia. Everything’s a conspiracy. Everything proves them right. And everyone is working on the same level as them. It’s all propaganda and nothing is as simply as it seems.
BTW, is it really possible that liberals were seriously threatening his family and suggesting that they’d want to cut off his head? I suppose that’s possible, but it seems a bit odd. It’s my guess that this is just more right-wing hysteria. As if people said things which were obvious jokes (though probably rude jokes), and which he knew were jokes, but he cited as being serious in order to drum-up more sympathy from the right-wing patsies he tricked. It worked.
The Evils of Plagiarism
Damn, I kind of liked the idea of having Ben to kick around. Oh well. But what’s with this crap from WaPo’s Jim Brady:
Plagiarism is perhaps the most serious offense that a writer can commit or be accused of.
Really? I definitely don’t support plagiarism, but “the most serious offense”? Really? How is it really so wrong to just repeat what somebody else wrote? What about complete fictions? When journalists just completely invent stuff? That surely must be worse than copying the truth from someone else, right? Like when a journalist strongly suggests that a corrupt lobbyist has equal ties to both political parties? Or what about when journalists toss objectivism out the window and get into the dictation business; repeating whatever fictions their sources want to convey, without giving it a fact-checking? Where they’ve essentially destroyed the entire concept of journalist objectivism? Isn’t that worse than repeating somebody else’s statements?
But I don’t think that Brady sees things that way. WMD lies aren’t important. Torture isn’t important. The constitution isn’t important. Truth isn’t important. But what is important? Plagiarism. That’s what these elitist dopes care about. That’s what their priorities are. Coincidentally, it also happens to be the most provable of offenses. Fact-checking is hard, but plagiarism is easy to spot. And if there’s anything that these guys like, it’s easiness.
Plagiarism is perhaps the most serious offense that a writer can commit or be accused of.
Really? I definitely don’t support plagiarism, but “the most serious offense”? Really? How is it really so wrong to just repeat what somebody else wrote? What about complete fictions? When journalists just completely invent stuff? That surely must be worse than copying the truth from someone else, right? Like when a journalist strongly suggests that a corrupt lobbyist has equal ties to both political parties? Or what about when journalists toss objectivism out the window and get into the dictation business; repeating whatever fictions their sources want to convey, without giving it a fact-checking? Where they’ve essentially destroyed the entire concept of journalist objectivism? Isn’t that worse than repeating somebody else’s statements?
But I don’t think that Brady sees things that way. WMD lies aren’t important. Torture isn’t important. The constitution isn’t important. Truth isn’t important. But what is important? Plagiarism. That’s what these elitist dopes care about. That’s what their priorities are. Coincidentally, it also happens to be the most provable of offenses. Fact-checking is hard, but plagiarism is easy to spot. And if there’s anything that these guys like, it’s easiness.
What a Bunch of Dorks
Red State comments, regarding Ben Domenech:
We must defend Ben.
I am honored to call Ben Domenech a friend, and will be proud to stand at his side no matter what.
I stand behind Ben.
I stand with my friend.
I don't know Ben/Augustine outside of his writings here (and now Red America), but I stand with him.
They don't come within a parsec of how he is being characterized by the loony left.
Conservative leaders, both in gov't as well as the media, need to know that they'll have the full backing of the rank-and-file when they go out to battle the often vicious libs and their sidekicks in the media.
I stand ready to fight.
I stand behind Ben.
I’ll say it again: What a bunch of dorks. Are these guys in seventh grade, or what? And for all their toughguy 1950’s cowboy talk of standing by Ben, what the hell does that even mean? Are they going to take his side in an actual fight? Are they even risking anything by defending him? No. They’re just going to support him with propaganda while ignoring the truth of his disgrace. Because that’s all these guys ever do. They talk a tough game, but that’s all it is: a game. And long after all this is over, they’ll remember themselves as having come down on the right side, no matter what happens.
And the worst is Erick, the guy who started that thread. I mean, come fucking on, the proof of plagiarism is already too evident to ignore. And while I still don’t know all the details, that won’t stop me from speculating that the excuses given so far are complete crap. They’re trying to tell us that this is something that he did in his “teen years”, but he’s only fucking 24 years old. Let’s not act as if these are decade’s old allegations. It happened while he was in college, and probably afterwards. But Erick and the rest of them don’t give a damn about the truth. They don’t want the allegations to be true, so they’re not true. And they justify this attitude with absurd statements such as “And now those opposed to Ben have googled prior writings that on the surface appear suspicious, but only because permissions obtained and judgments made offline were not reflected online by an out dated and out of business campus newspaper.”
That’s right. These aren’t facts. They’re just the work of those opposed to Ben. And these aren’t really suspicious actions. It’s just that the permissions obtained and judgments made offline were not reflected online. Of course. Sure, it looks like plagiarism because Ben didn’t use quotes or in any way indicate that he was quoting something. Nor does the context even suggest that he was trying to quote anyone. But it must be that way. Because they defend Ben. And that means that there must be a good explanation for all this. Because Ben’s a good guy, and his critics are bad guys. So he must be right and they must be wrong. It’s that simple.
And that’s just the way these people work. There are no facts. There are just opinions about rightness and wrongness which dictate what the important facts are. They have their expected outcome and they will make the facts fit that outcome. They like Ben, so he must be innocent. They want him to succeed, so all the details against him are to be ignored.
And they even have tried to appeal to blogger-sympathy, by suggesting that lib bloggers should support him because it helps all bloggers. But can you really imagine that they’d say that if things were reversed? They already demonize Froomkin for being a wacko liberal; imagine how they’d act if a real fire-breathing liberal blogger got the new blog spot. Particularly if they found out that the lib was a unqualified plagiarizing hack who’s worked for the Democrats. Are we really to believe that the Red Staters would gladly back such a person?
Of course not. But that’s all just part of the propagandic bullshit that these people spew out on a regular basis. And they don’t even know that they’re doing it. They honestly believe that they’re just being fair-minded. But again, what they’re asking of us is to ignore the truth. To ignore facts. To wash-over any wrong-doing that Ben might have done, or anything stupid he might have said; simply for the sake of pro-blogger propaganda. But hell, I wouldn’t even go that far. Because Ben isn’t some typical blogger guy who got lucky. He’s part of the GOP machine. He’s a bought hack.
But even if he wasn’t, I still can’t ignore the truth, even if it does help me. That’s the game that they play. These 7th-grade dorks who seem to have gotten their moral code from watching too many episodes of Branded. Or perhaps it really was the propaganda-flick Red Dawn that molded them in their formative years. Whatever it was, they know what they need to do, and that’s just to put the propaganda machine into overdrive and support their troops…er, I mean, their blogger-friend who was probably never honest with them regarding his ties to the GOP.
We must defend Ben.
I am honored to call Ben Domenech a friend, and will be proud to stand at his side no matter what.
I stand behind Ben.
I stand with my friend.
I don't know Ben/Augustine outside of his writings here (and now Red America), but I stand with him.
They don't come within a parsec of how he is being characterized by the loony left.
Conservative leaders, both in gov't as well as the media, need to know that they'll have the full backing of the rank-and-file when they go out to battle the often vicious libs and their sidekicks in the media.
I stand ready to fight.
I stand behind Ben.
I’ll say it again: What a bunch of dorks. Are these guys in seventh grade, or what? And for all their toughguy 1950’s cowboy talk of standing by Ben, what the hell does that even mean? Are they going to take his side in an actual fight? Are they even risking anything by defending him? No. They’re just going to support him with propaganda while ignoring the truth of his disgrace. Because that’s all these guys ever do. They talk a tough game, but that’s all it is: a game. And long after all this is over, they’ll remember themselves as having come down on the right side, no matter what happens.
And the worst is Erick, the guy who started that thread. I mean, come fucking on, the proof of plagiarism is already too evident to ignore. And while I still don’t know all the details, that won’t stop me from speculating that the excuses given so far are complete crap. They’re trying to tell us that this is something that he did in his “teen years”, but he’s only fucking 24 years old. Let’s not act as if these are decade’s old allegations. It happened while he was in college, and probably afterwards. But Erick and the rest of them don’t give a damn about the truth. They don’t want the allegations to be true, so they’re not true. And they justify this attitude with absurd statements such as “And now those opposed to Ben have googled prior writings that on the surface appear suspicious, but only because permissions obtained and judgments made offline were not reflected online by an out dated and out of business campus newspaper.”
That’s right. These aren’t facts. They’re just the work of those opposed to Ben. And these aren’t really suspicious actions. It’s just that the permissions obtained and judgments made offline were not reflected online. Of course. Sure, it looks like plagiarism because Ben didn’t use quotes or in any way indicate that he was quoting something. Nor does the context even suggest that he was trying to quote anyone. But it must be that way. Because they defend Ben. And that means that there must be a good explanation for all this. Because Ben’s a good guy, and his critics are bad guys. So he must be right and they must be wrong. It’s that simple.
And that’s just the way these people work. There are no facts. There are just opinions about rightness and wrongness which dictate what the important facts are. They have their expected outcome and they will make the facts fit that outcome. They like Ben, so he must be innocent. They want him to succeed, so all the details against him are to be ignored.
And they even have tried to appeal to blogger-sympathy, by suggesting that lib bloggers should support him because it helps all bloggers. But can you really imagine that they’d say that if things were reversed? They already demonize Froomkin for being a wacko liberal; imagine how they’d act if a real fire-breathing liberal blogger got the new blog spot. Particularly if they found out that the lib was a unqualified plagiarizing hack who’s worked for the Democrats. Are we really to believe that the Red Staters would gladly back such a person?
Of course not. But that’s all just part of the propagandic bullshit that these people spew out on a regular basis. And they don’t even know that they’re doing it. They honestly believe that they’re just being fair-minded. But again, what they’re asking of us is to ignore the truth. To ignore facts. To wash-over any wrong-doing that Ben might have done, or anything stupid he might have said; simply for the sake of pro-blogger propaganda. But hell, I wouldn’t even go that far. Because Ben isn’t some typical blogger guy who got lucky. He’s part of the GOP machine. He’s a bought hack.
But even if he wasn’t, I still can’t ignore the truth, even if it does help me. That’s the game that they play. These 7th-grade dorks who seem to have gotten their moral code from watching too many episodes of Branded. Or perhaps it really was the propaganda-flick Red Dawn that molded them in their formative years. Whatever it was, they know what they need to do, and that’s just to put the propaganda machine into overdrive and support their troops…er, I mean, their blogger-friend who was probably never honest with them regarding his ties to the GOP.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Freedom of Intolerance
From the AP:
An Afghan man facing a possible death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity may be mentally unfit to stand trial, a state prosecutor said Wednesday. Abdul Rahman, 41, has been charged with rejecting Islam, a crime under this country's Islamic laws. His trial started last week and he confessed to becoming a Christian 16 years ago. If convicted, he could be executed.
…
Afghanistan's constitution is based on Shariah law, which is interpreted by many Muslims to require that any Muslim who rejects Islam be sentenced to death. The state-sponsored Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has called for Rahman to be punished, arguing he clearly violated Islamic law.
The case has received widespread attention in Afghanistan where many people are demanding Rahman be severely punished.
"For 30 years, we have fought religious wars in this country and there is no way we are going to allow an Afghan to insult us by becoming Christian," said Mohammed Jan, 38, who lives opposite Rahman's father, Abdul Manan, in Kabul. "This has brought so much shame."
Ok, I guess I’ve never been big on the whole international news thing, and really only focus on it in terms of how things relate to domestic news and, even then, only in how they relate to politics; but how long has this Shariah law thing been in effect? Afghanistan set-up a constitution that institutes the death penalty for Muslim Christian converts??? Holy shit! For all Bush’s talk of Peeance Freeance, this is news to me. I imagine that this is probably news to a lot of Bush’s evangelical supporters who probably imagined that this invasion of Muslim countries would at least open them up to Christian missionary work. And what the hell is wrong with Democrats that the religious right hasn’t already been frothing about this since it became law?
And hell, when I first saw the headline, I had at least assumed that this was some recent conversion in Afghanistan. But according to the story, he converted in Pakistan sixteen years ago, moved to Germany for nine fucking years, and only moved back to Afghanistan after we invaded the country. You know, when we helped kick-out fanatical religious intolerance. He was arrested when police found his bible during a child custody dispute. They say they’ll save his life if he converts back to Islam, but he won’t do it. Again, this really kind of puts a crimp on the whole missionary thing, doesn’t it?
And let’s not forget that his best defense is supposedly an insanity plea. Which, under the circumstances, is not entirely unwarranted. I mean, I guess I’ve never been big on the whole religion thing, so I guess I don’t really understand; but isn’t it a tad bit insane to not just lie about the whole religious conversion thing and then leave the country? By modern standards, isn’t this crazy stuff?
But let’s not forget that this insanity thing is probably the best bet for saving the Bush Admin, which apparently issued a “subdued appeal” to allow Rahman to practice his faith. But they’re really in a sticky place that they somehow failed to imagine back when the neo-cons were still smoking those democracy-flavored crackpipes. I mean, what if the Muslims want to squander their freedom by not doing exactly what we want them to? Then what? Was it that they were so stupid that they imagined that democracy could only bring exactly what we want? Or were they foolish enough to believe that they could always pick the Muslim leadership and influence their politics? Whatever it was, it was dumb. And hell, I wasn’t even against the Afghan invasion, but I really don’t see how the evangelical Christians are going to sit well with this one. Bush’s only hope is either the weak insanity plea or that more people don’t hear about this. And while I fully support that first option, Dems would be fools to allow the second.
An Afghan man facing a possible death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity may be mentally unfit to stand trial, a state prosecutor said Wednesday. Abdul Rahman, 41, has been charged with rejecting Islam, a crime under this country's Islamic laws. His trial started last week and he confessed to becoming a Christian 16 years ago. If convicted, he could be executed.
…
Afghanistan's constitution is based on Shariah law, which is interpreted by many Muslims to require that any Muslim who rejects Islam be sentenced to death. The state-sponsored Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has called for Rahman to be punished, arguing he clearly violated Islamic law.
The case has received widespread attention in Afghanistan where many people are demanding Rahman be severely punished.
"For 30 years, we have fought religious wars in this country and there is no way we are going to allow an Afghan to insult us by becoming Christian," said Mohammed Jan, 38, who lives opposite Rahman's father, Abdul Manan, in Kabul. "This has brought so much shame."
Ok, I guess I’ve never been big on the whole international news thing, and really only focus on it in terms of how things relate to domestic news and, even then, only in how they relate to politics; but how long has this Shariah law thing been in effect? Afghanistan set-up a constitution that institutes the death penalty for Muslim Christian converts??? Holy shit! For all Bush’s talk of Peeance Freeance, this is news to me. I imagine that this is probably news to a lot of Bush’s evangelical supporters who probably imagined that this invasion of Muslim countries would at least open them up to Christian missionary work. And what the hell is wrong with Democrats that the religious right hasn’t already been frothing about this since it became law?
And hell, when I first saw the headline, I had at least assumed that this was some recent conversion in Afghanistan. But according to the story, he converted in Pakistan sixteen years ago, moved to Germany for nine fucking years, and only moved back to Afghanistan after we invaded the country. You know, when we helped kick-out fanatical religious intolerance. He was arrested when police found his bible during a child custody dispute. They say they’ll save his life if he converts back to Islam, but he won’t do it. Again, this really kind of puts a crimp on the whole missionary thing, doesn’t it?
And let’s not forget that his best defense is supposedly an insanity plea. Which, under the circumstances, is not entirely unwarranted. I mean, I guess I’ve never been big on the whole religion thing, so I guess I don’t really understand; but isn’t it a tad bit insane to not just lie about the whole religious conversion thing and then leave the country? By modern standards, isn’t this crazy stuff?
But let’s not forget that this insanity thing is probably the best bet for saving the Bush Admin, which apparently issued a “subdued appeal” to allow Rahman to practice his faith. But they’re really in a sticky place that they somehow failed to imagine back when the neo-cons were still smoking those democracy-flavored crackpipes. I mean, what if the Muslims want to squander their freedom by not doing exactly what we want them to? Then what? Was it that they were so stupid that they imagined that democracy could only bring exactly what we want? Or were they foolish enough to believe that they could always pick the Muslim leadership and influence their politics? Whatever it was, it was dumb. And hell, I wasn’t even against the Afghan invasion, but I really don’t see how the evangelical Christians are going to sit well with this one. Bush’s only hope is either the weak insanity plea or that more people don’t hear about this. And while I fully support that first option, Dems would be fools to allow the second.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Trusting Dopes
More than anything, recent Bush-bashing arguments made by Andrew Sullivan and Peggy Noonan, along with many other conservatives who are dumping Bush now that he’s unpopular, are just evidence of why we shouldn’t blindly trust the president. Not just this president, but any president. As I’ve said many times before, the best way to get someone to act honestly is to treat them as if they’ll be dishonest; and the best way to get screwed-over is to trust them. And these people are all testifying to that fact. Bush could only do these things because folks like Sully and Noonan trusted them. And remember, of course, that they saw us as disloyal because we didn’t trust Bush.
And in a way, they really screwed Bush over. By trusting in him, they gave him the rope that he could use to hang himself…and the rest of the country. Because all he saw was a free-lunch. He could say and do anything, and these dopes would go right along with it and serve as loyal attack dogs against anyone who disagreed. And that was the first screwing over, because he never learned to see that there were consequences to his actions. Sure, it’s most likely that that’s how his whole life was; but he might have learned a lesson against that, had these people not trusted him earlier. Had they demanded to know his specific plans for Iraq and acted skeptically about them, they would have realized that there were no real plans; only fantasies. And it’s unlikely that we would ever have gone to war; and Bush would have saved himself from the ruin he now faces.
And now they’re giving him the second part of that screwing, by abandoning him now that everything’s gone to shit. Their trust wasn’t nearly as infinite as they had led him to believe, and probably only lasted as long as Bush remained popular. Even a few dips in popularity could be dismissed. But now that it’s obvious that Bush is in downward spiral with no plan of getting out, they’re running away as quickly as they can, leaving him holding the bill that they helped ring-up.
But again, the main point of this isn’t that Bush betrayed them or their principles, as they’d like to believe. The main point is that their entire way of doing things was wrong. And the wrongest, was in trusting in Bush. But again, it’s not just him. It’s stupid to blindly trust anyone. As I recently criticized from Sully, they used the stupid “trust, but verify” idea, and it didn’t work. Because that’s no way of doing things. You can’t just wait until after you’ve been screwed over to verify whether you’ve been screwed over; because then, it’s too late. You’re already screwed!
Sure, sometimes trust is necessary. But in matters of Iraq, anti-terrorism, deficits, etc.; trust wasn’t necessary. Not if Bush was being honest. Trust was only required because he was lying and taking a gamble with our future. He didn’t tell us the truth because he couldn’t; not if he wanted to go ahead with his plans. And trust was the only way he could do it. But it’s not his fault, necessarily. If you trust your dog and leave a juicy steak on the counter, it’s not the dog’s fault for eating it; it’s yours. And these people proudly left all of our steaks on the counter while scolding us for not having more steaks to give.
And beyond that, they didn’t verify jackshit either. The evidence continued to mount that Bush couldn’t be trusted, but they kept doing so anyway. And that just kept telling Bush that he could do whatever he wanted with impunity. He could hire political hacks instead of competent administrators. He could run huge deficits and scoff at the worry-warts worrying about them. He could enact policies which went exactly against his rhetoric, and speechify about things he was planning to ignore. And all because these dopes trusted in him.
But again, this isn’t to vilify Bush, who needs no vilifying. Or even to denounce the idiot conservatives like Noonan and Sully who will blindly believe anything they want to; whether that it’s that they should trust Bush or blame Bush, it’s whatever they need it to be. Because they’ve constantly got their eye on the prize and only occasionally check to see if reality is corresponding with what they think they’re seeing. No, it’s pretty much hopeless with these people. But our only hope is that people start to see these people for the nonsense dummies that they really are; and stop taking them seriously. They cannot be trusted to reason properly and if anyone places their trust in these trusting dopes, they deserve everything they’ve got coming to them. Unfortunately, all of those things are lofted upon us too, including the blame.
And in a way, they really screwed Bush over. By trusting in him, they gave him the rope that he could use to hang himself…and the rest of the country. Because all he saw was a free-lunch. He could say and do anything, and these dopes would go right along with it and serve as loyal attack dogs against anyone who disagreed. And that was the first screwing over, because he never learned to see that there were consequences to his actions. Sure, it’s most likely that that’s how his whole life was; but he might have learned a lesson against that, had these people not trusted him earlier. Had they demanded to know his specific plans for Iraq and acted skeptically about them, they would have realized that there were no real plans; only fantasies. And it’s unlikely that we would ever have gone to war; and Bush would have saved himself from the ruin he now faces.
And now they’re giving him the second part of that screwing, by abandoning him now that everything’s gone to shit. Their trust wasn’t nearly as infinite as they had led him to believe, and probably only lasted as long as Bush remained popular. Even a few dips in popularity could be dismissed. But now that it’s obvious that Bush is in downward spiral with no plan of getting out, they’re running away as quickly as they can, leaving him holding the bill that they helped ring-up.
But again, the main point of this isn’t that Bush betrayed them or their principles, as they’d like to believe. The main point is that their entire way of doing things was wrong. And the wrongest, was in trusting in Bush. But again, it’s not just him. It’s stupid to blindly trust anyone. As I recently criticized from Sully, they used the stupid “trust, but verify” idea, and it didn’t work. Because that’s no way of doing things. You can’t just wait until after you’ve been screwed over to verify whether you’ve been screwed over; because then, it’s too late. You’re already screwed!
Sure, sometimes trust is necessary. But in matters of Iraq, anti-terrorism, deficits, etc.; trust wasn’t necessary. Not if Bush was being honest. Trust was only required because he was lying and taking a gamble with our future. He didn’t tell us the truth because he couldn’t; not if he wanted to go ahead with his plans. And trust was the only way he could do it. But it’s not his fault, necessarily. If you trust your dog and leave a juicy steak on the counter, it’s not the dog’s fault for eating it; it’s yours. And these people proudly left all of our steaks on the counter while scolding us for not having more steaks to give.
And beyond that, they didn’t verify jackshit either. The evidence continued to mount that Bush couldn’t be trusted, but they kept doing so anyway. And that just kept telling Bush that he could do whatever he wanted with impunity. He could hire political hacks instead of competent administrators. He could run huge deficits and scoff at the worry-warts worrying about them. He could enact policies which went exactly against his rhetoric, and speechify about things he was planning to ignore. And all because these dopes trusted in him.
But again, this isn’t to vilify Bush, who needs no vilifying. Or even to denounce the idiot conservatives like Noonan and Sully who will blindly believe anything they want to; whether that it’s that they should trust Bush or blame Bush, it’s whatever they need it to be. Because they’ve constantly got their eye on the prize and only occasionally check to see if reality is corresponding with what they think they’re seeing. No, it’s pretty much hopeless with these people. But our only hope is that people start to see these people for the nonsense dummies that they really are; and stop taking them seriously. They cannot be trusted to reason properly and if anyone places their trust in these trusting dopes, they deserve everything they’ve got coming to them. Unfortunately, all of those things are lofted upon us too, including the blame.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Dealing with the Genie
I'm with Atrios in thinking that, whether or not Feingold's censure talk was a good idea, once he started talking, the Dems needed to deal with it. But not just with this one bill either. It doesn't matter what the topic is. Once the genie is out of the bottle, you gotta deal with that genie. But it seems too often in these kinds of things that if faced with an off-topic or an unpleasant speech or whatever thing, Dems just want to talk about how they wish it had never happened; rather than taking a smart course of action. They did that several times when Howard Dean has said strong things that they wish he hadn't said. And I don't know, I can't really think of other good examples, but I know they're out there.
And this is also similar to the phenomenon in which Dems who see themselves as outsiders (ie, those who think we need to embrace the evangelicals, as well as those who think we need to show how "strong" Democrats can be), and how they'll always talk about what Dems need to do and how they need to position themselves; but seem incapable of actually doing it. They’ll write endless columns bitching about weak or godless Dems, but don’t bother as much writing about their plans and how they’re God-filled Dems or whatever; other than as a way to bitch about how the rest of the Dems don’t follow their lead. And so the net result is that they weaken the Dems by loudly complaining about how someone else is weakening the Dems.And that's what's happening with the Feingold thing. Sure, maybe he should have coordinated this. And maybe he shouldn't have done it at all. I still don't see the problem, but I don't see how whining about Feingold will help anything. Sure, this is sort of the equivalent of a rogue running-back grabbing the ball and changing the play in mid-stream. But once that play has changed, the dumbest thing the team can do is to stop playing and bitch about the rogue running-back. And the smart thing is to understand that the play has changed and to make your own changes accordingly. That's not to say that you have to follow his lead, but to mindlessly undermine him doesn't help at all.And to me, the best way to deal with this situation would have been to say something along the lines that this isn't a coordinated thing, but that they are forced to admit agreement with Feingold's measure. That while they wouldn't have done this themselves, they've seen how dangerous Bush is and that they can't help but support the measure; even if it won't go anywhere. Not only does it make Dems look like they’re unified, but if properly done, it would put the ball back onto Bush’s incompetence, deception, and how he’s imperiling our democracy. And that can only be good.
And that's exactly how it is with me, and probably many others. If asked beforehand, I would not have recommended censure. But once it was out there, I certainly agree with the idea and stand behind Feingold. And that's exactly how it's supposed to be done. Unless they really are "siding with the terrorists" or demanding we all commit treason (or something similar); I think it's a mistake to attack folks on our team who might be a little more zealous than us. I have no problem with attacking the Lieberman-Zell types who attack and undermine Dems, as there’s nothing wrong with returning fire. But Feingold's a good Senator and he deserved our support, even if we wouldn't have made this move. To do otherwise in this case would only serve to undermine the party more than anything Feingold did.For the record, I should state that I personally don’t agree with censure, but that just might be because I have no earthly idea exactly what censure means, and that I'm afraid that it might get Bush off the hook somehow. Like that it's a slap on the wrist for something that should eventually lead to a slap of the handcuffs. But maybe it doesn't work like that, so I don't know. But again, the point isn’t what I’d do had Feingold not brought-up censure; because he already did. The point is to take the proper course of action knowing that he did it. And the proper course is to stand behind him. Hell, even if a Dem doesn’t support censure and won’t vote for it, they should still stand behind what Feingold did and admire his bold actions. That’s how this is supposed to be done. And complaining about how someone went rogue and changed the play only serves to help the Republicans.
And this is also similar to the phenomenon in which Dems who see themselves as outsiders (ie, those who think we need to embrace the evangelicals, as well as those who think we need to show how "strong" Democrats can be), and how they'll always talk about what Dems need to do and how they need to position themselves; but seem incapable of actually doing it. They’ll write endless columns bitching about weak or godless Dems, but don’t bother as much writing about their plans and how they’re God-filled Dems or whatever; other than as a way to bitch about how the rest of the Dems don’t follow their lead. And so the net result is that they weaken the Dems by loudly complaining about how someone else is weakening the Dems.And that's what's happening with the Feingold thing. Sure, maybe he should have coordinated this. And maybe he shouldn't have done it at all. I still don't see the problem, but I don't see how whining about Feingold will help anything. Sure, this is sort of the equivalent of a rogue running-back grabbing the ball and changing the play in mid-stream. But once that play has changed, the dumbest thing the team can do is to stop playing and bitch about the rogue running-back. And the smart thing is to understand that the play has changed and to make your own changes accordingly. That's not to say that you have to follow his lead, but to mindlessly undermine him doesn't help at all.And to me, the best way to deal with this situation would have been to say something along the lines that this isn't a coordinated thing, but that they are forced to admit agreement with Feingold's measure. That while they wouldn't have done this themselves, they've seen how dangerous Bush is and that they can't help but support the measure; even if it won't go anywhere. Not only does it make Dems look like they’re unified, but if properly done, it would put the ball back onto Bush’s incompetence, deception, and how he’s imperiling our democracy. And that can only be good.
And that's exactly how it is with me, and probably many others. If asked beforehand, I would not have recommended censure. But once it was out there, I certainly agree with the idea and stand behind Feingold. And that's exactly how it's supposed to be done. Unless they really are "siding with the terrorists" or demanding we all commit treason (or something similar); I think it's a mistake to attack folks on our team who might be a little more zealous than us. I have no problem with attacking the Lieberman-Zell types who attack and undermine Dems, as there’s nothing wrong with returning fire. But Feingold's a good Senator and he deserved our support, even if we wouldn't have made this move. To do otherwise in this case would only serve to undermine the party more than anything Feingold did.For the record, I should state that I personally don’t agree with censure, but that just might be because I have no earthly idea exactly what censure means, and that I'm afraid that it might get Bush off the hook somehow. Like that it's a slap on the wrist for something that should eventually lead to a slap of the handcuffs. But maybe it doesn't work like that, so I don't know. But again, the point isn’t what I’d do had Feingold not brought-up censure; because he already did. The point is to take the proper course of action knowing that he did it. And the proper course is to stand behind him. Hell, even if a Dem doesn’t support censure and won’t vote for it, they should still stand behind what Feingold did and admire his bold actions. That’s how this is supposed to be done. And complaining about how someone went rogue and changed the play only serves to help the Republicans.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Random Stuff
As a warning, I’m up to my neck in tax returns and won’t be posting too much. But fear not, I should have much of this cleared up by next week. In the meantime, if you’re jonesing for some fresh Biobrain action, just read Digby’s blog and add a “ditto” at the end of each post.
As another warning, I’m planning some major changes to the blog, including a Biobrain Blogroll Contest. I’ll explain more later. One housekeeping question, are y’all ok with the standard template of this blog? It’s one of those generic Blogger layouts and I’m always alittle embarrassed when I see someone else using the same one. So are you people accustomed to this blog layout, or should I think about individualizing it slightly? And to those RSS people out there, do you guys even see my blog layout, or does it feed into a standard format? I still haven’t quite figured out exactly what RSS is, so I’m not sure how to investigate this for myself. And if anyone has any suggestions for blog features, I’ll look into it. I’ve mentioned this a few times before, but I’m serious this time.
Oh, and to give you something fresh, I’ll just quote my favorite pro-war media quote from this list by FAIR:
"We're all neo-cons now." (MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)
Indeed. But then again, this one’s pretty damn good too:
"The war was the hard part. The hard part was putting together a coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment and winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war." (Fox News Channel's Fred Barnes, 4/10/03)
Or maybe it’s the exact opposite.
Oh hell, they’re all good. Here’s another favorite:
"What's he going to talk about a year from now, the fact that the war went too well and it's over? I mean, don't these things sort of lose their--Isn't there a fresh date on some of these debate points?" (MSNBC's Chris Matthews, speaking about Howard Dean--4/9/03)
Yeah, poor Howard Dean. What will he talk about?
As another warning, I’m planning some major changes to the blog, including a Biobrain Blogroll Contest. I’ll explain more later. One housekeeping question, are y’all ok with the standard template of this blog? It’s one of those generic Blogger layouts and I’m always alittle embarrassed when I see someone else using the same one. So are you people accustomed to this blog layout, or should I think about individualizing it slightly? And to those RSS people out there, do you guys even see my blog layout, or does it feed into a standard format? I still haven’t quite figured out exactly what RSS is, so I’m not sure how to investigate this for myself. And if anyone has any suggestions for blog features, I’ll look into it. I’ve mentioned this a few times before, but I’m serious this time.
Oh, and to give you something fresh, I’ll just quote my favorite pro-war media quote from this list by FAIR:
"We're all neo-cons now." (MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)
Indeed. But then again, this one’s pretty damn good too:
"The war was the hard part. The hard part was putting together a coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment and winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war." (Fox News Channel's Fred Barnes, 4/10/03)
Or maybe it’s the exact opposite.
Oh hell, they’re all good. Here’s another favorite:
"What's he going to talk about a year from now, the fact that the war went too well and it's over? I mean, don't these things sort of lose their--Isn't there a fresh date on some of these debate points?" (MSNBC's Chris Matthews, speaking about Howard Dean--4/9/03)
Yeah, poor Howard Dean. What will he talk about?
Monday, March 13, 2006
Hutz v. Mason: Silencing Justice
Have you ever wondered why the people who believe that everyone in prison deserves what they got, are often the same people who assume that most lawsuits are frivolous, most jury awards extravagant, and most juries filled with incompetents? Me too. I mean, why is it that juries in criminal trials are essentially infallible, and that we should almost always feel overjoyed that we’ve destroyed some dude’s life or even removed it completely; based entirely on a jury’s opinion (as well as an appeals process which is too often nothing more than a rubberstamp)? And yet in a civil trial, all this changes and the infallible jury becomes a worthless joke, incapable of even finding their own butts in a line-up.
So the people who insist that all prisoners deserve more jailtime and all the executed deserve a harsher death, are so wary of civil juries that they want to completely rewrite the laws, in order to stop them from giving out big “awards”; even in cases where it may have been entirely warranted. And let’s not forget about Grand Juries. They’ll mock the entire Grand Jury system (wingnut alert) when it indicts an important Republican; but consider almost everyone else guilty as charged.
Am I just stupid, or is this entirely backwards? We’ve got guys about to give up their lives, with only a disinterested public defender standing in the way of a railroaded trial. Or where even the paid-for lawyers are more Lionel Hutz than Perry Mason. And is this the case with the poor corporations losing the civil suits? Hell, no. They’ve got a whole team of lawyers, each one of whose Rolex is worth more than that public defender might make in a year. And research staffs, buttloads of Habeas Corpus, and all kinds of legally stuff that can knock your socks off. And yet the “tort reformers” think the ultra-rich companies need the extra benefit of altered laws, while they tear their hair out each time DNA exonerates someone who was wrongly convicted? Are they shitting us or what?
And of course it’s they who are being shitted. Because lawsuits aren’t the big money drain that the “tort reformers” believe it is. Here we see that malpractice awards cost us a measly $16 per capita in 2001. And here’s an excellent article from Washington Monthly which directly addresses the anti-lawsuit skewing the media actively engages in, as well as a follow-up debunking of a letter from Newsweek legal writer Stuart Taylor who had been utterly savaged in the original piece. For example, it cites a Harvard Medical Practice Study which showed that, “for every doctor or hospital charged with an invalid claim, there were grounds for at least seven other meritorious suits that were never filed.”
But who of our conservative “tort reformers” know any of this? I’d guess not a whole heck of a lot. They read all these invented horror stories about people ripping off businesses for their own incompetent actions, which they accept unquestionably because it confirms their worldview of lazy good-for-nothings bilking the system (and possibly because they themselves would someday like to benefit from the “courtroom lottery” that they imagine occurs daily). And then there are some valid lawsuits, such as the McDonald’s coffee incident, which are widely seen as frivolous by those too lazy to research the facts. (Personal Disclosure: I once spilled hot chocolate on myself when I was eight, because the mug burned my fingers and I dropped it on my lap; and I spent three weeks in the hospital. It was very hot chocolate and it really really hurt. I still have a scar on my leg. So I’m a little biased regarding hot drink spillages.)
The Bathwater Out with the Baby
But these people are just being used. Because businesses don’t just want to protect against frivolous lawsuits. They don’t like the legitimate kind either. In fact, I have no doubts that they hate legitimate lawsuits far more than the frivolous ones. And that’s what this is all about: protecting Big Business. This isn’t about “personal responsibility” and “fairness”, this is about money. And while conservatives often rant about “personal responsibility” they most surely don’t give a damn about corporate responsibility. And whether the issue is product negligence or toxic waste in our rivers; too many conservative saps have been convinced that a corporate charter is grounds for omnipotence.
And the thing is, who isn’t against frivolous lawsuits? Excepting the people who actively engage in them, they don’t benefit anyone. And I personally hate them. Not just because it’s consumers who ultimately pay for these lawsuits, or because they’re unfair; but because they clog-up our court system and damage our ability to use legal remedies properly. Because society requires legal remedies to bad situations. Sometimes, two people acting in good faith can have a serious disagreement that can only be decided by an impartial judge. And if people don’t have faith in our judicial system, they’ll be more likely to use some other system for justice.
So the answer isn’t a wholesale attack against lawsuits, as many of the same laws which might protect against frivolous lawsuits would also serve to protect against valid lawsuits. And that’s certainly one of the purposes of these “tort reforms”; to lessen the impact of all lawsuits, good and bad. And sure, some lawsuits are probably frivolous; but without a doubt, others are not. And the big question isn’t what we can do to stop frivolous lawsuits, but what we can do to stop frivolous lawsuits without damaging the real ones.
And too often, these things can’t be done until after they reach the courtroom; and things that look frivolous or obvious outside the courtroom often look a lot different to the courtroom insiders who know all the facts; particularly if the outsiders are fed a particular storyline from a favored talkshow host. The truth is that these “idiot juries” are often far more knowledgeable than those who actively denounce them and seek to limit their ability to deliver justice; and often, the evidence that they’re not allowed to hear is the evidence that isn’t legally admissible. And that’s just how a justice system should work.
Impugned Motives
And there can be no doubt that these people fail to grasp the point of punitive damages; as if the $10,000 fine that would deter you from acting in bad faith would equally deter McDonald’s or Exxon; especially regarding wrongful activities that generate hundreds or thousands of times more than the fine they’d be levied with. And while they attack the reimbursement of medical expenses or lost wages, they absolutely hate punitive damages. That’s the real “lottery” aspect to them. But again, when a corporation acts in a knowingly dangerous fashion and it results in the direct death of a child; what are the actual damages inflicted? Do they really think that a company should be left unscathed as long as the victim is killed instantly? Of course not. The problem is that they’ve been led to believe that most lawsuits aren’t legitimate anyway; and can’t even discuss this topic without being overwhelmed by hatred towards frivolous lawsuits. That’s not to suggest that I completely agree with the punitive system which makes the victim a beneficiary of the punishment; but the “tort reformers” complaint isn’t really regarding where the money goes, but rather that the money was paid at all. Because again, this isn’t about fairness or justice; it’s about money.
And we can have no doubt that each and every “tort reformer” will most gladly use the civil court system if they were seriously wronged, and even when the wrong isn’t so serious. Here’s an excellent post from Wampum regarding rightwing politicians who were more than happy to use our civil court system in ways that reformers openly detest (for example, GW suing Enterprise-Rentacar for renting a car to someone who had no license and hit one of the twins; and getting a $2500 settlement from Enterprise). That’s not to impugn them with bad or greedy motives, necessarily. It’s to say that there is a reason why the court system exists, that even “tort reformers” will agree with, if they ever need to use it.
And let’s not forget that there is another angle to the rightwing witchhunt against lawsuits: Trial lawyers can make a lot of money, which they often give to Democratic candidates or even to run for office themselves. And so while Republicans have a second-hand interest in this to protect their campaign investors; they also have a first-hand interest in stopping the dreaded trial lawyers from receiving the big bucks that they send towards the Dems. But that’s partly a necessary outcome because the GOP has taken such a strong interest in advocating to protect businesses against liability for their actions. While trial lawyers are surely acting in their own self-interest, this also serves to protect our ability to deal on relatively equal terms with big business; and that’s just another part of the equation that Republicans are trying to stop.
So when we take all this into perspective, it’s obvious that the conservative’s big target isn’t frivolous lawsuits which have no real chance of winning; but against juries who decide that a case isn’t frivolous and punish businesses who they deem to be deserving of punishment. They will often cite the frivolous suits, but the real target is the jury system itself. And while conservatives trust juries to destroy people’s lives, they’re firmly against juries which can justly punish corporations for their bad acts. And if we took this out of the jury’s hands, they would next target the judges or anyone else they couldn’t control. Because this isn’t about protecting against frivolous lawsuits or wrongful claims or idiot juries; this is about silencing the ability of the little guys to combat the big guys. This is an assault on justice itself.
So the people who insist that all prisoners deserve more jailtime and all the executed deserve a harsher death, are so wary of civil juries that they want to completely rewrite the laws, in order to stop them from giving out big “awards”; even in cases where it may have been entirely warranted. And let’s not forget about Grand Juries. They’ll mock the entire Grand Jury system (wingnut alert) when it indicts an important Republican; but consider almost everyone else guilty as charged.
Am I just stupid, or is this entirely backwards? We’ve got guys about to give up their lives, with only a disinterested public defender standing in the way of a railroaded trial. Or where even the paid-for lawyers are more Lionel Hutz than Perry Mason. And is this the case with the poor corporations losing the civil suits? Hell, no. They’ve got a whole team of lawyers, each one of whose Rolex is worth more than that public defender might make in a year. And research staffs, buttloads of Habeas Corpus, and all kinds of legally stuff that can knock your socks off. And yet the “tort reformers” think the ultra-rich companies need the extra benefit of altered laws, while they tear their hair out each time DNA exonerates someone who was wrongly convicted? Are they shitting us or what?
And of course it’s they who are being shitted. Because lawsuits aren’t the big money drain that the “tort reformers” believe it is. Here we see that malpractice awards cost us a measly $16 per capita in 2001. And here’s an excellent article from Washington Monthly which directly addresses the anti-lawsuit skewing the media actively engages in, as well as a follow-up debunking of a letter from Newsweek legal writer Stuart Taylor who had been utterly savaged in the original piece. For example, it cites a Harvard Medical Practice Study which showed that, “for every doctor or hospital charged with an invalid claim, there were grounds for at least seven other meritorious suits that were never filed.”
But who of our conservative “tort reformers” know any of this? I’d guess not a whole heck of a lot. They read all these invented horror stories about people ripping off businesses for their own incompetent actions, which they accept unquestionably because it confirms their worldview of lazy good-for-nothings bilking the system (and possibly because they themselves would someday like to benefit from the “courtroom lottery” that they imagine occurs daily). And then there are some valid lawsuits, such as the McDonald’s coffee incident, which are widely seen as frivolous by those too lazy to research the facts. (Personal Disclosure: I once spilled hot chocolate on myself when I was eight, because the mug burned my fingers and I dropped it on my lap; and I spent three weeks in the hospital. It was very hot chocolate and it really really hurt. I still have a scar on my leg. So I’m a little biased regarding hot drink spillages.)
The Bathwater Out with the Baby
But these people are just being used. Because businesses don’t just want to protect against frivolous lawsuits. They don’t like the legitimate kind either. In fact, I have no doubts that they hate legitimate lawsuits far more than the frivolous ones. And that’s what this is all about: protecting Big Business. This isn’t about “personal responsibility” and “fairness”, this is about money. And while conservatives often rant about “personal responsibility” they most surely don’t give a damn about corporate responsibility. And whether the issue is product negligence or toxic waste in our rivers; too many conservative saps have been convinced that a corporate charter is grounds for omnipotence.
And the thing is, who isn’t against frivolous lawsuits? Excepting the people who actively engage in them, they don’t benefit anyone. And I personally hate them. Not just because it’s consumers who ultimately pay for these lawsuits, or because they’re unfair; but because they clog-up our court system and damage our ability to use legal remedies properly. Because society requires legal remedies to bad situations. Sometimes, two people acting in good faith can have a serious disagreement that can only be decided by an impartial judge. And if people don’t have faith in our judicial system, they’ll be more likely to use some other system for justice.
So the answer isn’t a wholesale attack against lawsuits, as many of the same laws which might protect against frivolous lawsuits would also serve to protect against valid lawsuits. And that’s certainly one of the purposes of these “tort reforms”; to lessen the impact of all lawsuits, good and bad. And sure, some lawsuits are probably frivolous; but without a doubt, others are not. And the big question isn’t what we can do to stop frivolous lawsuits, but what we can do to stop frivolous lawsuits without damaging the real ones.
And too often, these things can’t be done until after they reach the courtroom; and things that look frivolous or obvious outside the courtroom often look a lot different to the courtroom insiders who know all the facts; particularly if the outsiders are fed a particular storyline from a favored talkshow host. The truth is that these “idiot juries” are often far more knowledgeable than those who actively denounce them and seek to limit their ability to deliver justice; and often, the evidence that they’re not allowed to hear is the evidence that isn’t legally admissible. And that’s just how a justice system should work.
Impugned Motives
And there can be no doubt that these people fail to grasp the point of punitive damages; as if the $10,000 fine that would deter you from acting in bad faith would equally deter McDonald’s or Exxon; especially regarding wrongful activities that generate hundreds or thousands of times more than the fine they’d be levied with. And while they attack the reimbursement of medical expenses or lost wages, they absolutely hate punitive damages. That’s the real “lottery” aspect to them. But again, when a corporation acts in a knowingly dangerous fashion and it results in the direct death of a child; what are the actual damages inflicted? Do they really think that a company should be left unscathed as long as the victim is killed instantly? Of course not. The problem is that they’ve been led to believe that most lawsuits aren’t legitimate anyway; and can’t even discuss this topic without being overwhelmed by hatred towards frivolous lawsuits. That’s not to suggest that I completely agree with the punitive system which makes the victim a beneficiary of the punishment; but the “tort reformers” complaint isn’t really regarding where the money goes, but rather that the money was paid at all. Because again, this isn’t about fairness or justice; it’s about money.
And we can have no doubt that each and every “tort reformer” will most gladly use the civil court system if they were seriously wronged, and even when the wrong isn’t so serious. Here’s an excellent post from Wampum regarding rightwing politicians who were more than happy to use our civil court system in ways that reformers openly detest (for example, GW suing Enterprise-Rentacar for renting a car to someone who had no license and hit one of the twins; and getting a $2500 settlement from Enterprise). That’s not to impugn them with bad or greedy motives, necessarily. It’s to say that there is a reason why the court system exists, that even “tort reformers” will agree with, if they ever need to use it.
And let’s not forget that there is another angle to the rightwing witchhunt against lawsuits: Trial lawyers can make a lot of money, which they often give to Democratic candidates or even to run for office themselves. And so while Republicans have a second-hand interest in this to protect their campaign investors; they also have a first-hand interest in stopping the dreaded trial lawyers from receiving the big bucks that they send towards the Dems. But that’s partly a necessary outcome because the GOP has taken such a strong interest in advocating to protect businesses against liability for their actions. While trial lawyers are surely acting in their own self-interest, this also serves to protect our ability to deal on relatively equal terms with big business; and that’s just another part of the equation that Republicans are trying to stop.
So when we take all this into perspective, it’s obvious that the conservative’s big target isn’t frivolous lawsuits which have no real chance of winning; but against juries who decide that a case isn’t frivolous and punish businesses who they deem to be deserving of punishment. They will often cite the frivolous suits, but the real target is the jury system itself. And while conservatives trust juries to destroy people’s lives, they’re firmly against juries which can justly punish corporations for their bad acts. And if we took this out of the jury’s hands, they would next target the judges or anyone else they couldn’t control. Because this isn’t about protecting against frivolous lawsuits or wrongful claims or idiot juries; this is about silencing the ability of the little guys to combat the big guys. This is an assault on justice itself.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
A Drunken Movie Review
I’m drunk. And I don’t mean regular drunk. I mean druuunk. I had five tasty restaurant margaritas, seven or eight Tecates, and I’m currently working on a pretty mean orange juice gin combination that’s probably quite a bit stronger than it has any right to be. Needless to say, I’ll be sleeping good tonight.
And so I thought I’d share with you a movie review I just wrote for the less than spectacular movie, Melinda & Melinda:
The acting. Don't get me started on the acting. Each line is delivered as if it's been said one hundred thousand times, and as if each actor has no hope that they can avoid the one hundred and first time. There are two actors in the movie who are almost acceptable. I don't contain any spoilers so I can't tell you which two they are; but needless to say, one is a pregnant white woman and the other is not.The cinemantogorphy is well done, as is the overall mood. It's a professionally-made film by somebody who knows how to make films. But the plot is ridiculous. The tragedy is funnier than the comedy and the comedy is just lame. The whole time, I kept waiting for the characters to be assassinated by an assassin's bullet. But it didn't happen. It kept going on until the end, and the end took too long to get to. I couldn't stop laughing at the parts that I wasn't supposed to laugh at, and I couldn't start laughing at the parts I should have.Will Ferrell was horrible. I like Will Ferrell. He was horrible in this. He acted like a six year old the entire time. His character should not have been a six year old, but that is exactly how he acted. He should have been played by Woody Allen, but he was not. Woody Allen was too old to play this character, and yet he should have played it anyway. Woody Allen would have made this movie funnier, had he been in it. As it was, he wasn't in it and it wasn't as funny. I do not recommend this picture.
Anyway, that’s my drunken movie review of Melinda & Melinda. I don’t recommend that you see it. I don’t recommend it at all. It had a few funny bits, but not enough funny bits to make it worth mentioning. If you’re thinking about watching a Woody Allen movie, this is not the one that I recommend that you see. Deconstructing Harry is good. Take the Money and Run is always good. Even Fog and Shadows has more working for it, and that had Madonna. But Melinda & Melinda? Nope. Don’t bother. I could make a better movie out of a used hanky and some tin foil. I could make a better movie out of deleted Matt Damon scenes and a retired hooker. I could make a better movie out of anything. This is not a better movie. This is to be avoided. And I should know, as I’m really drunk.
And so I thought I’d share with you a movie review I just wrote for the less than spectacular movie, Melinda & Melinda:
The acting. Don't get me started on the acting. Each line is delivered as if it's been said one hundred thousand times, and as if each actor has no hope that they can avoid the one hundred and first time. There are two actors in the movie who are almost acceptable. I don't contain any spoilers so I can't tell you which two they are; but needless to say, one is a pregnant white woman and the other is not.The cinemantogorphy is well done, as is the overall mood. It's a professionally-made film by somebody who knows how to make films. But the plot is ridiculous. The tragedy is funnier than the comedy and the comedy is just lame. The whole time, I kept waiting for the characters to be assassinated by an assassin's bullet. But it didn't happen. It kept going on until the end, and the end took too long to get to. I couldn't stop laughing at the parts that I wasn't supposed to laugh at, and I couldn't start laughing at the parts I should have.Will Ferrell was horrible. I like Will Ferrell. He was horrible in this. He acted like a six year old the entire time. His character should not have been a six year old, but that is exactly how he acted. He should have been played by Woody Allen, but he was not. Woody Allen was too old to play this character, and yet he should have played it anyway. Woody Allen would have made this movie funnier, had he been in it. As it was, he wasn't in it and it wasn't as funny. I do not recommend this picture.
Anyway, that’s my drunken movie review of Melinda & Melinda. I don’t recommend that you see it. I don’t recommend it at all. It had a few funny bits, but not enough funny bits to make it worth mentioning. If you’re thinking about watching a Woody Allen movie, this is not the one that I recommend that you see. Deconstructing Harry is good. Take the Money and Run is always good. Even Fog and Shadows has more working for it, and that had Madonna. But Melinda & Melinda? Nope. Don’t bother. I could make a better movie out of a used hanky and some tin foil. I could make a better movie out of deleted Matt Damon scenes and a retired hooker. I could make a better movie out of anything. This is not a better movie. This is to be avoided. And I should know, as I’m really drunk.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
McCain's Straight-Shooting Ricochet
Regarding McCain, I’m with Atrios on this one:
The authoritarian cultists are looking around for a new cult leader and they're a bit tired of the last one. We've reached the end of the days of Republicanism=Bushism, and people are now desperate to redefine it. McCain's neither impressing Republican primary voters nor burnishing his maverick credentials. Sad pandering politician near the end of his career and he doesn't even know it.
McCain’s big mistake occurred during the 2000 election when he decided to drop-out and embrace Bush. That was the beginning of his sell-out streak. He had made a reputation by opposing Bush when no one was supposed to oppose him and earned a label as a straight-shooting maverick by his media admirers. And it’s only been the media’s love of favored stories that has allowed him to continue relishing in the straight-shooting maverick reputation that he entirely cast-off after he embraced Bush. And the very fact that he made such a lousy political calculation only proved that he never deserved that reputation in the first place.
Even if Bush had remained popular throughout his presidency and had been allowed to name his successor, it could not have been McCain. Perhaps Rove smooth-talked McCain into having such thoughts, but the Bush Way has always relied on double-dealing, treachery, and strong-arm tactics to ensure wide agreement. And those things are the exact opposite of the techniques needed to be a straight-shooting maverick, even if that itself was just a cheap façade. Sure, Bush himself has always had a similar such reputation, but I suspect that the media always regarded that as a polite fiction; and saw McCain as being the Real Deal. But by embracing Bush and Bush’s style of victory, McCain has completely discarded that façade. While the media has remained enamored with the fictional McCain they created, the Republican base will not embrace him as the Next Bush; even assuming they wanted another Bush…which they apparently do not.
Had McCain remained the maverick outsider striving to keep the Bushies honest (a sort of politically savvy Ralph Nader), McCain might be just the guy that Republicans might choose in the post-Bush era. But by deciding to take the fast-track in Bush’s shadow, McCain will likely remain there. That’s not to suggest that the next Republican presidential nominee won’t be a Bushie or a maverick. It’s just that McCain’s straight-shooting sell-out routine just isn’t going to work; not in a Republican primary, anyway. He’s trying to straddle two horses at once and is just going to find himself left behind in the dust. Or to take another cowboy analogy, it looks like the straight-shooter just shot himself in the foot.
The authoritarian cultists are looking around for a new cult leader and they're a bit tired of the last one. We've reached the end of the days of Republicanism=Bushism, and people are now desperate to redefine it. McCain's neither impressing Republican primary voters nor burnishing his maverick credentials. Sad pandering politician near the end of his career and he doesn't even know it.
McCain’s big mistake occurred during the 2000 election when he decided to drop-out and embrace Bush. That was the beginning of his sell-out streak. He had made a reputation by opposing Bush when no one was supposed to oppose him and earned a label as a straight-shooting maverick by his media admirers. And it’s only been the media’s love of favored stories that has allowed him to continue relishing in the straight-shooting maverick reputation that he entirely cast-off after he embraced Bush. And the very fact that he made such a lousy political calculation only proved that he never deserved that reputation in the first place.
Even if Bush had remained popular throughout his presidency and had been allowed to name his successor, it could not have been McCain. Perhaps Rove smooth-talked McCain into having such thoughts, but the Bush Way has always relied on double-dealing, treachery, and strong-arm tactics to ensure wide agreement. And those things are the exact opposite of the techniques needed to be a straight-shooting maverick, even if that itself was just a cheap façade. Sure, Bush himself has always had a similar such reputation, but I suspect that the media always regarded that as a polite fiction; and saw McCain as being the Real Deal. But by embracing Bush and Bush’s style of victory, McCain has completely discarded that façade. While the media has remained enamored with the fictional McCain they created, the Republican base will not embrace him as the Next Bush; even assuming they wanted another Bush…which they apparently do not.
Had McCain remained the maverick outsider striving to keep the Bushies honest (a sort of politically savvy Ralph Nader), McCain might be just the guy that Republicans might choose in the post-Bush era. But by deciding to take the fast-track in Bush’s shadow, McCain will likely remain there. That’s not to suggest that the next Republican presidential nominee won’t be a Bushie or a maverick. It’s just that McCain’s straight-shooting sell-out routine just isn’t going to work; not in a Republican primary, anyway. He’s trying to straddle two horses at once and is just going to find himself left behind in the dust. Or to take another cowboy analogy, it looks like the straight-shooter just shot himself in the foot.
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