Tonight brings us part two of the gubernatorial recall debate, I will go out on a limb and predict that Barrett will win handily. There is a reasonable chance in my mind that [i'm with stupid] won't even show up. But if he does he will be coordinating his next out-of-state fundraiser on his blackberry. I will go even further out on a limb and say it won't make the slightest difference to the election results. The battle lines are drawn pretty solidly at this point. There are two issues to address today.
The first issue is this sign rental business. Giles at Daily Kos puts the top rental fee at $125, meaning the nonpolitical couple from the other day got ripped off. Well, price you pay for not paying attention. After getting Giles' take, I looked for these bloated signs and where they were placed. Though my observations were not even close to scientific, the stand with [i'm with stupid] signs were placed rather oddly in most cases. Behind electical equipment, at the bottom of hills, behind trees. Combine this with the signs on farmer's land being far from the houses, and the sneaky allegation becomes awfully plausible. The champions of private property ought to be ashamed, but we know shame is just not a viable option in the pursuit of power by cheesehead fascists.
Speaking of private property, what is going on with the deer hunting issue? Ignoring the obvious is second nature for 'wingers, but has [i'm with stupid] and his texas "deer czar" started to walk back their desire to sell off public land and charge hunters a huge fee? The first person to run up the warning flag on this one was right on the money that deer season is a sacred time for many Wisconsinites. There have to be some hunters out there who aren't interested in this scheme, even some non-Democrats. The right must understand at some level that the kind of people who hold hunting as an almost religious principle are not going to be pleased. Tradition might even trump ideological zealotry. See here for more information. Kos has an even more in-depth analysis here, gosh I hope this is the cheesehead fuhrer's bridge too far.
Yes, this story needs to be spread to everyone that hunts. Even if [i'm with stupid] is recalled and does not pull it off, the next asshole will try it. Obviously, selling off public land and privatizing deer hunting is not like crushing the right to organize. First, the 'winger assholes have not spent over a century laying the groundwork for an American "Enclosure movement" in the same way they have demonized unions. So any initiative to give our would-be aristocracy their own private hunting preserve would by neccessity need to be done silently and with deniability. Second, this would be irreversible. Not like many other 'winger schemes that good people in office can just reverse or repeal the crappy laws. No, once the public lands are gone, that's it. It would probably take a revolution to get them back for the people. Do you want that? I know I sure don't. I can only hope Wisconsin hunters will start to question who's side their nra leaders are really on when they jump on this. Certainly not the rights of sportsmen.
These two issues are utterly loathsome. But instead of just being outraged, we should take some heart in them. First, when you drive through the countryside there is some comfort in knowing that most of the people out there were paid for putting up those ridiculous signs. Second, this may be the only case in the history of "trickle down" economics where some of the filthy lucre actually made it down to the people. So putting some disposable income into the hands of people almost guarrenteed to spend it will help, inadvertantly making [i'm with stupid] and his plutocratic donors closet Keynesians. And deer privatization, if there was ever an issue served up on a silver platter, this is it. If we can't pull this off with one of our most sacred traditions on the line, not only are we finished as a party, but the state of Wisconsin will have proved to be irredeemable.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
The unified theory of money in politics
Where to even begin? The only unified piece of the puzzle seems to be putting the money into the right pockets. If Thorstein Veblen is right, money is just a method of keeping score for the leisure class, then separating fools from their money and concentrating it into the right bonuses and contracts really is the unified theory. "The people" in this theory, are only sheep to be shorn of any disposable income that can be extracted. Fear and playing to the particular self-righteousness of conservative sheep will always ensure that the faithful dutifully vote for their betters. Therefore, money in politics is simply business by other means. Or more applicably, speculative and extractive capitalism with the side effect of power.
So it was really no surprise to see an article in Motherjones point out both the speculative and extractive sides of the game playing out in the teaparty patriots. To really understand how this game is played we need to examine how the donations of true believers were repatriated to their rightful owners and how the leaders, who started as volunteers, got a taste for the lucre themselves.
"To underscore the group's clout [role in successfully primarying Richard Lugar in Indiana] (and push back against chatter about the movement's slow demise), TPP cofounder Jenny Beth Martin revealed to an interviewer that her organization's most recent IRS filing shows that TPP had raised more than $12 million. This impressive figure wasn't exactly proof of TPP's role in dispatching Lugar, but Martin's disclosure did raise a question: Where did all that money go?" [emphasis mine]
Examining an astro-turf organization of the latest psuedo-populist conservative uprising (that just happens to exactly mirror the unsavory values of wall street and big business) seems an appropriate first step. It is apparent from the fundraising techniques that the bulk of donations are coming from regular people, well regular as in people of limited means. An entire industry has sprung up to support special interest pressure groups such as the teabag patriots.
This industry of direct-mailers, telemarketers, event organizers, and so on is at least partially analysed and reviewed in The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Ruined Government, Enriched Themselves, and Beggared the Nation
by Thomas Frank. The short history revolves around one Richard Viguerie who pioneered direct mail in the 1970s, at a time when American domination of the world was in doubt and many people were scared for decline. Viguerie started mailing scare letters to registered republicans detailing all the ways America was slipping, blamed it all on Democrats and liberals in Washington, and included a form to mail in a donation to help defeat all of these bad people. Frank laments that no one made a comprehensive collection of these paranoid documents because they would make an interesting history of this period in conservative America.
What all the hubbub was about, of course, was separating fools from their money by keeping them scared out of their wits. Direct mail proved to be a money-making machine and Frank even points out how similar the industry was and is to drug pushing. Mailing firms even provided an advance to startup pressure groups to get them going on fundraising, when the firm often charged more for the service than it actually raised, the group ended up in debt and had to continuously keep upping the fear ante to desperately try to break even. Telemarketing operated similarly. The fundraising firms justify their practices by equating the operation to what business and the political arm of business understands very well: Advertising. Creating a brand for whatever evil scheme the pressure group was selling. True believers operate therefore on a level of doublethink, believing their cause is so worthy that any measures to further it are justified and at the same time understanding the cynical nature of conservative entreprenuership. Most conservative activists hope to move up a rung in the scam machine once they have paid their dues doing grunt work.
TPP cofounder Jenny Beth Martin just skipped that promotion and cashed in at the very firm she helped start, swiping six figures in salary where she used to be a "volunteer." Top con artists extracted $758,000 for work they formerly did for free, along with $587,000 for travel expenses. All while brazenly ladling out millions to fundraising firms, lawyers, and others with their hands out. TPP is listed as a charity for tax purposes, certainly it is charitably giving to the "right" people. Only about a quarter of that dough went to training new agitators to demonstrate on behalf of wall street greed. I guess that is a good thing?
It is fitting that the IRS lumps fundraising and gaming together isn't it?
Stupid? Corrupt? Does it even matter? Just another day of stealing the kiddies lollipops.
All of these shady activities are, at their core, what conservative manipulators do to their own supporters. Before even beginning the analysis of what they do to the rest of us, I would recommend brushing up on Jim Hightower's Thieves in High Places: They've Stolen Our Country and It's Time to Take It Back
. Or these two titles, they are a bit out of date but are still extremely relevent to the continuing con of American conservative business politics.
Gloominess on parade.
So it was really no surprise to see an article in Motherjones point out both the speculative and extractive sides of the game playing out in the teaparty patriots. To really understand how this game is played we need to examine how the donations of true believers were repatriated to their rightful owners and how the leaders, who started as volunteers, got a taste for the lucre themselves.
"To underscore the group's clout [role in successfully primarying Richard Lugar in Indiana] (and push back against chatter about the movement's slow demise), TPP cofounder Jenny Beth Martin revealed to an interviewer that her organization's most recent IRS filing shows that TPP had raised more than $12 million. This impressive figure wasn't exactly proof of TPP's role in dispatching Lugar, but Martin's disclosure did raise a question: Where did all that money go?" [emphasis mine]
Examining an astro-turf organization of the latest psuedo-populist conservative uprising (that just happens to exactly mirror the unsavory values of wall street and big business) seems an appropriate first step. It is apparent from the fundraising techniques that the bulk of donations are coming from regular people, well regular as in people of limited means. An entire industry has sprung up to support special interest pressure groups such as the teabag patriots.
This industry of direct-mailers, telemarketers, event organizers, and so on is at least partially analysed and reviewed in The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Ruined Government, Enriched Themselves, and Beggared the Nation
by Thomas Frank. The short history revolves around one Richard Viguerie who pioneered direct mail in the 1970s, at a time when American domination of the world was in doubt and many people were scared for decline. Viguerie started mailing scare letters to registered republicans detailing all the ways America was slipping, blamed it all on Democrats and liberals in Washington, and included a form to mail in a donation to help defeat all of these bad people. Frank laments that no one made a comprehensive collection of these paranoid documents because they would make an interesting history of this period in conservative America. What all the hubbub was about, of course, was separating fools from their money by keeping them scared out of their wits. Direct mail proved to be a money-making machine and Frank even points out how similar the industry was and is to drug pushing. Mailing firms even provided an advance to startup pressure groups to get them going on fundraising, when the firm often charged more for the service than it actually raised, the group ended up in debt and had to continuously keep upping the fear ante to desperately try to break even. Telemarketing operated similarly. The fundraising firms justify their practices by equating the operation to what business and the political arm of business understands very well: Advertising. Creating a brand for whatever evil scheme the pressure group was selling. True believers operate therefore on a level of doublethink, believing their cause is so worthy that any measures to further it are justified and at the same time understanding the cynical nature of conservative entreprenuership. Most conservative activists hope to move up a rung in the scam machine once they have paid their dues doing grunt work.
TPP cofounder Jenny Beth Martin just skipped that promotion and cashed in at the very firm she helped start, swiping six figures in salary where she used to be a "volunteer." Top con artists extracted $758,000 for work they formerly did for free, along with $587,000 for travel expenses. All while brazenly ladling out millions to fundraising firms, lawyers, and others with their hands out. TPP is listed as a charity for tax purposes, certainly it is charitably giving to the "right" people. Only about a quarter of that dough went to training new agitators to demonstrate on behalf of wall street greed. I guess that is a good thing?
It is fitting that the IRS lumps fundraising and gaming together isn't it?Stupid? Corrupt? Does it even matter? Just another day of stealing the kiddies lollipops.
All of these shady activities are, at their core, what conservative manipulators do to their own supporters. Before even beginning the analysis of what they do to the rest of us, I would recommend brushing up on Jim Hightower's Thieves in High Places: They've Stolen Our Country and It's Time to Take It Back
. Or these two titles, they are a bit out of date but are still extremely relevent to the continuing con of American conservative business politics.
Gloominess on parade.
Seven Days out
Only a week to go before the big showdown, here is one of those things that make you go "hmm."
Beaver Dam Daily Citizen, Letter to the Editor, May 26,2012
Calling for polling an interesting task
I have been polling the people of southeast Wisconsin by phone for the past eight weeks regarding the effort to recall Walker, Kleefisch and Fitzgerald.
This is a very interesting and rewarding task. I talk to so many wonderful people. I also get to hear from a few of Wisconsin’s nastiest people, who will cuss, scream and yell and hang up on me.
During these calls I have learned of so many interesting election experiences that I could probably write a book about them. Here is one, in particular, that I feel must be shared with “we the people” of Wisconsin.
A woman I spoke with in Oconomowoc told me she knows a couple that lives in a beautiful house on the corner of a well-traveled street. This couple has never been particularly interested in politics, and the woman I spoke with said she didn’t even know if they were regular voters.
Well, one day this woman drove by their house and, to her great surprise, saw an enormous “stand with Walker” sign in their yard. Later in the day she ran into the homeowner and commented on the sign by saying she was surprised to see they were supporting Scott Walker.
The homeowner replied, “we don’t support Scott Walker.” The homeowner said that somebody came to their door and asked to “rent” a spot in their yard for the sign and gave them $100.
After hearing this I’m guessing that many of the big Walker and Fitzgerald signs we see are not really grassroots support, but simply a paid-for billboard. That seems sneaky to me.
Susan H. Finnel, Watertown
Link to newspaper: http://www.wiscnews.com/bdc/news/opinion/article_f13eef7e-a623-11e1-8653-001a4bcf887a.html
Sure, this is simply one anecdotal letter to the editor. But republicans have absolutely no problem using [manufactured] anecdotal evidence to smear Democrats. That story about someone passing out cigarettes at homeless shelters to encourage people to vote for John Kerry never seems to die, so why not throw one back in their faces?
Of course, a tactic like this would never work if neighbors were more... neighborly. The atomization of society is absolutely essential for [i'm with stupid]'s "divide and conquer" strategy. If we actually talked to each other more and found out the truth behind the facade, "renting" a spot on people's lawns would kind of backfire by revealing the dirty, underhanded nature of the cheesehead fascists.
Still, it is a little comforting to hear that maybe, just maybe, the money machine is spreading a tiny bit of their filthy lucre around. Times are tough and $100 could put groceries in the kitchen for a week if you are careful.
Beaver Dam Daily Citizen, Letter to the Editor, May 26,2012
Calling for polling an interesting task
I have been polling the people of southeast Wisconsin by phone for the past eight weeks regarding the effort to recall Walker, Kleefisch and Fitzgerald.
This is a very interesting and rewarding task. I talk to so many wonderful people. I also get to hear from a few of Wisconsin’s nastiest people, who will cuss, scream and yell and hang up on me.
During these calls I have learned of so many interesting election experiences that I could probably write a book about them. Here is one, in particular, that I feel must be shared with “we the people” of Wisconsin.
A woman I spoke with in Oconomowoc told me she knows a couple that lives in a beautiful house on the corner of a well-traveled street. This couple has never been particularly interested in politics, and the woman I spoke with said she didn’t even know if they were regular voters.
Well, one day this woman drove by their house and, to her great surprise, saw an enormous “stand with Walker” sign in their yard. Later in the day she ran into the homeowner and commented on the sign by saying she was surprised to see they were supporting Scott Walker.
The homeowner replied, “we don’t support Scott Walker.” The homeowner said that somebody came to their door and asked to “rent” a spot in their yard for the sign and gave them $100.
After hearing this I’m guessing that many of the big Walker and Fitzgerald signs we see are not really grassroots support, but simply a paid-for billboard. That seems sneaky to me.
Susan H. Finnel, Watertown
Link to newspaper: http://www.wiscnews.com/bdc/news/opinion/article_f13eef7e-a623-11e1-8653-001a4bcf887a.html
Sure, this is simply one anecdotal letter to the editor. But republicans have absolutely no problem using [manufactured] anecdotal evidence to smear Democrats. That story about someone passing out cigarettes at homeless shelters to encourage people to vote for John Kerry never seems to die, so why not throw one back in their faces?
Of course, a tactic like this would never work if neighbors were more... neighborly. The atomization of society is absolutely essential for [i'm with stupid]'s "divide and conquer" strategy. If we actually talked to each other more and found out the truth behind the facade, "renting" a spot on people's lawns would kind of backfire by revealing the dirty, underhanded nature of the cheesehead fascists.
Still, it is a little comforting to hear that maybe, just maybe, the money machine is spreading a tiny bit of their filthy lucre around. Times are tough and $100 could put groceries in the kitchen for a week if you are careful.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Barrett Triumphant in Gubernatorial Debate
How can you tell [i'm with stupid] is lying? You already know the answer.
It does not matter what [i'm with stupid] says, from the anecdotal (and possibly hypothetical) conversations with supposed Democrats kissing the dear leader's feet, to the mostly false miraculous jobs and deficit turnaround, the cheesehead fascists want to believe.
He looked like such an ass, up there lying his head off with that lazy-eyed smirk permanently etched onto his face. Did this debate make any difference to the estimated 4% of voters who will probably vote but are so low-information or lacking in conviction to make up their mind? Hopefully some of them will realize the contradiction between [i'm with stupid]'s assertions and their daily experience. I am not holding my breath though.
Kind of like this. Someone definitely put alcohol in his blood surrogate.
For his part, Mayor Barrett said all the right things. Barrett turned all of [i'm with stupid]'s rock star hits, like "divide and conquer" and "drop the bomb" against him. Of course, Democratic and non-fascist voters already detested these phrases and knew exactly what they meant. Barrett also correctly characterized the governor's actions as "provoking an ideological civil war." He could have also mentioned all the documented cases of intimidation by [i'm with stupid]'s supporters. This most likely would have backfired though, as direct action against the "special interests" of working people are held as the height of courage by RWAFs. Especially stealing campaign yard signs in the middle of the night.
Which one wishes he was sucking koch right now?
Mayor Barrett did his best to engage the bizzarro world constructed by the cheesehead fascists and their dear leader and challenge [i'm with stupid]'s insane assertions. It is just more evidence that these freaks live in a completely different world from the rest of us that [i'm with stupid] can still get away with claiming that "Democrat[ic] leaders in Washington" and "Big Labor Bosses" encouraged the grassroots uprising in Madison. His widely-publicized trips to do the dancing monkey routine for billionaires and huge percentage of out-of-state corporate and 1% money are just compartmentalized away by the true believers. So, Mayor Barrett was trying to debate, while [i'm with stupid] was an automaton, spouting canned answers and expending no effort on actually engaging in debate. It was pretty sickening.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Wind and signs
I have spent most of my day driving around the hinterland of our beautiful state, enjoying the sunshine and watching tractors tilling the fields. Simple, salt of the Earth folks live out here. By that I mean easily deluded souls with low-information voting patterns.
The best part however, has been the wind. It has been scouring over the farmland with a vengeance. I can only assume that if more trees existed the gale would be diffused somewhat.
But, it has served to blow countless "I'm with stupid" signs down. I saw them hanging by one post, flapping in the breeze. I saw them lazily wending their way down the ditches and in the road. I saw them high in the air, presumably on their way to the UP, or maybe Canada.
Makes me just a little warm inside to see the gigantic, over sized support walker signs catching flight. Maybe if his ego hadn't prompted the need for the biggest signs around more of them would have survived. Ahh, a guy can dream.
Update:
More traveling today. There was another big-ass sign alleging "[i'm with stupid] works for all Wisconsinites: Not only the pampered few" or something close to that. Lame first of all, bizarro second. The "pampered few" is exactly who [i'm with stupid] works for, just not the hard-working public sector workers they mean in a sign like this. Third, it must be that [i'm with stupid] cannot take a decent picture because he looks like a drooling moron even on a sign supporting him.
The best part however, has been the wind. It has been scouring over the farmland with a vengeance. I can only assume that if more trees existed the gale would be diffused somewhat.
But, it has served to blow countless "I'm with stupid" signs down. I saw them hanging by one post, flapping in the breeze. I saw them lazily wending their way down the ditches and in the road. I saw them high in the air, presumably on their way to the UP, or maybe Canada.
Makes me just a little warm inside to see the gigantic, over sized support walker signs catching flight. Maybe if his ego hadn't prompted the need for the biggest signs around more of them would have survived. Ahh, a guy can dream.
Update:
More traveling today. There was another big-ass sign alleging "[i'm with stupid] works for all Wisconsinites: Not only the pampered few" or something close to that. Lame first of all, bizarro second. The "pampered few" is exactly who [i'm with stupid] works for, just not the hard-working public sector workers they mean in a sign like this. Third, it must be that [i'm with stupid] cannot take a decent picture because he looks like a drooling moron even on a sign supporting him.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Who will defend democracy?
From Alternet:
Today's GOP: Worst Political Party Since the Civil War
The last time things got this bad was about 150 years ago -- and we needed a Civil War to resolve it.
Democracy is a weak thing, it needs to be continuously maintained and defended. I have been saying for months now that the reason republicans get away with the utter bullshit they have been pulling for much of my lifetime is that there is no king or other force powerful enough to make the kids play fair. That force is us, all of us. We are the guardians of a liberal, democratic society that can defend everyone's rights. Rachel Maddow can say that, in a nutshell, here's the thing about rights, they aren't supposed to be voted on, that is why they are rights. Many moons ago the conservative intellectual and poet Peter Viereck said something similar. Viereck said that the Bill of Rights was essentially a conservative and aristocratic document that elites could use to defend minorities from the tyranny of the majority. He put it much more eloquently than that but I am paraphrasing. The point is, simply writing something down does not guarantee it. The constitution was just a piece of paper to george w. bush, it is up to us to keep our rights and constrain the vile desires of imperialists like bushco.
I will let you read the article from Martin Longman on your own, it is really great. The problem with his subtitle is that the Civil War really didn't solve the core of the problem. Sure, it got rid of slavery, established the United States as a singular and as a powerful nation. But the attitude of might makes right did not disappear. I invite you to do some research of your own on the Civil War and its aftermath but will offer some generalizations from my own research. Southerners never let it go, they never felt defeat or shame or remorse for what they had done. The only resolution was that the South was largely marginalized for generations after the war. The attitude of righteous intransigence has never been extinguished, and unfortunately has spread to teabaggers and fundamentalists all over the country today. Anti-intellectualism, belief in their own superiority, viewing the federal government as an enemy or occupying force. This attitude has had such perseverance in our society, and it has now completely infected an entire political party.
There is no king, there is no Uncle Sam. He is us, and we must shout it loudly and truthfully that this bullshit will not stand. The intransigent attitude of selfishness must end. A million voices speaking the truth Longman has written, a million more writing of these truths can shrink the shameless intransigents back down to the same shrivelled size of their black hearts and cast them out into the wilderness again.
Today's GOP: Worst Political Party Since the Civil War
The last time things got this bad was about 150 years ago -- and we needed a Civil War to resolve it.
Democracy is a weak thing, it needs to be continuously maintained and defended. I have been saying for months now that the reason republicans get away with the utter bullshit they have been pulling for much of my lifetime is that there is no king or other force powerful enough to make the kids play fair. That force is us, all of us. We are the guardians of a liberal, democratic society that can defend everyone's rights. Rachel Maddow can say that, in a nutshell, here's the thing about rights, they aren't supposed to be voted on, that is why they are rights. Many moons ago the conservative intellectual and poet Peter Viereck said something similar. Viereck said that the Bill of Rights was essentially a conservative and aristocratic document that elites could use to defend minorities from the tyranny of the majority. He put it much more eloquently than that but I am paraphrasing. The point is, simply writing something down does not guarantee it. The constitution was just a piece of paper to george w. bush, it is up to us to keep our rights and constrain the vile desires of imperialists like bushco.
I will let you read the article from Martin Longman on your own, it is really great. The problem with his subtitle is that the Civil War really didn't solve the core of the problem. Sure, it got rid of slavery, established the United States as a singular and as a powerful nation. But the attitude of might makes right did not disappear. I invite you to do some research of your own on the Civil War and its aftermath but will offer some generalizations from my own research. Southerners never let it go, they never felt defeat or shame or remorse for what they had done. The only resolution was that the South was largely marginalized for generations after the war. The attitude of righteous intransigence has never been extinguished, and unfortunately has spread to teabaggers and fundamentalists all over the country today. Anti-intellectualism, belief in their own superiority, viewing the federal government as an enemy or occupying force. This attitude has had such perseverance in our society, and it has now completely infected an entire political party.
There is no king, there is no Uncle Sam. He is us, and we must shout it loudly and truthfully that this bullshit will not stand. The intransigent attitude of selfishness must end. A million voices speaking the truth Longman has written, a million more writing of these truths can shrink the shameless intransigents back down to the same shrivelled size of their black hearts and cast them out into the wilderness again.
Nicked Armor?
From Politico:
'Orphan' state parties worry GOP
"National Republicans have begun to intervene in a handful of key Senate and House battlegrounds where state parties are in disarray, seeking to head off the possibility that local mismanagement could cost the party control of Congress."
It seems the grand money party has experienced more than a few takeovers by "outsider" hacks. True believers that freak out the moneymen. Or at least that is one factor as the GOTV operations and local campaigns move away from state parties. This leaves the professional political entrepreneurs looking for the green elsewhere, like the superpacs and other extreme corruptions of democracy.
This is a very welcome development for those of us who do not want to see the United States decline further. It could be a first step in isolating and quarantining the crazy that has taken over the money party. The "conservative" coalition has always been shaky, with groups of extremely conflicted ideas and priorities united under the banner of hating government for one reason or another.
This campaign season therefore will be an important test of people vs money. If conservative entrepreneurs leave the state party apparatus for glassy-eyed troglodytes to run, the loss of competence could create great opportunities for Democrats to win local races. Some of these state parties are in really bad shape, which just runs counter to the conventional wisdom that republicans always have more money than they know what to do with. I have a feeling that trying to feed money down to these orphans will be extremely inefficient for national republicans. [insert amused chuckle here]
How much can fox news and the other arms of conservative media replace the expensive GOTV operation? What will happen if glassy-eyed purists are more concerned with purging and infighting in local politics? If the competent, but evil, money-chasers are all seeking personal fortune elsewhere up the food chain, will the epsilon semi-morons of the base left in charge make the gop an even bigger laughing stock than it already is? Obviously, these problems are in big coastal blue states and interior states denuded of intelligence. In a swing state like Wisconsin, there are still opportunities for the lean and hungry types.
The vast wasteland I live in is covered in "I'm with stupid" signs, aka, stand with walker. Even though the true believers pride themselves in their self-reliance, those signs did not make themselves. The RNC has regurgitated ten million down to the director of koch industries Midwestern operations in the effort to get these authoritarian followers somewhat organized. The real money is in ALL THOSE GODDAMN TV ADS!
To generalize, competent, professionals will volunteer to phone bank and walk precincts for Democrats because they want to restore sanity to state government. However, competent republicans need big bucks for the same effort. The people who will volunteer for the gop are a freakshow of racists, rednecks, bullies, and fundamentalists. Not the kind who will persuade many people. So June 5th when the big showdown occurs will be very interesting to say the least.
That's my take on this story. Predicting the future is always hard, but the opportunities to discredit the psychos and put competent officials back in government (especially re-taking the House in November so they aren't able to hold us hostage anymore) are appearing and look good. Political parties as organizations have been declining for over half a century, this phenomenon is well-studied by historians. In this new age of money domination, grass-roots organizing combined with net-roots and social media may be able to reenergize parties as vehicles for reclaiming government from both conservative entrepreneurs leeching money from Democracy Inc. and the fundamentalist wackos trying to force everyone back to the dark ages.
'Orphan' state parties worry GOP
"National Republicans have begun to intervene in a handful of key Senate and House battlegrounds where state parties are in disarray, seeking to head off the possibility that local mismanagement could cost the party control of Congress."
It seems the grand money party has experienced more than a few takeovers by "outsider" hacks. True believers that freak out the moneymen. Or at least that is one factor as the GOTV operations and local campaigns move away from state parties. This leaves the professional political entrepreneurs looking for the green elsewhere, like the superpacs and other extreme corruptions of democracy.
This is a very welcome development for those of us who do not want to see the United States decline further. It could be a first step in isolating and quarantining the crazy that has taken over the money party. The "conservative" coalition has always been shaky, with groups of extremely conflicted ideas and priorities united under the banner of hating government for one reason or another.
This campaign season therefore will be an important test of people vs money. If conservative entrepreneurs leave the state party apparatus for glassy-eyed troglodytes to run, the loss of competence could create great opportunities for Democrats to win local races. Some of these state parties are in really bad shape, which just runs counter to the conventional wisdom that republicans always have more money than they know what to do with. I have a feeling that trying to feed money down to these orphans will be extremely inefficient for national republicans. [insert amused chuckle here]
How much can fox news and the other arms of conservative media replace the expensive GOTV operation? What will happen if glassy-eyed purists are more concerned with purging and infighting in local politics? If the competent, but evil, money-chasers are all seeking personal fortune elsewhere up the food chain, will the epsilon semi-morons of the base left in charge make the gop an even bigger laughing stock than it already is? Obviously, these problems are in big coastal blue states and interior states denuded of intelligence. In a swing state like Wisconsin, there are still opportunities for the lean and hungry types.
The vast wasteland I live in is covered in "I'm with stupid" signs, aka, stand with walker. Even though the true believers pride themselves in their self-reliance, those signs did not make themselves. The RNC has regurgitated ten million down to the director of koch industries Midwestern operations in the effort to get these authoritarian followers somewhat organized. The real money is in ALL THOSE GODDAMN TV ADS!
To generalize, competent, professionals will volunteer to phone bank and walk precincts for Democrats because they want to restore sanity to state government. However, competent republicans need big bucks for the same effort. The people who will volunteer for the gop are a freakshow of racists, rednecks, bullies, and fundamentalists. Not the kind who will persuade many people. So June 5th when the big showdown occurs will be very interesting to say the least.
That's my take on this story. Predicting the future is always hard, but the opportunities to discredit the psychos and put competent officials back in government (especially re-taking the House in November so they aren't able to hold us hostage anymore) are appearing and look good. Political parties as organizations have been declining for over half a century, this phenomenon is well-studied by historians. In this new age of money domination, grass-roots organizing combined with net-roots and social media may be able to reenergize parties as vehicles for reclaiming government from both conservative entrepreneurs leeching money from Democracy Inc. and the fundamentalist wackos trying to force everyone back to the dark ages.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Just another lone wolf
It is long past the time to confront the growing number of incidents of political violence in this country. Even if hate crimes committed or prevented against Americans who happen to be LGBT are not considered as politically-motivated, there are a rash of attacks against stated enemies of the right-wing revival that are threatening democracy. Just to be clear, I do not care about alleged leftist or radical threats or the insults that are falsely equated to real threats of violence, the cops beating protesters have that "under control." If anyone had the right to fight back, it would be the people who are so "unconstitutionally" assembling peacefully and petitioning their government for redress of grievances.
Unlike the severe beatings endured by Occupy protesters, teabaggers phone it in like cowards.
Take the latest "brave" lone wolf curmudgeon,William O. Diederich, a 61 year old child who is so brain dead he repeatedly called Democratic Party of Wisconsin's offices to threaten them.
Starting way back on "Feb. 24... Diederich left a voice mail message stating that when the building explodes, the bombings of Sterling Hall on the UW-Madison campus and the federal building in Oklahoma City will 'seem like a firecracker compared to what's gonna happen to you people.'
The message states that the building was going to blow up 'one of these days.'
'I'm not going to tell you how it's gonna happen 'cause I don't know exactly how it's gonna happen, but I can guarantee it's going to happen, and I tell ya, it's not going to be good,' the caller, alleged to be Diederich, states in the message."
For some reason, the brave Diederich left 100 messages of this sort. According to the research of Robert Altemeyer on right-wing authoritarian followers, this is exactly the sort of behavior that a dingbat like this would engage in. Driven by sheer hatred and threatened by the fear of upsetting the "traditional" order of thing, an RWAF desires to inflict harm through violence, but only if the target cannot fight back and only if it is implicitly endorsed by authority he respects.
I guess we should be happy that these rugged individuals are sufficiently atomized that they could not get a full posse or lynch mob together to act on their violent impulses. It does say a lot that it took federal law enforcement to arrest this particular nutjob, scotty must have been too busy with out-of-state fundraisers to pay much attention to this lone wolf. Moreover, we the non-RWAFs in Wisconsin are vulnerable to politically-motivated violence due to the republican state government's refusal to enforce the laws equally. This will only invite more of the same. And with thousands of new concealed carry RWAFs running around legally armed, what are the odds of a real lone wolf attack occurring?
No, don't be silly Mr. Kraken, these ideological zealots would never implicitly give the green light to attack their enemies to lone wolves. Maybe, maybe not. 'Wingers come in all shapes and sizes. Usually their bravery only extends to yelling expletives at people from their pickups or stealing yard signs in the night. But it only takes one true believer with a concealed carry permit to shoot up a Democratic office building or college campus. And every step we take closer to the regularization of politically-motivated violence gets us closer to open civil war.
Unlike the severe beatings endured by Occupy protesters, teabaggers phone it in like cowards.
Take the latest "brave" lone wolf curmudgeon,William O. Diederich, a 61 year old child who is so brain dead he repeatedly called Democratic Party of Wisconsin's offices to threaten them.
Starting way back on "Feb. 24... Diederich left a voice mail message stating that when the building explodes, the bombings of Sterling Hall on the UW-Madison campus and the federal building in Oklahoma City will 'seem like a firecracker compared to what's gonna happen to you people.'
The message states that the building was going to blow up 'one of these days.'
'I'm not going to tell you how it's gonna happen 'cause I don't know exactly how it's gonna happen, but I can guarantee it's going to happen, and I tell ya, it's not going to be good,' the caller, alleged to be Diederich, states in the message."
For some reason, the brave Diederich left 100 messages of this sort. According to the research of Robert Altemeyer on right-wing authoritarian followers, this is exactly the sort of behavior that a dingbat like this would engage in. Driven by sheer hatred and threatened by the fear of upsetting the "traditional" order of thing, an RWAF desires to inflict harm through violence, but only if the target cannot fight back and only if it is implicitly endorsed by authority he respects.
I guess we should be happy that these rugged individuals are sufficiently atomized that they could not get a full posse or lynch mob together to act on their violent impulses. It does say a lot that it took federal law enforcement to arrest this particular nutjob, scotty must have been too busy with out-of-state fundraisers to pay much attention to this lone wolf. Moreover, we the non-RWAFs in Wisconsin are vulnerable to politically-motivated violence due to the republican state government's refusal to enforce the laws equally. This will only invite more of the same. And with thousands of new concealed carry RWAFs running around legally armed, what are the odds of a real lone wolf attack occurring?
No, don't be silly Mr. Kraken, these ideological zealots would never implicitly give the green light to attack their enemies to lone wolves. Maybe, maybe not. 'Wingers come in all shapes and sizes. Usually their bravery only extends to yelling expletives at people from their pickups or stealing yard signs in the night. But it only takes one true believer with a concealed carry permit to shoot up a Democratic office building or college campus. And every step we take closer to the regularization of politically-motivated violence gets us closer to open civil war.
The Other Endgame
In my last post I reviewed In Time, hopefully offering some useful analysis and maybe steering some readers to see it in a frame of mind other than simply passively accepting Hollywood drivel. In that film, the endgame was man made, stable, and incredibly unjust. The world was suckered into a system that ensures a hierarchical structure of misery and constant anxiety for the many, and unbelievable privilege for the few. In the film I promised to review three weeks ago, things are quite different. Take Shelter concerns a rather well-known premise of ecological disaster and one man's precognition of it (shades of The Dead Zone), exploring it from the point of view of an average family man and the people around him.
Putting aside the idea of disaster films as vicarious replacements for revolution in the American mind formulated by Slavoj Zizek, Take Shelter explores mental illness and the pleasures of ignorance. Whereas In Time was largely an excuse to explore a dystopian world, the coming disaster in Take Shelter is almost an excuse to study characters and their interactions. If you have even a granule of empathy you will feel an extraordinary connection with Michael Shannon's character Curtis, cringe at the consequences of his abnormal behavior but with complete understanding of the conflict in his mind. The film constantly forces you to challenge your assumptions, what is real and how you would react to the visions plaguing Curtis.
The acting is superb, the dialogue engaging, and easily believable. But mostly, Take Shelter forces you to confront the unsettling fear so many have of what the future holds. How would you feel if something horrible was coming and you could do nothing to stop it? How would you react to and treat a person who started acting like Curtis does? While survivors of Katrina might feel differently than a regular Joe in Ohio or somewhere disasters do not often occur, Take Shelter allows you the experience vicariously.
Anyway, it is somewhat slow and best viewed with subtitles to follow along with the dialogue more easily but I promise the journey is worth it and makes the experience. That said, it is encouraging to see a filmmaker produce a real emotional experience and not succumb to pressures for cheap action or gratuitous anything.
Putting aside the idea of disaster films as vicarious replacements for revolution in the American mind formulated by Slavoj Zizek, Take Shelter explores mental illness and the pleasures of ignorance. Whereas In Time was largely an excuse to explore a dystopian world, the coming disaster in Take Shelter is almost an excuse to study characters and their interactions. If you have even a granule of empathy you will feel an extraordinary connection with Michael Shannon's character Curtis, cringe at the consequences of his abnormal behavior but with complete understanding of the conflict in his mind. The film constantly forces you to challenge your assumptions, what is real and how you would react to the visions plaguing Curtis.
The acting is superb, the dialogue engaging, and easily believable. But mostly, Take Shelter forces you to confront the unsettling fear so many have of what the future holds. How would you feel if something horrible was coming and you could do nothing to stop it? How would you react to and treat a person who started acting like Curtis does? While survivors of Katrina might feel differently than a regular Joe in Ohio or somewhere disasters do not often occur, Take Shelter allows you the experience vicariously.
Anyway, it is somewhat slow and best viewed with subtitles to follow along with the dialogue more easily but I promise the journey is worth it and makes the experience. That said, it is encouraging to see a filmmaker produce a real emotional experience and not succumb to pressures for cheap action or gratuitous anything.
Brother can you spare some time?
What is the endgame? In Time, starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, finally gives us an answer. And that answer is terrifying. Setting aside many of the complaints about wooden acting, plot holes, and lack of chemistry between the main characters found on Imdb user reviews, In Time is a dystopian nightmare masquerading as a modern Bonnie and Clyde or Robin Hood. This film really demonstrates how technology and advances of it can be made to serve the elite and harm the masses. If there is an ideal world the masters of the universe could dream up, the world of In Time would be it.
Very briefly, unexplained advances in genetic engineering have rendered the human species dependent on a "body clock." Everyone stops aging at 25 but then live only one more year, as their clock ticks down. Suspend disbelief for the creative ways this plot device is exploited. Time is now the only currency, it runs continuously but can be earned and spent as wages and prices. Sounds wonderful right? Everyone looks great, money finally has inherent value, and... everyone has the chance to be immortal. Timberlake's character Will even says during the introductory monologue that the rich live forever and the poor just try to make it through the day. What happens when your clock runs down to zero? You die, no ifs, ands, or buts. No ceremony, no chance to say goodbye. Just like turning off a switch. Oh, time can be loaned at interest and everyone is segregated into "time zones," each with their own standard of living and rules. Law enforcement officers called "timekeepers" ensure that the people in the ghetto stay in the ghetto and pay their loans.
This is, quite simply, the most perfect form of social control and enforced hierarchy ever imagined. Several characters even point out that "for a few to be immortal, many must die." The timekeeper played by Cillian Murphy even laughs at the idea of "justice," explaining that his role in the world is simply to maintain stability. In the ghetto prices, taxes, and interest go always go up; wages can be cut, and all without any notice. It seems arbitrary until the "needs" of the extremely rich in "New Greenwich" are understood. The children of the rich, just like their parents, must be ensured immortality. The only way is to squeeze the denizens of the ghetto ever harder, keep the hamsters running in their wheels ever faster. A recipe for rebellion if there ever was one, except that even sitting still to contemplate this means death. The ghetto-dwellers are constantly kept hours from death. As is also often noted in the film, the poor don't do anything slowly.
It would have been interesting to have some back story, however small, to see how the hamsters were sold on this idea. If human nature has any constants, however, the short-term thinking or lack thereof for short term gain is compelling for the masses. If this sounds elitist, well try and explain capitalist economics to the average working-class republican. Some scientists in service to bankers probably dangled the prospect of being "forever" young in front of people scared to death of aging, and that would be all it would take. Even in an ostensible democracy.
Setting aside the flaws noted above, the treatment of human nature is the real gem of the film. The infinite variety of human nature on display for viewers. There is Will the freedom fighter, taking the mantle of his father to seek justice. Fortis the ghetto gangster who preys on his fellows. Borel the ghetto denizen who drinks himself to death when Will shares time with him, leaving his wife and baby stuck (she was already desperate, remarking how much they could use the baby's year now). Henry Hamilton the disillusioned elite who turns on the members of his class because he tires of immortality. Sylvia the elite rebel, forever tempted by the "other side." Her father Phillipe, the embodiment of power and privilege, addicted to greed and exploitation. And of course, Raymond Leon, the true believer and timekeeper in dedicated service to power who never questions his place in the order of things.
So how does this film compare with other dystopian stories? Somewhere between 1984 and Logan's Run. Perhaps as a thought experiment and method of capitalist social control like Brave New World. Coincidentally, Huxley was accused by critics of a weak plot and wooden characters as well, the story simply being a vehicle to explore the world he created, just as In Time has been. But as all of these films use propaganda in ways to control the masses, In Time is more realistic in some ways. When you simply have to keep working just to stay alive and have no time to reflect, there is no need for propaganda to control the proles or Epsilon semi-morons. But, just as sophisticated propaganda driven my technological advances start one way and end up being used for social control and profit-making, this film shows what technology in the hands of the children of darkness can do when taken to a logical conclusion. Imagination is the province of the children of light, showing the way to greater avenues of control, power, and privilege for the children of darkness.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
The perfect metaphor
Cat people will love this, okay most of them probably along with everyone else will just think the old GH has finally flipped his lid.
I was cleaning the mutha&*)*(&)ing litter box yesterday and it finally hit me that the box was the perfect representation of the American state, institutions, etc. The litter media is all of us regular people and the clumps are all the corruption, rottenness, and assorted other filth that needs to be sifted out regularly. If anyone is still reading and I haven't driven everyone to run screaming to the nearest hot shower, I'll try to explain.
First of all, the box looks like this right. It has a screen inside, you roll it onto its side and all the clumps fall into the drawer. Use your imagination if you don't have furry little terrorists constantly shedding around your house and chasing dust or rubber bands at 3am, making an awful racket.
Just trust me, this thing is vastly superior to the pan and scoop method. So the metaphor rolling around in my head is that the pan was America pre-New Deal, and the covered one above is the system of reforms instituted from the Great Depression on. See where I am going yet?
Now, the box worked great for a while. Then, whether I rolled it too hard or it just wasn't made very well, the tabs that hold the top and bottom halves together snapped in a few places. No problem, I just got out the duct tape and fixed them back together. Sometimes the screen gets knocked out of the joining groove and I have to get inside and fix it again. Here's the allegory.
The New Deal worked pretty well for Americans, sifting out the crap that used to happen before. Then along comes ronald reagan, who snapped the tabs and left lots of Americans falling through the cracks. Bill Clinton then slapped some duct tape on the box (system) and muddled along for a while, things looked like they'd be alright. No fundamental changes were neccessary, just fix the old box.
Then george w bush arrived. He didn't just rip off the duct tape but stomped on the box until it was basically worthless. Corruption, fraud, inequality, and all manner of rottenness built up in America until the box basically collapsed.
Finally, Barack Obama was elected to clean up the incredible mess. Bush didn't just break the system, he didn't clean it for eight years. Then the lazy sabotour slinked away. So first, Obama tried to just reuse the tape ripped off by bush with the stimulus and bailouts. But as we all know how duct tape doesn't work very well if removed and reapplied, our system was still pretty messed up from all the corruption and cronyism woven into its fabric. Then Obama was left with having to scoop out the lumps by hand, which if you've ever tried to do in a covered box you know is very hard. All the while the republicans do everything they can to stop him, aaaaannd bitch and moan about why it's taking so long.
Bottom line, cats are kind of useless and evil creatures.
I was cleaning the mutha&*)*(&)ing litter box yesterday and it finally hit me that the box was the perfect representation of the American state, institutions, etc. The litter media is all of us regular people and the clumps are all the corruption, rottenness, and assorted other filth that needs to be sifted out regularly. If anyone is still reading and I haven't driven everyone to run screaming to the nearest hot shower, I'll try to explain.
First of all, the box looks like this right. It has a screen inside, you roll it onto its side and all the clumps fall into the drawer. Use your imagination if you don't have furry little terrorists constantly shedding around your house and chasing dust or rubber bands at 3am, making an awful racket.
Just trust me, this thing is vastly superior to the pan and scoop method. So the metaphor rolling around in my head is that the pan was America pre-New Deal, and the covered one above is the system of reforms instituted from the Great Depression on. See where I am going yet?
Now, the box worked great for a while. Then, whether I rolled it too hard or it just wasn't made very well, the tabs that hold the top and bottom halves together snapped in a few places. No problem, I just got out the duct tape and fixed them back together. Sometimes the screen gets knocked out of the joining groove and I have to get inside and fix it again. Here's the allegory.
The New Deal worked pretty well for Americans, sifting out the crap that used to happen before. Then along comes ronald reagan, who snapped the tabs and left lots of Americans falling through the cracks. Bill Clinton then slapped some duct tape on the box (system) and muddled along for a while, things looked like they'd be alright. No fundamental changes were neccessary, just fix the old box.
Then george w bush arrived. He didn't just rip off the duct tape but stomped on the box until it was basically worthless. Corruption, fraud, inequality, and all manner of rottenness built up in America until the box basically collapsed.
Finally, Barack Obama was elected to clean up the incredible mess. Bush didn't just break the system, he didn't clean it for eight years. Then the lazy sabotour slinked away. So first, Obama tried to just reuse the tape ripped off by bush with the stimulus and bailouts. But as we all know how duct tape doesn't work very well if removed and reapplied, our system was still pretty messed up from all the corruption and cronyism woven into its fabric. Then Obama was left with having to scoop out the lumps by hand, which if you've ever tried to do in a covered box you know is very hard. All the while the republicans do everything they can to stop him, aaaaannd bitch and moan about why it's taking so long.
Bottom line, cats are kind of useless and evil creatures.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Default, round two
From the Washington Post:
"Across the U.S. economy, anxiety is rising about the potential for widespread disruptions after the November election, when a lame-duck Congress will have barely two months to resolve a grinding standoff over taxes and spending.
The halls of the U.S. Capitol are already teeming with people warning of disaster if lawmakers fail to defuse a New Year’s budget bomb scheduled to raise taxes for every American taxpayer and slash spending at the Pentagon and most other federal agencies."
Didn't we just do this? Anyone remember the Y2K scare? Some geek forgot to add a 19 that could roll over into a 20 in the date counter of a computer that somehow managed to get into every computer across the land. Started off the new century with a bang right? But of course, nothing really happened. It was just the first instance of media-inspired panic over an event none of us could control and barely understood. While I suppose it was sort of manmade, it wasn't directly political. Debt and deficit debate in DC, however, is completely manmade, and totally, completely political. It exists only because of carefully calculated partisanship and time bombs loaded into the Federal government. These were planted by the republican party, period. They are again trying to implement their rotten and unpopular agenda of "starving the beast" as they call it.
Now, in reality, doing nothing is exactly what would be best. If President Obama and members of his party in Congress can resist the temptation to fall into the trap and give into the gop's nefarious plans. The "raise taxes for every American" part of the story above is actually just the end of tax cuts, and the alarming phrase of "slash spending at the Pentagon" is highly disingenuous. We are talking about cutting the procurement of obsolete weapon systems that DoD doesn't actually want and cutting contracts for all the outsourced functions that government used to do. Before dick cheney sabotaged the Pentagon, many functions such as cooking, sanitation, and laundry were performed by soldiers. Then private, for-profit, contractor parasites were unleashed to suck tax money out of the war machine. This is what Speaker Boehner and his republican colleagues are protecting, and proposing huge spending slashes in domestic programs that prevent the "uncertainty" of starving or becoming homeless.
Obviously, that kind of uncertainty is nothing next to the “over 1 million American jobs” that will be lost if we dare cut war spending. Lockheed Martin and all the usual merchants of death love to threaten mass layoffs if government even consider trimming the pork. So on the one hand we have republican insistance that "government can't create jobs" and "cutting spending is the only way to bring back growth in the economy;" versus the hostage-taking by government contractors who will chuck over a million Americans out of work if this horrible "uncertainty" isn't resolved. They sure love to have it both ways, don't they?
So, Boehner and the republicans are planning to take the economy hostage, again. The profits of contractors are sacrosanct, and the gop is willing to shut down the entire government, again, to prevent uncertainty for incredibly wealthy people. Despite the chaos it would bring for every American. Will the business community ever start to doubt their champions, the ones who so casually play with the lives of so many Americans? Will President Obama ever have the balls to say "sit down and shut up?"
The crash of 2008 that presented such a great opportunity for the right wing to finally destroy the hated government, you know the one they spend so much money and spin so many lies to gain office in, had a pretty simple cause. A handful of pampered bankers in a handful of wall street firms had so much money to speculate on sub prime mortgages that addiction to bonus-sucking greed overwhelmed any fear of what chaos would come if the scheme fell apart. They also had confidence in the nanny state to make them all better should their bets with other peoples' money go bad, as the very nature of the gambling all but insured it would. Again, having it both ways. The swaggering, bullying nature of these self-appointed masters of the universe in business, finance, and government is the true "entitlement problem" in America.
The question rapidly approaching is, will Americans finally realize how crooked the republicans really are in forcing default and injecting completely unneccessary uncertainty and chaos into our lives? Will republicans ever feel a tinge of shame or conscience at the harm they are doing to the country the profess to love so much? Or go along with the inexplicable assertion that it is the president's fault?
"Across the U.S. economy, anxiety is rising about the potential for widespread disruptions after the November election, when a lame-duck Congress will have barely two months to resolve a grinding standoff over taxes and spending.
The halls of the U.S. Capitol are already teeming with people warning of disaster if lawmakers fail to defuse a New Year’s budget bomb scheduled to raise taxes for every American taxpayer and slash spending at the Pentagon and most other federal agencies."
Didn't we just do this? Anyone remember the Y2K scare? Some geek forgot to add a 19 that could roll over into a 20 in the date counter of a computer that somehow managed to get into every computer across the land. Started off the new century with a bang right? But of course, nothing really happened. It was just the first instance of media-inspired panic over an event none of us could control and barely understood. While I suppose it was sort of manmade, it wasn't directly political. Debt and deficit debate in DC, however, is completely manmade, and totally, completely political. It exists only because of carefully calculated partisanship and time bombs loaded into the Federal government. These were planted by the republican party, period. They are again trying to implement their rotten and unpopular agenda of "starving the beast" as they call it.
Now, in reality, doing nothing is exactly what would be best. If President Obama and members of his party in Congress can resist the temptation to fall into the trap and give into the gop's nefarious plans. The "raise taxes for every American" part of the story above is actually just the end of tax cuts, and the alarming phrase of "slash spending at the Pentagon" is highly disingenuous. We are talking about cutting the procurement of obsolete weapon systems that DoD doesn't actually want and cutting contracts for all the outsourced functions that government used to do. Before dick cheney sabotaged the Pentagon, many functions such as cooking, sanitation, and laundry were performed by soldiers. Then private, for-profit, contractor parasites were unleashed to suck tax money out of the war machine. This is what Speaker Boehner and his republican colleagues are protecting, and proposing huge spending slashes in domestic programs that prevent the "uncertainty" of starving or becoming homeless.
Obviously, that kind of uncertainty is nothing next to the “over 1 million American jobs” that will be lost if we dare cut war spending. Lockheed Martin and all the usual merchants of death love to threaten mass layoffs if government even consider trimming the pork. So on the one hand we have republican insistance that "government can't create jobs" and "cutting spending is the only way to bring back growth in the economy;" versus the hostage-taking by government contractors who will chuck over a million Americans out of work if this horrible "uncertainty" isn't resolved. They sure love to have it both ways, don't they?
So, Boehner and the republicans are planning to take the economy hostage, again. The profits of contractors are sacrosanct, and the gop is willing to shut down the entire government, again, to prevent uncertainty for incredibly wealthy people. Despite the chaos it would bring for every American. Will the business community ever start to doubt their champions, the ones who so casually play with the lives of so many Americans? Will President Obama ever have the balls to say "sit down and shut up?"
The crash of 2008 that presented such a great opportunity for the right wing to finally destroy the hated government, you know the one they spend so much money and spin so many lies to gain office in, had a pretty simple cause. A handful of pampered bankers in a handful of wall street firms had so much money to speculate on sub prime mortgages that addiction to bonus-sucking greed overwhelmed any fear of what chaos would come if the scheme fell apart. They also had confidence in the nanny state to make them all better should their bets with other peoples' money go bad, as the very nature of the gambling all but insured it would. Again, having it both ways. The swaggering, bullying nature of these self-appointed masters of the universe in business, finance, and government is the true "entitlement problem" in America.
The question rapidly approaching is, will Americans finally realize how crooked the republicans really are in forcing default and injecting completely unneccessary uncertainty and chaos into our lives? Will republicans ever feel a tinge of shame or conscience at the harm they are doing to the country the profess to love so much? Or go along with the inexplicable assertion that it is the president's fault?
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
New and Improved
From Forbes.com
"While the Establishment Survey puts the numbers of jobs lost slightly below zero, the alternative survey preferred by the Walker people puts them just above zero. At the end of the day, we’re talking about zero job growth—even under Walker’s favored, if completely unorthodox, approach."
"When one considers that Governor Walker, for the first 15 months of his term, was content to utilize the same system of measuring job growth accepted by the remaining 49 states and the federal government, it seems stunningly disingenuous to toss the metric aside now that he faces recall."
Is there no limit to this man's lies?
Epic failure, the one thing he was elected to do was create jobs. Oh how I wish facts mattered.
"While the Establishment Survey puts the numbers of jobs lost slightly below zero, the alternative survey preferred by the Walker people puts them just above zero. At the end of the day, we’re talking about zero job growth—even under Walker’s favored, if completely unorthodox, approach."
"When one considers that Governor Walker, for the first 15 months of his term, was content to utilize the same system of measuring job growth accepted by the remaining 49 states and the federal government, it seems stunningly disingenuous to toss the metric aside now that he faces recall."
Is there no limit to this man's lies?
Epic failure, the one thing he was elected to do was create jobs. Oh how I wish facts mattered.
High Stakes
Wisconsin had a reputation for almost a century as a "laboratory for democracy." As a birthplace of Progressivism, experimentation in regulation and tapping academic talent for state government served as a model for improving society at the state level and trickled up to the federal government.
Now in the Twenty-First Century it seems we are becoming a "laboratory for authoritarianism" and all the experiments seem to revolve around harming the public. More importantly, getting large swaths of that public to not only endorse but enthusiastically support an incompetent servant of monied children of darkness in his dismantling of Progressive achievements. Instead, the state has become more malleable to corporations and the agenda of maximizing capital gains. Elite hierarchical control where the regular people have no say in their government or how much of their lives is controlled by outside forces.
What is at stake is not simply what happens to the people of this state, whether workers have any rights or are merely rental property of their employers, whether women have any rights or are merely property of their husbands and subject to any state whims, whether children can learn or just be programmed to accept the state of submission. The Progressive magazine recently put forth a concise summation of these stakes. Larger than this though is what will happen beyond the state line if walker is able to buy his way out of the recall. If big money can impose their will on the people of Wisconsin, it can do it anywhere.
There used to be an understanding of the fundamental divide between "the people" and "the interests." We are faced with deja vu, Robert M. LaFollette campaigned on behalf of the people against the interests at the end of the Gilded Age, when big money had a stranglehold on government as well. He headed a movement of people to take government power away from the interests and improve the lives of regular people, a century later we find ourselves in the same situation. Only this time, the forces of business present themselves as champions of traditional values, an insurgent force fighting on behalf of people against government. Muddying the waters of political perception like this has won them an intense and passionate crowd of boobs, willingly walking the plank of surrendering their rights for the interests of billionaires.
The Wisconsin Uprising has put the question of whether you stand with your boss, or with your neighbors back on the map. The mere recognition that your interests and those of your employer are different is a great triumph. For all the people with "I stand with walker" signs though, the submission to authority is evident. They need to identify with authority and cannot differentiate their interests no matter how loudly they trumpet their independence.
Now in the Twenty-First Century it seems we are becoming a "laboratory for authoritarianism" and all the experiments seem to revolve around harming the public. More importantly, getting large swaths of that public to not only endorse but enthusiastically support an incompetent servant of monied children of darkness in his dismantling of Progressive achievements. Instead, the state has become more malleable to corporations and the agenda of maximizing capital gains. Elite hierarchical control where the regular people have no say in their government or how much of their lives is controlled by outside forces.
What is at stake is not simply what happens to the people of this state, whether workers have any rights or are merely rental property of their employers, whether women have any rights or are merely property of their husbands and subject to any state whims, whether children can learn or just be programmed to accept the state of submission. The Progressive magazine recently put forth a concise summation of these stakes. Larger than this though is what will happen beyond the state line if walker is able to buy his way out of the recall. If big money can impose their will on the people of Wisconsin, it can do it anywhere.
There used to be an understanding of the fundamental divide between "the people" and "the interests." We are faced with deja vu, Robert M. LaFollette campaigned on behalf of the people against the interests at the end of the Gilded Age, when big money had a stranglehold on government as well. He headed a movement of people to take government power away from the interests and improve the lives of regular people, a century later we find ourselves in the same situation. Only this time, the forces of business present themselves as champions of traditional values, an insurgent force fighting on behalf of people against government. Muddying the waters of political perception like this has won them an intense and passionate crowd of boobs, willingly walking the plank of surrendering their rights for the interests of billionaires.
The Wisconsin Uprising has put the question of whether you stand with your boss, or with your neighbors back on the map. The mere recognition that your interests and those of your employer are different is a great triumph. For all the people with "I stand with walker" signs though, the submission to authority is evident. They need to identify with authority and cannot differentiate their interests no matter how loudly they trumpet their independence.
WI to DNC: Help!
Subject: Democratic National Committee: Invest In The Scott Walker Recall Now!
Hi,
After more than a year of grassroots efforts, Wisconsin citizens have accomplished more than anyone thought possible. We now have a Democratic challenger to Scott Walker who is neck and neck in the polls, even though Tom Barrett is being outspent by Walker's millions from out-of-state donations. There is no more time for the Democratic National Committee to wait--if Walker wins, it would be a huge setback to Democrats in races across the country this year. We need the DNC's support immediately!
That's why I signed a petition to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chairperson, Democratic National Committee, which says:
"Democratic National Committee & Debbie Wasserman Schultz, invest now in the crucial fight to remove Scott Walker from office in Wisconsin--the people have worked hard and it's time to help."
Will you sign this petition? Click here:
http://signon.org/sign/democratic-national-committe?source=s.em.cp&r_by=352409
Thanks!
The Kraken
Hi,
After more than a year of grassroots efforts, Wisconsin citizens have accomplished more than anyone thought possible. We now have a Democratic challenger to Scott Walker who is neck and neck in the polls, even though Tom Barrett is being outspent by Walker's millions from out-of-state donations. There is no more time for the Democratic National Committee to wait--if Walker wins, it would be a huge setback to Democrats in races across the country this year. We need the DNC's support immediately!
That's why I signed a petition to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chairperson, Democratic National Committee, which says:
"Democratic National Committee & Debbie Wasserman Schultz, invest now in the crucial fight to remove Scott Walker from office in Wisconsin--the people have worked hard and it's time to help."
Will you sign this petition? Click here:
http://signon.org/sign/democratic-national-committe?source=s.em.cp&r_by=352409
Thanks!
The Kraken
Sunday, May 13, 2012
See it to believe it
This video deserves a flog. It is amazing to see a TV reporter actually insist that a confrontational guest answer her question and stay on topic.
No better way to expose how hollow the right's propaganda really is than to turn their SOP against them. If you watch the video through the link provided or have seen this elsewhere, it should be titled "how to stop a hijacking." The amazing part is, a reporter actually grew a spine and the world did not end. The incident is probably a one-time fluke, but imagine if it started a trend and 'wingers whose only goal is to control the message were actually put in their place on a regular basis when they refuse to answer questions. I suspect that the right wing noise machine is actually a shakier contraption than they allow anyone to believe. Tamron Hall here would be called biased and part of the liberal media, a horrible elitist regardless of how she handled this situation. So why not call bullshit on a 'winger apparachik?
The amount of money needed to keep the noise machine well-oiled has to be pretty staggering. If 'wingers all of a sudden did not automatically get a free pass on non-noise machine venues, that could knock a pretty significant peg from their strategy. Fear has sufficed until now to give 'wingers that free pass. Not only did Hall show here how easily that pass can be revoked, it has created a minor sensation on left-leaning sites and venues. Imagine that, do your job and get supported by viewers and participants? This could be a great precedent to overcome that fear, like I said, all "mainstream, non-noise machine" venues are considered biased by 'wingers and they will hurl their lame epithets regardless of the coddling their agents receive. So why not actually earn the reputation and stand up for decency and standards for a change?
Combine growing a spine with direct action to cut off funding for well-fed propagandists like rush, or at least the venues that have turned radio into an unabashed hatefest and we could a rebalancing of messaging for the first time in over a generation. Spreading the message of hate and fear is expensive, rush is sucking the life out of the companies who handle him. Do you think he'd continue for free? Can the right wing radiosphere afford to subsidize a costly albatross?
It is too early to tell of course, but imagine the possibilities if there was an absolute cost to spreading the hate message? A trend that started to push the goalposts back toward the center would be an amazing achievement, it could even arrest the relentless drive toward fascism.
No better way to expose how hollow the right's propaganda really is than to turn their SOP against them. If you watch the video through the link provided or have seen this elsewhere, it should be titled "how to stop a hijacking." The amazing part is, a reporter actually grew a spine and the world did not end. The incident is probably a one-time fluke, but imagine if it started a trend and 'wingers whose only goal is to control the message were actually put in their place on a regular basis when they refuse to answer questions. I suspect that the right wing noise machine is actually a shakier contraption than they allow anyone to believe. Tamron Hall here would be called biased and part of the liberal media, a horrible elitist regardless of how she handled this situation. So why not call bullshit on a 'winger apparachik?
The amount of money needed to keep the noise machine well-oiled has to be pretty staggering. If 'wingers all of a sudden did not automatically get a free pass on non-noise machine venues, that could knock a pretty significant peg from their strategy. Fear has sufficed until now to give 'wingers that free pass. Not only did Hall show here how easily that pass can be revoked, it has created a minor sensation on left-leaning sites and venues. Imagine that, do your job and get supported by viewers and participants? This could be a great precedent to overcome that fear, like I said, all "mainstream, non-noise machine" venues are considered biased by 'wingers and they will hurl their lame epithets regardless of the coddling their agents receive. So why not actually earn the reputation and stand up for decency and standards for a change?
Combine growing a spine with direct action to cut off funding for well-fed propagandists like rush, or at least the venues that have turned radio into an unabashed hatefest and we could a rebalancing of messaging for the first time in over a generation. Spreading the message of hate and fear is expensive, rush is sucking the life out of the companies who handle him. Do you think he'd continue for free? Can the right wing radiosphere afford to subsidize a costly albatross?
It is too early to tell of course, but imagine the possibilities if there was an absolute cost to spreading the hate message? A trend that started to push the goalposts back toward the center would be an amazing achievement, it could even arrest the relentless drive toward fascism.
Friday, May 11, 2012
J. Edgar
I am in the middle of watching Clint Eastwood's latest epic film. The film is impressive, the cast, costumes, dialogue, storyline, and interpretation of a very complex man so far is very interesting.
For all the study of this period of history, Hoover has never been a central character in my research. As with all historical films, this one should inspire further inquiry. At this time I can neither confirm nor deny any of the personal details of his life. The personal lives of historical figures are usually less important than their public ones to professional historians. Except when it comes to analyzing motivations. Hoover was the man with the secrets, his own and the secrets of a great deal of important Americans.
Definitely a portrait of what intolerance, secrecy, and power can do.
For all the study of this period of history, Hoover has never been a central character in my research. As with all historical films, this one should inspire further inquiry. At this time I can neither confirm nor deny any of the personal details of his life. The personal lives of historical figures are usually less important than their public ones to professional historians. Except when it comes to analyzing motivations. Hoover was the man with the secrets, his own and the secrets of a great deal of important Americans.
Definitely a portrait of what intolerance, secrecy, and power can do.
The only problem with...
Standing idly by or simply weakly commenting on rhetoric like this:
"Patti Weaver, organizer and head of the Pittsburgh Tea Party.
She compared Obama to the Nazi reign in Europe during World War II, that is now 'an evil in this country that you are standing up to.'
Weaver also said, “(Obama) wants the country to fail.”
Dan Przybylek of Buffalo Township, said he came to the rally because he believes, “this November's election will determine the future of this country.
“There are two paths this country can take,” Przybylek said. “We can go down the path to opportunity and growth, or we can go down the path of dependence.”
Or Pictures like this:
Besides the incredible and willful misunderstanding of history. Is that it assumes that the simple exposure of evil will repulse decent people. It is an overestimate of the aggregate American intelligence to laugh at the epsilon semi-morons spouting this nonsense as simply exposing how dumb they are. Gullibility seemingly knows no limits.
Fear can push normally reasonable people to believe crazy things. And conservatives are nothing if not afraid. The exercises in projection as evidenced by this picture and practically any random speech by a teapartier, are mind-boggling. It is also a form of inoculation. If you were to look at this crap or listen to the leaps of faith teapartiers take in comparing liberals or Democrats to nazis and say "hey fellas, you know something, your words and actions really seem more reminescent of fascists than do those of the your enemies," it would sound... impolite or perhaps foolish. And we liberals hate to be impolite or seem to be foolish.
But just for the heck of it, we could ask our fellow Americans of teabag affliction a few questions. Perhaps they could be phrased in a manner more like Jeff Foxworthy's old routine.
6. You are driven to indoctrinate others into your way of thinking. So much so, that you try to re-write history, change the way school children are taught and you brainwash the ignorant. You use your propaganda machine as a tool to achieve this.
7. You fear and demonize intelligent people who have a higher education because they are the ones who can thwart your effort to brainwash people. You then attempt to prevent others from achieving a higher education because you want the people as ignorant as possible so you can convince them that your way is the right way.
8. You have a deep hatred and fear of communists and you instill your followers with hatred and fear of others by accusing your political opponents of being communists. This gives you an easy scapegoat to blame when things go wrong. Any person or policy you don’t like is branded as communism.
Just a few of the more interesting indications if "you might be a fascist."
We, the people outside their movement, ignore or dismiss these fanatics at our peril.
"Patti Weaver, organizer and head of the Pittsburgh Tea Party.
She compared Obama to the Nazi reign in Europe during World War II, that is now 'an evil in this country that you are standing up to.'
Weaver also said, “(Obama) wants the country to fail.”
Dan Przybylek of Buffalo Township, said he came to the rally because he believes, “this November's election will determine the future of this country.
“There are two paths this country can take,” Przybylek said. “We can go down the path to opportunity and growth, or we can go down the path of dependence.”
Or Pictures like this:
Besides the incredible and willful misunderstanding of history. Is that it assumes that the simple exposure of evil will repulse decent people. It is an overestimate of the aggregate American intelligence to laugh at the epsilon semi-morons spouting this nonsense as simply exposing how dumb they are. Gullibility seemingly knows no limits.
Fear can push normally reasonable people to believe crazy things. And conservatives are nothing if not afraid. The exercises in projection as evidenced by this picture and practically any random speech by a teapartier, are mind-boggling. It is also a form of inoculation. If you were to look at this crap or listen to the leaps of faith teapartiers take in comparing liberals or Democrats to nazis and say "hey fellas, you know something, your words and actions really seem more reminescent of fascists than do those of the your enemies," it would sound... impolite or perhaps foolish. And we liberals hate to be impolite or seem to be foolish.
But just for the heck of it, we could ask our fellow Americans of teabag affliction a few questions. Perhaps they could be phrased in a manner more like Jeff Foxworthy's old routine.
6. You are driven to indoctrinate others into your way of thinking. So much so, that you try to re-write history, change the way school children are taught and you brainwash the ignorant. You use your propaganda machine as a tool to achieve this.
7. You fear and demonize intelligent people who have a higher education because they are the ones who can thwart your effort to brainwash people. You then attempt to prevent others from achieving a higher education because you want the people as ignorant as possible so you can convince them that your way is the right way.
8. You have a deep hatred and fear of communists and you instill your followers with hatred and fear of others by accusing your political opponents of being communists. This gives you an easy scapegoat to blame when things go wrong. Any person or policy you don’t like is branded as communism.
Just a few of the more interesting indications if "you might be a fascist."
We, the people outside their movement, ignore or dismiss these fanatics at our peril.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Contrasts
But, why should we worry that our usurping governor is not just an authoritarian thug but also a real criminal? Mayor Barrett used walker's own union busting rules to whack Milwaukee's employees. As usual kornacki answers his own criticism, stating:
"State aid to Milwaukee was radically slashed by Walker and his GOP allies, his camp is quick to note, and with no way to make up for it with property tax revenue he was forced to choose between mass layoffs and employing Walker’s law. It’s a choice that no municipal leader should have to make, the line goes, and Barrett has publicly committed himself to repealing the ban on collective bargaining."
Notwithstanding that a dead squirrel would be a better governor than snotty walker, Barrett's action was proof of the tough choices politicians who actually want to do their jobs sometimes face. While so-called small government conservatives embrace cuts forced from above, gleefully in fact, if you actually want to govern effectively and not let the garbage pile up in the streets, it is much harder.
Obama for (corporate) America!
In a stunning display of bootstrap-pulling, American businesses managed to pocket an amazing $824 billion despite the intense punishment of taxes and regulation inflicted by the socialist Obama administration!
America’s Corporations Made A Record $824 Billion Last Year, As Conservatives Claim Obama Is Anti-Business
In all seriousness, if there has ever been a better display of undeserving and entitled delusional meatheads it would be hard to find.
"The Fortune 500 generated a total of $824.5 billion in earnings last year, up 16.4% over 2010. That beats the previous record of $785 billion, set in 2006 during a roaring economy. The 2011 profits are outsized based on two key historical metrics. They represent 7% of total sales, vs. an average of 5.14% over the 58-year history of the Fortune 500. Companies are also garnering exceptional returns on their capital. The 500 achieved a return-on-equity of 14.3%, far above the historical norm of 12%."
This is not meant to attack the President in any way. But it should blunt the rhetoric of the right and business propagandists. Politically, this realist evidence that business is doing just fine won't help President Obama. Epsilon semi-morons of the right believe their own conception of reality no matter what the facts are and politically-engaged liberals will cite these facts as further proof of how far in wall street's pocket he is.
Meanwhile, outside the fortune 500 and their spectacular haul of booty, the economy for the 99% is crawling along at a snail's pace toward pre-crash levels of employment.
I am sure some well-paid heritage foundation toad will spin this chart to look bad for the lowest-common denominator public, but reality is that the best medicine for our economy is electoral removal of republicans from power. Just as slicing off leeches or purging parasites from a body is the first step toward recovery, voting out the dingleberries conspiring and obstructing recovery at every turn is the first step to fixing the economy. If somehow the gop could be cast out into the political wilderness for a decade or so, we would have a chance of really fixing our economy and making it work for the wider society. But at least we can fashion talking points to nullify the supposed anti-business Obama administration.
Fixing things at the national level can do only so much, however, as long as republican governors and legistatures have their talons and suckers firmly implanted at the state and local level they will continue to bring the pain.
America’s Corporations Made A Record $824 Billion Last Year, As Conservatives Claim Obama Is Anti-Business
In all seriousness, if there has ever been a better display of undeserving and entitled delusional meatheads it would be hard to find.
"The Fortune 500 generated a total of $824.5 billion in earnings last year, up 16.4% over 2010. That beats the previous record of $785 billion, set in 2006 during a roaring economy. The 2011 profits are outsized based on two key historical metrics. They represent 7% of total sales, vs. an average of 5.14% over the 58-year history of the Fortune 500. Companies are also garnering exceptional returns on their capital. The 500 achieved a return-on-equity of 14.3%, far above the historical norm of 12%."
This is not meant to attack the President in any way. But it should blunt the rhetoric of the right and business propagandists. Politically, this realist evidence that business is doing just fine won't help President Obama. Epsilon semi-morons of the right believe their own conception of reality no matter what the facts are and politically-engaged liberals will cite these facts as further proof of how far in wall street's pocket he is.
Meanwhile, outside the fortune 500 and their spectacular haul of booty, the economy for the 99% is crawling along at a snail's pace toward pre-crash levels of employment.
I am sure some well-paid heritage foundation toad will spin this chart to look bad for the lowest-common denominator public, but reality is that the best medicine for our economy is electoral removal of republicans from power. Just as slicing off leeches or purging parasites from a body is the first step toward recovery, voting out the dingleberries conspiring and obstructing recovery at every turn is the first step to fixing the economy. If somehow the gop could be cast out into the political wilderness for a decade or so, we would have a chance of really fixing our economy and making it work for the wider society. But at least we can fashion talking points to nullify the supposed anti-business Obama administration.
Fixing things at the national level can do only so much, however, as long as republican governors and legistatures have their talons and suckers firmly implanted at the state and local level they will continue to bring the pain.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Beyond Redemption
Good and bad last night, but none of it was very suprizing. Tom Barrett, the recently re-elected mayor of Milwaukee, will face scott walker in a rematch of the 2010 gubernatorial campaign. I voted for mayor Barrett last time and will gladly vote for him again. The question is whether Wisconsinites have learned anything since walker occupied the capitol. His supporters have rallied around him as the center and embodiment of the state, a kind of cheesy fuhrer/duce/jefe. Meanwhile the state has bled jobs and roiled in civil strife. Have enough "swing voters" the low-information, gut-following people soured on the kind of neo-fascist agenda rammed through to support a change? Will liberals work hard enough to reach them? Especially when Barrett has promised to treat these anti-american pricks with kid gloves?
Huffington post, that greatest of aggregators, has compiled a decent list of stories surrounding the recall election.
Also interesting was the defeat of Dick Lugar in the Indiana primary. Lugar was a giant in the Senate, I certainly do not agree with him on everything, but he was always an American first and a Republican second. Something his successor makes fun of. Rachel Maddow summarized the problem. While this turn of events may net the Democratic party another seat, and may well cement continued control of that body by Americans for another two years, the para-fascist movement that has wrested control of the gop does not think in short-term elementary ways. They know that in a two-party system with divided powers, an obstructionist force which represents only the interests of glassy-eyed true believers can gain power even if their base shrinks to an absolute minority. A Republic cannot survive this way. Although Indiana might be spared the embarrassment of a ron johnson type Senator for the next six years, the next time that seat is up will be a mid-term election and the teabags will stand a pretty good chance. Lugar's parting words on the dangers of extremism and the folly of such uncompromising stances by his party can be found here.
These developments push the United States, the grand experiment in democracy and republicanism, toward a calcified, authoritarian future. Dr. Maddow presents an excellent argument for one half of the political system as "beyond redemption." More serious is the "economic suicide" gleefully inflicted on our society by the 1% predicted by Noam Chomsky. While this event has been slowly gaining ground in America for over a generation, we are fast approaching the point of no return where the gains of the financial elite will be irreversible. Chomsky sees the "Occupy" movement as a locus of hope that America can back away from this suicide event. I still believe it is possible to redeem the republic without revolution and without violence. We have the blueprint of the New Deal, that plan could restore elements of justice and fairness through simple reimplementation without change. On top of that, we know how New Deal ideas can be updated to reflect the new American nation. It simply takes the will to work together and willingness to compromise with others, something our two parties used to be able to do. The alternative is too gloomy even for me to contemplate.
Huffington post, that greatest of aggregators, has compiled a decent list of stories surrounding the recall election.
Also interesting was the defeat of Dick Lugar in the Indiana primary. Lugar was a giant in the Senate, I certainly do not agree with him on everything, but he was always an American first and a Republican second. Something his successor makes fun of. Rachel Maddow summarized the problem. While this turn of events may net the Democratic party another seat, and may well cement continued control of that body by Americans for another two years, the para-fascist movement that has wrested control of the gop does not think in short-term elementary ways. They know that in a two-party system with divided powers, an obstructionist force which represents only the interests of glassy-eyed true believers can gain power even if their base shrinks to an absolute minority. A Republic cannot survive this way. Although Indiana might be spared the embarrassment of a ron johnson type Senator for the next six years, the next time that seat is up will be a mid-term election and the teabags will stand a pretty good chance. Lugar's parting words on the dangers of extremism and the folly of such uncompromising stances by his party can be found here.
These developments push the United States, the grand experiment in democracy and republicanism, toward a calcified, authoritarian future. Dr. Maddow presents an excellent argument for one half of the political system as "beyond redemption." More serious is the "economic suicide" gleefully inflicted on our society by the 1% predicted by Noam Chomsky. While this event has been slowly gaining ground in America for over a generation, we are fast approaching the point of no return where the gains of the financial elite will be irreversible. Chomsky sees the "Occupy" movement as a locus of hope that America can back away from this suicide event. I still believe it is possible to redeem the republic without revolution and without violence. We have the blueprint of the New Deal, that plan could restore elements of justice and fairness through simple reimplementation without change. On top of that, we know how New Deal ideas can be updated to reflect the new American nation. It simply takes the will to work together and willingness to compromise with others, something our two parties used to be able to do. The alternative is too gloomy even for me to contemplate.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
The Kraken awakes
Election season is well underway and it is time for the rocklobster's vacation. Please say hello to The Kraken. He will be attending to your GH needs for this season of our discontent.
The West Bend Library, no longer a safe place... for criminals?
Not for long suckers.
Here are your new bookshelves:
Some in this area may remember that a few years ago (about a month after Barack Obama was inaugurated, but I'm sure it was just a coincidence) a glassy-eyed whale named ginny made a giant stink about our local library carrying some materials that she didn't happen to like. It was a classic case of a so-called "Christian" demonstrating intolerant and bigoted behavior, self-righteously proclaiming that the library should only serve her needs. Even though she rarely used it. This was after she had been swatted away from the school system as a nuisance for trying to legalize bullying there.
So, after getting her modest proposal unanimously dismissed by the reality-based library board, 'lil miss ginny went on a crusade to attack the library and anyone who disagreed with her fundamentalist stance. She made a bloated spectacle of herself, chasing down any microphone or tv camera with vehemence usually reserved for the pursuit of bon bons. And to this day her blog is littered with the propaganda feces of recognized hate groups such as focus on the family and the eagle forum.
While ginny remains the main face and spokespig for hate and intolerance in West Bend, WI, she at least wasn't advocating openly for the library to become the OK Corral. The "unsafe" materials she was protecting the fragile eggshell minds of West Bend's young people from were books. It is hard to physically harm someone with a book, unless you swing it really hard at just the right angle.
For that we look to the oily stealth candidates slinking in the weeds, waiting to parasitically attach themselves to city government and drain it of common sense. You have to hand it to this crowd, instead of simply whining when the light of day exposes their schemes to be utterly ridiculous, they simply infiltrate government and figuratively turn the gun around. Organization is powerful, so unlike my new pal rudy who just complains about the injustice of not being able to get a salmonella-soaked burger after stumbling out at bar close, the West Bend zealots simply take over and impose their radical agenda.
I already said my piece about vinney pheng, who snuck onto the school board recently. But apparently there is a guy who recently snuck onto the common council for whom simply sabotaging schools isn't good enough. Tony Turner seems to have made his central issue and reason for polluting local government the "travesty" that the library staff was able to get the building and grounds designated a "no weapons zone."
Library appointment approved
By DAVE RANK
Daily News Staff
"Mayor Kraig Sadownikow found a new appointment to the West Bend Library Board that even Alderman Tony Turner could approve.
Jacob Zabkowicz, a product manager for a benefits company in Mequon, was approved on an 8-0 vote by the Common Council on Monday. He replaces former board President James Fowler, whose reappointment by the mayor last month was rejected by the council on a 4-3 vote.
In April, Turner said he would not vote for anyone to return to the Library Board who voted last November to make the West Bend Community Library a gunfree building.
He said that 5-2 vote violated the Second Amendment and made the library a “safe zone” for criminals.
Turner, a newly appointed member of the Library Board himself, asked Zabkowicz how he felt about the Second Amendment.
“I do believe in the Second Amendment,” Zabkowicz said.
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
City resident Zabkowicz also said he is a member of the National Rifle Association and has a new Wisconsin conceal-carry gun license.
Along with Turner and Zabkowicz, the nine-member Library Board includes Judith Schaar and Ralph Schlass, whose reappointments Turner opposed and other aldermen opposed, new appointee Matthew Stevens, and reappointed Douglas Rakowski. The board also includes Chris Jenkins, Jack Chamberlain and Dave Krochalk."
So, in a way ginny is finally proved right. The library will no longer be a safe place for... anyone.
If you can't defeat it, defund it, if you can't do that, just make it so unpalatable that you can finally rid this "christian conservative" town of any sense of public purpose. And anyone who disagrees be damned. To quote the legendary Bill Hicks "This is why I pray for NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST IN FIVE MINUTES!" But, gun freaks who would actually want to bring their weapons into the library would probably turn out to be like cockroaches, able to survive the atomic bomb.
WHY WHY WHY do guns have to be absolutely everywhere before these types will feel safe?
Monday, May 7, 2012
Government Magic
This picture by Ken Lockwood speaks volumes about economic truthiness. "Free healthcare." If any epithet spewed by the teabaggers sums up their delusions better, I do not know what it is. This phrase was uttered to stop debate on so many occasions it has to rank with "why do you support the terrorists?" Or "why do you hate America?" on the list of horsehit political discourse.
Too bad it is too late to make a difference in health insurance reform this time around. We have a long, long way to go before American healthcare approaches the relative justice and equity acheived so many years ago by our more civilized neighbors. This is a remarkably effective slogan for the reality-based community. It activates our sense of shared purpose while appropriating self-interest at the same time. This picture could and should get a lot of milage, so I am doing my part to spread it around.
But it is not the main reason I posted it today. In order to fight a thing, one must understand that thing. Why did conservatives get so much traction with the b.s. phrase "free healthcare?" Because they have an acute case of believing in magic. While an embarrassing percentage of the American public believes in superstitious nonsense and a certain amount of magical thinking infects the conventional economic understanding in average Americans, it is epidemic on the radical right.
As I mentioned recently, people don't see the man behind the curtain. In such a highly specialized economy where division of labor has been taken to such extremes as to make Adam Smith gape, very few people have an understanding of the whole. Hence, magic. And the elite managers at the top take on aspects of being wizards, CEOS are often referred to as such in business media. The serfs are meant to rever them and far too many do. How does this relate to government? Glad you asked.
Despite the objections of "how are you going to pay for it?" that spews from the lips of republicans when they are out of power, they have operated government on an extreme deficit for so long now that government spending seems to be disconnected from revenue. When taxation is separated from public spending for over a generation, the public can be made to believe that they are separate and not two sides of the same ledger. Illusionists in service to right-wing propaganda spread confusion to serve this myth. Until we reach the conventional wisdom of today, taxation is punishment. Spending is all done to buy votes and lavish luxury on the undeserving. Voila, "free healthcare."
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Econ Truthiness
Couldn't have said it better.
Economic Tribalism
Hmm. This seems to be meta Saturday, with reactions to how people think – or, all too often, don’t think — about economics taking center stage.
Justin Fox has an interesting post documenting something I more or less knew, but am glad to see confirmed: People aren’t very receptive to evidence if it doesn’t come from a member of their cultural community. This has been blindingly obvious these past few years.
Consider what the different sides in economic debate have been predicting these past six or seven years. If you got your views from, say, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, you knew – knew – that there was no housing bubble, that America in 2008 wasn’t in recession, that budget deficits would send interest rates sky-high, that the Fed’s expansion of its balance sheet would produce huge inflation, that austerity policies would lead to economic expansion.
That’s quite a record. And yet I’m well aware that many people – including people with real money at stake – consider the WSJ a reliable source and people like, well, me flaky and unbelievable. Much of this is politics, of course, but that’s intertwined with culture: the kind of people who turn to the WSJ, or right-wing investment sites can clearly see that I’m a latte-sipping liberal who probably favors gay rights and doesn’t worship the financially successful (I actually prefer good filter coffee, black, but that’s otherwise accurate), and just not part of their tribe.
I suppose that in my quest to improve policy and understanding I should be trying to fit in better – lose the beard, learn to play golf, start using “impact” as a verb. But I probably couldn’t pull it off even if I tried. And as a result there will always be a large group of people who will never be moved by any evidence I present.
Actually, I had a wonderful, in a way, piece of correspondence today; the correspondent had read End this Depression Now!, and was having trouble finding any instances where I presented facts deceptively to support my ideological agenda. Could I please help him locate the places in the book where I do that?
Oh well. We just do what we can.
Update: Or, to illustrate, let me quote a voice mail I got recently (as rendered by Microsoft speech technology — I won’t actually listen to the thing):
Yeah hi Paul Krugman please this is for you I seen you on CNN last night with Anderson cooper.
And your as always you’re so far message unbelievable you’re falcon liar you’re fall issue yet and you are so liberal it’s unbelievable but you keep — keep talking that she had and you keep back and — mr obama — and now when users is that maybe you lose your parking job not sure when one my kids and if you’re ready coming classes.
Update update: You know, I hadn’t quite realized what he meant by “falcon liar”. But now I do — and I guess I get what it means to say I’m “fall issue” too.
I think I get the gist.
This was just a post on Paul Krugman's blog, the source article is here. At it's core:
"People feel that it is safe to consider evidence with an open mind when they know that a knowledgeable member of their cultural community accepts it."
I for one, like to read about other cultural communities. The problem is when tribalism in this community rends any common understanding. There is truth about the economy, and then there is truthiness.
Economic Tribalism
Hmm. This seems to be meta Saturday, with reactions to how people think – or, all too often, don’t think — about economics taking center stage.
Justin Fox has an interesting post documenting something I more or less knew, but am glad to see confirmed: People aren’t very receptive to evidence if it doesn’t come from a member of their cultural community. This has been blindingly obvious these past few years.
Consider what the different sides in economic debate have been predicting these past six or seven years. If you got your views from, say, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, you knew – knew – that there was no housing bubble, that America in 2008 wasn’t in recession, that budget deficits would send interest rates sky-high, that the Fed’s expansion of its balance sheet would produce huge inflation, that austerity policies would lead to economic expansion.
That’s quite a record. And yet I’m well aware that many people – including people with real money at stake – consider the WSJ a reliable source and people like, well, me flaky and unbelievable. Much of this is politics, of course, but that’s intertwined with culture: the kind of people who turn to the WSJ, or right-wing investment sites can clearly see that I’m a latte-sipping liberal who probably favors gay rights and doesn’t worship the financially successful (I actually prefer good filter coffee, black, but that’s otherwise accurate), and just not part of their tribe.
I suppose that in my quest to improve policy and understanding I should be trying to fit in better – lose the beard, learn to play golf, start using “impact” as a verb. But I probably couldn’t pull it off even if I tried. And as a result there will always be a large group of people who will never be moved by any evidence I present.
Actually, I had a wonderful, in a way, piece of correspondence today; the correspondent had read End this Depression Now!, and was having trouble finding any instances where I presented facts deceptively to support my ideological agenda. Could I please help him locate the places in the book where I do that?
Oh well. We just do what we can.
Update: Or, to illustrate, let me quote a voice mail I got recently (as rendered by Microsoft speech technology — I won’t actually listen to the thing):
Yeah hi Paul Krugman please this is for you I seen you on CNN last night with Anderson cooper.
And your as always you’re so far message unbelievable you’re falcon liar you’re fall issue yet and you are so liberal it’s unbelievable but you keep — keep talking that she had and you keep back and — mr obama — and now when users is that maybe you lose your parking job not sure when one my kids and if you’re ready coming classes.
Update update: You know, I hadn’t quite realized what he meant by “falcon liar”. But now I do — and I guess I get what it means to say I’m “fall issue” too.
I think I get the gist.
This was just a post on Paul Krugman's blog, the source article is here. At it's core:
"People feel that it is safe to consider evidence with an open mind when they know that a knowledgeable member of their cultural community accepts it."
I for one, like to read about other cultural communities. The problem is when tribalism in this community rends any common understanding. There is truth about the economy, and then there is truthiness.
Authorship problems
The zombie told me that he can't log in using his own email because it had previously been associated with this blog. Bummer, he started this thing and now can't even take direct credit when he writes on it. We are a lot alike but there is a subtle difference in the tone of our writing. Yesterday he had a few thoughts to get off of his chest. Food trucks in Sheboygan and increased fees on them. I don't do facebook but he does and he saw somebody talking about it. Now, we both have a pet peeve about economics. Isaac Asimov's quote comes to mind: “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
Certainly, people have the right to complain. But really, they don't want to know how their politics or sausage is made. Since when is paying taxes the worst thing in the world? It really has gone beyond objecting to how tax revenue is used, and become the idea that all taxation is illegitimate. I admit targetting small business and new businesses like this is low-hanging fruit. They do not have lawyers and lobbyists that big business have. American culture is coarse, individualistic, and often very aggressive. On top of that most people are selfish by nature.The average joe on the street does not see all the things that happened to make society, the economy, and government possible. This blog you are reading right now has a lot of sausage-making going on behind it that you don't see, unless you are extremely proficient in code-writing and all of the other technical aspects. Just reading this blog also puts you in debt to all the past efforts making the internet and all this technology that has enhanced our lives, possible in the first place. The real cost of having a decent country, or state, or city to live in goes far beyond what anyone pays in taxes. Rome was not built in a day, as the saying goes.
Just a few thoughts for anyone willing to consider them. Questioning authority is good, but complaining for the sake of complaining or because it just crimps one's lifestyle a bit makes you look less like a jealous ex- and more like a toddler throwing a tantrum. It is a balance and obviously not everyone feels the same way about it. I suppose the zombie and I will continue to be accused of elitism for making a reasonable request like doing a little research before wildly slinging accusations. Or using juvenile ad hominem attacks and other fallacies instead of a real debate. Or, God forbid, having a little trust that the people you elect to govern your town might have some idea about what they are doing.
Anyway, the zombie is going to go back to his crypt, or grave, or wherever he goes. He is a little disgusted that the state of intertubes debate is still this bad. One post and he got a nasty comment, pretty discouraging. What the heck man? I've insulted many people far worse and barely ever get comments lol.
Certainly, people have the right to complain. But really, they don't want to know how their politics or sausage is made. Since when is paying taxes the worst thing in the world? It really has gone beyond objecting to how tax revenue is used, and become the idea that all taxation is illegitimate. I admit targetting small business and new businesses like this is low-hanging fruit. They do not have lawyers and lobbyists that big business have. American culture is coarse, individualistic, and often very aggressive. On top of that most people are selfish by nature.The average joe on the street does not see all the things that happened to make society, the economy, and government possible. This blog you are reading right now has a lot of sausage-making going on behind it that you don't see, unless you are extremely proficient in code-writing and all of the other technical aspects. Just reading this blog also puts you in debt to all the past efforts making the internet and all this technology that has enhanced our lives, possible in the first place. The real cost of having a decent country, or state, or city to live in goes far beyond what anyone pays in taxes. Rome was not built in a day, as the saying goes.
Just a few thoughts for anyone willing to consider them. Questioning authority is good, but complaining for the sake of complaining or because it just crimps one's lifestyle a bit makes you look less like a jealous ex- and more like a toddler throwing a tantrum. It is a balance and obviously not everyone feels the same way about it. I suppose the zombie and I will continue to be accused of elitism for making a reasonable request like doing a little research before wildly slinging accusations. Or using juvenile ad hominem attacks and other fallacies instead of a real debate. Or, God forbid, having a little trust that the people you elect to govern your town might have some idea about what they are doing.
Anyway, the zombie is going to go back to his crypt, or grave, or wherever he goes. He is a little disgusted that the state of intertubes debate is still this bad. One post and he got a nasty comment, pretty discouraging. What the heck man? I've insulted many people far worse and barely ever get comments lol.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Food Truck Regulation (zombie speaking)
I just saw some people discussing this story from my hometown Sheboygan Press.
Proposed City of Sheboygan ordinance would limit activity of food trucks
Sounds kind of good, I could handle a Gyro right about now. There was a Middle Eastern food truck (or maybe it was Greek) at Summerfest one year that served the best falafel. I watched the Great Food Truck Race on Food Network religiously both seasons it has been on. Food trucks seem to be the latest fad around, and good for them. It is an interesting and novel business. But make no mistake, it is a business, operators are just as cutthroat as a small business can be.
Therefore, when I heard comments about how awful it was that the city was raising fees on the trucks, I smelled a rat.
"The ordinance, which was unanimously recommended for approval by the city Law and Licensing Committee, also would increase the fees paid by vendors from $100 to $500."
Part of a comment went like this:
"But the rest seems to be standard "justify our existence" and "Moneygrab" crap. Just let everyone sell their stuff, (The $100 fee was perfectly fine before, why not now all of a sudden? This is one of my biggest beefs with government currently. The costs go up (fee's/taxes) and yet the level of service we receive in return is lower than ever, and going down... what the hell? I understand increased costs, but if we pay more, at a minimum, shouldn't the level of service be the same?) and get the hell out of the way! This is why nothing ever happens around here. There's always some government body with a hand out, and a form to fill out, and it quickly goes from "This could be a cool idea!" to "Oh... the hell with it! It's just not worth it!"
This is from the same guy that defended the former mayor's right to get falling-down drunk in public.
"Moneygrab" love it. His governor yanked away all sorts of funding for local services, said cities can't raise property taxes to offset the cuts, but this guy acts like the fees will be going into the councilmembers pockets. Oh well, understanding economics was never his strong suit.
Now, there is no mention of whether this fee is annual, or just initial when you apply to open a business. If it is one time, then a fact escaped the guys whining about it. Even if annual, this is standard operating procedure for local businesses. Yes, the same crowd that objects to smoking bans is going to cry that they cannot get food after stumbling out of the bar at 2:30 am. But, the established truckers bought themselves a ticket out of competition. Service suffers when you have official protection, no fear from a new guy in the business who might care more about serving drunks. You might not oppose some regulation so strongly if it also meant your market share would be protected by law. Just pass on the cost increases to themarks customers.
Someday, I have hope that my friend here will realize that business is ammoral. They do not exist to "serve" you, they exist to separate you from your money. This kind of corruption is insidious, it breaks one of the central tenets of capitalism. That being unobstructed entry and exit from the market. Perfect information is another tenet, competition is only fair when people know what is going on. But hey, it's all about you right? And your rights and your freedom.
I am so glad I escaped from this culture.
Proposed City of Sheboygan ordinance would limit activity of food trucks
Sounds kind of good, I could handle a Gyro right about now. There was a Middle Eastern food truck (or maybe it was Greek) at Summerfest one year that served the best falafel. I watched the Great Food Truck Race on Food Network religiously both seasons it has been on. Food trucks seem to be the latest fad around, and good for them. It is an interesting and novel business. But make no mistake, it is a business, operators are just as cutthroat as a small business can be.
Therefore, when I heard comments about how awful it was that the city was raising fees on the trucks, I smelled a rat.
"The ordinance, which was unanimously recommended for approval by the city Law and Licensing Committee, also would increase the fees paid by vendors from $100 to $500."
Part of a comment went like this:
"But the rest seems to be standard "justify our existence" and "Moneygrab" crap. Just let everyone sell their stuff, (The $100 fee was perfectly fine before, why not now all of a sudden? This is one of my biggest beefs with government currently. The costs go up (fee's/taxes) and yet the level of service we receive in return is lower than ever, and going down... what the hell? I understand increased costs, but if we pay more, at a minimum, shouldn't the level of service be the same?) and get the hell out of the way! This is why nothing ever happens around here. There's always some government body with a hand out, and a form to fill out, and it quickly goes from "This could be a cool idea!" to "Oh... the hell with it! It's just not worth it!"
This is from the same guy that defended the former mayor's right to get falling-down drunk in public.
"Moneygrab" love it. His governor yanked away all sorts of funding for local services, said cities can't raise property taxes to offset the cuts, but this guy acts like the fees will be going into the councilmembers pockets. Oh well, understanding economics was never his strong suit.
Now, there is no mention of whether this fee is annual, or just initial when you apply to open a business. If it is one time, then a fact escaped the guys whining about it. Even if annual, this is standard operating procedure for local businesses. Yes, the same crowd that objects to smoking bans is going to cry that they cannot get food after stumbling out of the bar at 2:30 am. But, the established truckers bought themselves a ticket out of competition. Service suffers when you have official protection, no fear from a new guy in the business who might care more about serving drunks. You might not oppose some regulation so strongly if it also meant your market share would be protected by law. Just pass on the cost increases to the
Someday, I have hope that my friend here will realize that business is ammoral. They do not exist to "serve" you, they exist to separate you from your money. This kind of corruption is insidious, it breaks one of the central tenets of capitalism. That being unobstructed entry and exit from the market. Perfect information is another tenet, competition is only fair when people know what is going on. But hey, it's all about you right? And your rights and your freedom.
I am so glad I escaped from this culture.
Debate Analysis
Wisconsin needs a new governor. That much is certain. To start off, I'll go out on a limb here and say that all the farmers and freaks with "I stand with walker" signs would have been quite at home in Soviet Russia. Submitting to authority and aggressing against whatever groups that authority dislikes is part and parcel of right-wing authoritarian followers. It is also why anyone standing with walker should automatically be dismissed as undeserving of a say in our future. Luckily, over a million Wisconsinites stood up against authoritarianism and recalled scott walker. For you conservative curmudgeons out there, recall exists for elected officials who deceived the public to gain office and execute that office contrary to the public interest. This is, after all, what a republic is, a government formed to carry out the public's interest. It has been the great coup of social dominating republicans to convince so many citizens that teachers are a special interest while the koch brothers are the public's interest.
So, the machinery has worked the way it was supposed to. A governor who campaigned on jobs but then "dropped the bomb" as the oft-repeated phrase from last night put it, on working people will face a recall election. Walker even threatened to call out the national guard if anyone dared oppose him as though he was a robber baron in the Nineteenth Century. Sorry scotty, this isn't the Soviet Union yet. Recall is an extreme provision, meant to be difficult to accomplish but walker has proved at every opportunity that he is unfit to govern in a democracy. That is also why republican attempts at recall have been more difficult, you can disagree over policy while still serving the public interest. Let them continue to agitate, the more the public sees of it, the more they will understand that republican recall efforts are simple power grabs and not a safeguarding of the public interest.
Last night, four Democratic office-holders met to debate issues of the day. Each made their case for unseating walker and why they should be his successor. The choice has come down to Democratic conservatism, trying to hang on to or restore a system that worked rather well for over two generations, or republican authoritarianism. The koch brothers, ALEC, and the management complex believes the Republic exists to serve them alone, and they are willing to spend any amount neccessary to take it from us. There used to be a saying that what is good for GM is good for America, and there may have been some truth in that when capitalism actually meant making things and building things. After three decades of Bain-style speculative and predatory capitalism, however, this is as untrue as saying America needs a monarch.
Tom Barrett, Kathleen Falk, Doug La Follette, and Kathleen Vinehout debated the issues of the day last night, not these larger philosophical questions. They were united in the effort to replace walker and shared 90% of commonwealth and public interest positions. Because any one of them would be an incredible improvement on what walker has done, and none of the candidates "won" in the conventional sense, it is a difficult choice. But those million voters who oppose walker's blatant abuse of power must coalesce around one and only one opponent.
What we really need is an anti-walker, someone who will fight for the commonwealth and public interest just as ferociously as walker fought for special interests and power. Just as America really needed an aggressive liberal after bush slinked back to texas. What we got nationally was a constitutional law professor, capable of great speeches but technocratic in nature and unable for much of his term to confront the ideological war going on. What we need is someone with "fire in their belly" who will stop apologizing for being a Democrat. What we will probably get is a grandfather type, most likely unequal to the task of overcoming vehement obstruction to simply reverse nearly two years of vicious undermining of our state and society. Yes, I voted for Barrett last time and will gladly vote for him again. But he is not the leader we need. In a more normal time, he would have a long career managing the state in a pragmatic fashion, similar to the way Tommy Thompson did. This is not to say he will simply be a manager the way President Obama has been for most of his term, but he is not the leader who can push the koches and their authoritarian machine out of the limelight and back into the closet where they belong.
So, the machinery has worked the way it was supposed to. A governor who campaigned on jobs but then "dropped the bomb" as the oft-repeated phrase from last night put it, on working people will face a recall election. Walker even threatened to call out the national guard if anyone dared oppose him as though he was a robber baron in the Nineteenth Century. Sorry scotty, this isn't the Soviet Union yet. Recall is an extreme provision, meant to be difficult to accomplish but walker has proved at every opportunity that he is unfit to govern in a democracy. That is also why republican attempts at recall have been more difficult, you can disagree over policy while still serving the public interest. Let them continue to agitate, the more the public sees of it, the more they will understand that republican recall efforts are simple power grabs and not a safeguarding of the public interest.
Last night, four Democratic office-holders met to debate issues of the day. Each made their case for unseating walker and why they should be his successor. The choice has come down to Democratic conservatism, trying to hang on to or restore a system that worked rather well for over two generations, or republican authoritarianism. The koch brothers, ALEC, and the management complex believes the Republic exists to serve them alone, and they are willing to spend any amount neccessary to take it from us. There used to be a saying that what is good for GM is good for America, and there may have been some truth in that when capitalism actually meant making things and building things. After three decades of Bain-style speculative and predatory capitalism, however, this is as untrue as saying America needs a monarch.
Tom Barrett, Kathleen Falk, Doug La Follette, and Kathleen Vinehout debated the issues of the day last night, not these larger philosophical questions. They were united in the effort to replace walker and shared 90% of commonwealth and public interest positions. Because any one of them would be an incredible improvement on what walker has done, and none of the candidates "won" in the conventional sense, it is a difficult choice. But those million voters who oppose walker's blatant abuse of power must coalesce around one and only one opponent.
What we really need is an anti-walker, someone who will fight for the commonwealth and public interest just as ferociously as walker fought for special interests and power. Just as America really needed an aggressive liberal after bush slinked back to texas. What we got nationally was a constitutional law professor, capable of great speeches but technocratic in nature and unable for much of his term to confront the ideological war going on. What we need is someone with "fire in their belly" who will stop apologizing for being a Democrat. What we will probably get is a grandfather type, most likely unequal to the task of overcoming vehement obstruction to simply reverse nearly two years of vicious undermining of our state and society. Yes, I voted for Barrett last time and will gladly vote for him again. But he is not the leader we need. In a more normal time, he would have a long career managing the state in a pragmatic fashion, similar to the way Tommy Thompson did. This is not to say he will simply be a manager the way President Obama has been for most of his term, but he is not the leader who can push the koches and their authoritarian machine out of the limelight and back into the closet where they belong.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Democratic Gubernatorial Debate
Tom Barrett, Kathleen Falk, Kathleen Vinehout, and Doug La Follette are debating right now for the Democratic nomination to face scott walker in the recall election. It is hard to keep up.
First question was about collective bargaining. All candidates support restoring those rights for public workers. Barrett was forcefully in favor of getting it done this summer by any of several methods.
Medicaid. Vinehout claims $2bil is misallocated because of poorly run contractors, Act 10 gives governor too much authority to mess the system up.
So far, Falk does remind me of the caricature of stiff, eggheaded liberals that slimy propagandists constantly push.
La Follette just seems too old to really carry this fight through. He has put forward his family name's "Wisconsin Idea" on several occasions.
Vinehout sounds really hoarse. Very passionate about the environment though, advocates giving DNR more freedom to work and allow them to testify in front of the leg. She really says great things. It is a complete "duh" that contractors are doing public work that government workers could do themselves for much less.
Barrett: "Economic growth and environmental protection are not enemies"
Falk: get people working again, hold her to that in two years. Heal state. Throw walker in jail (oh wait, that's me) Falk wants to be state's "Mom"
Vinehout: roll back tax cuts, alternative budget. working people got tax raises by walker and affluent got cuts, (duh) she wants to roll things back to the way they were.
Barrett: tax cuts that are actually generating jobs will be held off from rolling back
stressed fairness. shared sacrifice. He's already fighting the general election. Rightly.
Falk: no tax hikes on working families. Rollback "Vegas" loophole to restore edu. funding
La Follette: get rid of loophole for out of state corps. GOOD. Argues he's most electable because he doesn't have the same hatred against him from wingnuts
Barrett: has son attending UW-Madison. Tech. schools cut funding. jobs are needed to get edu. funding. econ. must grow to get revenue
Falk: How to get jobs B? Edu. leads to jobs, need educated workers to innovate for manufacturing
Vinehout: more revenue available in this budget than last, edu just not a priority for sheithead walker
"NOT ALL SMART STUDENTS ARE RICH" deserve shot if you're working class
Tim Hanna Mayor of Appleton "how to repair partisanship?"
Falk: Keep family together and allow all to save face
La Follette: civility, no special interest agenda, can sit down with all sides, scientific background
Vinehout: calm turmoil around state, "gov 'herself'" restore civil environment, open door, follow laws, no secrecy, gov sets tone, calm and respectful tone necessary
Barrett: mayors get together and discuss things without partisanship, local level pragmatism, respect for people you disagree with.
Heart with Vinehout, head says Barrett.
Oohh, V just said "vote Democrat" have to inform her what that slip means. Can we at least not shoot the team by framing out.
Barrett can admit there is an ideological civil war here in WI since walker slinked into office. Don't agree with his thoughts on ending war, but at least he can admit it.
Falk, cheap shot at B. Smiling insincerely.
First question was about collective bargaining. All candidates support restoring those rights for public workers. Barrett was forcefully in favor of getting it done this summer by any of several methods.
Medicaid. Vinehout claims $2bil is misallocated because of poorly run contractors, Act 10 gives governor too much authority to mess the system up.
So far, Falk does remind me of the caricature of stiff, eggheaded liberals that slimy propagandists constantly push.
La Follette just seems too old to really carry this fight through. He has put forward his family name's "Wisconsin Idea" on several occasions.
Vinehout sounds really hoarse. Very passionate about the environment though, advocates giving DNR more freedom to work and allow them to testify in front of the leg. She really says great things. It is a complete "duh" that contractors are doing public work that government workers could do themselves for much less.
Barrett: "Economic growth and environmental protection are not enemies"
Falk: get people working again, hold her to that in two years. Heal state. Throw walker in jail (oh wait, that's me) Falk wants to be state's "Mom"
Vinehout: roll back tax cuts, alternative budget. working people got tax raises by walker and affluent got cuts, (duh) she wants to roll things back to the way they were.
Barrett: tax cuts that are actually generating jobs will be held off from rolling back
stressed fairness. shared sacrifice. He's already fighting the general election. Rightly.
Falk: no tax hikes on working families. Rollback "Vegas" loophole to restore edu. funding
La Follette: get rid of loophole for out of state corps. GOOD. Argues he's most electable because he doesn't have the same hatred against him from wingnuts
Barrett: has son attending UW-Madison. Tech. schools cut funding. jobs are needed to get edu. funding. econ. must grow to get revenue
Falk: How to get jobs B? Edu. leads to jobs, need educated workers to innovate for manufacturing
Vinehout: more revenue available in this budget than last, edu just not a priority for sheithead walker
"NOT ALL SMART STUDENTS ARE RICH" deserve shot if you're working class
Tim Hanna Mayor of Appleton "how to repair partisanship?"
Falk: Keep family together and allow all to save face
La Follette: civility, no special interest agenda, can sit down with all sides, scientific background
Vinehout: calm turmoil around state, "gov 'herself'" restore civil environment, open door, follow laws, no secrecy, gov sets tone, calm and respectful tone necessary
Barrett: mayors get together and discuss things without partisanship, local level pragmatism, respect for people you disagree with.
Heart with Vinehout, head says Barrett.
Oohh, V just said "vote Democrat" have to inform her what that slip means. Can we at least not shoot the team by framing out.
Barrett can admit there is an ideological civil war here in WI since walker slinked into office. Don't agree with his thoughts on ending war, but at least he can admit it.
Falk, cheap shot at B. Smiling insincerely.
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