Pacific Spirit by Susan Point at spiritwrestler.com.
3 days ago
Monday, September 25, 2006
Q and N
It's the nail in the coffin of the Bush administration's war in Iraqnam, and its conduct of the war on terror simultaneously: a consensus report of 16 U.S. national security agencies that the warfare in Iraq has increased terrorism and made the world, and specifically the people of the United States, less safe than on 9/11/2001.
This conclusion of a classified report was published by the New York Times and the Washington Post, and confirmed in an Associated Press report carried in the Washington Post on Sunday.
The report concludes that the occupation of Iraq has helped create a new generation of radical Islamicist terrorists. Combined with the falsities that evidence shows were deliberate lies leading to the invasion of Iraq; with the evident misconduct of the aftermath of the invasion, the occupation and the warfare resulting in continung needless loss of life, and the relentless and accelerating drain on our military, our youth and our resources to the tune of a more than a billion dollars every week ; the official defense of a policy of torture that has inflamed the world and brought shame to America with no intelligence or security benefits, and the failures of Homeland Security and FEMA along with the billions lost in corporate corruption in Iraq, Homeland Security, FEMA and in Republican- run Washington in general; the Bush government is a tragic and continuing failure on a scale unknown in anyone's memory.
Yet reports persist that the Bush administration is deep into planning a repeat performance, this time exchanging the Q for an N by making war on Iran. Recent military movements as well as political whispers prompt some, including former Senator Gary Hart, to predict a Rovian October surprise, featuring the US bombing of Iran shortly before the November elections.
The stakes of such a reckless action should be self-evident, but how far they could go is outlined in a series of essays by Jeff Huber at E Pluribus Media. Others (including former CIA Larry Johnson) contend that the US started a shift of power in Iraq that moves it towards alliance with Iran. A U.S. war on Iran would simply accelerate the process. The Bush administration's policies and mistakes would be an even greater contributor to the causes of terrorism as well as to terrorist recruitment.
And while we wait for the other shoe to drop on torture, we are already seeing the strange fruits of Bush's dark and erratic policies on nuclear weapons: planning new ones for the U.S., helping India acquire more, while threatening to bomb Iran for nuclear weapons it doesn't have and can't develop for years. One result is this significant but under-reported event (covered by Think Progress ): the possibility that Egypt will embark on a nuclear weapons program.
For the Bushites, exchanging an N for a Q in their patriotism sandbag of voters along with the biennual fearmongering and tough talk on terrorism (we'll torture the world into a safer place for Americans) is part of the political calculation that is supposed to equal electoral victory in November. The ultimate price to the world and to every non-superwealthy American doesn't count.
Only when Americans stop falling for this cynical button-pushing--only when voters stop being played for saps--will it ever stop. It's got to stop now.
It's the nail in the coffin of the Bush administration's war in Iraqnam, and its conduct of the war on terror simultaneously: a consensus report of 16 U.S. national security agencies that the warfare in Iraq has increased terrorism and made the world, and specifically the people of the United States, less safe than on 9/11/2001.
This conclusion of a classified report was published by the New York Times and the Washington Post, and confirmed in an Associated Press report carried in the Washington Post on Sunday.
The report concludes that the occupation of Iraq has helped create a new generation of radical Islamicist terrorists. Combined with the falsities that evidence shows were deliberate lies leading to the invasion of Iraq; with the evident misconduct of the aftermath of the invasion, the occupation and the warfare resulting in continung needless loss of life, and the relentless and accelerating drain on our military, our youth and our resources to the tune of a more than a billion dollars every week ; the official defense of a policy of torture that has inflamed the world and brought shame to America with no intelligence or security benefits, and the failures of Homeland Security and FEMA along with the billions lost in corporate corruption in Iraq, Homeland Security, FEMA and in Republican- run Washington in general; the Bush government is a tragic and continuing failure on a scale unknown in anyone's memory.
Yet reports persist that the Bush administration is deep into planning a repeat performance, this time exchanging the Q for an N by making war on Iran. Recent military movements as well as political whispers prompt some, including former Senator Gary Hart, to predict a Rovian October surprise, featuring the US bombing of Iran shortly before the November elections.
The stakes of such a reckless action should be self-evident, but how far they could go is outlined in a series of essays by Jeff Huber at E Pluribus Media. Others (including former CIA Larry Johnson) contend that the US started a shift of power in Iraq that moves it towards alliance with Iran. A U.S. war on Iran would simply accelerate the process. The Bush administration's policies and mistakes would be an even greater contributor to the causes of terrorism as well as to terrorist recruitment.
And while we wait for the other shoe to drop on torture, we are already seeing the strange fruits of Bush's dark and erratic policies on nuclear weapons: planning new ones for the U.S., helping India acquire more, while threatening to bomb Iran for nuclear weapons it doesn't have and can't develop for years. One result is this significant but under-reported event (covered by Think Progress ): the possibility that Egypt will embark on a nuclear weapons program.
For the Bushites, exchanging an N for a Q in their patriotism sandbag of voters along with the biennual fearmongering and tough talk on terrorism (we'll torture the world into a safer place for Americans) is part of the political calculation that is supposed to equal electoral victory in November. The ultimate price to the world and to every non-superwealthy American doesn't count.
Only when Americans stop falling for this cynical button-pushing--only when voters stop being played for saps--will it ever stop. It's got to stop now.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Friday, September 22, 2006
The Dreaming Up Daily Quote
"80% of Republicans are just Democrats who don't know what's going on."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Seems Like Old Times
Lately I've been catching myself making references that a dwindling number of people get. Like "Mr. Tooth Decay." I gather that Mr. Tooth Decay makes something of a comeback in kid circles from time to time, but the basic reference is to beloved old Colgate toothpaste commercials that ran on Howdy Doody, and you have to be way way old to remember those.
In a recent theatre review I mentioned that the only Latin phrase I remembered from my Catholic schooling was from a cartoon in my high school Latin book, in which a police officer has pulled over a driver and asks him "Ubi ignus est?" That people wouldn't understand the Latin was part of the joke, because I thought (as the creator of the cartoon did) that the context would suggest it. However, I hadn't realized that cops pulling over speeders and asking them, "Where's the fire?" is no longer a well-known cliche. (Nothing as pathetic as an unknown cliche, is there?) The editor actually looked up the Latin, got the phrase, then asked me what it all meant--could the cop have pulled over a firetruck? I cut the joke, pronto. (That means," right away." Cowboys used to say it in...well, never mind.)
But just when I was ready to put all that ancient history behind me, I read something like this in Dan Froomkin's Washington Post blog, and damn if 1968 doesn't come back as big as life:
On the dominant issue of our time, the president is in denial. By most reliable accounts, three and a half years into the U.S. occupation, Iraq is in chaos -- if not in a state of civil war, then awfully close. But President Bush insists it's not so. He says the people he talks to assure him that the press coverage about how bad things are in Iraq is not to be trusted.
You might think that the enormous gulf between Bush's perceptions and reality on such a life-and-death topic would be, well, newsworthy. But if members of the Washington press corps consider it news at all, apparently it's old news. They report Bush's assertions about Iraq without noting that his fundamental assessment of the situation is dramatically contradicted by the reporting from their own colleagues on the ground.
I call it Iraqnam, and this is why. We've already destroyed it in order to save it, and people keep dying and getting maimed in horrible ways there, because a lot of people have forgotten 40 years.
Lately I've been catching myself making references that a dwindling number of people get. Like "Mr. Tooth Decay." I gather that Mr. Tooth Decay makes something of a comeback in kid circles from time to time, but the basic reference is to beloved old Colgate toothpaste commercials that ran on Howdy Doody, and you have to be way way old to remember those.
In a recent theatre review I mentioned that the only Latin phrase I remembered from my Catholic schooling was from a cartoon in my high school Latin book, in which a police officer has pulled over a driver and asks him "Ubi ignus est?" That people wouldn't understand the Latin was part of the joke, because I thought (as the creator of the cartoon did) that the context would suggest it. However, I hadn't realized that cops pulling over speeders and asking them, "Where's the fire?" is no longer a well-known cliche. (Nothing as pathetic as an unknown cliche, is there?) The editor actually looked up the Latin, got the phrase, then asked me what it all meant--could the cop have pulled over a firetruck? I cut the joke, pronto. (That means," right away." Cowboys used to say it in...well, never mind.)
But just when I was ready to put all that ancient history behind me, I read something like this in Dan Froomkin's Washington Post blog, and damn if 1968 doesn't come back as big as life:
On the dominant issue of our time, the president is in denial. By most reliable accounts, three and a half years into the U.S. occupation, Iraq is in chaos -- if not in a state of civil war, then awfully close. But President Bush insists it's not so. He says the people he talks to assure him that the press coverage about how bad things are in Iraq is not to be trusted.
You might think that the enormous gulf between Bush's perceptions and reality on such a life-and-death topic would be, well, newsworthy. But if members of the Washington press corps consider it news at all, apparently it's old news. They report Bush's assertions about Iraq without noting that his fundamental assessment of the situation is dramatically contradicted by the reporting from their own colleagues on the ground.
I call it Iraqnam, and this is why. We've already destroyed it in order to save it, and people keep dying and getting maimed in horrible ways there, because a lot of people have forgotten 40 years.
"24" is Torture Porn
Update: A Washington Post editorial has come out strongly against the compromise torture bill that came out of Senate committee, because "In effect, the agreement means that U.S. violations of international human rights law can continue as long as Mr. Bush is president, with Congress's tacit assent. If they do, America's standing in the world will continue to suffer, as will the fight against terrorism." BooTrib is advocating that Dems make an issue of it by opposing and filibustering if necessary.
Here's how the Newsweek story I linked to in my last post on torture begins:
It’s probably not too farfetched to say that what most Americans know about torture comes from watching the TV show “24.” (There is even a Web site called The Jack Bauer Torture Report.) Jack and his comrades and enemies have at various moments on the Fox television program used electrical wires, heart defibrillators, old-fashioned bone breaking and chemical injections to wrest information from their captives. In one episode, Agent Bauer forced a terrorist to watch streaming video—staged—of his child’s execution. The terrorist talked.
The story goes on to say that, first of all, actual torture doesn't much look like what is shown on "24," and that: In recent interviews with NEWSWEEK reporters, U.S. intelligence officers say they have little—if any—evidence that useful intelligence has been obtained using techniques generally understood to be torture.
But a lot of people do believe it works. Partly because Bush and Cheney say so, and if we don't believe them, it's the same as saying that they are morons or liars or both, and war criminals to boot. Not something that anyone wants to believe of their leaders. But I believe it's also partly because of Hollywood and specifically "24."
Entertainment shows stretch reality a lot to be funny--we all understand that-- and also to create drama, but that's done with such apparent realism that we don't always realize it. But why torture? Is it the only way to advance the plot dramatically? These shows present human beings causing prolonged pain in other human beings. And people watch.
Forget for the moment that by portraying a false idea of something that goes on in the real world, "24" and shows like it are lying to people about something important, and the consequence is more suffering and more people endangered, including innocent people.
Forget even that it is often a cheap device, the easy ploy of lazy writers and directors when they want to push buttons of sensation and can't be bothered to do it with honest drama. We've got to grip the audience and we've got a story that's ten minutes short, what do we do? I know: torture somebody.
No, what I want to focus on here is the evident reason we see torture on TV, and that's because it evokes strong sensations--people may not be entirely shocked anymore, they see it so often, but it does push some buttons, and they're all about primal emotions. And in having those buttons pushed, people are entertained. They "like" to watch torture.
My question is: how is this not pornography? I'm not saying ban it, I'm just saying let's name it for what it is, and stop the pretense. Because the pretense is the prime factor in making it believable--I mean, if it's not porn fantasy, then we have to believe this is how it really works.
Real torture is immoral, and I believe that dramatizing torture in the way "24" does is gratitious violence, and I don't watch it. I happen to have met one of the writers who just got an Emmy for that show, and I don't congratulate him. He used to work on the Star Trek series, Enterprise, and during his watch as a producer, there were several instances of gratuitous torture on that show (which had a family audience, insofar as it had an audience). Which I suppose turned out to be his audition for "24."
I think "24" and its depiction of torture and violence does harm for these several reasons, and I have no respect for it. Those who watch it for porn purposes should at least be honest with themselves about it, and deal with it as fantasy. But that's not how it is played--not in a nation that goes berserk over a milisecond glimpse of a bare breast.
Bare breast bad, torture entertainment, does not compute. And then there's the morality of torture itself, defended by self-appointed professional guardians of morality, whose absolutism otherwise extends to defining cells as babies. Here's an example from Molly Ivins:
"I was interested to find that the Rev. Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition is so in favor of torture he told McCain that the senator either supports the torture bill or he can forget about the evangelical Christian vote. I’d like to see an evangelical vote on that one. I don’t know how Sheldon defines traditional values, but deliberately inflicting terrible physical pain or stress on someone who is completely helpless strikes me as ... well, torture. And, um, wrong.."
I hope this is just an example of the Rev. Sheldon's arrogance and not the true sentiments of people who call themselves Christians. I could understand some "greater good" argument, if there was any evidence a greater good could be obtained. But to defend the morality of torture on its face, and threatening politicians who want some legal and moral constraints, passeth my understanding.
Update: A Washington Post editorial has come out strongly against the compromise torture bill that came out of Senate committee, because "In effect, the agreement means that U.S. violations of international human rights law can continue as long as Mr. Bush is president, with Congress's tacit assent. If they do, America's standing in the world will continue to suffer, as will the fight against terrorism." BooTrib is advocating that Dems make an issue of it by opposing and filibustering if necessary.
Here's how the Newsweek story I linked to in my last post on torture begins:
It’s probably not too farfetched to say that what most Americans know about torture comes from watching the TV show “24.” (There is even a Web site called The Jack Bauer Torture Report.) Jack and his comrades and enemies have at various moments on the Fox television program used electrical wires, heart defibrillators, old-fashioned bone breaking and chemical injections to wrest information from their captives. In one episode, Agent Bauer forced a terrorist to watch streaming video—staged—of his child’s execution. The terrorist talked.
The story goes on to say that, first of all, actual torture doesn't much look like what is shown on "24," and that: In recent interviews with NEWSWEEK reporters, U.S. intelligence officers say they have little—if any—evidence that useful intelligence has been obtained using techniques generally understood to be torture.
But a lot of people do believe it works. Partly because Bush and Cheney say so, and if we don't believe them, it's the same as saying that they are morons or liars or both, and war criminals to boot. Not something that anyone wants to believe of their leaders. But I believe it's also partly because of Hollywood and specifically "24."
Entertainment shows stretch reality a lot to be funny--we all understand that-- and also to create drama, but that's done with such apparent realism that we don't always realize it. But why torture? Is it the only way to advance the plot dramatically? These shows present human beings causing prolonged pain in other human beings. And people watch.
Forget for the moment that by portraying a false idea of something that goes on in the real world, "24" and shows like it are lying to people about something important, and the consequence is more suffering and more people endangered, including innocent people.
Forget even that it is often a cheap device, the easy ploy of lazy writers and directors when they want to push buttons of sensation and can't be bothered to do it with honest drama. We've got to grip the audience and we've got a story that's ten minutes short, what do we do? I know: torture somebody.
No, what I want to focus on here is the evident reason we see torture on TV, and that's because it evokes strong sensations--people may not be entirely shocked anymore, they see it so often, but it does push some buttons, and they're all about primal emotions. And in having those buttons pushed, people are entertained. They "like" to watch torture.
My question is: how is this not pornography? I'm not saying ban it, I'm just saying let's name it for what it is, and stop the pretense. Because the pretense is the prime factor in making it believable--I mean, if it's not porn fantasy, then we have to believe this is how it really works.
Real torture is immoral, and I believe that dramatizing torture in the way "24" does is gratitious violence, and I don't watch it. I happen to have met one of the writers who just got an Emmy for that show, and I don't congratulate him. He used to work on the Star Trek series, Enterprise, and during his watch as a producer, there were several instances of gratuitous torture on that show (which had a family audience, insofar as it had an audience). Which I suppose turned out to be his audition for "24."
I think "24" and its depiction of torture and violence does harm for these several reasons, and I have no respect for it. Those who watch it for porn purposes should at least be honest with themselves about it, and deal with it as fantasy. But that's not how it is played--not in a nation that goes berserk over a milisecond glimpse of a bare breast.
Bare breast bad, torture entertainment, does not compute. And then there's the morality of torture itself, defended by self-appointed professional guardians of morality, whose absolutism otherwise extends to defining cells as babies. Here's an example from Molly Ivins:
"I was interested to find that the Rev. Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition is so in favor of torture he told McCain that the senator either supports the torture bill or he can forget about the evangelical Christian vote. I’d like to see an evangelical vote on that one. I don’t know how Sheldon defines traditional values, but deliberately inflicting terrible physical pain or stress on someone who is completely helpless strikes me as ... well, torture. And, um, wrong.."
I hope this is just an example of the Rev. Sheldon's arrogance and not the true sentiments of people who call themselves Christians. I could understand some "greater good" argument, if there was any evidence a greater good could be obtained. But to defend the morality of torture on its face, and threatening politicians who want some legal and moral constraints, passeth my understanding.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
The Climate Crisis
Looking to the Law
There are several efforts underway to use existing law to force action on restricting greenhouse gas pollution. California is getting headlines for suing car companies, and though it's not strictly a legal matter--at least not yet--the Royal Society in England is demanding that Exxon keeps it promise to stop funding climate crisis deniers.
Meanwhile, the case against the Bush government to force them to apply Clean Air Act enforcement to greenhouse gases has gotten stronger with this brief, which places even more scientific expertise in partnership with law. In particular it counters the Bush attempt to distort the findings of scientists in a report it requested.
When the environmental movement first got into its legal and political phase, it lost a lot of its focus. Getting into that nitty-gritty is necessary of course, but this time a good deal more clarity needs to remain central, or once again the goals and the needs to be addressed can get lost in technicalites and the lifestyle of lawyers, lobbyists and pols.
UPDATE: Patrick Kennedy's summary of the Bush announcement on R&D for future technologies to address the climate crisis. His conclusion: too little, too vague, and certainly no "U-turn" in policy.
UPDATE 2: Richard Branson pledged $3 billion over ten years--corporate profits from Virgin Airlines-- to address the Climate Crisis by investing in biofuels, through President Clinton's Global Initiative. Three billion also happens to be the amount the Bush administration says it has spent on global heating associated R&D in the past six years. $3 billion represents what the US spends on the Iraq war every ten days.
There are several efforts underway to use existing law to force action on restricting greenhouse gas pollution. California is getting headlines for suing car companies, and though it's not strictly a legal matter--at least not yet--the Royal Society in England is demanding that Exxon keeps it promise to stop funding climate crisis deniers.
Meanwhile, the case against the Bush government to force them to apply Clean Air Act enforcement to greenhouse gases has gotten stronger with this brief, which places even more scientific expertise in partnership with law. In particular it counters the Bush attempt to distort the findings of scientists in a report it requested.
When the environmental movement first got into its legal and political phase, it lost a lot of its focus. Getting into that nitty-gritty is necessary of course, but this time a good deal more clarity needs to remain central, or once again the goals and the needs to be addressed can get lost in technicalites and the lifestyle of lawyers, lobbyists and pols.
UPDATE: Patrick Kennedy's summary of the Bush announcement on R&D for future technologies to address the climate crisis. His conclusion: too little, too vague, and certainly no "U-turn" in policy.
UPDATE 2: Richard Branson pledged $3 billion over ten years--corporate profits from Virgin Airlines-- to address the Climate Crisis by investing in biofuels, through President Clinton's Global Initiative. Three billion also happens to be the amount the Bush administration says it has spent on global heating associated R&D in the past six years. $3 billion represents what the US spends on the Iraq war every ten days.
The Politics of Torture
Or is it the torture of politics? I've held off commenting on the apparent conflict among Republicans in Congress over several bills that give Bush legal cover to have tortured and to keep on torturing, because I wasn't sure how real it was. Some bloggers and other commentators believe certain GOPer Senators are taking courageous stands in opposition to Bush, others suspect it's all orchestrated politics to provide some Republicans with political cover, or just to keep media attention off the really deadly conflict in Iraq.
Wednesday a House committee voted against it before they voted for it but there's still nothing certain about this except they're going to keep making noise about terrorism and torture and toughness until the election, and nothing is really going to even begin changing until the Democrats control Congress, and we get on their cases big time.
How torture plays politically is a fairly disgusting subject, especially because it should be well outside the political, beyond the pale. First of all, and most absurd of all, the argument over whether the morality of saving innocents by getting information from bad guys versus cruelty to people who may be bad but also may very well be innocent, is all so useless, because torture doesn't work in acquiring useful information, nor even in intimidation, not in the long run. The Canadian citizen captured and tortured by the U.S. who was fully exonerated as completely innocent this week by a Canadian panel, had admitted under torture that he was trained as a terrorist in Afghanistan, despite documented proof that he had never been in Afghanistan.
A federal judge has ordered officials to disclose some information about some Gitmo detainees. The International Red Cross is finally getting to interview some prisoners. Canada is planning an official protest based on this new report. Everyone in the world knows this is wrong and deeply harmful and universally degrading in every conceivable way.
And the practical downside is enormous. It makes a mockery of law. The bar has been lowered so that innocence no longer matters, and even a member of the press can be essentially imprisoned in Iraq for months, and no one knows and no one cares. That we're even talking about this is sickening and more frightening than any terrorist attack.
Apropos of nothing but this mood, this blog has attracted some hatemongering trolls and I've temporarily restricted comments until they lose interest.
UPDATE: A UN report says torture in Iraq is out of control. American occupation has brought with it torture that may exceed Saddam's. This is a completely predictable outcome of US policy and practice under Bush. When a superpower and supposed moral leader unleashes the dogs of torture, everyone feels they have permission to unleash savagery and escalate it without penalty. This is a consequence of immoral leadership. Among other tragic ramifications, we now have no moral standing to condemn the torture of Americans by others. Especially when our government apparently feels free to torture Americans, Canadians, Europeans, anybody.
UPDATE 2: The Bush House and apparently rebellious Republican Senators made a deal on pending legislature involving torture and trials for alleged terrorists, but the substance of the agreement is not clear, and the details of the legislation has apparently not yet been worked out. In other words, mostly P.R, which seemed to be the subtext of Senator Warner's statement that they'll have a deal when he sees Bush's signature on it.
Meanwhile, David Broder, Washington Post columnist and Beltway Elder, is the latest to see this revolt as a declaration of independence on the part of these Republicans, and an indication that a centrist "independent party" is forming. Broder's rhetoric is unusually brutal:
Bush was elected twice, over Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry, whose know-it-all arrogance rankled Midwesterners such as myself. The country thought Bush was a pleasant, down-to-earth guy who would not rock the boat. Instead, swayed by some inner impulse or the influence of Dick Cheney, he has proved to be lawless and reckless. He started a war he cannot finish, drove the government into debt and repeatedly defied the Constitution.
The question of what constitutes "centrism" is a matter for another day, but as a reflection of this year's 'throw the bums out' mood from an unlikely source, this column has some resonance.
As for the supposed central issue--torture, remember?--the transcript is up of Wednesday's Olbermann interview with Jack Rice, former CIA and Minnesota prosecutor. They talk about torture eliciting whatever the torturers want to hear, but go beyond that patent lunacy to the further lunacy--although I suspect it's intentional --of what's been done with some of this so-called information:
OLBERMANN: The name Abu Zubaydah seems relevant here. Zubaydah broke under—I guess the technical term is aggressive interrogation, told the interrogators about plans to booby-trap banks and ATMs, and Homeland Security says, Watch out for banks. Then he said malls, Homeland Security said, Beware of the malls. Then he said apartments, we plan to lease apartments and fill them full of explosives, and Homeland Security said, Be alert in apartment buildings. Then he said the Brooklyn Bridge, and Homeland Security says, Be careful on the Brooklyn Bridge.
The only problem was, he was making all of it up. If we torture supposed terrorists, and they make stuff up, and the government tells people the things that they made up, are we not, in essence, doing the terrorists‘ work for them? Is there not an indirect cause and effect here? Starting point is, you torture suspects into lying, and at the end, you wind up spreading information that scares Americans.
RICE: Absolutely. And the worst part, in the end, is that when there are real threats out there, there‘s something called dread fatigue. We all heard about this. Oh, my gosh, it‘s level yellow. Oh, my gosh, it‘s level orange no. And in the end, the real threats that are out there, we ignore.
Here's how the interview ended:
OLBERMANN: So what works instead of torture, or aggressive interrogation, or whatever they‘re calling it today?
RICE: In many cases, we‘re looking at a lot of things. And we‘ve used these in the States in the past, because it provides reliable information. Sometimes it‘s about personal understanding. Sometimes it‘s allowing people to talk. Sometimes it‘s trying to understand. I would sit in front of somebody and say, I don‘t understand what motivates you. Explain to me so I understand. Teach me. Sometimes it‘s about vanity. You allow them that, if it‘s useful. But what you‘re looking for is truth in the end.
I‘m not a priest. I‘m not trying to be. But what I am trying to do is get something reliable, so our policy makers, so our police, so our military can do the right thing, not the wrong thing.
OLBERMANN: So fact-check me on this, on my simplified version of this whole picture. If it‘s wrong, tell me so. The president wants torture, or a nice euphemism for torture, and all he‘ll get out of it is made-up information, revenge later against American prisoners, perhaps, and destroying any moral high ground we might still have in the world.
RICE: Yes, one other thing besides that. He gets to wrap himself in the flag and say he hates the bad people.
Or is it the torture of politics? I've held off commenting on the apparent conflict among Republicans in Congress over several bills that give Bush legal cover to have tortured and to keep on torturing, because I wasn't sure how real it was. Some bloggers and other commentators believe certain GOPer Senators are taking courageous stands in opposition to Bush, others suspect it's all orchestrated politics to provide some Republicans with political cover, or just to keep media attention off the really deadly conflict in Iraq.
Wednesday a House committee voted against it before they voted for it but there's still nothing certain about this except they're going to keep making noise about terrorism and torture and toughness until the election, and nothing is really going to even begin changing until the Democrats control Congress, and we get on their cases big time.
How torture plays politically is a fairly disgusting subject, especially because it should be well outside the political, beyond the pale. First of all, and most absurd of all, the argument over whether the morality of saving innocents by getting information from bad guys versus cruelty to people who may be bad but also may very well be innocent, is all so useless, because torture doesn't work in acquiring useful information, nor even in intimidation, not in the long run. The Canadian citizen captured and tortured by the U.S. who was fully exonerated as completely innocent this week by a Canadian panel, had admitted under torture that he was trained as a terrorist in Afghanistan, despite documented proof that he had never been in Afghanistan.
A federal judge has ordered officials to disclose some information about some Gitmo detainees. The International Red Cross is finally getting to interview some prisoners. Canada is planning an official protest based on this new report. Everyone in the world knows this is wrong and deeply harmful and universally degrading in every conceivable way.
And the practical downside is enormous. It makes a mockery of law. The bar has been lowered so that innocence no longer matters, and even a member of the press can be essentially imprisoned in Iraq for months, and no one knows and no one cares. That we're even talking about this is sickening and more frightening than any terrorist attack.
Apropos of nothing but this mood, this blog has attracted some hatemongering trolls and I've temporarily restricted comments until they lose interest.
UPDATE: A UN report says torture in Iraq is out of control. American occupation has brought with it torture that may exceed Saddam's. This is a completely predictable outcome of US policy and practice under Bush. When a superpower and supposed moral leader unleashes the dogs of torture, everyone feels they have permission to unleash savagery and escalate it without penalty. This is a consequence of immoral leadership. Among other tragic ramifications, we now have no moral standing to condemn the torture of Americans by others. Especially when our government apparently feels free to torture Americans, Canadians, Europeans, anybody.
UPDATE 2: The Bush House and apparently rebellious Republican Senators made a deal on pending legislature involving torture and trials for alleged terrorists, but the substance of the agreement is not clear, and the details of the legislation has apparently not yet been worked out. In other words, mostly P.R, which seemed to be the subtext of Senator Warner's statement that they'll have a deal when he sees Bush's signature on it.
Meanwhile, David Broder, Washington Post columnist and Beltway Elder, is the latest to see this revolt as a declaration of independence on the part of these Republicans, and an indication that a centrist "independent party" is forming. Broder's rhetoric is unusually brutal:
Bush was elected twice, over Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry, whose know-it-all arrogance rankled Midwesterners such as myself. The country thought Bush was a pleasant, down-to-earth guy who would not rock the boat. Instead, swayed by some inner impulse or the influence of Dick Cheney, he has proved to be lawless and reckless. He started a war he cannot finish, drove the government into debt and repeatedly defied the Constitution.
The question of what constitutes "centrism" is a matter for another day, but as a reflection of this year's 'throw the bums out' mood from an unlikely source, this column has some resonance.
As for the supposed central issue--torture, remember?--the transcript is up of Wednesday's Olbermann interview with Jack Rice, former CIA and Minnesota prosecutor. They talk about torture eliciting whatever the torturers want to hear, but go beyond that patent lunacy to the further lunacy--although I suspect it's intentional --of what's been done with some of this so-called information:
OLBERMANN: The name Abu Zubaydah seems relevant here. Zubaydah broke under—I guess the technical term is aggressive interrogation, told the interrogators about plans to booby-trap banks and ATMs, and Homeland Security says, Watch out for banks. Then he said malls, Homeland Security said, Beware of the malls. Then he said apartments, we plan to lease apartments and fill them full of explosives, and Homeland Security said, Be alert in apartment buildings. Then he said the Brooklyn Bridge, and Homeland Security says, Be careful on the Brooklyn Bridge.
The only problem was, he was making all of it up. If we torture supposed terrorists, and they make stuff up, and the government tells people the things that they made up, are we not, in essence, doing the terrorists‘ work for them? Is there not an indirect cause and effect here? Starting point is, you torture suspects into lying, and at the end, you wind up spreading information that scares Americans.
RICE: Absolutely. And the worst part, in the end, is that when there are real threats out there, there‘s something called dread fatigue. We all heard about this. Oh, my gosh, it‘s level yellow. Oh, my gosh, it‘s level orange no. And in the end, the real threats that are out there, we ignore.
Here's how the interview ended:
OLBERMANN: So what works instead of torture, or aggressive interrogation, or whatever they‘re calling it today?
RICE: In many cases, we‘re looking at a lot of things. And we‘ve used these in the States in the past, because it provides reliable information. Sometimes it‘s about personal understanding. Sometimes it‘s allowing people to talk. Sometimes it‘s trying to understand. I would sit in front of somebody and say, I don‘t understand what motivates you. Explain to me so I understand. Teach me. Sometimes it‘s about vanity. You allow them that, if it‘s useful. But what you‘re looking for is truth in the end.
I‘m not a priest. I‘m not trying to be. But what I am trying to do is get something reliable, so our policy makers, so our police, so our military can do the right thing, not the wrong thing.
OLBERMANN: So fact-check me on this, on my simplified version of this whole picture. If it‘s wrong, tell me so. The president wants torture, or a nice euphemism for torture, and all he‘ll get out of it is made-up information, revenge later against American prisoners, perhaps, and destroying any moral high ground we might still have in the world.
RICE: Yes, one other thing besides that. He gets to wrap himself in the flag and say he hates the bad people.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
The Climate Crisis
A Plan to Stop It
In a major speech yesterday, Al Gore described a practical plan for proceeding on a realistic path to the goal of stopping the runaway greenhouse effect that imperils the future of the planet. After having successfully made the case for the reality and causes of the Climate Crisis in his movie and book, in this speech he outlined steps for action.
In its story on the speech, the Washington Post led with one creative proposal: for a "Connie Mae" federal mortgaging fund to finance carbon-neutral homebuilding--a Fannie Mae for the Climate Crisis.
Here is how columnist Donnie Fowler elsewhere summarized Gore's main action points:
First, immeditately freeze CO2 emissions and begin reductions. California has done it and so have 295 American cities.
Second, join the Kyoto Treaty. "The absence of the United States from the treaty means that 25% of the world economy is now missing. It is like filling a bucket with a large hole in the bottom ... Many American businesses that operate in other countries already have to abide by the Kyoto Treaty anyway, and unsurprisingly, they are the companies that have been most eager to adopt these new principles here at home."
Third, recognize that the answer is not found in a silver bullet but in "silver buckshot."
Two Princeton professors have identified 15 to 20 building blocks that can make a difference even if only 7 or 8 of them are used. A few of the most important building blocks are:
a. eliminate the energy it takes to make energy and to transport it
b. change our transportation infrastructure, switching to new flex fuel, plug-in, and hybrid cars
c. reduce deforestation
d. pursue renewable sources of energy -- biomass, wind, solar.
d.new building designs drawn from innovative engineering and architecture.
f. place a price on the CO2 pollution that is recognized in the marketplace -- eliminate all payroll taxes including those for social security and unemployment compensation and repleace that revenue in the form of pollution taxes, principally on CO2. The overall level of taxation would remain exactly the same.
Gore's proposals are valuable because they combine current scientific knowledge (climate scientists have found no significant errors in Gore's movie or book) and his own hard-won political wisdom. For example, from the speech itself:
... we should start by immediately freezing CO2 emissions and then beginning sharp reductions. Merely engaging in high-minded debates about theoretical future reductions while continuing to steadily increase emissions represents a self-delusional and reckless approach. In some ways, that approach is worse than doing nothing at all, because it lulls the gullible into thinking that something is actually being done when in fact it is not. An immediate freeze has the virtue of being clear, simple, and easy to understand. It can attract support across partisan lines as a logical starting point for the more difficult work that lies ahead.
Gore goes on to say that in the 80s, he thought the "nuclear freeze" movement was naive, while he was behind a complex plan to control nuclear weapons. But the idea of a nuclear freeze caught on, he realized, and paved the way for detailed steps to be taken to reduce nuclear weapons.
Similarly, Gore has revived a proposal he says he made 14 years ago, but now sees it could have much more political resonance: end all federal payroll taxes, and replace them with taxes on pollution, principally CO2. ... instead of discouraging businesses from hiring more employees, it would discourage business from producing more pollution.
Gore also proposes some sweeping yet exciting and very possible changes, such as improvement in our antiquated system of distributing electrical energy, that would further enhance our efficiency and security. Together with homegrown energy systems, smarter application of information technology and energy efficiency, Gore makes a strong case for lessening dependence on foreign oil.
By emphasizing innovation in confronting the Climate Crisis (and I would add, in addition to these efforts to Stop It, the Fix It component--dealing with the effects of the Climate Crisis already on the way-- also will require imagination, innovation and new production) there is vast potential to revive American industry (including exports), education and community. As Gore points out, the Chinese symbol for crisis combines the symbols for danger and opportunity. We seen opportunists turn danger into political advantage; wouldn't it be refreshing if we could confront a real danger with real transformation that would benefit everyone?
As the news of Gore's speech spreads, there is this incredible report from the Independent, that sounds a little like a reprint from the Onion:
President Bush is preparing an astonishing U-turn on global warming, senior Washington sources say. After years of trying to sabotage agreements to tackle climate change he is drawing up plans to control emissions of carbon dioxide and rapidly boost the use of renewable energy sources.
I'll reserve my skepticism on the plans he is "drawing up" for further indication this is actually going to happen, but it does suggest that a sea-change is ahead in our nation's approach to the Climate Crisis.
In a major speech yesterday, Al Gore described a practical plan for proceeding on a realistic path to the goal of stopping the runaway greenhouse effect that imperils the future of the planet. After having successfully made the case for the reality and causes of the Climate Crisis in his movie and book, in this speech he outlined steps for action.
In its story on the speech, the Washington Post led with one creative proposal: for a "Connie Mae" federal mortgaging fund to finance carbon-neutral homebuilding--a Fannie Mae for the Climate Crisis.
Here is how columnist Donnie Fowler elsewhere summarized Gore's main action points:
First, immeditately freeze CO2 emissions and begin reductions. California has done it and so have 295 American cities.
Second, join the Kyoto Treaty. "The absence of the United States from the treaty means that 25% of the world economy is now missing. It is like filling a bucket with a large hole in the bottom ... Many American businesses that operate in other countries already have to abide by the Kyoto Treaty anyway, and unsurprisingly, they are the companies that have been most eager to adopt these new principles here at home."
Third, recognize that the answer is not found in a silver bullet but in "silver buckshot."
Two Princeton professors have identified 15 to 20 building blocks that can make a difference even if only 7 or 8 of them are used. A few of the most important building blocks are:
a. eliminate the energy it takes to make energy and to transport it
b. change our transportation infrastructure, switching to new flex fuel, plug-in, and hybrid cars
c. reduce deforestation
d. pursue renewable sources of energy -- biomass, wind, solar.
d.new building designs drawn from innovative engineering and architecture.
f. place a price on the CO2 pollution that is recognized in the marketplace -- eliminate all payroll taxes including those for social security and unemployment compensation and repleace that revenue in the form of pollution taxes, principally on CO2. The overall level of taxation would remain exactly the same.
Gore's proposals are valuable because they combine current scientific knowledge (climate scientists have found no significant errors in Gore's movie or book) and his own hard-won political wisdom. For example, from the speech itself:
... we should start by immediately freezing CO2 emissions and then beginning sharp reductions. Merely engaging in high-minded debates about theoretical future reductions while continuing to steadily increase emissions represents a self-delusional and reckless approach. In some ways, that approach is worse than doing nothing at all, because it lulls the gullible into thinking that something is actually being done when in fact it is not. An immediate freeze has the virtue of being clear, simple, and easy to understand. It can attract support across partisan lines as a logical starting point for the more difficult work that lies ahead.
Gore goes on to say that in the 80s, he thought the "nuclear freeze" movement was naive, while he was behind a complex plan to control nuclear weapons. But the idea of a nuclear freeze caught on, he realized, and paved the way for detailed steps to be taken to reduce nuclear weapons.
Similarly, Gore has revived a proposal he says he made 14 years ago, but now sees it could have much more political resonance: end all federal payroll taxes, and replace them with taxes on pollution, principally CO2. ... instead of discouraging businesses from hiring more employees, it would discourage business from producing more pollution.
Gore also proposes some sweeping yet exciting and very possible changes, such as improvement in our antiquated system of distributing electrical energy, that would further enhance our efficiency and security. Together with homegrown energy systems, smarter application of information technology and energy efficiency, Gore makes a strong case for lessening dependence on foreign oil.
By emphasizing innovation in confronting the Climate Crisis (and I would add, in addition to these efforts to Stop It, the Fix It component--dealing with the effects of the Climate Crisis already on the way-- also will require imagination, innovation and new production) there is vast potential to revive American industry (including exports), education and community. As Gore points out, the Chinese symbol for crisis combines the symbols for danger and opportunity. We seen opportunists turn danger into political advantage; wouldn't it be refreshing if we could confront a real danger with real transformation that would benefit everyone?
As the news of Gore's speech spreads, there is this incredible report from the Independent, that sounds a little like a reprint from the Onion:
President Bush is preparing an astonishing U-turn on global warming, senior Washington sources say. After years of trying to sabotage agreements to tackle climate change he is drawing up plans to control emissions of carbon dioxide and rapidly boost the use of renewable energy sources.
I'll reserve my skepticism on the plans he is "drawing up" for further indication this is actually going to happen, but it does suggest that a sea-change is ahead in our nation's approach to the Climate Crisis.
Why You Can't Take Shampoo On the Airplane
I've seen brief references to the difficulty of creating the kind of explosion the Brit plotters were supposedly planning, that led instantly to our first Red Alert and the banning of shampoo and other liquids and gels from commercial airplanes. And certainly common sense suggests that if it was that easy, it would have been done long ago. But after all this time, I finally stumbled across a credible description of just how difficult it would be--in fact, impossible in any practical sense.
Here's how the plot was reputedly supposed to work: According to security sources, the terror suspects were planning to board up to ten civilian airliners and detonate highly volatile liquid explosives on the planes in a spectacular terrorist operation. The liquid explosives -- either TATP (Triacetone Triperoxide), DADP (diacetone diperoxide) or the less sensitive HMTD (hexamethylene triperoxide diamine) -- were reportedly to be made on board the planes by mixing sports drinks with a peroxide-based household gel and then be detonated using an MP3 player or mobile phone.
But a former British intelligence officer and military munitions expert with the spy novel name of Lt. Colonel Nigel Wylde is quoted as describing what the process would really entail: The liquids would need to be carefully distilled at freezing temperatures to extract the required chemicals, which are very difficult to obtain in the purities needed."
Once the fluids have been extracted, the process of mixing them produces significant amounts of heat and vile fumes. "The resulting liquid then needs some hours at room temperature for the white crystals that are the explosive to develop." The whole process, which can take between 12 and 36 hours, is "very dangerous, even in a lab, and can lead to premature detonation," said Lt. Col. Wylde. ...All this means the planned attack would be detected long before the queues outside the loo had grown to enormous lengths." And of course most domestic flights in the US would be long over.
Even if the explosive was somehow pre-mixed, Wylde said, it still requires a detonator, probably made from TATP, would be needed to set it off. "It is very dangerous and risky to the individual," Wylde said. "As the quantity involved would be small this would injure the would-be suicide bomber but not endanger the aircraft, thus defeating the object of bringing down an aircraft."
In other words, if this story is correct, the whole thing is exactly the farce it appears to be: even more ridiculous than the shoe bomb. Nevertheless, there we all are, shoeless and beltless, watching our toiletries be tossed, boarding airplanes without so much as a drink of water, and not much hope of being offered one. The whole point seems to be to treat us like sheep so we'll act like sheep. Especially on election day.
And it's clearly working. First of all on journalists who didn't bother to question all this in the first place.
I've seen brief references to the difficulty of creating the kind of explosion the Brit plotters were supposedly planning, that led instantly to our first Red Alert and the banning of shampoo and other liquids and gels from commercial airplanes. And certainly common sense suggests that if it was that easy, it would have been done long ago. But after all this time, I finally stumbled across a credible description of just how difficult it would be--in fact, impossible in any practical sense.
Here's how the plot was reputedly supposed to work: According to security sources, the terror suspects were planning to board up to ten civilian airliners and detonate highly volatile liquid explosives on the planes in a spectacular terrorist operation. The liquid explosives -- either TATP (Triacetone Triperoxide), DADP (diacetone diperoxide) or the less sensitive HMTD (hexamethylene triperoxide diamine) -- were reportedly to be made on board the planes by mixing sports drinks with a peroxide-based household gel and then be detonated using an MP3 player or mobile phone.
But a former British intelligence officer and military munitions expert with the spy novel name of Lt. Colonel Nigel Wylde is quoted as describing what the process would really entail: The liquids would need to be carefully distilled at freezing temperatures to extract the required chemicals, which are very difficult to obtain in the purities needed."
Once the fluids have been extracted, the process of mixing them produces significant amounts of heat and vile fumes. "The resulting liquid then needs some hours at room temperature for the white crystals that are the explosive to develop." The whole process, which can take between 12 and 36 hours, is "very dangerous, even in a lab, and can lead to premature detonation," said Lt. Col. Wylde. ...All this means the planned attack would be detected long before the queues outside the loo had grown to enormous lengths." And of course most domestic flights in the US would be long over.
Even if the explosive was somehow pre-mixed, Wylde said, it still requires a detonator, probably made from TATP, would be needed to set it off. "It is very dangerous and risky to the individual," Wylde said. "As the quantity involved would be small this would injure the would-be suicide bomber but not endanger the aircraft, thus defeating the object of bringing down an aircraft."
In other words, if this story is correct, the whole thing is exactly the farce it appears to be: even more ridiculous than the shoe bomb. Nevertheless, there we all are, shoeless and beltless, watching our toiletries be tossed, boarding airplanes without so much as a drink of water, and not much hope of being offered one. The whole point seems to be to treat us like sheep so we'll act like sheep. Especially on election day.
And it's clearly working. First of all on journalists who didn't bother to question all this in the first place.
Monday, September 18, 2006
The Dreaming Up Daily Quote
"So, the world happens twice--
once what we see it as;
second it legends itself
deep, the way it is."
William Stafford
once what we see it as;
second it legends itself
deep, the way it is."
William Stafford
Democracy in Question
Usually I have editors to blame for my published pieces that have problems, but this time the subpar performance is almost all mine. (They cut one sentence and screwed with the paragraphs which upset the all-important rhythm, but that's it this time.) Still, you might get something out of this review of two new books, Whose Freedom? by George Lakoff and Does American Democracy Still Work? by Alan Wolfe. I recommend the Wolfe book.
If you are left aghast and amazed by politics and government today, these two books are for you. There are plenty of screeds and exposes on the details, but Boston College political scientist Alan Wolfe and UC Berkeley professor of linguistics George Lakoff concentrate on the bigger picture of what is happening and why.
This is not your grandfather’s democracy, they say; it’s not even your father’s. Most Americans over 30 -- especially liberals and moderates -- who formed their impressions of political institutions and the political dialogue before, say, 1984, are in for a rude awakening.
Continued at the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review.
Update: An article in the Washington Post today seems to support one of the central assertions of these books--it cites a study which purports to show that political ads need to engage emotions to be effective. Well, duh. I don't see that the extrapolation--emotions matter, ideas don't--necessarily follows. It's such bipolar thinking, don't you think?
Anyway, there was this interesting side-finding: It is comparatively difficult to persuade anyone to change their mind on an issue. What works much better, because it influences people at an emotional and subtle level, is to get people to focus on a different issue -- the one where the candidate is the strongest. Of course, I thought immediately of Al Gore in 2008. And it is interesting that the Wapo writer linked "emotional and subtle." Since when are emotions more subtle than ideas? Only when you conceive of ideas as yes/no, up/down bipolar positions. Or when you're so spooked by the unconscious or the preconscious that you think of anything that operates on that level as voodoo.
Usually I have editors to blame for my published pieces that have problems, but this time the subpar performance is almost all mine. (They cut one sentence and screwed with the paragraphs which upset the all-important rhythm, but that's it this time.) Still, you might get something out of this review of two new books, Whose Freedom? by George Lakoff and Does American Democracy Still Work? by Alan Wolfe. I recommend the Wolfe book.
If you are left aghast and amazed by politics and government today, these two books are for you. There are plenty of screeds and exposes on the details, but Boston College political scientist Alan Wolfe and UC Berkeley professor of linguistics George Lakoff concentrate on the bigger picture of what is happening and why.
This is not your grandfather’s democracy, they say; it’s not even your father’s. Most Americans over 30 -- especially liberals and moderates -- who formed their impressions of political institutions and the political dialogue before, say, 1984, are in for a rude awakening.
Continued at the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review.
Update: An article in the Washington Post today seems to support one of the central assertions of these books--it cites a study which purports to show that political ads need to engage emotions to be effective. Well, duh. I don't see that the extrapolation--emotions matter, ideas don't--necessarily follows. It's such bipolar thinking, don't you think?
Anyway, there was this interesting side-finding: It is comparatively difficult to persuade anyone to change their mind on an issue. What works much better, because it influences people at an emotional and subtle level, is to get people to focus on a different issue -- the one where the candidate is the strongest. Of course, I thought immediately of Al Gore in 2008. And it is interesting that the Wapo writer linked "emotional and subtle." Since when are emotions more subtle than ideas? Only when you conceive of ideas as yes/no, up/down bipolar positions. Or when you're so spooked by the unconscious or the preconscious that you think of anything that operates on that level as voodoo.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
The Apocalypse Watch
Another 47 bodies found in Baghdad in 24 hours, apparent victims of torture and sectarian execution.
Peacekeepers are about to leave Darfur, which is expected to accelerate the ongoing genocide that may very well kill millions of people before it's over.
The Taliban is gaining strength again in Afghanistan.
The melting of the sea ice in the Arctic, the clearest sign so far of global warming, has taken a sudden and enormous leap forward, in one of the most ominous developments yet in the onset of climate change, says the Independent. Said the New York Times: Scientists have long suspected that the recent melting of Arctic Ocean ice in the summer might be a result of heat-trapping gases building up in the atmosphere. But yesterday NASA scientists reported that higher temperatures and a retreat of the sea ice over the last two winters offered new evidence that the gases were influencing the region’s climate.
A Defining Moment for America says the Washington Post: The president goes to Capitol Hill to lobby for torture.
The Bushites are updating their plans to bomb Iran.
Another 47 bodies found in Baghdad in 24 hours, apparent victims of torture and sectarian execution.
Peacekeepers are about to leave Darfur, which is expected to accelerate the ongoing genocide that may very well kill millions of people before it's over.
The Taliban is gaining strength again in Afghanistan.
The melting of the sea ice in the Arctic, the clearest sign so far of global warming, has taken a sudden and enormous leap forward, in one of the most ominous developments yet in the onset of climate change, says the Independent. Said the New York Times: Scientists have long suspected that the recent melting of Arctic Ocean ice in the summer might be a result of heat-trapping gases building up in the atmosphere. But yesterday NASA scientists reported that higher temperatures and a retreat of the sea ice over the last two winters offered new evidence that the gases were influencing the region’s climate.
A Defining Moment for America says the Washington Post: The president goes to Capitol Hill to lobby for torture.
The Bushites are updating their plans to bomb Iran.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Campaign Memo
Why the Polls Mean Nothing
The polls continue to show Bush slumping, the Republicans fading and Democrats favored by double digits nationally. (UPDATE: Except for the new Zogby which shows Republican gains.) One pundit after another declares that the Democrats are poised to take back the House and maybe even the Senate, and bloggers as well as the columnists are debating who will be the new congressional leaders, as Democrats jockey for positions and committee chairmanships.
It all could happen, but it all could also be a recipe for disaster, not to mention humiliation that would make the past two presidential elections look like Christmas. So what could go wrong?
It's not about how the country feels about this or that; we know how the country feels about just about everything, and even the polls are showing little is being changed by events or Bush speeches. It's not even Democratic fumbling of an effective message. The problem for Democrats is much more basic: in order to win elections, they have to get more voters to go to the polls and vote for them. And that's exactly what they are not so good at.
The Republicans are way ahead in identifying and motivating their voters. With the lax attention of the Democrats to new techniques and technologies, and with their continuing blindness to successful Republicans tactics in suppressing minority votes and probably stealing votes through fraudulent means, they are grinning their way to defeat.
If anything should be a wakeup call, it's this week's primary elections. Rhode Island is the prime example of continued Republican success at getting their voters to the poll. As the Washington Post put it:
In the past two national elections, in 2002 and 2004, Republicans outperformed Democrats in bringing their backers to the polls, but many Democrats and independent analysts have suggested that the competition may be different this year, in part because of slumping morale among GOP activists. But Chafee's performance -- combined with reports of late-starting organization and internal bickering on the Democratic side -- suggest that the Republican advantage on turnout may remain intact even as many other trends are favoring the opposition.
The Hotline provides the gory details, once the national Republican party stepped in to engineer Chafee's victory, because they realized that his conservative opponent had no chance to win in the general election:
Rhode Island will become a case study in the effectiveness of the Republicans’ 72 Hour Program. Behind the curtain, Chafee’s campaign spent $500,000 to squeeze out every conceivable voter from neighborhoods across the state. They searched for independents who voted Democrat in municipal elections but who had once upon a time voted for a Republican for president or governor or senator. There were a few of those. They looked for non-affiliated voters in Republican neighborhoods. Using microtargeting techniques, they even tried to figure out which committed Democrats might be tempted to vote for Chafee.
By the end of the summer, Chafee’s campaign had identified 42,000 potential supporters. Then the second part of the program kicked in. Message, here, is a verb. The campaign “messaged” these voters, often individually. Chafee himself called more than 100 of them who were identified as being capable of swinging the votes of colleagues and friends. The standard complement of robocalls, mailings and personal visits were employed. In the twelve days of September, Chafee, the RNC and NRSC made more than 198,000 phone calls to the voters on their list. Many voters received one every two days.
On election day, the Chafee campaign stationed poll watchers at 100 key precincts across the state. By 10:00 am, the RNC and the NRSC were confident that Chafee would win.
It didn’t faze them when Laffey’s campaign bragged about meeting their targets. Chafee had simply found more voters.
Contrast all the money and expertise that the Republicans can command to win elections with the paltry resources and attention that anyone pays to the actual election process, even in a blue state like Maryland, where poll workers were in short supply, and Diebold was saving money on training people to deal with their machine glitches. And speaking of Diebold, how many studies is it going to take showing that these electronic voting machines are fatally flawed and massive cheating is easy, before people get alarmed enough to do something. There was another one today. If it takes as long as accepting climate crisis science, we're in even more trouble.
Then there is the low turnout, even in states with hotly contested races. When less than 20% of the electorate turns up, can you still call it an election? More to the point here, it's a sign that people may simply be more fed up with all of it than motivated to change anything at the ballot box.
UPDATE: Dionne's column in the Post says that this Republican operation includes crafting negative ads on specific Democrats in local races, emphasizing personal and local attacks. The Roving hand smears, and moves on. With so much discontent out there now, this is more likely to motivate people to stay home in disgust and not vote, a pox on all their Houses and Senates. This of course helps the party better able to deliver its own voters.
Here's the thing. People are fed up with the people currently running government, and on the federal level that means Republicans. Bush can make all the speeches on national security he wants, and his oil conglom pals can drop the price of gasoline another buck, it's not going to change many minds.
So there should be a Democratic landslide in November. But instead there could be a perfect storm: people more disgusted than mad who don't go to vote, plus suppression of Democratic voters and votes through various nefarious means at the polling places, plus Republicans better able to identify, motivate and deliver their votes. The result: Republicans stay in power, and people are even more disgusted and disillusioned. After that, I don't want to even think about it.
Democrats had better forgo congratulating themselves for the election they haven't won, or they'll blow the best chance they're going to have for a long time, and maybe the last best chance to save this teetering Republic. Besides clarifying a strong message, they need to pay serious attention to identifying, motivating and delivering Democratic votes, and pay close attention to ensuring Democratic votes are registered correctly at the polls--- and counted.
The polls continue to show Bush slumping, the Republicans fading and Democrats favored by double digits nationally. (UPDATE: Except for the new Zogby which shows Republican gains.) One pundit after another declares that the Democrats are poised to take back the House and maybe even the Senate, and bloggers as well as the columnists are debating who will be the new congressional leaders, as Democrats jockey for positions and committee chairmanships.
It all could happen, but it all could also be a recipe for disaster, not to mention humiliation that would make the past two presidential elections look like Christmas. So what could go wrong?
It's not about how the country feels about this or that; we know how the country feels about just about everything, and even the polls are showing little is being changed by events or Bush speeches. It's not even Democratic fumbling of an effective message. The problem for Democrats is much more basic: in order to win elections, they have to get more voters to go to the polls and vote for them. And that's exactly what they are not so good at.
The Republicans are way ahead in identifying and motivating their voters. With the lax attention of the Democrats to new techniques and technologies, and with their continuing blindness to successful Republicans tactics in suppressing minority votes and probably stealing votes through fraudulent means, they are grinning their way to defeat.
If anything should be a wakeup call, it's this week's primary elections. Rhode Island is the prime example of continued Republican success at getting their voters to the poll. As the Washington Post put it:
In the past two national elections, in 2002 and 2004, Republicans outperformed Democrats in bringing their backers to the polls, but many Democrats and independent analysts have suggested that the competition may be different this year, in part because of slumping morale among GOP activists. But Chafee's performance -- combined with reports of late-starting organization and internal bickering on the Democratic side -- suggest that the Republican advantage on turnout may remain intact even as many other trends are favoring the opposition.
The Hotline provides the gory details, once the national Republican party stepped in to engineer Chafee's victory, because they realized that his conservative opponent had no chance to win in the general election:
Rhode Island will become a case study in the effectiveness of the Republicans’ 72 Hour Program. Behind the curtain, Chafee’s campaign spent $500,000 to squeeze out every conceivable voter from neighborhoods across the state. They searched for independents who voted Democrat in municipal elections but who had once upon a time voted for a Republican for president or governor or senator. There were a few of those. They looked for non-affiliated voters in Republican neighborhoods. Using microtargeting techniques, they even tried to figure out which committed Democrats might be tempted to vote for Chafee.
By the end of the summer, Chafee’s campaign had identified 42,000 potential supporters. Then the second part of the program kicked in. Message, here, is a verb. The campaign “messaged” these voters, often individually. Chafee himself called more than 100 of them who were identified as being capable of swinging the votes of colleagues and friends. The standard complement of robocalls, mailings and personal visits were employed. In the twelve days of September, Chafee, the RNC and NRSC made more than 198,000 phone calls to the voters on their list. Many voters received one every two days.
On election day, the Chafee campaign stationed poll watchers at 100 key precincts across the state. By 10:00 am, the RNC and the NRSC were confident that Chafee would win.
It didn’t faze them when Laffey’s campaign bragged about meeting their targets. Chafee had simply found more voters.
Contrast all the money and expertise that the Republicans can command to win elections with the paltry resources and attention that anyone pays to the actual election process, even in a blue state like Maryland, where poll workers were in short supply, and Diebold was saving money on training people to deal with their machine glitches. And speaking of Diebold, how many studies is it going to take showing that these electronic voting machines are fatally flawed and massive cheating is easy, before people get alarmed enough to do something. There was another one today. If it takes as long as accepting climate crisis science, we're in even more trouble.
Then there is the low turnout, even in states with hotly contested races. When less than 20% of the electorate turns up, can you still call it an election? More to the point here, it's a sign that people may simply be more fed up with all of it than motivated to change anything at the ballot box.
UPDATE: Dionne's column in the Post says that this Republican operation includes crafting negative ads on specific Democrats in local races, emphasizing personal and local attacks. The Roving hand smears, and moves on. With so much discontent out there now, this is more likely to motivate people to stay home in disgust and not vote, a pox on all their Houses and Senates. This of course helps the party better able to deliver its own voters.
Here's the thing. People are fed up with the people currently running government, and on the federal level that means Republicans. Bush can make all the speeches on national security he wants, and his oil conglom pals can drop the price of gasoline another buck, it's not going to change many minds.
So there should be a Democratic landslide in November. But instead there could be a perfect storm: people more disgusted than mad who don't go to vote, plus suppression of Democratic voters and votes through various nefarious means at the polling places, plus Republicans better able to identify, motivate and deliver their votes. The result: Republicans stay in power, and people are even more disgusted and disillusioned. After that, I don't want to even think about it.
Democrats had better forgo congratulating themselves for the election they haven't won, or they'll blow the best chance they're going to have for a long time, and maybe the last best chance to save this teetering Republic. Besides clarifying a strong message, they need to pay serious attention to identifying, motivating and delivering Democratic votes, and pay close attention to ensuring Democratic votes are registered correctly at the polls--- and counted.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
The Dreaming Up Daily Quote
"I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go."
Theodore Roethke
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go."
Theodore Roethke
Murrow of the Moment
In the firestorm of idiocy that was the Clinton impeachment circus, the only reliably sane coverage I could find on television was by a new guy on cable named Keith Olbermann. Then as soon as that national nightmare was over, he disappeared, back to sports reporting, from whence he apparently came.
But a few years ago he came back to news, just in time to become the only reliably sane and therefore courageous voice in the current international nightmare that threatens to become the Big Sleep of western civilization. Until recently his show featured a few barbed witticisms, some minutes of incisive interviewing and some odd but often apropros cultural references for maybe half of his alloted time (minus commercials), and then the tabloidish silliness that presumably pays the bills. For at least part of that time--I think starting pretty recently-- he's used the Edward R. Murrow sign-off that became the title of the George Clooney movie about Murrow's on-air showdown with Joe McCarthy, "Goodnight and Good Luck."
But within the past several weeks Keith Olbermann added something more--a series of commentaries, three of which are already classics--that have taken on the entire Bush administration with a directness and eloquence that has made him the Murrow of the moment.
Thanks to the Internet, you can see for yourself here. He has twice defended the critics of Bush policies on Iraq against the attacks by Bush officials seeking to demonize those critics by comparing them repeatedly to Nazi appeasers. (Although I don't believe he has yet noted the irony that some of the targets of McCarthyism and the Blacklists of the 50s were people classified as subversives for having been "prematurely anti-Fascist" in the 1930s.)
The second of these commentaries was in response to Bush's supposedly non-political TV addresss on 9/11, which was also effectively skewered by that other reliable voice of sanity, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show, our cable channel court jester. As far as I'm concerned, the most hopeful signs for a national moment of sanity are not opinon polls but the higher ratings for Stewart and Olbermann, while O'Reilly and Faux News sink.
Olbermann's commentary on the failure to erect so much as a memorial on the site of the Twin Towers also began as a defense against the implications of Bush and his Roving Bushites, in very strong terms: And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.
He recounted the enormous support Bush got after 9/11, and what he did with it. "History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage. Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people. The President -- and those around him -- did that."
How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?"
And with another statement, in a way Olbermann comes full circle:
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication." The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."
Having been one of the few to forthrightly show his astonishment and chagrin at the spectacle of the Republicans inflating and distorting a petty financial adventure never proven to be illegal, before they obsessively promoted a minor sex scandal into the second impeachment of a President in American history, he has returned to be probably the only TV commentator to utter the suddenly forbidden word "impeachment" about a President who has prima facie committed more outrageously impeachable offenses than Richard Nixon.
I would not be surprised that if this Republic happens to survive this moment he is the Murrow of, Keith Olbermann disappears again, perhaps to turn his attention back to something that may not make any more sense but is at least less harmful, like the stirring sport of studio poker.
(And as a little journalistic aside, having just seen Goodbye and Good Luck again, I noted that in the first few minutes, someone--presumably a journalist-- introducing Murrow at a journalism banquet, misuses the word "historical," when he meant "historic." It is a distinction spelled out in the AP Handbook, which a good journalist should know. I'm still curious whether that 1950s journalist made the mistake, or the 21st century screenwriter.)
In the firestorm of idiocy that was the Clinton impeachment circus, the only reliably sane coverage I could find on television was by a new guy on cable named Keith Olbermann. Then as soon as that national nightmare was over, he disappeared, back to sports reporting, from whence he apparently came.
But a few years ago he came back to news, just in time to become the only reliably sane and therefore courageous voice in the current international nightmare that threatens to become the Big Sleep of western civilization. Until recently his show featured a few barbed witticisms, some minutes of incisive interviewing and some odd but often apropros cultural references for maybe half of his alloted time (minus commercials), and then the tabloidish silliness that presumably pays the bills. For at least part of that time--I think starting pretty recently-- he's used the Edward R. Murrow sign-off that became the title of the George Clooney movie about Murrow's on-air showdown with Joe McCarthy, "Goodnight and Good Luck."
But within the past several weeks Keith Olbermann added something more--a series of commentaries, three of which are already classics--that have taken on the entire Bush administration with a directness and eloquence that has made him the Murrow of the moment.
Thanks to the Internet, you can see for yourself here. He has twice defended the critics of Bush policies on Iraq against the attacks by Bush officials seeking to demonize those critics by comparing them repeatedly to Nazi appeasers. (Although I don't believe he has yet noted the irony that some of the targets of McCarthyism and the Blacklists of the 50s were people classified as subversives for having been "prematurely anti-Fascist" in the 1930s.)
The second of these commentaries was in response to Bush's supposedly non-political TV addresss on 9/11, which was also effectively skewered by that other reliable voice of sanity, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show, our cable channel court jester. As far as I'm concerned, the most hopeful signs for a national moment of sanity are not opinon polls but the higher ratings for Stewart and Olbermann, while O'Reilly and Faux News sink.
Olbermann's commentary on the failure to erect so much as a memorial on the site of the Twin Towers also began as a defense against the implications of Bush and his Roving Bushites, in very strong terms: And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.
He recounted the enormous support Bush got after 9/11, and what he did with it. "History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage. Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people. The President -- and those around him -- did that."
How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?"
And with another statement, in a way Olbermann comes full circle:
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication." The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."
Having been one of the few to forthrightly show his astonishment and chagrin at the spectacle of the Republicans inflating and distorting a petty financial adventure never proven to be illegal, before they obsessively promoted a minor sex scandal into the second impeachment of a President in American history, he has returned to be probably the only TV commentator to utter the suddenly forbidden word "impeachment" about a President who has prima facie committed more outrageously impeachable offenses than Richard Nixon.
I would not be surprised that if this Republic happens to survive this moment he is the Murrow of, Keith Olbermann disappears again, perhaps to turn his attention back to something that may not make any more sense but is at least less harmful, like the stirring sport of studio poker.
(And as a little journalistic aside, having just seen Goodbye and Good Luck again, I noted that in the first few minutes, someone--presumably a journalist-- introducing Murrow at a journalism banquet, misuses the word "historical," when he meant "historic." It is a distinction spelled out in the AP Handbook, which a good journalist should know. I'm still curious whether that 1950s journalist made the mistake, or the 21st century screenwriter.)
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
9/12/2006
As I was packing to leave Seattle yesterday, two members of the 9-11 Commission were on C-Span marveling at how few of their "no brainer" recommendations have been instituted. The glaring examples: first responders still can't talk to each other on their radios. Fire can't communicate and coordinate with police, etc. U.S. port cargo inspections are still nearly nonexistent. The transponders that track airplanes can still be turned off simply, in the cockpit.
Why? They didn't say, so I will. Failed leadership and greed. To provide first responders with a common radio frequency might cut into the public airwaves wholly devoted to corporate self-interest. Big media companies rule, and the Bushite Republicans do whatever they want. It's the same thing generally with port security and the airlines: they don't want to spend money, or add time and effort to their costs. So the Bushites smile and say, okay! When is the next campaign contribution coming?
The symbiotic relationship of the Bushites and big media for mutual enrichment is one of our biggest dangers. We see more obvious signs of it, arguably not as important as what we don't see so blatantly in a single act, but they're good reminders of what's going on. Like ABC's supposed movie of the week event on 9/11 that is totally a product of partisan conservatives--liars certainly (as Lee Hamilton of the 9-11 Commission attests, not to mention American Airlines; or as the New York Times said,when attempting to recreate real events on screen, you do not show real people doing things they never did), though apparently inept ones. Like the Washington Post hiring a Bush speechwriter for a columnist. While that's not totally unprecedented for broadcast media, it's a further devolution for major print.
Meanwhile in their online-only ghetto, the Post keeps one of their best, Dan Froomkin, who had this to say about the latest Bush campaign to inflame 9-11 fears and link them to Iraq, culminating in his speech last night (hat tip to kos):
"What's also telling, as usual, is what Bush didn't say yesterday, and doesn't say, period. He doesn't say we won't allow ourselves to be terrorized, and we won't be afraid. (That would run counter to the central Republican game plan for the mid-term election.) He doesn't say that in our zeal to fight the terrorists, we won't give up the qualities that make America great. He acknowledges no mistakes, he calls for no sacrifice, he refuses to reach out to those who disagree with him.
Indeed, there's a compelling argument to be made that by learning the wrong lessons, Bush compounded the disaster of Sept. 11 -- creating more terrorists than he has killed, for instance, and endangering America's moral standing across the globe."
But is it working this time? This story suggests it isn't--even with former Bushite partisans. Though what few moments of media saturation I could stomach dwelt on fear and emotion, some people I saw interviewed talked more about the positive lessons they recall and have since built on, like the need for people to help one another, and the possibilities for participation, communication and shared creativity.
My experience flying on the 9-11 fifth anniversary suggested the same. There were several police cars around a vehicle at the highway entrance to the Seattle airport, though that could have been a traffic thing. Otherwise there was little conspicuous police presence in the airport. The absurd "precautions" against exploding shampoo (which has happened how many times?) and shoes (how many times has this been tried, vs. how many people have to take their shoes off to get on a plane?) were handled with dispatch and good humor on the part of passengers and, finally, efficient but non-uptight personnel.
I personally believe a lot of these security "precautions," besides shifting the burden onto passengers instead of airlines and government, function mostly as humiliations to keep passengers cowering, and feeling insignificant and docile in contrast to the militant government--classic totalitarian tactics.
But yesterday at Seattle both passengers and personnel acted with good grace, and I detected no special fear because of the date. It could just be this one experience, or because it was on the other side of the country, but it may also indicate that the nation is coming out of its fight/flight or freeze response, and exercising conscious judgment. We'll see in November.
As I was packing to leave Seattle yesterday, two members of the 9-11 Commission were on C-Span marveling at how few of their "no brainer" recommendations have been instituted. The glaring examples: first responders still can't talk to each other on their radios. Fire can't communicate and coordinate with police, etc. U.S. port cargo inspections are still nearly nonexistent. The transponders that track airplanes can still be turned off simply, in the cockpit.
Why? They didn't say, so I will. Failed leadership and greed. To provide first responders with a common radio frequency might cut into the public airwaves wholly devoted to corporate self-interest. Big media companies rule, and the Bushite Republicans do whatever they want. It's the same thing generally with port security and the airlines: they don't want to spend money, or add time and effort to their costs. So the Bushites smile and say, okay! When is the next campaign contribution coming?
The symbiotic relationship of the Bushites and big media for mutual enrichment is one of our biggest dangers. We see more obvious signs of it, arguably not as important as what we don't see so blatantly in a single act, but they're good reminders of what's going on. Like ABC's supposed movie of the week event on 9/11 that is totally a product of partisan conservatives--liars certainly (as Lee Hamilton of the 9-11 Commission attests, not to mention American Airlines; or as the New York Times said,when attempting to recreate real events on screen, you do not show real people doing things they never did), though apparently inept ones. Like the Washington Post hiring a Bush speechwriter for a columnist. While that's not totally unprecedented for broadcast media, it's a further devolution for major print.
Meanwhile in their online-only ghetto, the Post keeps one of their best, Dan Froomkin, who had this to say about the latest Bush campaign to inflame 9-11 fears and link them to Iraq, culminating in his speech last night (hat tip to kos):
"What's also telling, as usual, is what Bush didn't say yesterday, and doesn't say, period. He doesn't say we won't allow ourselves to be terrorized, and we won't be afraid. (That would run counter to the central Republican game plan for the mid-term election.) He doesn't say that in our zeal to fight the terrorists, we won't give up the qualities that make America great. He acknowledges no mistakes, he calls for no sacrifice, he refuses to reach out to those who disagree with him.
Indeed, there's a compelling argument to be made that by learning the wrong lessons, Bush compounded the disaster of Sept. 11 -- creating more terrorists than he has killed, for instance, and endangering America's moral standing across the globe."
But is it working this time? This story suggests it isn't--even with former Bushite partisans. Though what few moments of media saturation I could stomach dwelt on fear and emotion, some people I saw interviewed talked more about the positive lessons they recall and have since built on, like the need for people to help one another, and the possibilities for participation, communication and shared creativity.
My experience flying on the 9-11 fifth anniversary suggested the same. There were several police cars around a vehicle at the highway entrance to the Seattle airport, though that could have been a traffic thing. Otherwise there was little conspicuous police presence in the airport. The absurd "precautions" against exploding shampoo (which has happened how many times?) and shoes (how many times has this been tried, vs. how many people have to take their shoes off to get on a plane?) were handled with dispatch and good humor on the part of passengers and, finally, efficient but non-uptight personnel.
I personally believe a lot of these security "precautions," besides shifting the burden onto passengers instead of airlines and government, function mostly as humiliations to keep passengers cowering, and feeling insignificant and docile in contrast to the militant government--classic totalitarian tactics.
But yesterday at Seattle both passengers and personnel acted with good grace, and I detected no special fear because of the date. It could just be this one experience, or because it was on the other side of the country, but it may also indicate that the nation is coming out of its fight/flight or freeze response, and exercising conscious judgment. We'll see in November.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
The Dreaming Up Daily Quote
"Sophisticated readers are accepting the fact that an improbable and unmanageable world is going to produce an improbable and hypothetical art...The fantasist, whether he uses the ancient archetypes of myth and legend or the younger ones of science and technology, may be talking as seriously as any sociologist--and a good deal more directly--about human life as it is lived, and as it might be lived, and as it ought to be lived. For after all, as great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope."
Ursula Le Guin
National Book Award acceptance speech
Ursula Le Guin
National Book Award acceptance speech
A Passion for the Future
I'm off to Seattle to chair a panel at the Star Trek 40th Anniversary celebration at the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle. I'm taking the trusty laptop but I don't know how much blogging I'll be doing, if any. Internet access where I'm staying sounds iffy. So here's the beginning of my anniversary piece. Peace.
It’s 40 years later, and it’s pretty much the same. When Star Trek’s first episode aired on September 8, 1966 (after Daniel Boone and before The Dean Martin Show on NBC), the country was in turmoil over a long and unpopular war characterized by deception, there were racial tensions in American cities, environmental doom and nuclear destruction were common fears, and television tried to ignore it all. With the patina of prosperity on the fast-paced present, most people either dismissed the future, or viewed it with fatalism.
With hundreds of hours of stories over the past 40 years, Star Trek became the planet’s best-known saga of the future. Its earnestness inspired both devotion and ridicule, but perhaps that was a risk worth taking. While most responses to its anniversary consist of sentimental fauning over phasers and Klingons, warp speed and holodecks, its lasting achievement lies in a vision of the future with guiding ideals and cautions for our real world future, that are as valid and needed now as they ever were. A few of these precepts might be summarized as follows:
more at Soul of Star Trek
I'm off to Seattle to chair a panel at the Star Trek 40th Anniversary celebration at the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle. I'm taking the trusty laptop but I don't know how much blogging I'll be doing, if any. Internet access where I'm staying sounds iffy. So here's the beginning of my anniversary piece. Peace.
It’s 40 years later, and it’s pretty much the same. When Star Trek’s first episode aired on September 8, 1966 (after Daniel Boone and before The Dean Martin Show on NBC), the country was in turmoil over a long and unpopular war characterized by deception, there were racial tensions in American cities, environmental doom and nuclear destruction were common fears, and television tried to ignore it all. With the patina of prosperity on the fast-paced present, most people either dismissed the future, or viewed it with fatalism.
With hundreds of hours of stories over the past 40 years, Star Trek became the planet’s best-known saga of the future. Its earnestness inspired both devotion and ridicule, but perhaps that was a risk worth taking. While most responses to its anniversary consist of sentimental fauning over phasers and Klingons, warp speed and holodecks, its lasting achievement lies in a vision of the future with guiding ideals and cautions for our real world future, that are as valid and needed now as they ever were. A few of these precepts might be summarized as follows:
more at Soul of Star Trek
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Time for Phil to Be the Hero
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced he will veto the universal health care bill recently passed by both houses of the CA legislature. His announcement reads "like a health insurer's advertising dream, full of catch phrases that twist the truth in order to frighten consumers, said the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR)."
" FTCR also noted that the health industry boosted Schwarzenegger to nearly $100 million in campaign donations with a $125,000 burst of contributions in August alone. The industry has given him $4 million overall."
The universal health care plan is solid, and everyone in California--individuals, families, small businesses, large corporations, hospitals, doctors, nurses--everybody but bloated private insurance companies--need this. Arnold has given Phil Angelides the issue he can champion. Phil needs to heed this call, and be a hero.
I don't use the term lightly. A leader, not an actor” may be a clever tagline for his TV spots, but like it or not, Phil Angelides is a major player in a political drama. An experienced Hollywood hand like his opponent, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, knows this instinctively: political campaigns are pure melodrama, and the successful candidate makes himself the hero.
Melodrama is emotional, it’s big and it’s black-and-white. There are no self-contradictory gods as in Greek myth, or heroes with fatal flaws as in classical drama. It’s the virtuous hero overcoming impossible odds to defeat the despicable villain. Melodrama means drama with melody: a musical soundtrack. It’s opera in all its forms—high, light, horse, space and soap. It is also the basic form of TV commercials, especially for politicians.
“The new politics of democracy,” writes political scientist Alan Wolfe, “resembles a daytime television melodrama more than an academic seminar: attention is captured when conscience is tempted, courage displayed, determination rewarded, wills broken, egos checked, pride humbled, and virtue rewarded.”
In terms of imagery and experience, Hollywood’s Schwarzenegger has the obvious advantage of having starred in melodramas, as both hero and villain. In fact the two distinct halves of his term as Governator replicate his most famous role as the Terminator. In the first movie he’s the Terminator for the powerful machines. In the second he’s switched sides to champion the human rebels. As governor, he represented the Bush Republican right, until his ballot initiatives were defeated. Then he became the champion of more moderate and even liberal measures. Can he be a political hero replicating what he did as a movie hero?
As for Angelides, even though he is unlikely to be cast in a Hollywood melodrama, all is not lost. Some heroes in melodramas of the past fought against injustice, for the little guy and the oppressed. They included reformers, workers, strikers and crusading reporters. There were many popular melodramas about social causes. Probably the most produced American play was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist melodrama, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and other Frank Capra film favorites were melodramas, as were stage and film biographies of Abraham Lincoln and FDR.
Past and present political candidates have created their images and developed excitement around their candidacies with the melodramatic appeal of fighting for the little guy. Right now, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is enjoying stratospheric poll numbers in his race for Governor, as the corporate crime-fighting hero. (Wall Street furnished villains for many stage melodramas.) In Connecticut, newly victorious Democratic candidate for Senate Nate Lamont is the people-power, anti-war hero, defined in part by TV commercials crafted by the same Bill Hillsman who helped turn unknown college professor Paul Wellstone into a populist hero.
Of course, as everyone in Hollywood knows, the real drama isn’t on the screen-- it’s in the audience. Is this the year for a worker's champion and a civil liberties, election reform, environmental and above all, a universal health care hero? It must be, win or lose. The only way to find out how this show will play is to mount it with clarity and conviction. And don’t forget the music.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced he will veto the universal health care bill recently passed by both houses of the CA legislature. His announcement reads "like a health insurer's advertising dream, full of catch phrases that twist the truth in order to frighten consumers, said the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR)."
" FTCR also noted that the health industry boosted Schwarzenegger to nearly $100 million in campaign donations with a $125,000 burst of contributions in August alone. The industry has given him $4 million overall."
The universal health care plan is solid, and everyone in California--individuals, families, small businesses, large corporations, hospitals, doctors, nurses--everybody but bloated private insurance companies--need this. Arnold has given Phil Angelides the issue he can champion. Phil needs to heed this call, and be a hero.
I don't use the term lightly. A leader, not an actor” may be a clever tagline for his TV spots, but like it or not, Phil Angelides is a major player in a political drama. An experienced Hollywood hand like his opponent, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, knows this instinctively: political campaigns are pure melodrama, and the successful candidate makes himself the hero.
Melodrama is emotional, it’s big and it’s black-and-white. There are no self-contradictory gods as in Greek myth, or heroes with fatal flaws as in classical drama. It’s the virtuous hero overcoming impossible odds to defeat the despicable villain. Melodrama means drama with melody: a musical soundtrack. It’s opera in all its forms—high, light, horse, space and soap. It is also the basic form of TV commercials, especially for politicians.
“The new politics of democracy,” writes political scientist Alan Wolfe, “resembles a daytime television melodrama more than an academic seminar: attention is captured when conscience is tempted, courage displayed, determination rewarded, wills broken, egos checked, pride humbled, and virtue rewarded.”
In terms of imagery and experience, Hollywood’s Schwarzenegger has the obvious advantage of having starred in melodramas, as both hero and villain. In fact the two distinct halves of his term as Governator replicate his most famous role as the Terminator. In the first movie he’s the Terminator for the powerful machines. In the second he’s switched sides to champion the human rebels. As governor, he represented the Bush Republican right, until his ballot initiatives were defeated. Then he became the champion of more moderate and even liberal measures. Can he be a political hero replicating what he did as a movie hero?
As for Angelides, even though he is unlikely to be cast in a Hollywood melodrama, all is not lost. Some heroes in melodramas of the past fought against injustice, for the little guy and the oppressed. They included reformers, workers, strikers and crusading reporters. There were many popular melodramas about social causes. Probably the most produced American play was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist melodrama, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and other Frank Capra film favorites were melodramas, as were stage and film biographies of Abraham Lincoln and FDR.
Past and present political candidates have created their images and developed excitement around their candidacies with the melodramatic appeal of fighting for the little guy. Right now, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is enjoying stratospheric poll numbers in his race for Governor, as the corporate crime-fighting hero. (Wall Street furnished villains for many stage melodramas.) In Connecticut, newly victorious Democratic candidate for Senate Nate Lamont is the people-power, anti-war hero, defined in part by TV commercials crafted by the same Bill Hillsman who helped turn unknown college professor Paul Wellstone into a populist hero.
Of course, as everyone in Hollywood knows, the real drama isn’t on the screen-- it’s in the audience. Is this the year for a worker's champion and a civil liberties, election reform, environmental and above all, a universal health care hero? It must be, win or lose. The only way to find out how this show will play is to mount it with clarity and conviction. And don’t forget the music.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
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