America the Beautiful

...but seriously. This is Cheez-it brand cracker's homage to the original American big cheeses, or something like that. Coming to a city near you this summer, a 600-pound cheese replica of Mount Rushmore. My parents took us to see Mt. Rushmore when I was a kid. We must have spent a week in that god-awful station wagon to see it. I've been putting some effort into learning more about America's founding fathers. It's gratifying to learn that they were humans subject to much the same weakenesses as more modern politicians.

Politics of Globalism

I've just finished a thoughtful book on Globalism by Joseph Stiglitz. I love this type of progressive, economic/political stuff. It is a brain massage that tickles me in the places my brain likes.
The world is getting smaller. Democrats are progressive, which means they wish to make the world (as it is progressing) work for the many. Republicans are conservative and reactionary, meaning they wish to make the world (as it is progressing) work for the few in their constituency. Progressives want to see stronger international governance (UN, World Bank, World Trade Organization, etc.). Conservatives (of the US variety) wish to see weaker international governance, so that industialized and militarized powers can have free reign to extend their power.
This is an interesting juxtaposition to the political philosophies of America's founding fathers. The early USofA was a federation of independent states and political schools of thought were divided along the lines of those who wanted stronger national governance vs those who wished it to be weaker. What's interesting to me is that *politically* the Democrat-Republican school of thought (against centralisation) defeated the Federalist (pro-centralisation) school. But that effectively, history trumped the political struggle and put a strong central government into place by necessity as the states became more and more interdependent.
I hope the same thing happens in today's emerging global political economy. In the US, the Conservative (anti global governance) forces are winning the policitcal struggle for power. That's a drag, but hopefully the march of history will sweep these short-run gains away in a progression toward global governance.

Protection of Marriage in Massachusetts

From The Boston Globe: "In Massachusetts today, the freedom to marry is secure," Governor Deval Patrick told a cheering crowd of gay-marriage advocates after the results of the Constitutional Convention were announced. "Today's vote is not just a vote for marriage equality. It was a vote for equality itself."

With Therese Murray (of the great District of fomrerly puritan Plymouth) at the gavel.

Bravo! The good guys won one! Gay people will continue to have the right to marry each other through at least 2012. Freedom, liberty and fairness have won again. Hopefully, other states will be just a morally correct as Massachusetts in the near future. Hooray for "activist judges" and the wise legistlators of this great state!

Dems looking to fix Alternative Minimum Tax problems

re: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/07/AR2007060702146_pf.html
Democratic legislators are trying to do something sensible - eliminate the huge tax increase placed on some middle class taxpayers and make up the revenue loss by a small tax increase on the very rich. The Republican spin machine has not gotten into gear to squash this in the news media yet, but it will. To no one's surprise, the right spinning catchphrase will be something along the lines of "Democrats want to raise taxes/there they go again" or some such poop.

Unfortunately, the Dems don't have such a spin machine and don't have enough power in the legislature to get past the 'obstructionist' 'partisan' 'political theatre' that the Repubs will employ. The bill will die.

Conservative media bias and Mitt

From the last Republican Presidential Debate:
Wolf: "Knowing what you know now, would you have invaded Iraq?"
Romney: "If Saddam Hussein had opened up his country to IAEA inspectors, and they'd come in and they'd found that there were no weapons of mass destruction...we wouldn't be in the conflict we're in."
Wolf rephrased.
Romney - "You can go back and say, if we knew then what we know now, by virtue of inspectors having been let in and giving us that information, by virtue of if Saddam Hussein had followed the U.N. resolutions, we wouldn't be having this -- this discussion."

Um...Mitt...Saddam Hussein DID LET THE INSPECTORS IN!!!! Were you too busy lying to the people of Massachusetts then to pay attention to the run up to war!?!?!?!?!?

Grrrr...Mitt Romney is a clueless liar with good hair and a pretty smile. The media gave him a pass on this one. Not one word about it after the debate.

Politicians are People

A theory on swing voters: A large portion of them choose their candidate based soley on the attractiveness of the image they project. These voters care little or nothing for issues of policy. They want a candidate that looks good to them on TV and in print, and that they expect will continue to look good when they hold office. Two quotes from this type of voter sticks in my mind: 1) "I vote for the man not the party" 2) "Anyone who always votes for the same party is an idiot".

I don't vote for "the man" and I always vote Democratic in general elections. I'm sure that "issues of character" have some role in my own decision-making during primary season, but I make every intellectual effort to remember that I'm not voting for my favorite celebrity. I try to remember that an elected offical is someone who makes decisions about how my country is run, before they are a name and face in the news for me to feel good or bad about.

Voting for a politician based on their profile in People Magazine is an ugly reality of participatory democracy in a media saturated culture. If we let the unwashed ignorant masses have a say, this kind of unfortunate stupidity is unavoidable.

Morality and taxes

One of the strongest held arguments of the libertarian mindset is the notion that taxes are theft, and therefore immoral. The argument goes that since the state really shouldn't exist, tax payments are coerced, and wages are the product of the hard work of the individual...or something like that. The argument is so black-and-white that it is non-sensical to me. It seems proof positive that conservative philosophy really is based in justifying selfishness.

So, here's my take. It doesn't matter if the state (government) should exist because it does exist.
Wages and wealth are not JUST the product of the work of the individual. In large part they are, but the state plays a part in any wages or return on investments. The governemnt (and the society it regulates and supports) also contributes to the ability of the individual to earn cash. Because of this, government is entitled to receive a portion of the earnings it helped produce. Coercing the individual to pay a portion of their income to support the state is not theft. It is natural that the group (society) expects some contribution by all. It is also natural that some individuals will make attempts to avoid contributing to the whole. Avoidance of carrying out this responsility by illegal means or philosophical argument is the immoral position.

Thanks to Jerry Falwell and Ronald Reagan...

...for having a large hand in making me the hardcore liberal Democrat I am today. They are two giants in the rise of the evil Republican right in the modern USofA. (Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, Lee Atwater and Karl Rove are also very important figures.) As a young man coming to understand the political world around me, I reacted to their evil. So, cheers to you two rotten apples and to the hope that the political winds are finally turning a bit away from the immoral, bigoted, hateful political ideas and talking points that are still with us today.

“The enemies of America give us probably what we deserve. When we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say, ‘you helped this happen.’” The Reverend Jerry Falwell, September 13 2001.

How does the W Admin bail from Iraq and still be righteous?

I think the writing is on the wall.

Yesterday, I read that several "moderate" Republican legislators finally said something straightforward and honest in the White House on the subject of Iraq. Of course, they were doing it to save their political asses but that's how democracy is supposed to work. I also saw that evil Dick Cheney was in Iraq having 'frank' discussions with the civillian Iraqi leadership about the progress that the US (as represented by evil Dick) expects them to make.

It is clear to me that the way out of Iraq for the W Admin is to blame the elected Iraqi leadership for all the ill that is going on there. This will provide the spinning political cover that Republicans need to bail out and claim the high ground. They will effectively have their cake and eat eat too, riding this wave of bullshit back to legislative and executive electoral victory in 2008. The American people will buy it.

PS. Today I see W is opening the door a bit to accept some 'benchmarks'. This is a great device to assign blame on the Iraqi leadership in the near future. Watch Rove spin this into a victory for the Republicans.

A diary...uh....uh type entry

Burito. I shoud not have eaten the whole thing. Ooof. Thank God the weather is nice ,so I can sleep with the windows open. God is good.

Roger Clemens

It will be fun to watch OLD Roger try it again. My prediction is that his performance for the balance of the season will not be worth the mountain of money he is costing the evil Yankees.

Virginia Tech killings

No more legal handguns in any US State would be a good start.

(MS)NBC is the worst offender at the moment, but the media should not give this nut's views and photos the air and print time that the nut wanted. Self-censorship would be in order here. No government involvement necessary, just some thought and sense. Publicizing his 'manifesto' is inviting other whack jobs to do the same thing to get their own little piece of fame.

Imus' mouth

Dear America,
How 'bout that Iraq war? Let's not discuss that. Let's talk about "the race card", "a national dialogue on race", "polcitical correctness", "the media".....this is your opium.
What the hell do you think on the issue of the Presidency vs the Legislature as relates to military action in Iraq? That's what I really want to know. I don't care how you feel about an entertainer's tasteless joke.

Evil

Yesterday President Bush reiterated his stance on staying the course in Iraq. Among other things he said of some of the combatants and their tactics: “People who do that are not — it’s not a civil war, it is pure evil. And I believe we have an obligation to protect ourselves from that evil.”

So, he (and the American voters) see the Iraq War as a battle of good vs. evil. WE, somehow, are players in a great historical drama that involves self-righteousness, power and September 11. I understand and loathe that position. What I don't understand is how the presence of 'evil' means that it isn't a civil war. Can't you have a civil war with evil? Maybe that's just too much to understand and spin for mass consumption. A talking point must be simple so that the voting public can digest it quickly and shit it out in the form of an opinion at great speed. The President knows this, he is a master of spin. Spin works because Americans have little interest in digesting larger amounts of information and thinking for themselves.

Conservative people are...

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." JK Galbraith

Big, tough guy

GW Bush said this today: “Debating these differences should not come at the expense of our troops. Congress shouldn’t tell generals how to run the war. Delays beyond April and into May will affect the readiness of the American military. Enough politics.”

Yeah, well you're an irresponsible politicker too. And you started it. SO THERE!

But seriously, "enough politics"? I'm confused, how is it that "the decider" gets to say 'enough'? I believe the US Constitution allows the voters who elected an opposing majority in the House to have a say as well.

Conservative is...(take 2)

My friend Tim is smarter than I am. When he said he couldn't follow my first attempt to describe conservatism, I figured that I either wrote over his head or wrote it poorly. Since I'm a semi-verbal accountant, the latter explanation is more likely. So....

A week ago I bought a bunch of grapes and put them in the fridge for my kid to munch on. She found the grapes to be tasty and attractive - a satisfactory status quo was in place. As the grape supply got low, I bought a second bunch which did not look exactly like the first bunch that she was enjoying so. She remarked that the new bunch looks funny. Paraphrasing Pete Townshend - the new grapes are not the same as the old grapes. A conservative would dismiss the possibility that the new grapes could have any worth because the old grapes are just so darn attractive and tasty. A conservative would hesitate to try the new grapes even after the old grapes were gone. The conservative grape person would hold their stubborness and closed-mindedness up as a righteous virtue, as they are the true upholder of all that is sweet and shiny in the pantheon of grapeness.

Conservative is...

Standard political usage tells us that Republicans are conservative and Democrats are liberal. This is not absolutely true, but relatively so.
Conservative legal thought holds that precedent should be upheld. Whether the precedent is Roe vs Wade or Dred Scott doesn't particularly matter in the legal/judiciary use of 'conservative'. A legal/judiciary conservative would be opposed to legalization of abortion because the precedent is in place, regardless of the moral, philosophical or religious feeling they might have about the procedure. Their conservatism would mean they are philosophically committed to earlier decisions and find change to be more distasteful and the status quo. This is illustrated by the sneering talking point of 'activist judges'.
Conservative economic thought holds that classsical economics are the true word. Market forces are good. Regulation, taxation, protectionism, subsidy and all forms of government market involvement are bad. Always. Again, the purity of the old ideas appeals to the conservative mind. The conservative mindset is closed to new thoughts and truths that suggest classical established thoughts could be anything other than righteous and touched by the hand of their economic God. Modifications to the godly market force is heresy.
Conservative religious thought holds that the theological and philosophical ideas of the elders (whoever the hell they might be) are handed down almost directly from the Almighty. These ideas must not be questioned or altered. Again, adherence to a rigid dogma is the key to conservatism.
In all examples, conservative thought is rigid and closed. It stubbornly adheres to established ideas in the face of any challenge. Closed-mindedness is valued in conservative minds as if it were righteousness. It is not.

Bravo again, Speaker Pelosi

I did not think it possible to pass such a measure as she did today. The military funding bill with Iraq pullout date is a HUGE accomplishment for the reasonable people of the USof A. I would follow her nearly anywhere.

Politics just IS

Politics are not bad, nor are politics good. Politics simply is. One of my least favorite righteous arguments is the accusation that a person is 'politicizing' something that should be 'above' politics. That's bullshit. NOTHING is above politics. Human interaction requires political positioning and technique. All interaction is an exercise in power, however subtle it may be. We may naively wish things to be otherwise, but they are not.

Death, sex, religion, food, drink, love, hate, sickness, jurisprudence, music, sport, humor, art, business and any other form of the human experience involves political positioning when it is shared between two or more people. The simple act of speaking or putting pen to paper invites comparison with the views of others, and an attempt to frame one person's experience in the context of the experiences of others. This comparison and sharing of context is political.