The liberals are already reaching for the Nader Panic button, which can only mean one thing; the Democrats are about to nominate another pro-war, pro-corporate jelly-legged mud golem for the presidency, and someone's going to have to take the rap for another underwhelming performance in November. And with John Edwards folding his tent on Wednesday, that's the "choice" you have left.
Perhaps the only people more delirious than old Ralph's retinue of diehard supporters are the liberals who think he's still a factor in elections. Leaving the long arguments about 2000, it's indisputable that Nader was a total non-factor in 2004, when the Democrats were facing an unpopular incumbent in conditions where none had ever survived and still flubbed it, spending seemingly more energy on legal challenges to Nader's ballot status than fighting the smears about their own candidate. Yet still they cry "No Nader, No Bush!" and this is their absolution.*
Which is not to say I'm among Ralph's holdouts. There's good reason to believe backing Nader has done significant damage to the Green Party, to the extent that the party is now sharply divided between those who think the Green's should endorse his "independent" run and those who want him to just go away at any cost. Nader's political usefulness is shot; he's too much of a lighting rod for liberal angst to be of much value anymore.
It's time to get a fresh face or two, someone who'll hit the donkey party and its liberal lackeys on their weak link--serious electoral reform. Sane liberals will admit to you that following Democrats to hill and dale will usually result in supporting the lesser of two evils but, they insist, you must vote with the system you have, not the system you wish you had. What the dishonest party hacks won't tell you is that they're perfectly happy with the system they have, and don't have any plans to change it.
Nader is actually cogent on this point, although his solutions come up short as we'll see. Liberals often argue that people seeking to move the Democrats to the left should work from within the party through the primary season. But no progressive campaign is going to have the resources to compete against the corporate-funded Dems in the current Money Primary system , the follies of which I detailed here last week. Progressives should watch the Huckabee campaign (and the social conservative movement in general) and take heed; the party is happy to have your loyalty, but strike out on your own and you'll be crushed. They'll outspend you five-to-one and call it a mandate to dismiss your concerns.
Tony Benn is fond of saying that democracy is such a radical idea because it takes power away from the ruling class and gives it to everyone equally regardless of wealth, which makes it easy to see why we haven't got very much real democracy anymore. So you'll be hopelessly outspent inside the party, but there is one powerful option available to you--your vote. But even here, there are few possible positive outcomes. You can, as Nader has argued, withhold your vote from the Democrats in the general elections, hoping that forcing losses on the donkeys will make them more receptive to your ideas in the future.
In practice, however, this is completely ineffectual, as the last seven years have shown. The liberals will blame you for every bad Republican policy that congressional Democrats capitulate on, and the party itself doesn't care. The DLC/Hilbama/Muddy Middle vanguard of the Dem establishment fulfills its duty to the rancid system by being the liberal wing of the business party. They do their service to the Empire by keeping the levers of power out of the hands of dirty hippies and anyone else challenging the birthright hegemony of Yankee Capital. Sure, they may boost the good social liberal causes like abortion and gay marriage but, like their Republican colleagues have done for the opposite side, they are not much invested in the outcome beyond fostering the illusion that you have a real choice. So you can abstain from voting for Clinton or Obama if you wish, but its a wasted non-effort. They are beyond the point where you can meaningfully punish them.
I haven't yet gone over to complete despair yet; it's much too early in my life to begin that sequence. The way out is through serious electoral reform; public campaign financing, preferential/transferable voting, open debates, and more just primary system. (Proportional representation as well, but let's not get carried away here). This ought to be on top of the agenda for the Greens or any other minor party's presidential ticket. Neither of the monopoly parties will accede willingly, of course, but if enough outside factions could be arrayed together, perhaps some of the more honest party hacks will take notice and even some sympathy. From there, who knows?
*"No Bush, No Bush" works just as well. See how much easier a one-party state can be?
31 January 2008
28 January 2008
From your lips to God's ears, vol. 1
Steve Benen brings us this beauty from Jonathon Hoenig of the unironically-named CapitalistPig Asset Management, on the equally unironically-named Fox News program "The Cost of Freedom."
After many years wandering in the wilderness, experimenting with hard drugs, pansexual orgies, and "Liberal Fascism," the prodigal sons of the Right have finally returned home to their red-baiting roots. Let us kill the fatted calf in celebration, and give a toast to Comrade Hillary and the Democratic
“What worries me about the Democrats is that if you listen to them, their message is so explicitly socialist. I mean, at every opportunity they seem to have this contempt for capitalism, this relentless pursuit of collectivism and this total distrust for free markets. If you put all the politics aside, their goal is a national health care program. Their goal is environmentalism. They see bigger government in every element of public life. That has never been good for America and it has never been good for the market either.”
Too little, too late
The Wall Street Journal throws some cold water on the Obama-mentum after his blowout win in South Carolina.
A quick and merciful end may be the best-case scenario for the pitiable donkey party at this point, before anybody gets seriously injured, and before too many Sensibles start to realize that the Clintonian reputation for underhanded Machiavellian tactics wasn't just a creation of the Evil MSM after all.
Among the major Super Tuesday contests, Mrs. Clinton has wide -- in some cases double-digit -- polling leads in California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Arizona, Missouri and Alabama. Mr. Obama leads in his home state of Illinois and in Georgia.So far, Clinton's big leads have had a way of disappearing as the primary date grew closer, but this time the significant Obama ground game won't have a chance to plant itself and gain traction. Turnouts will be lower, and will be decided more by the Clinton-worshiping Dem establishment.The demographics in many of those states also seem to play more to Mrs. Clinton's strengths, with big populations of Latinos and white women, groups that helped carry her to victory over Mr. Obama in New Hampshire and Nevada.
A quick and merciful end may be the best-case scenario for the pitiable donkey party at this point, before anybody gets seriously injured, and before too many Sensibles start to realize that the Clintonian reputation for underhanded Machiavellian tactics wasn't just a creation of the Evil MSM after all.
27 January 2008
Sunday sermon
It's about a week late, but here's some Martin Luther King, Jr. for your edification.
Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.
Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.
My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.
-April 4, 1967
26 January 2008
25 January 2008
Now that's more like it
I sometimes think the free-market fundamentalists must lack the courage of their convictions, what with the running for the heretical government bailout whenever the seas get rough. Everybody likes the laissez-faire when times are smooth; I want to see someone keeping a hand on the rudder while the ship's going down.
Luckily we have David Brooks; finally someone willing to fiddle while Babylon burns. Of course, Bobo's paradise isn't going to be ruffled one way or the other, why would you ask?
Luckily we have David Brooks; finally someone willing to fiddle while Babylon burns. Of course, Bobo's paradise isn't going to be ruffled one way or the other, why would you ask?
Good on him
I thought the "Choke-avic" snickering after the US Open final last year was pretty unfair, so I'm happy to see the kid emphatically redeem himself. The other finalist is Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, an unseeded French player who has beaten three top-10 players en route, including an annihilation of Nadal in the other semi.
Things are set up for a Serbian sweep if Djokavic comes through and Ana Ivanovic beats Sharapova in the women's final on Saturday.
Things are set up for a Serbian sweep if Djokavic comes through and Ana Ivanovic beats Sharapova in the women's final on Saturday.
24 January 2008
All you fascists
Jonah Goldberg is an editor at National Review, the bastion of highbrow American conservatism, and as such is what passes for an intellectual on the right these days. He is the son of right-wing publisher Lucianne Goldberg, proving, along with the Kristols, Podhoretzes, Buckleys, Bozells, and Bellows that intellectual conservatism is remarkably hereditary.
If you follow my "On the Beat" widget, you know that Goldberg recently wrote a book called Liberal Fascism, a laborious effort to revise the history of fascism by placing it as the sole property of the political left. Goldberg infamously claimed his argument "has never been made with such detail or with such care" which is rather self-evident, since no one's ever made that argument at all. That detailed, careful argument is essentially a drawn-out recreation of the old gotcha game that places the Nazis on the left because they had "socialist" in the party name. (One wonders if Goldberg also believes North Korea is "democratic.")
I'm not going to waste my limited patience for reading on Jonah's 50o-page whale of idiocy, and I don't imagine you are either. (Thanks to the Oprah-like power of the Mel-Anon Book Club, Jonah's tome will now disappear forever from bestseller lists). If you must have a little taste of the blubber, Sadly, No has many excerpts from a leaked copy last month, including the instant classic "the white male is the Jew of liberal fascism." (Goldberg, unluckily, hits the trifecta.) Crooked Timber and Orcinus have steamrolled what little there is of a substantive political argument between its pages.
I do have a couple of minor observations to make. It's ironic that Goldberg's apparent definition of fascism effectively mirrors that of the '60s New Left which helped drive the term into meaninglessness; which is, as a shorthand for any authority forcing me to do something unwanted ("I have to tuck my shirt in; this job is so fascist!") This may still be a colloquial misuse of the term, but Goldberg apparently mistakes if for a scholarly opinion Goldberg does want to apply the clause "with my money" to the above definition, which is apparently a modern libertarian trope.
Goldberg goes to great pain to reassure you that he is not calling liberals Nazis. Liberals don't want to gas Jews and homosexuals or invade inferior Slavic countries, they only want universal healthcare and sustainable organic farming, just like the Nazis did. In other words, they are like fascists in all the ways except those that actually make fascists dangerous. So why is "liberal fascism" such a severe revelation? Because they're still FASCISTS!! BLAAAGGGH! FASCIST FASCIST FASCIST!!
Of course, if liberals and leftists have degraded the term fascism by applying it carelessly to conservatives, the right has returned the favor by smearing liberals as crypto-Communists. They may want to get their story straight. A synthesis of fascism and Communism may prove beyond the capability of even Goldberg's revisionist pen. But perhaps this provides an opportunity to have some fun of our own.
If you follow my "On the Beat" widget, you know that Goldberg recently wrote a book called Liberal Fascism, a laborious effort to revise the history of fascism by placing it as the sole property of the political left. Goldberg infamously claimed his argument "has never been made with such detail or with such care" which is rather self-evident, since no one's ever made that argument at all. That detailed, careful argument is essentially a drawn-out recreation of the old gotcha game that places the Nazis on the left because they had "socialist" in the party name. (One wonders if Goldberg also believes North Korea is "democratic.")
I'm not going to waste my limited patience for reading on Jonah's 50o-page whale of idiocy, and I don't imagine you are either. (Thanks to the Oprah-like power of the Mel-Anon Book Club, Jonah's tome will now disappear forever from bestseller lists). If you must have a little taste of the blubber, Sadly, No has many excerpts from a leaked copy last month, including the instant classic "the white male is the Jew of liberal fascism." (Goldberg, unluckily, hits the trifecta.) Crooked Timber and Orcinus have steamrolled what little there is of a substantive political argument between its pages.
I do have a couple of minor observations to make. It's ironic that Goldberg's apparent definition of fascism effectively mirrors that of the '60s New Left which helped drive the term into meaninglessness; which is, as a shorthand for any authority forcing me to do something unwanted ("I have to tuck my shirt in; this job is so fascist!") This may still be a colloquial misuse of the term, but Goldberg apparently mistakes if for a scholarly opinion Goldberg does want to apply the clause "with my money" to the above definition, which is apparently a modern libertarian trope.
Goldberg goes to great pain to reassure you that he is not calling liberals Nazis. Liberals don't want to gas Jews and homosexuals or invade inferior Slavic countries, they only want universal healthcare and sustainable organic farming, just like the Nazis did. In other words, they are like fascists in all the ways except those that actually make fascists dangerous. So why is "liberal fascism" such a severe revelation? Because they're still FASCISTS!! BLAAAGGGH! FASCIST FASCIST FASCIST!!
Of course, if liberals and leftists have degraded the term fascism by applying it carelessly to conservatives, the right has returned the favor by smearing liberals as crypto-Communists. They may want to get their story straight. A synthesis of fascism and Communism may prove beyond the capability of even Goldberg's revisionist pen. But perhaps this provides an opportunity to have some fun of our own.
23 January 2008
I liked it better when it was called Big Brother, part the second
Welcome to the next installment of our short-running game show, America or Oceania?
Today's quiz:
Which nation has a ruling party which possesses the technology and means to create a more equal and prosperous living standard for its citizens but instead allows inequality and poverty to skyrocket while it spends lavishly in the name of defending itself from phantom, ever-shifting international enemies.
America, or Oceania?
Today's quiz:
Which nation has a ruling party which possesses the technology and means to create a more equal and prosperous living standard for its citizens but instead allows inequality and poverty to skyrocket while it spends lavishly in the name of defending itself from phantom, ever-shifting international enemies.
America, or Oceania?
OK
I've admitted to being an economic neophyte before, and that hasn't changed at all, but I am curious about something here.
I've been hearing about these economic "stimulus" plans that would pass out tax rebates to lower-and-middle income consumers who are more likely to spend them.
1) How is this not "wealth redistribution?" and 2? Why isn't the Church of the Holy Capitalism having a Red Fever meltdown over this?
Related: This from Jonathon Freedland in the Guardian.
I've been hearing about these economic "stimulus" plans that would pass out tax rebates to lower-and-middle income consumers who are more likely to spend them.
1) How is this not "wealth redistribution?" and 2? Why isn't the Church of the Holy Capitalism having a Red Fever meltdown over this?
Related: This from Jonathon Freedland in the Guardian.
22 January 2008
There will be Oscars
There may not be a show, but there will be statues. And really, that may be for the best. Picks, mostly WAG, in bold.
Lead Actor:
George Clooney - Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones - In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen - Eastern Promises
It will likely be a big night for Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, one of the most ambitious, heavily praised and hotly debated American movies of the decade. What's not up for debate is the riveting work of Day-Lewis, the world's most scarcely-seen movie actor, and perhaps also the best. They should probably hand out a second-place trophy here, just to keep it interesting.
Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Long-Ass Movie Title*
Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men
Phillip Seymour Hoffman - Charlie Wilson's War
Hal Holbrook - Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson - Michael Clayton
The supporting category is a great chance to see people you've probably never heard of before. By that criteria, I'm not sure Hoffman is eligible anymore.
Lead Actress
Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie - Away from Her
Marion Cotillard - La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney - The Savages
Ellen Page - Juno
No obvious choices here. Like every other sensible male under 30, I have a massive crush on Ellen Page, but I don't think she can win here. I'll pick Christie over Cotillard, mostly to assuage my guilt that I haven't sat down to watch "Away from Her" yet.
Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett - I'm Not There
Ruby Dee - American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan - Atonement
Amy Ryan - Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton
Blanchett loses on the Hoffman Rule--which I totally just made up, don't read anything into it--, and Atonement must be prevented from winning anything. That narrows it down to three, and I don't think Michael Clayton will get shut out.
Animated Feature
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf's Up
I include this only to entertain my fantasy that Persepolis somehow wins.
Documentary Feature
No End in Sight
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Sicko
Taxi to the Dark Side
War/Dance
War/Dance and Operation Homecoming are both surprises to me, although I was aware of the former. All the dramatic War on Terra films may have been critical and commercial flops this year, but it was another good season for docs. No End in Sight is the probable winner, but I'm intrigued by Taxi to the Dark Side as well. It would be nice if the academy could lighten up and give some love to docs less Deathly Serious, like The King of Kong.
Foreign Language Feature
Beaufort
The Counterfeiters
Katyn
Mongol
12
OK, I confess to knowing nothing about any of these films. The foreign language category is always a doozy, because it's hard to know exactly which films are eligible and many of them haven't had domestic releases. Nonetheless I'm surprised that both of the big Romanian films, 12:08 East of Bucharest and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which won the Palme d'Or last year, are absent. Mongol is the first-ever nominee from Kazakhstan--and I can't resist a movie about Mongols--but the Polish nominee Katyn may be a little safer, though nothing's certain here.
Best Picture
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Blood should be in for a tussle with the Coen's latest film No Country for Old Men, which should be fodder for a lot of entertaining arguments among film buffs. But as much as those two films are praised by many, there's a small but significant population of haters, and Atonement won the Golden Globe against them. And that, friends, must not be allowed to repeat itself under any circumstances. Juno follows the footsteps of Sideways and Little Miss Sunshine as the Plucky Indie Comedy nominee, while Michael Clayton wishes he were born in a different year.
Others:
The loser of the titanic struggle at Best Picture should pick up Best Director. Juno gets on the board at Best Original Screenplay, with No Country taking Best Adapted (I hear it's much superior to the book of the same name). It would be a nice surprise for the small Irish film Once to score best song from the Disney behemoth Enchanted, but it's outnumbered three-to-one.
Lead Actor:
George Clooney - Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones - In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen - Eastern Promises
It will likely be a big night for Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, one of the most ambitious, heavily praised and hotly debated American movies of the decade. What's not up for debate is the riveting work of Day-Lewis, the world's most scarcely-seen movie actor, and perhaps also the best. They should probably hand out a second-place trophy here, just to keep it interesting.
Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Long-Ass Movie Title*
Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men
Phillip Seymour Hoffman - Charlie Wilson's War
Hal Holbrook - Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson - Michael Clayton
The supporting category is a great chance to see people you've probably never heard of before. By that criteria, I'm not sure Hoffman is eligible anymore.
Lead Actress
Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie - Away from Her
Marion Cotillard - La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney - The Savages
Ellen Page - Juno
No obvious choices here. Like every other sensible male under 30, I have a massive crush on Ellen Page, but I don't think she can win here. I'll pick Christie over Cotillard, mostly to assuage my guilt that I haven't sat down to watch "Away from Her" yet.
Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett - I'm Not There
Ruby Dee - American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan - Atonement
Amy Ryan - Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton
Blanchett loses on the Hoffman Rule--which I totally just made up, don't read anything into it--, and Atonement must be prevented from winning anything. That narrows it down to three, and I don't think Michael Clayton will get shut out.
Animated Feature
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf's Up
I include this only to entertain my fantasy that Persepolis somehow wins.
Documentary Feature
No End in Sight
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Sicko
Taxi to the Dark Side
War/Dance
War/Dance and Operation Homecoming are both surprises to me, although I was aware of the former. All the dramatic War on Terra films may have been critical and commercial flops this year, but it was another good season for docs. No End in Sight is the probable winner, but I'm intrigued by Taxi to the Dark Side as well. It would be nice if the academy could lighten up and give some love to docs less Deathly Serious, like The King of Kong.
Foreign Language Feature
Beaufort
The Counterfeiters
Katyn
Mongol
12
OK, I confess to knowing nothing about any of these films. The foreign language category is always a doozy, because it's hard to know exactly which films are eligible and many of them haven't had domestic releases. Nonetheless I'm surprised that both of the big Romanian films, 12:08 East of Bucharest and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which won the Palme d'Or last year, are absent. Mongol is the first-ever nominee from Kazakhstan--and I can't resist a movie about Mongols--but the Polish nominee Katyn may be a little safer, though nothing's certain here.
Best Picture
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Blood should be in for a tussle with the Coen's latest film No Country for Old Men, which should be fodder for a lot of entertaining arguments among film buffs. But as much as those two films are praised by many, there's a small but significant population of haters, and Atonement won the Golden Globe against them. And that, friends, must not be allowed to repeat itself under any circumstances. Juno follows the footsteps of Sideways and Little Miss Sunshine as the Plucky Indie Comedy nominee, while Michael Clayton wishes he were born in a different year.
Others:
The loser of the titanic struggle at Best Picture should pick up Best Director. Juno gets on the board at Best Original Screenplay, with No Country taking Best Adapted (I hear it's much superior to the book of the same name). It would be a nice surprise for the small Irish film Once to score best song from the Disney behemoth Enchanted, but it's outnumbered three-to-one.
Huckabee II: Hebrew Boogaloo
A standard response around the libosphere to Huckabee's remarks last week (or any similar remarks by a right-wing political or religious leader) is to flout some of the more ridiculous or absurd (to modern ears) snippets of the Bible and ask if Huckabee intends to see those made into laws as well. Are you going to ban shellfish, or synthetic clothing, or perhaps shaving by married men?, they snicker. This is clever, but not terribly constructive, in my opinion. If you're going to hit him on his own turf, do it in a way that makes people who respect that authority feel more sympathetic toward your point of view.
With the Bible, that's certainly possible. I picked some of the more famous passages for that post below, but anyone could open the Bible to pretty much any point after the first third and come up with something similar.* It's not a surprise that Martin Luther King, Jr. could crib from it so heavily to buttress his message; one assumes that, unlike so many people who argue over the Bible, he actually bothered to read the damn thing. (See Sarah Vowell in yesterday's NYT.)
I've been around right-wing evangelicals enough in my life to know that they aren't--for the most part--ignorant of the existence of those parts of the Bible that don't reflect well on American capitalism or their political agenda. They have well-rehearsed apologies for why the Bible's fixations on helping the poor and redistributing wealth are strictly suggestions for individuals and not mandates for society at large, while abortion, gay marriage and defeating Evil Anti-American Terrorists are important God-ordained priorities for the state. But, as slacktivist and his commenters point out, this creates a logical dissonance with the claim that fundamentalists have the real "plain English" reading of the Bible, an unchallenged assumption that everyone from the mainstream press to the "new atheists" is only too happy to indulge.
"We don't 'interpret' the Bible, we just read what's written," is how the claim goes, which can be diffused with any modest examination, or by spending any amount of time with a conservative evangelical organization. Should you do the latter, your life will be immediately submerged into a church and a constituent "Bible study" group, who will make sure you only read the right parts and reach the same approved conclusion as the rest of the class. They tirelessly emphasize certain sections of the Bible--particularly the gospel of John and Paul's letters--at the expense of great chunks of the rest*, and treat it as if it were one long treatise written by the same author, both of which are unnatural assumptions that defy a "plain understanding" of the work.
Rest easy, my secular friends, I have no intention of agitating for a theocratic socialist revolution, only to show that such a thing could be possible, and might make someone a fine novel someday, perhaps something like Chris Bachelder's U.S.! but with a Zombie William Jennings Bryan instead. It's not really that new or secret, either. In many ways, our contemporary fundamentalists were spawned out of a backlash from the so-called "social gospel" which reached its peak with King in the mid-1960s. Nor do I mean to suggest that the Bible is entirely laudatory and ought to be conferred a special social authority. But I'd also like to combat the countervailing notion that the Bible is an entirely pernicious book, filled completely with malicious violence, spite, and intolerance. It's nearly impossible to read without prejudices or preconceptions, but it can be full of surprises nonetheless.
*Look at me, I'm going to make two footnotes in one! Regarding the first, that's pretty much what I've done in picking from the book of Amos, one of the Old Testament minor prophets. Who as a group are, coincidentally, almost completely ignored by evangelicals, thus fulfilling the second note. (And I'm not the only one quoting Amos these days)
With the Bible, that's certainly possible. I picked some of the more famous passages for that post below, but anyone could open the Bible to pretty much any point after the first third and come up with something similar.* It's not a surprise that Martin Luther King, Jr. could crib from it so heavily to buttress his message; one assumes that, unlike so many people who argue over the Bible, he actually bothered to read the damn thing. (See Sarah Vowell in yesterday's NYT.)
I've been around right-wing evangelicals enough in my life to know that they aren't--for the most part--ignorant of the existence of those parts of the Bible that don't reflect well on American capitalism or their political agenda. They have well-rehearsed apologies for why the Bible's fixations on helping the poor and redistributing wealth are strictly suggestions for individuals and not mandates for society at large, while abortion, gay marriage and defeating Evil Anti-American Terrorists are important God-ordained priorities for the state. But, as slacktivist and his commenters point out, this creates a logical dissonance with the claim that fundamentalists have the real "plain English" reading of the Bible, an unchallenged assumption that everyone from the mainstream press to the "new atheists" is only too happy to indulge.
"We don't 'interpret' the Bible, we just read what's written," is how the claim goes, which can be diffused with any modest examination, or by spending any amount of time with a conservative evangelical organization. Should you do the latter, your life will be immediately submerged into a church and a constituent "Bible study" group, who will make sure you only read the right parts and reach the same approved conclusion as the rest of the class. They tirelessly emphasize certain sections of the Bible--particularly the gospel of John and Paul's letters--at the expense of great chunks of the rest*, and treat it as if it were one long treatise written by the same author, both of which are unnatural assumptions that defy a "plain understanding" of the work.
Rest easy, my secular friends, I have no intention of agitating for a theocratic socialist revolution, only to show that such a thing could be possible, and might make someone a fine novel someday, perhaps something like Chris Bachelder's U.S.! but with a Zombie William Jennings Bryan instead. It's not really that new or secret, either. In many ways, our contemporary fundamentalists were spawned out of a backlash from the so-called "social gospel" which reached its peak with King in the mid-1960s. Nor do I mean to suggest that the Bible is entirely laudatory and ought to be conferred a special social authority. But I'd also like to combat the countervailing notion that the Bible is an entirely pernicious book, filled completely with malicious violence, spite, and intolerance. It's nearly impossible to read without prejudices or preconceptions, but it can be full of surprises nonetheless.
*Look at me, I'm going to make two footnotes in one! Regarding the first, that's pretty much what I've done in picking from the book of Amos, one of the Old Testament minor prophets. Who as a group are, coincidentally, almost completely ignored by evangelicals, thus fulfilling the second note. (And I'm not the only one quoting Amos these days)
The worst of both worlds
Before it gets too far away from me, I want to point out John Nichols' cover piece in The Nation a couple of weeks ago about our broken, anti-democratic primary system (also in case anyone thought writing about the primaries as they are constitutes any kind of endorsement of the process itself.)
I've tentatively supported a "national primary" as an alternative to the current system, but Nichols' article points out an important flaw in that idea. A national primary would likely be decided by the candidate who can afford to blanket the country with the most ads, making our present "money primary" situation even worse. We are already seeing this with our upcoming miniature version of a national primary on February 5. The advantage of "out front" primaries in small states is in giving lesser-known candidates with not a lot of cash the chance to get a boost in national exposure by zeroing in on a focused population.
The current primary system manages remarkably to capture the worst of both worlds. Iowa and New Hampshire have a permanent place at the top of the primary slate giving them undue influence over the eventual nominee. And, since the candidates have spent most of their political, financial, and temporal capital in those states, the "Super Tuesday" mini-nationals are decided by a national ad blitz. The best solution, without publicly financed campaigns, may be "rotating regional" primaries, a month-long campaign of evenly-distributed elections, with a rotating cycle of states sharing the "Iowa/New Hampshire" role.
Like the electoral college, the primary system is disliked much more by states getting left behind than by the national party. I often feel the primacy of overwhelmingly white Iowa and New Hampshire is enjoyed particularly by the national Democrats because of their natural inclination to select the most conservative Dem candidate. There won't be enough fainting couches in Washington to hold everyone on the day Oregon or Vermont gets first crack. Indeed, only one of the contested upfront primary states has gone to a Democrat in the past two presidential elections (New Hampshire 2004). If the Republicans get South Carolina, the Democrats should at least get Wisconsin.
20 January 2008
The Passion of the Huckleberry
An election on a Saturday, when more people are likely to be off work/out of school? Now there's a concept you could almost get behind.
Clinton wins in Nevada, Obama invokes Ronald Reagan, then claims he got more delegates out of the deal. Edwards is non-existent. America's faith in hopelessly corruptible spineless liberals bears no fruit yet again. Demographics are pretty much the last thing they have to argue about now.
Romney wins Nevada, GOP edition, which wasn't contested, while McCain scores narrowly over Huckabee in South Carolina, which was. This may be the dagger thrust for Huckabee, who doesn't have the cash to compete on Super Tuesday and needed the boost from a state where his unique base of support is pre-eminent. Huckabee may have suffered from the uniting of the factions opposing him coalescing behind the lesser-evil McCain who's seen, correctly, as more electable. (The only Republican candidate who is.)
Indeed, the McCain-Clinton matchup that now looks most likely among those possible would be a seriously bad portent for the Democrats. McCain is only Neutral Evil, and doesn't have anything for the liberals to arrange the easy talking points around. He is a hawk, but not a torture not, and not distinguishable enough from Clinton. He is not particularly religious, which is a double-edged sword; he isn't loved by the Christian Right, but nor does he stir the hive of liberals prophesying a pending theocracy. The Mushy Middle adores him with the same fervor it deplores Clinton, who often struggles to expand her draw beyond the yellow dogs. Both are distrusted by the natural base of the party, but McCain will be more willing to pander before the Clintonites come begging to the hippies. Were I put on the spot today, I'd have to predict McCain coming out on top of that hypothetical race. Of course, his fate is linked more than anyone to the situation in Iraq. If the present illusion of calming were to erupt again, his stature would have to be reconsidered. On the other hand, well, I'd advise you not think about it.
Clinton wins in Nevada, Obama invokes Ronald Reagan, then claims he got more delegates out of the deal. Edwards is non-existent. America's faith in hopelessly corruptible spineless liberals bears no fruit yet again. Demographics are pretty much the last thing they have to argue about now.
Romney wins Nevada, GOP edition, which wasn't contested, while McCain scores narrowly over Huckabee in South Carolina, which was. This may be the dagger thrust for Huckabee, who doesn't have the cash to compete on Super Tuesday and needed the boost from a state where his unique base of support is pre-eminent. Huckabee may have suffered from the uniting of the factions opposing him coalescing behind the lesser-evil McCain who's seen, correctly, as more electable. (The only Republican candidate who is.)
Indeed, the McCain-Clinton matchup that now looks most likely among those possible would be a seriously bad portent for the Democrats. McCain is only Neutral Evil, and doesn't have anything for the liberals to arrange the easy talking points around. He is a hawk, but not a torture not, and not distinguishable enough from Clinton. He is not particularly religious, which is a double-edged sword; he isn't loved by the Christian Right, but nor does he stir the hive of liberals prophesying a pending theocracy. The Mushy Middle adores him with the same fervor it deplores Clinton, who often struggles to expand her draw beyond the yellow dogs. Both are distrusted by the natural base of the party, but McCain will be more willing to pander before the Clintonites come begging to the hippies. Were I put on the spot today, I'd have to predict McCain coming out on top of that hypothetical race. Of course, his fate is linked more than anyone to the situation in Iraq. If the present illusion of calming were to erupt again, his stature would have to be reconsidered. On the other hand, well, I'd advise you not think about it.
19 January 2008
Saturday song
Yeasayer "Wait for the Summer"
With single-digit (and below) temps in most of the Midwest tonight I thought this was especially appropriate.
18 January 2008
Out there
From Matthew Yglesias comes this Pew survey measuring voter perceptions of the candidates.
Upton Sinclair once said "Americans will take socialism, but not the title." Nearly a century later, that principle remains basically intact. The right's war on meaningful language has long since passed "socialism" and moved on to "liberal" as the epithet du jour (although the "s" word is still brought out from time to time as the ultimate curse of the underworld, such as Richard Viguerie slurring Huckabee as a "Christian socialist."). Joe Public probably has a lot of liberal-to-left opinions but only has a faint understanding of what those words mean. Whatever a "liberal" is, he's sure he doesn't want to be one. The Pew survey here contributes to this problem by using these terms that have been irreparably corrupted by decades of right-wing propaganda.
But Yglesias hits upon a more important point. This crude, single-axis graph is predominantly an accurate depiction of the field's social and cultural views only. Hence Giuliani, who has surrounded himself with all the Neocon Nutjobs he can find, but is seen as the most "liberal" GOP candidate. The erstwhile ruling-class lament that the public votes with its wallet in mind has been seriously damaged if not destroyed, and, at the very least, they have removed themselves from the spectrum through which the public views politics. The exclusion of Edwards is particularly unfortunate for this reason; as he's likely seen as the most culturally conservative of the three Dems, but by far the most populist. His inclusion to the right of Clinton and Obama would have made this nearly irrefutable.
This graph does become more accurate as long as you concede that cultural values are all its really measuring. The American public is, I think, indisputably more conservative than average on those issues. What we aren't going to get, of course, is any concession from the press or mainstream pundits that the stalwart terms "liberal" and "conservative" have no meaning to the mass public beyond the social/cultural sphere (to the extent they represent anything substantive beyond buzzwords). But that's rather the point, isn't it?
Upton Sinclair once said "Americans will take socialism, but not the title." Nearly a century later, that principle remains basically intact. The right's war on meaningful language has long since passed "socialism" and moved on to "liberal" as the epithet du jour (although the "s" word is still brought out from time to time as the ultimate curse of the underworld, such as Richard Viguerie slurring Huckabee as a "Christian socialist."). Joe Public probably has a lot of liberal-to-left opinions but only has a faint understanding of what those words mean. Whatever a "liberal" is, he's sure he doesn't want to be one. The Pew survey here contributes to this problem by using these terms that have been irreparably corrupted by decades of right-wing propaganda.
But Yglesias hits upon a more important point. This crude, single-axis graph is predominantly an accurate depiction of the field's social and cultural views only. Hence Giuliani, who has surrounded himself with all the Neocon Nutjobs he can find, but is seen as the most "liberal" GOP candidate. The erstwhile ruling-class lament that the public votes with its wallet in mind has been seriously damaged if not destroyed, and, at the very least, they have removed themselves from the spectrum through which the public views politics. The exclusion of Edwards is particularly unfortunate for this reason; as he's likely seen as the most culturally conservative of the three Dems, but by far the most populist. His inclusion to the right of Clinton and Obama would have made this nearly irrefutable.
This graph does become more accurate as long as you concede that cultural values are all its really measuring. The American public is, I think, indisputably more conservative than average on those issues. What we aren't going to get, of course, is any concession from the press or mainstream pundits that the stalwart terms "liberal" and "conservative" have no meaning to the mass public beyond the social/cultural sphere (to the extent they represent anything substantive beyond buzzwords). But that's rather the point, isn't it?
15 January 2008
The Bible and Mike Huckabee
""But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."2627 If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor; you shall not exact interest from them. If you take your neighbour’s cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down; for it may be your neighbour’s only clothing to use as cover; in what else shall that person sleep? And if your neighbour cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate.
-Mike Huckabee
-Exodus 22: 25-27
""But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.In you, they take bribes to shed blood; you take both advance interest and accrued interest, and make gain of your neighbours by extortion; and you have forgotten me, says the Lord God.
-Mike Huckabee
-Ezekiel 22:12
There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
""But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.
-Mike Huckabee
-Galatians 3:28
""But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
-Mike Huckabee
-Matthew 5
""But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has—not according to what one does not have. I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. As it is written,
-Mike Huckabee
‘The one who had much did not have too much,
and the one who had little did not have too little.’
-2 Corinthians 8
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
"But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.
-Mike Huckabee
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4He shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
-Isaiah 2
"But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.
-Mike Huckabee
Thus says the Lord:
For three transgressions of Israel,
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment;*
because they sell the righteous for silver,
and the needy for a pair of sandals—
7they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth,
and push the afflicted out of the way;
father and son go in to the same girl,
so that my holy name is profaned;
8they lay themselves down beside every altar
on garments taken in pledge;
and in the house of their God they drink
wine bought with fines they imposed.
-Amos 2
"But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home * and ate their food with glad and generous*47 hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
-Mike Huckabee
-Acts 2
Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means ‘son of encouragement’). He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.
-Acts 4
"But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.
-Mike HuckabeeAs he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.” 2021’ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money*22 to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ 24And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it is* to enter the kingdom of God! 25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ 26They were greatly astounded and said to one another,* ‘Then who can be saved?’ 27Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’
29 Peter began to say to him, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you.’ Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news,*3031 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.’-Mark 10
11 January 2008
LOL
I can't wait to read Stefan Theil's article in the current Foreign Policy warning us that learning anti-capitalist prejudice in school is causing the French and German economies to fall behind the rest of the world.
Because, you know the opposite approach is working out so well.
Because, you know the opposite approach is working out so well.
10 January 2008
Death by ugly
A moment for those fallen by the wayside:
Bill Richardson
Chris Dodd
Joe Biden
Mike Gravel
Dennis Kucinich
Bill Richardson
Chris Dodd
Joe Biden
Mike Gravel
Dennis Kucinich
09 January 2008
Eh, I liked it better when it was called Big Brother
""Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."
-Rudy Giuliani
-Rudy Giuliani
More fun and games
Traveler IQ Challenge
This game varies quite a lot in difficulty, because for much of it you can be successful just by getting the country right (i.e., you don't need to know where Dublin is within Ireland, so long as you know where Ireland is). Then they start hitting you with the Oceanic states and minor cities in Russia which you can easily miss by 4,000 miles. So far I've been unable to get past level 11.
Not a lot of replayability, though, because there's not a large database of cities.
This game varies quite a lot in difficulty, because for much of it you can be successful just by getting the country right (i.e., you don't need to know where Dublin is within Ireland, so long as you know where Ireland is). Then they start hitting you with the Oceanic states and minor cities in Russia which you can easily miss by 4,000 miles. So far I've been unable to get past level 11.
Not a lot of replayability, though, because there's not a large database of cities.
New Hampshire postgame
Well, I didn't go on record with any predictions yesterday, but rest assured I'd look just as silly as everybody else does today. Jonathan Stein at MoJo has a list of reasons for Clinton's surprise comeback, the most likely of which, I think, is the irritability of New Hampshire voters, who decided they didn't want the race to be over.
Bad news first: I'd have been quite happy, frankly, if the Clinton machine had been crushed in its infancy. Now she's managed to restore Inevitability and picked up Momentum along the way. The good news: She needed a lot of breaks to squeeze out a narrow win after she had a big lead in New Hampshire just a couple of weeks ago. I've read some libloggers extolling the primary season's extension, believing it will eventually force both candidates to the left as the race gets hotter. I'm less enthusiastic about this possibility, given that both candidates have been eagerly bashing each other with right-wing talking points. (Clinton even broke out OMG TEH TERRISTS! during Saturday night's debate. Yeah, I couldn't wait for that one.)
The wild card will be what Edwards decides to do. Over the weekend Edwards claimed he's staying in through the convention. This might be based on the hope that Obama and Clinton battle to a stalemate and he emerges the compromise candidate at a brokered convention. More likely, given that far-fetched scenario, he was hoping to outlast Clinton when Obama swept through the early states and then take on Obama one-on-one. That's now squashed, and with it any possibility for Edwards to win is probably closed.
I've been assuming, without seeing any poll data, that most of Edwards' support would shift to Obama if he withdrew. Edwards himself has been hanging on Obama's coattails in recent weeks. Is Edwards waiting to see who'll give him the best offer to do what they want? What could Obama offer anyway? Edwards has said he won't take a veep slot, and given his wife's cancer, I'm taking that as sincere.
If you aren't depressed enough today, Jonathan Shwarz considers a couple of potential Clinton veeps. Clinton/Biden? C'mon, not funny. Clinton/Bayh? Oh, God, just take me now.
Bad news first: I'd have been quite happy, frankly, if the Clinton machine had been crushed in its infancy. Now she's managed to restore Inevitability and picked up Momentum along the way. The good news: She needed a lot of breaks to squeeze out a narrow win after she had a big lead in New Hampshire just a couple of weeks ago. I've read some libloggers extolling the primary season's extension, believing it will eventually force both candidates to the left as the race gets hotter. I'm less enthusiastic about this possibility, given that both candidates have been eagerly bashing each other with right-wing talking points. (Clinton even broke out OMG TEH TERRISTS! during Saturday night's debate. Yeah, I couldn't wait for that one.)
The wild card will be what Edwards decides to do. Over the weekend Edwards claimed he's staying in through the convention. This might be based on the hope that Obama and Clinton battle to a stalemate and he emerges the compromise candidate at a brokered convention. More likely, given that far-fetched scenario, he was hoping to outlast Clinton when Obama swept through the early states and then take on Obama one-on-one. That's now squashed, and with it any possibility for Edwards to win is probably closed.
I've been assuming, without seeing any poll data, that most of Edwards' support would shift to Obama if he withdrew. Edwards himself has been hanging on Obama's coattails in recent weeks. Is Edwards waiting to see who'll give him the best offer to do what they want? What could Obama offer anyway? Edwards has said he won't take a veep slot, and given his wife's cancer, I'm taking that as sincere.
If you aren't depressed enough today, Jonathan Shwarz considers a couple of potential Clinton veeps. Clinton/Biden? C'mon, not funny. Clinton/Bayh? Oh, God, just take me now.
08 January 2008
Dept. of Inevitability, part the second
"If left to my own devices, I'd spend all my time pointing out that he's weaker than bus-station chili. But the man is so constantly subjected to such hideous and unfair abuse that I wind up standing up for him on the general principle that some fairness should be applied. Besides, no one but a fool or a Republican ever took him for a liberal."
-Molly Ivins on Bill Clinton
One could also apply this general principle to the other Clinton. While there are undoubtedly any number of vile sexist narratives infecting press coverage of HRC, I'm wary of the instinct to use it an excuse to bail out the sadsack Clintons. The latest incident which has liberals on the brink of succumbing to Clinton sympathy was Hillary choking up at a campaign event Monday in New Hampshire. And, once again desperate for a lifeline, the Clintons will especially appreciate your sympathy, especially if it results in your vote.
Now, I'm not going to knock Clinton for having an emotional moment on the campaign trail. I'm all for deflating the Macho McTuffy nature of the presidential race. On those grounds, Edwards deserves to get stung for his counterattack, which may itself need more contextualizing. However, let's look at exactly what Clinton was saying to get herself choked up:
I occasionally wonder if the Clinton-DLC machine isn't more contemptuous of the DFH/progressive Democrats than it is of Republicans. One frequently hears Clinton boosters boast about how they coolly stand up to the right-wing noise machine. And here she's on the verge of cracking over the thought of losing--to another Democrat?
As far as I can tell, this isn't part of a grander calculated strategy by the Clinton camp, although they are naturally hitting out more openly at Obama rather than merely leaking smears about him. They also released a mailer questioning Obama's record on reproductive rights. Clinton has so far been unsuccessful at turning the race into a nasty battle of base identity politics, but she may be raising the stakes in a desperate attempt to turn things around. Whether this mainstreams or, more likely, just flops around the libosphere collecting casualties remains to be seen.
-Molly Ivins on Bill Clinton
One could also apply this general principle to the other Clinton. While there are undoubtedly any number of vile sexist narratives infecting press coverage of HRC, I'm wary of the instinct to use it an excuse to bail out the sadsack Clintons. The latest incident which has liberals on the brink of succumbing to Clinton sympathy was Hillary choking up at a campaign event Monday in New Hampshire. And, once again desperate for a lifeline, the Clintons will especially appreciate your sympathy, especially if it results in your vote.
Now, I'm not going to knock Clinton for having an emotional moment on the campaign trail. I'm all for deflating the Macho McTuffy nature of the presidential race. On those grounds, Edwards deserves to get stung for his counterattack, which may itself need more contextualizing. However, let's look at exactly what Clinton was saying to get herself choked up:
“I have so many opportunities from this country, I just don’t want to see us fall backwards. This is very personal for me — it’s not just political, it’s not just public.”Falling backwards? To whom, a Republican like Giuliani or Huckabee, or to Obama? Given that Clinton isn't yet running against the former, I'm inclined to believe it's Obama. And that makes the reaction smell like lost entitlement; "I can't believe you blockheaded voters going for that empty suit. Don't you know I was inevitable? It's mine, damnit!"
I occasionally wonder if the Clinton-DLC machine isn't more contemptuous of the DFH/progressive Democrats than it is of Republicans. One frequently hears Clinton boosters boast about how they coolly stand up to the right-wing noise machine. And here she's on the verge of cracking over the thought of losing--to another Democrat?
As far as I can tell, this isn't part of a grander calculated strategy by the Clinton camp, although they are naturally hitting out more openly at Obama rather than merely leaking smears about him. They also released a mailer questioning Obama's record on reproductive rights. Clinton has so far been unsuccessful at turning the race into a nasty battle of base identity politics, but she may be raising the stakes in a desperate attempt to turn things around. Whether this mainstreams or, more likely, just flops around the libosphere collecting casualties remains to be seen.
06 January 2008
Latest from the Dept. of Inevitability
Clinton camp: Obama's too liberal.
This Titanic is going bow-up. Clinton has been swamped by the "change" narrative, and is trying to bail out water by adopting it herself, but that's not very believable when you've surrounded yourself with all of your husband's old cruise-missile liberals and anti-union thugs.
That's one problem down. Alas, we may have replaced it with an even greater albatross. Lambert at Corrente has the essential Obama-skepticism post.
On my worst days, I imagine Obama as an Mr. Potato Head candidate, to which consumers can attach all of their own disparate beliefs onto his giant personality. But the only people getting any material benefit are the manufacturers of Mr. Potato Head, and the only people President Obama will be indebted to are the people who built him. It's fitting that Obama would be so closely aligned to a similar phenomenon, but what works for uplifting daytime television may not translate to the more hostile world of politics.
This Titanic is going bow-up. Clinton has been swamped by the "change" narrative, and is trying to bail out water by adopting it herself, but that's not very believable when you've surrounded yourself with all of your husband's old cruise-missile liberals and anti-union thugs.
That's one problem down. Alas, we may have replaced it with an even greater albatross. Lambert at Corrente has the essential Obama-skepticism post.
On my worst days, I imagine Obama as an Mr. Potato Head candidate, to which consumers can attach all of their own disparate beliefs onto his giant personality. But the only people getting any material benefit are the manufacturers of Mr. Potato Head, and the only people President Obama will be indebted to are the people who built him. It's fitting that Obama would be so closely aligned to a similar phenomenon, but what works for uplifting daytime television may not translate to the more hostile world of politics.
04 January 2008
Iowa postgame
Obama wins, by a slim but breathable margin. Witness the friendly face of fascism, and despair? OK, that's probably harsh. There is a more optimistic view of Obama that imagines him as a Trojan horse, playing the Bush-in-reverse card by racing to the center during the campaign, then governing as a liberal when elected. For the dangers involved in such a scenario, one need look no further than Bush in 2005, when he turned almost immediately post-election to the Big Bidness fever dream of privatizing Social Security, an issue almost completely ignored during the '04 campaign and quickly turned into a disaster which began Bush's long popular nosedive. Campaign rhetoric ain't worth whipped cheese, but in our shadow of a democracy, it's what people remember most.
Huckabee wins the GOP caucus with a much smaller turnout. While watching the pundit roundtable on Charlie Rose tonight, I noticed that MSM wisdom still doesn't consider Huckabee to be a serious contender over the long haul. Yes, he will not do well in New Hampshire, which has few social conservatives, but beyond that lies South Carolina which is, well, South Carolina. The new hope of the press and the Republican aristocrats is McCain, whose 4th place finish is being hailed as a dramatic comeback.
Huckabee wins the GOP caucus with a much smaller turnout. While watching the pundit roundtable on Charlie Rose tonight, I noticed that MSM wisdom still doesn't consider Huckabee to be a serious contender over the long haul. Yes, he will not do well in New Hampshire, which has few social conservatives, but beyond that lies South Carolina which is, well, South Carolina. The new hope of the press and the Republican aristocrats is McCain, whose 4th place finish is being hailed as a dramatic comeback.
03 January 2008
Assessing Bloomnberg and (finally) Iowa
The Donkeyman makes some good points in response to my assessment of Bloomberg's potential candidacy, although I would dispute the sincerity of Bloomberg's backers vis a vis Obama. Obama's transcendental rhetoric, while perhaps vacuous and misguided, seems to be an honest impulse, or at the very least has attracted a following who believes in it, while Bloomberg strikes me as a lot of the same cynical Broderist wankery. Partisan Democrats, for all of their faults, have rightly been wary of the Beltway media pleas for "compromise," seeing as de facto capitulation to Republicans because it only works one way, pushing the Overton window inexorably to the right. Democratic candidates seen as too cozy with the hippies are lustily scolded, while Republican appeals to the far reaches of their base are waved away as a natural phenomenon.
Politically, Bloomberg is closer to Giuliani than Clinton, I admit I've left Giuliani out of the equation because I've written him off. Giuliani doesn't look likely to win any of the upfront primaries, and his national lead has disappeared. Barring a miracle, his slide looks irreversible.
But there are practical reasons why Bloomberg is less likely to oppose a Clinton nomination; she remains the most beatable Democratic candidate, and he doesn't want to jeopardize the chances for the "normal" Republican candidate. He probably needs an Edwards-Huckabee race to undergo Perotization, parlaying middle-class fear of hippies and religious nuts to give himself a chance to win. Otherwise, it's just a vanity campaign chasing a voting bloc that only exists in the minds of Washington pundits.
Now, for some more vapid horse-race inanity:
After tonight there will finally be some real votes in the box to talk about. Conventional wisdom says a low turnout at the Iowa caucuses favors Clinton, while a high turnout signals a boost for the two underdogs. If you needed to know anything about the Clinton campaign and the Democratic race in general, that might be enough. A Clinton win likely means game over; Obama wins and we go to the next round. Edwards must win to have any hope at all. If it goes Edwards-Obama-Clinton, we'll have a real ballgame on our hands. That's my (admittedly hopeful) prediction.
Huckabee looks more and more to me like a solid frontrunner. If Romney doesn't win in Iowa after using so many resources there, he'll look crushed and direction-less. Like Giuliani, see above. McCain may be catching a late wave of the not-totally-insane hawk vote, but it's too little, too late. Prediction: Huckabee/Romney/Who Cares.
Politically, Bloomberg is closer to Giuliani than Clinton, I admit I've left Giuliani out of the equation because I've written him off. Giuliani doesn't look likely to win any of the upfront primaries, and his national lead has disappeared. Barring a miracle, his slide looks irreversible.
But there are practical reasons why Bloomberg is less likely to oppose a Clinton nomination; she remains the most beatable Democratic candidate, and he doesn't want to jeopardize the chances for the "normal" Republican candidate. He probably needs an Edwards-Huckabee race to undergo Perotization, parlaying middle-class fear of hippies and religious nuts to give himself a chance to win. Otherwise, it's just a vanity campaign chasing a voting bloc that only exists in the minds of Washington pundits.
Now, for some more vapid horse-race inanity:
After tonight there will finally be some real votes in the box to talk about. Conventional wisdom says a low turnout at the Iowa caucuses favors Clinton, while a high turnout signals a boost for the two underdogs. If you needed to know anything about the Clinton campaign and the Democratic race in general, that might be enough. A Clinton win likely means game over; Obama wins and we go to the next round. Edwards must win to have any hope at all. If it goes Edwards-Obama-Clinton, we'll have a real ballgame on our hands. That's my (admittedly hopeful) prediction.
Huckabee looks more and more to me like a solid frontrunner. If Romney doesn't win in Iowa after using so many resources there, he'll look crushed and direction-less. Like Giuliani, see above. McCain may be catching a late wave of the not-totally-insane hawk vote, but it's too little, too late. Prediction: Huckabee/Romney/Who Cares.
Diversion
FreeRice.com
Highly addictive. I managed to peak on level 42, but the highest I can sustain is between 38-40 (and I'm close to 6,000 grains donated.)
See if you can outdo me (not hard).
Highly addictive. I managed to peak on level 42, but the highest I can sustain is between 38-40 (and I'm close to 6,000 grains donated.)
See if you can outdo me (not hard).
02 January 2008
Short-sell democracy
A couple of weeks ago, former Fed chairman and Ayn Rand fanboy Alan Greenspan delivered an attack on John Edwards' populism on ABC's This Week. Greenspan and others are were reacting to a then-recent poll showing Edwards with a brief lead in the Iowa caucus (which has since flipped back) by reminding the proles who's running the ship, and too much democracy makes the rich white guys uncomfortable.
This story reminded me of another tale from The Shock Doctrine, where Klein writes about post-apartheid South Africa and how the ANC found itself hog-tied to the neoliberal program of the Washington Consensus despite its history of reform and nationalization.
This story reminded me of another tale from The Shock Doctrine, where Klein writes about post-apartheid South Africa and how the ANC found itself hog-tied to the neoliberal program of the Washington Consensus despite its history of reform and nationalization.
As soon as [Mandela] was released, the South African stock market collapsed in panic. South Africa's currency, the rand, dropped by 10 percent. A few weeks later, De Beers, the diamond corporation, moved its headquarters from South Africa to Switzerland. This kind of instant punishment from the markets would have been unimaginable three decades earlier, when Mandela was first imprisoned. In the sixties, it was unheard of for multinationals to switch nationalities on a whim and, back then, the world money system was firmly linked to the gold standard. Now, South Africa's currency had been stripped of controls; trade barriers were down and most trading was short-term speculation.The increased viability of the populist candidates Edwards and Huckabee may explain why the wheels are starting to turn faster on Michael Bloombeg's Unity08 run, more truthfully titled the Rich White Guy Emergency Plan. This group certainly fears Edwards more than Huckabee, since the former has the much better chance at winning the general election, and I suspect that, once he has been disposed of by the Corporate Dems, Bloomberg's backers will magically dissolve into the ether. (It's certainly hard to see where Bloomberg fits in a race that includes Hillary Clinton, who's basically pulling the same roots.)
Not only did the volatile market not like the idea of a liberated Mandela, but just a few words from him or one of his fellow ANC leaders could lead to an earth-shaking stampede by what the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has aptly termed "the electronic herd." The stampede that greeted Mandela's release was just the start of what became a call-and-response between the ANC leadership and the financial markets--a shock dialogue that trained the party on the new rules of the game. Every time a top party official said something that hinted that the ominous Freedom Charter might still become policy, the market responded with a shock, sending the rand into freefall. The rules were simple and crude; the electronic equivalent of monosyllabic grunts: justice--expensive, sell; status quo--good, buy. When, shortly after his release, Mandela once again spoke out in favor of nationalization at a private lunch with leading businessmen, "the All-Gold index plunged by 5 per cent."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
