Sorry for another VP diary, and a short one at that, but this might be big news:
In what will be his fifth visit to Montana as a presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama will make a campaign stop Tuesday in Billings.
Obama and his campaign will then spend the night in Billings before moving on toward the Democratic Nation-al Convention in Denver. Obama's campaign has not yet announced the visit, but the trip was confirmed by several sources with knowledge of the candidate's plans.
Obama will accept the Democratic nomination for president Thursday night at Invesco Field in Denver. He plans to announce his running mate in the next few days and campaign with him or her beginning Saturday in Illinois.
The party announced Wednesday night that Art Noonan, executive director of the Montana Democratic Party, will hold a press conference today to make a "major announcement on the presidential campaign here in Montana." The press conference is at 10:30 a.m. at 316 Eighth St. in Helena.
Yesterday was the 44th anniversary of Soviet Yury Gagarin's trip to space, becoming the first person ever to do so, beating the Americans in that stage of the space race. In response, of course, America landed a person on the moon.
As I was mulling this over, I realized how the space race was driven by Cold War ideological competition, and how many new technologies this competition ultimately gave the world. Hardly a day goes by that "Designed by NASA" is not seen in some advertisement somewhere. From rocket engineering to Velcro to bedding, our competition with the "Russkies" (as Slim Pickens would say) paid us dividends. How many scientists today were led into their field by Sputnik? We sank a ton of money into science and education as a result of the Soviet threat.
Thank you George W., you dangerous and comically arrogant clown. Because you have succeeded in dividing the country among slave states and free states, and stopping at nothing less than starting a war in order to get re-elected, you have given me a moment of clarity. To you, Karl, and your minions, I say: Salut!
Hmm. A break-in story. What a coincidence. Let's take a closer look (more in extended section below):
Burglars broke into state Bush-Cheney '04 headquarters in Bellevue early yesterday and stole three laptop computers containing campaign plans. State Republican Chairman Chris Vance quickly issued a statement declaring that it "looks like one of several deliberate attempts to disrupt the re-election campaign."
I recently went to a John Edwards rally. I enjoyed it. Big crowd. Some good lines from Edwards, who showed energy and intelligence. But I also felt some of it was too scripted, that the audience, including me, felt unsatisfied by some of the fuzzy rhetoric. I was overall happy, but not as much as I should, or could, have been. We seemed to all be dying for Edwards to rip into those paper tigers, Bush and Cheney, but instead got a lot of the same stock phrases. I realize that many speeches must be given and one cannot come up with new stuff every single day, I suppose.
But considering the number and magnitude of the Bush-Cheney errors, how hard could it be? Excuse the pun, but shouldn't it be relatively easy to hit home runs against Bush league? I for one want to feel mobilized by my candidate. Not hear platitudes or slogans. I want heart, specifics, and a take-it-to-them attitude. I want to win. And if my captain wants to win, too, then he has to do more than make his team feel happy about themselves, he has to get them to sacrifice, which takes more than catch phrases and stump speeches. Doesn't it take inspiration? Churchill was pretty good at this, yes? And didn't he say "Short words are best and old words are best of all"?
I've been hearing a lot about Kerry's lack of punch in his speeches lately (see Josh Marshall the last couple days). So, that being said, here's a speech I'd like to hear--of short if not necessarily old words. What's yours?
Last year, a couple of days before the 4th, my girlfriend and I went to do some shopping at the local Wal-Mart. Being both progressives, we held our noses going to the store, but we easily rationalized it since it was the only store for fifteen miles. But on this particular day what we saw outraged both of us and we immediately put back our basket of stuff and haven't been back since. Actually, I did go back once--a few mintues later to take pictures of what I saw. Below are the photos I took. It was smack dab in the middle of the store.
I won't shop at any store that has such a social and political agenda. This water-carrying for the Republicans is, as they once said, an intolerable act. Now my girlfriend and I always make the long drive to K-Mart, and see it as our civic duty.
Along with Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911," another documentary is opening. "The Hunting of the President," based on the work of Joe Conason, covers the wingnut cabal that impeached Clinton. See the links below, one to the official website and the other to a good interview with Conason at the American Prosect Online.
Did anyone else catch former ambassador Joseph Wilson on Charlie Rose? An intersting interview, for many reasons. What most caught my attention was at the end when Wilson spoke about the ramifications of the Iraq War. He called it our biggest foreign policy mistake perhaps ever, one that has fundamentally altered how we're perceived in the world, with potentially dire consequences.
To stop the Kerry juggernaut, why don't Dean and Clark announce a Pres./V.P. ticket, with Gore as Secretary of State? This would bring together the anti-war, anti-Kerry, north/south, insider/outsider Washington, military/civilian, and progressive themes and make a strong, electable ticket. Separately all three out of the loop, so to speak, trailing behind Kerry and also Edwards. Isn't it just arbitrary not to choose a ticket and one's cabinet ahead of time? If Dean is preferable to people but trailing merely because he is "unelectable," that people want somebody who can beat Bush more than anything, why not something like this? Governor, General, VP together, right now, might look nice to the electorate. We can have the best candidates, the ones that are not invertebrate pro-corporation millionaires, and also throw out the Pretender in Chief.
Despite recent ruling in favor of Blair regarding the "sexing up" of information on Iraq, how can the below be explained? It's from Robin Cook's testimony from last summer, after he resigned from Blair's cabinet:
Mr Cook, repeated that the government had scored a "spectacular own goal" in publishing its dossier about Saddam Hussein. Asked if intelligence had been "sexed up" to back the decision to go to war, Mr Cook said: "I think there was a selection of evidence to support the conclusion....
He said it was "impossible" for him to defend the taking out of the phrase "opposition groups" and replacing it with the word "terrorist".
If this isn't "sexing up" something, what is? See
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0617-03.htm
Anyone watch ABC News tonight, with Jennings? They finished with another look at Dean's supposed scream after Iowa. It wasn't bad, I'll give them credit. They had, yes, Diane Sawyer look at video and audio from the crowd perspective, giving the necessary context, not just playing a single camera angle with the audio of a handheld, background noise-filtering microphone. Of course, from this perspective the whole thing was completely different. The noise was deafening; probably the only one who could hear Dean was Dean himself. It was obvious had to yell because of the crowd's cheering, not because of any bogus temperament issue.
ABC then got quotes from the other networks admitting that what they didn't wasn't really proper or accurate.
And, alas, they naturally gave the last word to awful Roger Ailes, who said, "Yeah, we maybe played it up a bit. But that kept him around for another week." Which translates as yeah, we got it wrong, but it HELPED Dean! Horse apples. What helped Dean was the outrage from sites like dKos and the commitment of Dean supporters. An historic dropping of the ball by the media.
Somebody should keep track of when the media corrects itself like this. It might help them to know we are watching and that we demand information delivered professionally, no sensationalistically. We could call it, "Media Culpa" or something equally witty. Thoughts, reactions?
We're in big trouble. Not a little trouble, not some trouble, but big trouble. As the late great Robert Preston might say if he were still with us, "Trouble--That's a capital T that rhymes with B and that stands for Bush."
Yes, it's Bush. That this lovely fellow is in charge is our trouble. Deficits. World hates us. Environment. Fundamentalists on one side, reactionary ideologues on the other. Republicans trying to gerrymander away our political system and the Democratic party itself, while transferring power to corporations. And the leader of the government, who should be taking care of these things, the potus of our republic is who? A dipshit. An ignorant, patrician jerk. You remember the great movie "Being There"? Well, if you took Chance the gardener and shoved a bug up his ass, you'd have George W. Bush.
Anyway, my point. We're in trouble. And we sure as hell better get somebody to fix it. And that somebody better realize that our need to have things fixed outweighs their desire to be President. That's my litmus test. Who out there among the Democratic candidates wants to help his country more than get elected?
I'm not against a little political ambition. Hell, even a lot of ambition; great leaders seem to always have this. But at crisis moments, like the present disastrous mess, such people have put the needs of their people over their own private agendas. We need somebody willing to do that today. We need somebody willing to make this sacrifice. We need a hero.
Listening to Diane Sawyer try to reduce and direct every question to its most base emotion point, made me think of a book I read a few months ago. It's called, "Seducing America: How Television Charms the Modern Voter," by Roderick P. Hart.
Here are some quotes from the book:
* "Television has a logic and that logic is fully in force when it comes to governance... Politics has become increasingly personal.
* "It is television that has changed how politics is conducted and how it is received."
* "The traditional press conference has given way to the presidential town-hall; the scathing broadside has been supplanted by the 15-second spot; campaign oratory has been replaced by the emotional collage of the convention film. But this book makes a more ominous claim: Television has changed politics itself."
* "As long as people choose to live together and as long as the world's resources remain finite, the essentialist would say, politics will do what it has always done: forge cooperation, enforce regulations. Television can hardly change these brute facts of public life. But television can, and does, mystify such facts. Television can, and does, make the public sphere seem more private."
* "Television makes us see politics in a certain way but also makes us see seeing in a certain way. Television tells us, a bit at a time, that politics can be reduced to pictures... Most important, television endorses a special set of feelings."
* "Television...now tells us how to feel about politics, producing in us a swagger whereby we tower above politics by making it seem beneath us...has made the burdens of citizenship increasingly taxing for us and it is, I believe, responsible for much of the alienation we now feel."
* "Television...fills an emotional void created by modern life itself. Television has become a delivery system for intimacy...If politics were suddenly obliterated from the television screen...politics would instantly become less personal."
* "(I)t is television's capacity to generate surprise that makes it especially attractive."
* "Social scientists have long noted...that those who watch television a great deal know precious little about how they are governed, presumably because political programming is directed at the lowest common denominator. But being informed and feeling informed are different matters. Many Americans, far too many Americans, feel eminently knowledgeable about politics, and that is a danger of some consequence."
* "Television miseducates the citizenry but, worse, it makes that miseducation functionally attractive."
* "Over the years, voter turnout has decreased even as television consumption has increased."
* "Watching governance has become equivalent to engaging governance. Because of television, even nonvoters can now feel politically exhausted."
* "What happens when people watch politics solely through a strategic lens? A cultural cynicism results, and it saps the body politic by making the miracle of self-governance seem a sham. But why is cynicism attractive? Because it is television's most natural language and because people derive pleasure from being in sync with popular culture."
Maybe it's not the best idea to write angry any more than it is to drive angry. But I just can't believe what comes out of Lieberman's mouth these days. It would be bad enough if he was any Democrat, but as a former vice-presidential candidate who lost to Bush, a president that is a disaster, it's unbearable. He should be tarred and feathered.
One reason poppy Bush lost in '92 was because of Ross Perot, who ran because of the budget mess. Where is he this time? I find it hard to believe that more people on the right aren't dismayed more than ever at job the Dauphin's done to the finances of the country. Where's Buchanan? Where's McCain? Do they really think four more years of the neo-cons' puppet would be a good thing? The right's Kool-Aid can't be that strong.
Two very interesting artlcles on business and politics, one from The New Republic and one from The Atlantic Monthly. The Kaplan piece is rather long and might be best printed out and read.
Excerpts:
"Is it not conceivable that corporations will, like the rulers of both Sparta and Athens, project power to the advantage of the well-off while satisfying the twenty-first-century servile populace with the equivalent of bread and circuses? In other words, the category of politics we live with may depend more on power relationships and the demeanor of our society than on whether we continue to hold elections. Just as Cambodia was never really democratic, despite what the State Department and the UN told us, in the future we may not be democratic, despite what the government and media increasingly dominated by corporations tell us.
"Bush's extremism does not lie in the purity of his devotion to the teachings of Milton Friedman but rather in the slavishness of his fealty to K Street. The distinction is a fine one, but it's highly revealing. In most instances, being pro-free market and pro-business amount to the same thing. Businesses usually want the government out of their way, which is why the business lobby threw its weight behind Bush's efforts to cut taxes, scuttle workplace safety standards, and so on. The way you tell the difference between a free-marketer and a servant of business is how he behaves when the interests of the two diverge. And all the evidence, including the Medicare and energy bills, points to the conclusion that Bush is happy to throw free-market conservatism out the window when business interests so desire."
