In this goddamn diary, I tackle the distasteful idea that the Democrats are reaching for a mantle we have little ability to wear.

So we've all been complaining for months that the press is giving John McCain pass after pass after pass in the news. He says stupid, inane things and no one catches them or cares to talk about them (save the "100 years in Iraq" nugget of gold he gave us all). We (Kossacks and netizens, etc) all watch him closely, listen to what he actually says - and bellow from our supposedly lonely mountaintop that McSame "is a dipshit" - "is senile" - "is flip flopping like a live salmon in a dry boat" ad nauseum.

But something I have been noticing lately, in the news outlets I do pay attention to - and Fox Spews is not one of them - that Obama has been getting all the air time. By a wide margin, everything Obama does and says is covered, and McSame's name is mentioned, but footage of him is not aired, pictured of him are not featured.

A Nation Divided Cannot Stand...against Tyranny.

[reprinted from WOID: a journal of visual art]

Now that the reviews of Museum, Inc. are in it’s good to ask what I, the author, got out of them. Of course it’s easy to like the good reviews and easier to dismiss the bad ones, but I’ve learned to take either one for what they’re worth. Some good reviews seem so off the mark they make me feel guilty – not for reading nice things about myself, of course, but because the explanations don’t help explain the book itself. Some bad reviews I just shrug off because the reviewer’s bias is so clear that anyone, pro or con, can see through it and make a reasoned decision on their own. When the critic for the Times Literary Supplement spoke of my "wearisome cynicism" she obviously meant the passage where I state my goals: to "make you smile and think, and bring us all a step closer to World Revolution." It’s one of the charmingly naïve aspect of the British intellectual elites to think they still rule anything at all, least of all public opinion.

I.

Am I the only one out there who thinks that this ridiculously long Democratic primary season closely resembles a movie?  This election cycle reminds me of a film about Democracy: some sort of bizarre combination of Bulworth, Network, Hoosiers, Primary Colors, and Wag the Dog.  Those are just the first few examples that come to mind off-hand; I'm sure there are many others that would fit the bill.

When a Presidential candidate makes a reference to her own parody on Saturday Night Live, tries to corral it to win votes, then finds the very same program once so staunchly her corner totally slamming her a few weeks later, it is clear-cut evidence of the way we have evolved in twenty-first century society.  

Political candidates, according to the conventional wisdom, are not supposed to use their own satirical portrayal to aid them on the campaign trail.  However, this election has slaughtered several sacred cows and may continue to do so.  

Great minds discuss ideas.
Average minds discuss events.
Small minds discuss people.

-Eleanor Roosevelt

I submit the following two part argument.

First, you have to know that I believe the majority of scientists who are convinced our production of CO2 on the planet has an effect on our climate.  In all likelihood that effect has a direct bearing on the severity of the fires going on in California right now but the operative word here is "likelihood".  

The Dick Cheneys, the Bushes, the American Dominionists deserve one another.  None of them believes in America and none of them would find success in the ideology that made America.  All of them believe in abusing fear, running truth out of the room, and semantically twisting law, legislation, or language that pose potential barriers in achieving their desired ends.**

_

Before I get more serious, I’ll give you this:

The Ps in GOP: Power over Pelf.  Pelf over Politics.  Politics over Party.  Party over Policy. Policy to PerPetuate Power via ProPaganda Provided by Pelf for Paid Pundits*

The Ps in People or Public are severed from this perpetual loop.

Onwards...

Alternate title: "The greatest con ever pulled"

We on the left, or what we call the left now, have many strengths. Intellectualism. Open mindedness. Empathy. Respect for others. But those strengths carry with them our biggest flaws. We are not cohesive and never will be. We are anti-authoritarian, even to our own ideological leaders. We all too often offer mercy to our enemies long before we've finished our battles. And perhaps worst is that we assume those enemies are of good will.

Thus did the right build the perfect beast.

We now have a potentially mildly retarded, delusional religious fundamentalist in the service of the corporatists and the financial elite in control of the most powerful nation on earth.

As someone who holds an MAT in social studies education, and a BA in history with a minor in Poli Sci, I was stunned to learn that our vice president considers the post a legal island unto itself — a therefore beyond any legal checks and balances.

This leads me to a pair of conclusions: Cheney is actually the President and he has assumed dictatorial powers.

(by Amy Traub from DMIblog) There is a huge contradiction at the heart of David Brooks' column this morning, although I got so caught up in his straw-man caricatures of political philosophies and his welter of small-bore policy proposals that I nearly missed it.

Early in the column, Brooks tries to explain why he isn't a "mainstream liberal." Liberal social programs, he asserts, haven't worked (let's debunk that one another time), and what's more, high taxes are needed to pay for them. High taxes are bad because "a pile of evidence" shows they lead to reduced working hours. And "in the face of Chinese and Indian competition, we don't need Americans working less." Let's let that stand and take him at his word: Brooks is not a mainstream liberal.

In his article "Impeachment in the Constitutional Order," Scholar Jeffrey K. Tulis speculates on why "impeachment" has fallen into disrepute since Andrew Johnson. Tulis argues that impeachment is "anything but an anachronism," and has received a bad rap due possibly to a misleading analogy with legal process. Hence, we've been conditioned to be afraid to use legal means to solve what is seen a political problem to be solved at the ballot box. Rather than being afraid of using impeachment, Tulis concludes that the Framers intended for impeachment to be indeed a political rather than a legal tool, and thus impeachment is nothing less than a "constitutive feature in the theory of the constitutional separation of powers."

To understand why, please read below the fold.

In his article "Impeachment in the Constitutional Order," Scholar Jeffrey K. Tulis speculates on why "impeachment" has fallen into disrepute since Andrew Johnson. Tulis argues that impeachment is "anything but an anachronism," and has received a bad rap due possibly to a misleading analogy with legal process. Hence, we've been conditioned to be afraid to use legal means to solve what is seen a political problem to be solved at the ballot box. Rather than being afraid of using impeachment, Tulis concludes that the Framers intended for impeachment to be indeed a political rather than a legal tool, and thus impeachment is nothing less than a "constitutive feature in the theory of the constitutional separation of powers."

To understand why, please read below the fold.

This diary was inspired by the excellent diary from this morning about the role of the Second Amendment.

Ten years ago, a friend of mine was a dedicated "Michigan milita nut." He was zealously anti-gun control, and he argued that an armed people was the best defense against Fascism.

I thought he was crazy. Facism? Here? No American needs an AK-47... only two kinds of people want these guns legal, gun fetishists and criminals.

But the experience of the past six years has changed my thinking 180 degrees. I think the seeds for our problems today were planted long ago, and I think those who want to fix the problems should look past Bush and Cheney to the institutions that have laid the groundwork for the madness.

We began our research on self-referencing conservative thought and theory thinking we knew the achilles heel of conservatism; the way in to unravel conservatism's convoluted theories and demonstrate its contradictions.

The conservative notion of "cause and effect" we thought was the way in.(Having jousted with conservative talk radio hosts I've experienced first hand their ability to defend their first false premise with a second false premise and the second with a third.) Expose their false notion of cause and effect and everything unravels.

But as we went along we found that although cause and effect was a major error in conservative theory other premises were just as fundamental if not more so.

One of these stems from Eric Voegelin's concept of Gnosticism. He claims that trying to make any improvements or progress in our secular history takes us farther away from God, and is an attempt an immanentizing heaven here on earth.

Logically, this leads to a belief that we should do nothing. While this extreme view is not often espoused the attitude appears consistently in conservative theory.

Some things are hard to predict and other things are not.  It is not hard to predict that the Executive Branch is going to come into conflict with the Legislative Branch over the next two years.  One reason is the President and Vice-President's belief in the Unitary Executive theory.  That theory is legally complex but it will be used to resist Congressional oversight, especially oversight that bears on the President's role as commander-in-chief.  And when that happens, there will be a public debate about whether the President, as the chief executive in the 'war on terror' is above the law.  Can he refuse to allow his subordinates to testify, can he immunize them against the withholding of evidence?  In this light, it is interesting to see with what low regard the public already holds the President in this debate.

I have been reading in a number of places about what we sarcastically might call the failed Democratic majority.  I suggest that each of these stories, whether written as straight news or as opinion, has been based entirely on a single false assumption.

My previous diary entry discussed loosely coupled systems and how these organizational structures are superior to other systems.  In the 2006 Congressional elections we saw the Democrats victorious, and my contention in that diary entry was that our victory was due to a return to a loosely coupled model of organization.

Since that glorious Tuesday, we have seen article after article highlighting differences of opinion among the Democrats.  It seems, each and every article is based unquestioningly on the assumption that differences of opinions are bad things for a political party.  I suggest that the media need a quick primer on organizational dynamics.  I'll explain after the fold.

Clean money is about fair elections. It helps people get their message out and makes elections about ideas, not about money.  

So in a state that is generally Republican, it makes sense that you'd start seeing that sort of representation.  Also you'll start seeing a representation that has minorities and women, which is what's happening.  But this is only the beginning of a long process.  Which can begin in California with Proposition 89.

If the playing field is leveled, hopefully what you're seeing is candidates that resonate with the constituents, and hopefully are responsive to the constituents.  How that affects the final outcome of the government, policy, or the whole of the United States remains to be seen.