This post is generally about Rep. Alan Grayson's comments on HardBall but specifically about the reactions to those comments. And there is a disconcerting pull towards "being reasonable" that I would like to address.

Grayson is known for his comment that the Republican plan for health care is "don't get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly." The HardBall comments refer to Dick Cheney as having blood dripping from his teeth. That these comments are seen as "over the top" for some people on the left is a real problem for me.

There was a good amount of positive reaction to the comment, but too many others were "tut-tutting," in the words of one commenter, about the "inappropriate" tone of the attack and the fact that it might cost him his seat.

This comment from Barry Champlain should be mandatory reading for all Democrats, with a quiz to follow.
 

Which gives us a fantastic contrarian explanation of R districts, doesn't it?

All those American citizens who followed the the guys on talk radio, voted straight R; described themselves as "conservative"... think about it:

All they were really doing, as natural-born Followers, was looking for a guy with balls that they could follow. And who would protect them. That is why people like Rush always could describe America as "a conservative nation"; their conservative heroes talked like political bikers with fists and weaponry.

Well, along comes an unabashed liberal, carrying his cojones in a wheelbarrow. He stands up in front of his "R" district, and does what he does without batting an eye. When the howls of Outrage [tm] come, he doubles-down on the offense factor. So what happens?

Something like four potential Republican opponents have bowed-out from running against him in his red district, because he's becoming a rock star to all these "red" people.

Fuck "apologizing"... THIS IS HOW WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN DOING IT, ALL ALONG.

And it's the ONLY way dems are going to hang on to Congress and the White House - by emulating Alan Grayson.

I'm tired of the "high road" people who think this guy is merely a clown or the Democratic equivalent of Michelle Malkin. Maybe the MSM will portray it that way, but he is landing REAL blows to these idiots. Calling it like it is and turning the rhetoric back around.

It is the "high road" people I want to address.

I've said it before, but one of the best political quotes I've ever heard (unfortunately I forget where) is that "Democrats use elitist rhetoric to promote populist policies, while Republicans use populist rhetoric to promote elitist policies." Read that again.

Seems to me that using populist rhetoric to promote populist policies is a SLAM DUNK.

So back to the people that want to take the "high road." Obama, you say, ran against Hillary's confrontational approach and he won the nomination and the Presidency by appealing to people's higher instincts. True, but think about Bush for a minute. He did not use the same kind of rhetoric as his "footsoldiers" like Rush and an infinite number of others. (OK, well, besides the "dictator" comment.) The point is Obama is the only one who has to be "presidential" because he is the only one who is the effing President!

It's up to everyone else to take this thing forward by being...what? Reasonable and measured? NO! By being angry.

What does it take? How many uninsured people have to die? How often can the right-wing lies be repeated before someone besides Grayson calls Tweety out on it? And NOT in a polite way? And here we arrive at the crux of the problem.

I assume many left-leaning people have an ideal of "peace" that was arrived at by reading certain mystical Crhistian or even eastern thinkers. If the grown-ups can just get control, they think, we can all have a grown-up discussion and leave the rancor and harsh rhetoric behind.

But I think those people are misreading the philosophers they admire and are using an avoidance strategy to protect themselves from necessary confrontation.

It seems to me there is an important difference between anger and rage. Rage is the Right's stock-in-trade. It is undisciplined and indescriminate. It cares not for details, or even facts. It allows, even celebrates, torture and wholesale slaughter.

But it is not the same as anger.

Anger - the righteous kind - motivates, gives courage, allows beleagured people to stand up to insanity and speak the truth. It dispells fear.

It stands up to the bully so you can keep your lunch money and help out the other kids.

I understand the impulse to "rise above" anger and seek some sort of higher consciousness where anger is unnecessary. And I hope when I die I will find such a place.

But we are on Earth, people. You should know the rules.

Well, well. This is cause for cautious optimism.
I'm not registered with twitter and I'm not a fan. It makes no sense to me. Plenty of people have pointed out that if twitter becomes the new cutting-edge source of information, it does not bode well for any of us. 140 characters of frequently spurious information?
However, I get that it is multi-sourced and certain sources will come to be seen as more reliable than others as time passes.
But here's the main thing: I never "got" Drudge, either. Forget the right-wing blather. Forget the traffic on his site. What I never got was that he was apparently the go-to guy for the corporate conglomerate journalist suits for years. Surely, I thought, they can't be that desperate and lazy.

I was, apparently, wrong.
So I'm probably wrong about twitter, too.

Either way, Drudge got a lot of mileage out of the Lewinsky thing, and he is apparently about to run out of gas. Not that I'm planning to register with Twitter or anything, but I never looked at Drudge either.

I read Josh's post regarding the Medal of Honor, and something occurred to me. Obvious, maybe, but it still needs to be said.

Individual acts of bravery and valor are always honorable regardless of the morality of the overall mission. These acts deserve their place in the record books of Eternity and the merits of the war itself have no bearing on their honor.

As for the actions that start and perpetuate these wars, they too have their place in the record books, but they will be dealt with separately by the Great Scorekeeper.

Memorial Day will never be about them.

God Bless our troops.

The conservative media strikes again, with Time's new article, "Barack Obama's New World Order"
The article is basic stuff, about how different Obama's approach to foreign policy is from that of GWB. Ya think?
But the use of "New World Order" is bound to make the wingers apoplectic. It is one of their favorite catchphrases, and goes right along with Bachmann's campaign against a non-existent plan for an international currency. You know, Democrats want to end American sovereignty and participate in a One-World government. Don't underestimate how many people believe this idea in some form or other.
I refuse to believe TIME is unaware of how loaded the phrase "New World Order" is for a lot of Americans. Just google "New World Order" and "NWO" to see the far-flung advance of this particularly virulent strain of right-wing lunacy.
After Bachmann's call for "Revolution" and for people (i.e., Republicans) to be "Armed and Dangerous" it's a little disheartening to see Time shoveling some raw meat into wolf den.

   I'm not one of those to overtly question Obama's picks and his transition. Given the circumstances, I guess some hard choices have to be made, and I suppose there are not really that many people qualified to hit the ground running.
   But this is ridiculous. I don't know what else to say. It lends a lot of credence to Nader's arguments, as well as those of other people who think the Federal Government is a rotating cabal of people who do NOT have our interests at heart.
   This post is written by someone who is outside the gates anyway, and looking up at the bright shining tower wondering what the Hell is going on, but hopeful just the same that the victory in November will bring change.
   Telling myself: ignore the Gensler story. Ignore the Gensler story.

   As I write this, 3:15 EST, the markets are bracing themselves for another sell-off, courtesy of Senate Republicans
   And it looks like Olbermann's network is only too happy to put some wind in the sails of the Ship of Fools with a headline like this: "New Senate Star Emerges from Auto Row"
   Who's the star? Corker.
   If you're losing count of the double standards, remember when Obama said Democrats should not use the filibuster but should concentrate on winning elections instead?
   Yet, all through the election cycle, we've heard about the "Magic 60" ad nauseum, because everyone knows, I guess, that Republicans are obligated to obstruct every damn thing that does not originate with Pat Robertson, Ayn Rand, or other haters of the working class.
   Was I the only one shouting at the TV when congressman Gary Ackerman (D?! NY) lambasted the CEOs for coming to Capitol Hill in private jets? And for a paltry $35 billion?
   The deafening silence regarding the $700 billion and, apparently hundreds of billions more -- that somehow did not require legislation -- continues to this day. How many of those unknown robber barons showed up on private jets? Why did the AIG spa story disappear? It is a much more clear example of the arrogance and presumption of the ruling class, to the tune of $100 billion and counting, but there's your answer.
   The Ruling Class.
   If you don't think there is one, observe the attack on the UAW, cloaked as a "free-market solution" for the troubled auto industry. It's one of the last real manufacturing unions left and a lot of the remaining union workers in the US are in the public sector anyway. Don't think it matters? Well, if you thought there was a "race to the bottom" before, in terms of wages, hours worked, benefits, pensions, etc. just stick around. With the UAW gone, that "bad example" will bring a lot of others with it.
   Which is exactly what makes them flap their hands with excitement.
   And the media is all too willing to play along, to play up the "drama" of the "Senate's new star" who bravely stays up late trying to decimate working people in the US.
   And the $700 billion?
   "Hey everybody!! Look over there!! That car maker is on a private plane!! Get him!!"
   And spare me the talk about how bad the American car companies are. No shit. I don't own one. Did they increase fuel efficiency? Not at all. But people kept buying anyway. Until the bottom fell out RE gas prices, catching them with their pants down.
   So what? Forget the companies themselves and think about the general economy, the parts manufacturers, the dealerships, the dozens of satellite business, and, if it doesn't nauseate you too much, think about the union workers. And the fact that we've been talking about $15 billion for two weeks.
   All I am saying -- for cryin' out loud, all I'm saying -- is keep your eye on the $700 billion.
   Is that so hard?
   With the American media, it's damn near impossible.
  

  

Good Lord, the ad ratio is like 10-1 Chambliss, at least at my house.  Palin, Romney, McCain...all making appearances. I logged onto myspace and Freedom'sWatch grabbed me by the throat on every page...all negatives about Martin. I'm getting the feeling he is being hung out to dry and I'm starting to feel bad for him. Where's the support? Judging from the ads alone, he's doomed. And the polls weren't that bad. At least not bad enough to leave the guy in this situation. The ads are MEAN and they're non-stop with very little pushback.

"I'd like to see triangulation get so small that we could drown it in the bathtub."
-- The Anti-Grover

   Are Democrats looking for ways to preemptively capitulate on issues that have not even come up yet? What kind of margin would cause them to NOT cave? 
   Lieberman's Free Pass is beginning to look like EVERYONE'S Free Pass. Maybe accountability will come in January, but it's not looking good right now.
   That should come as no surprise, given Obama's overt appeals to "changing the tone" and ending the rampant partisanship in Washington.
   A worthy aim, but the best way to change the tone is for the grown-ups to take their toys away.
   That is not likely to happen.
   Matthew Yglesias made an important point when Reagan's former Chief of Staff Ken Duberstein came out for Obama.

On some level, I sort of regret seeing people like this hop onto the Obama bandwagon. Realistically, at some point the Republicans are going to come back into power and I'd prefer that to be a less-crazy version of the GOP.

      I Disagree. I firmly believe progressives should cherry-pick every moderate out there, and along the way they should remind everyone of the purges and retribution suffered by moderate Republicans during the past eight years.
   Leave them with Rush, Hannity, Palin and Stormfront.
   Let's not forget these people were too radical for John Ashcroft, who was asked to sign off on domestic surveillance while lying in a hospital bed.

"He lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed his view of the matter, rich in both substance and fact, which stunned me," Comey said.

   And if Ashcroft seems an unlikely defender of civil liberties, that's because he isn't.
   As for Hillary as SOS, I just hope she has learned a thing or two since her efforts to fix the healthcare system were torpedoed by the kind of people who later became her friends.
   I've heard it said that, when it comes to political power, people "don't want to live in a one-paper town."
   But if it's, say, a McClatchy paper and the Washington Times, one paper is fine with me.
   Given the recent election results and circumstances facing the US, this is no time for blatant double standards.
   Journalistic "objectivity" is giving the truth and the lies equal time. Bipartisanship is strictly a Democratic Party effort. Accountability only applies to public school teachers. "Tax and spend" and "flip-flopper" can only be used in reference to Democrats. Upward redistribution of wealth is called "wealth creation," and the term "wealth redistribution" itself is only used when an ailing grandmother wants to eat something besides cat food, although the official narrative will be about "welfare queens."
   And so on.
   Reagan deceived Democrats into handing over their pensions, union memberships, solid health coverage et al, and now Obama has repeatedly been compared to the "great communicator."
   Except this is supposed to be a Democratic version of consensus-building.
   Unfortunatley, that always means a lurch to the right and collective amnesia regarding the actions of the all-too-recent past, voters be damned.
  
  

  OK, so I was a fan of The West Wing. I could put up with the soap opera stuff because I liked the famously rapid-fire smart dialogue.
  I remember reading somewhere that Josh's character on the show was based on Rahm Emanuel. Josh, for those of you who don't know, was the Chief of Staff to president Bartlet (Martin Sheen.)
  And what about the young, minority presidential candidate Santos, who won against an elderly "moderate" Republican (played by Alan Alda.)
   I'm not sayin, I'm just sayin...

   Tears everywhere, but not here until the acceptance speech. My wife, the local Atlanta white male anchorman, Jesse Jackson, Oprah, Tom Brokaw (almost, seriously) and random people who had long ago given in to a life just inches from despair.
   Some on the Right might categorize those tears as tears for a "rock star," like when the Beatles first played the Ed Sullivan show. The idle tears of people with a "teenage girl" mentality swept up in a trivial moment, victims of their own overwrought emotions.
   But I knew better as the tears came.
   Four thousand brave, dead Americans. Gone forever. For a greedy, overreaching mistake. Reliable estimates of 1 million dead Iraqis. One million people who would be alive were it not for the blundering, blind-cyclops mentality of the past eight years.
   And one terrorist, very much ALIVE in the mountains of Afghanistan/Pakistan.
   The tears were for Andrew Veal, a 25 year-old UGA graduate and employee who did not have a history of emotional problems, but gave into despair and climbed the fence at Ground Zero a day or two after the 2004 election and shot himself dead.
   And there was laughter through the tears when remembering the French woman in the recent PBS documentary "The America Haters" who said the debt from WWII has been paid, thank you very much, and besides, "America is a racist country."
   And the tears were for the personal struggle, the bouts of despair, and feeling that it was indeed "over" and that survival was the only attainable virtue left.
   Remembering the personal battles against the bullies who pressed their advantage and, yes, made me fear for my personal safety and that of my family.
   But mostly the tears were for someone else's tears. Those of my two-year-old son. They started flowing during the acceptance speech. He only wanted a drink and to be tucked in.
   But until tonight his future was in grave peril. Yes, it still is, but there was a man of great empathy and intelligence on the TV screen as my wife attended to him.
  And finally, of course, it was not about that man at all. It was about his nation and the people in it. The people elected themselves tonight and my son will be the better for it.
  
   Special thanks to Josh and TPM. Your role in this victory might not be fully appreciated for some time. This is in no way a "finish line." This is the beginning, just as a graduation ceremony is called a "commencement."

For the record: I am skeptical about this impending landslide and I am bracing myself for the worst.

There is nothing to trust here. Stolen elections in 2000 and 2004 do not inspire confidence. All that is needed is for a "shocking reversal" to become the news event of the day, with the echo chamber picking up on it early, and, well, you know the rest.

Be alert. Report any inconsistencies and intimidation. Alas, there's nothing that can be done about the "magic Republican voting machines" made by Diebold and others, but they are designed to throw a close election, and this has the makings of something...not close.

Ah...but still, I no longer trust the process, and a prudent move is to psychologically prepare for a dramatic reversal of fortune. Of course, these are words I would gladly eat, but you have to go by past experience, and that is something we are all too familiar with.

Note the the "funny" headline in The Onion: "Diebold accidentally releases 2008 election results early." Ha Ha.

My user name is "exjournalist" and I remember (vividly) writing a series of articles in early 2003 about black box voting. It does not look good. Repeat. Many people did everything they could but the machines are still in use. Yes, I said 2003. Nothing can be done about those machines spitting out a total that has nothing to do with the actual result. Nothing.

So count me as one who is hoping the non-black box states can carry us over the line. And that the polling is too overwhelming for any shenanigans.

Hopeful, not necessarily confident.

   I'm not a Taoist (or any other kind of -ist), but I really enjoyed Benjamin Hoff's books The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet (flawed as they are) and I dug up these quotes from the Tao Te Ching (ca. 400 BCE) which seem relevant for the current situation.

If you would have a thing shrink,
You must first stretch it;
If you would have a thing weakened,
You must first strengthen it;
If you would have a thing laid aside,
You must first set it up;
If you would take from a thing,
You must first give to it.
--Book I, XXXVI, 79

The court is corrupt,
The fields are overgrown with weeds,
The granaries are empty;
Yet there are those dressed in fineries,
With swords at their sides,
Filled with food and drink,
And possessed of too much wealth.
This is known as taking the lead in robbery.
Far indeed is this from the way.
--Book II, LIII, 121

Not that I think the Chinese are especially wise. They seem to ignore their great teachings as much as we ignore our own Constitution.

I love "This Modern World" but these two are so great I thought I should share, especially since I just sort of remembered them and had to search for a while.
September 2005: There was this one.
Then the follow-up in August 2007.

Many explanations have been floated about how the Bush administration could have so incredibly incompetent over the years, but these comics provide the most rational explanation. How else do you explain the depth and breadth of the errors -- I mean COLOSSAL and both foreign and domestic?

They must be 60's radicals.

Well played, men. Well played.

I just wanted to spread this little gem around a little. There's not much to add. But I think this diary gets at the very root of the problem with the conservative movement -- that it has, at its core, a complete lack of ethical or moral vision. In fact, I think we can take it one further and say that the idea of so-called free-market, unrestrained, self-regulating business is perhaps the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the world. Far from bringing increased freedom, this little fiction has been the exact opposite of what it purports to be. It has been a force for amoral (and immoral) greed, it causes real death, and it is diametrically opposed to the functioning of a healthy democracy.

In other words, it is a bunch of Bull, and Greenspan's 11th-hour, tepid "conversion" (HA! More like 13th hour) does not fully convey the enormity of this Grand Error. How unfortunate that so many lack the critical thinking skills to see past this ruse.

Which begs the question, how did Greenspan not see Rand's error? I believe he did, but he decided to promote this philosophy for the benefit of the highest tier of wealth-holders. I truly believe he thinks there is a moral superiority that comes with wealth and that any economic system should "redline" the burden on workers and maximize the upward redistribution of resources.

   I've wanted to tell this story for quite some time, but a quote from Juan Cole yesterday really prompted me to finally put it down.
   "The Republican Party that Nixon invented melded the moneyed classes of the Northeast with the white evangelicals of the South. This odd couple went on to simultaneously steal from and oppress the rest of us. The moneyed classes were happy to let the New Puritans impose their stringent morality, since they could always just buy any licentiousness they wanted, regardless of the law."
   I was working as a cab driver, as I have in a couple of cities over the years. It was probably a lot like you would imagine it would be, especially because I drove at night. But it was a living, and one night in particular has stuck with me. It's a true story, and the verbatim quotes were etched in my mind.
   I picked up a large, bald man at the train station. Suit, no tie. The kind of guy that looked incomplete without a cigar. He had a younger male friend with him and they had probably been drinking, but were not excessively drunk.
   He asked me to take them to the nearby housing project.
   I just looked at him, and he said, "They know me there."
   On the way, he spoke loudly in the tone of a man who did not need to be careful. I don't remember much of what he said except when, amazingly, he brought up the name J. Edgar Hoover.
   "He was the man," he said.
   We got to the projects and the large man disappeared, leaving me with his younger friend for what seemed like an eternity. The friend was very talkative. He had gone to school with an A-list celebrity and his wife divorced him when she caught him in bed with another woman.
   The large man, he said, had a net worth of $4.3 million.
   "He's the man," he said.
   Eventually, the first man reappeared, with an attractive black woman. She got in the car of her own volition, but she looked uneasy. He gave me the address of the house they were going to.
   "These two are gonna put on a show for me, right?" he said.
   On the way, the black girl said she thought she was gonna be sick.
   "You OK?" I said staring into the rearview mirror. She said yes, it's OK, and I drove on.
   We got to the destination and it haunts me still.
   This is a true story, although it almost sounds fake. Blatantly stereotypical. The stuff of cheap detective novels, or worse. But that day I decided a few things, and I've tried to live up to them ever since. I'm tempted to sermonize at this point, but that's their game.
   Res ipsa loquitur.