The Hunting of the President/Blinded by the Right

[Colleen Thomas]

Colly,

One reason you won’t find even a pseudo-democrat in that particular Promised Land, is due to the fact that they must have some relationship with the truth, or they will be ignored.

For the right, truth doesn’t seem to matter as much as snideness.

Have you watched John Stewart on The Daily Show recently?

Most times he is not only on the money for humor, but also in a not-too-outrageous position on the facts. Always far closer to the reality of a situation than the people upon whom he is reporting. In fact, that is his schtick!

Formerly, Bill Maher was another good voice from a “libertarian” point-of-view, until he got put off the air for making one simple comment.

He said that people who strap dynamite about themself and blow themselves up to take out their opponent cannot accurately be called a ‘coward.’ When pressed, he added that dropping bombs from a mile up, on a city filled with women and children, was probably closer to that epitaph than were the suicide bombers.

Clear-eyed, right-wing patriots practically went nuts in their fury to have him removed from the air.

It’s not the humor, Colly, it’s the truth that the right can’t stand.

(Maher – formerly on ABC – is back on HBO, if you can get it.)

I have not read much Coulter or O'Reilly. What little I have read convinces me I would be dicing with insanity were I to make them a habit.

For a brief time it fitted my schedule to listen to Limbaugh.

His format appears to be composed of an oily, supercilious manner, mean spirited sarcasm, and a completely amoral disregard for facts.

What I like about Stewart’s humor, is that it comes out of the discrepancy between statements (often clips of the Bush Administration) and an alternate reality (often the Bush Administration with a different story).

Under most condition, I don’t think this format could work often enough to make the show successful, except, as we all know, the Bush Administration lies ... a lot!

That begs the question why Burly. Why can't a liberal tell the same whoppers and cultivate an audience?

-Colly

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

That begs the question why Burly. Why can't a liberal tell the same whoppers and cultivate an audience?

-Colly

I am uncertain. Far too many creative people are liberals to believe it is a lack of imagination.

I have heard some tremendous whoppers floated by would-be liberal pundits, but for some reason those people never prosper.

Do you think it could possibly be integrity?

What’s your theory?

(Stewart doing his "Fake News" show features some wild stories which are straight off-the-wall, but they are always obviously done as humor, so they don't count.)

...We don't have the need to protect colonies, nor are we dependant on them for resources...

Well we are dependant upon their trade. Would we be able to force them to trade with us? Would they ever be willing to penalize themselves to hurt America?

Off the top of my head, I would say yes

... the U.S. weathered its most severe test when we made it through the Great Depression without caving in and going with another governmental form. ...

Didn’t we? Wasn’t America forced to swallow at least a homeopathic dose of socialism — an old age pension, unemployment insurance, the whole New Deal package?

One of the things the neocons are trying to do is rip out the effects of the Great Society and the New Deal.

Strangely, as a conservative, this is what I fear most....when a single viewpoint dominates all three branches of our government. No one wins when there is no strident voice of opposition.

Under ordinary conditions this might not be such a crisis if the present government permitted dissension within its ranks, but they are as harsh with their own renegades as they are with the opposition.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I am uncertain. Far too many creative people are liberals to believe it is a lack of imagination.

I have heard some tremendous whoppers floated by would-be liberal pundits, but for some reason those people never prosper.

Do you think it could possibly be integrity?

What’s your theory?

(Stewart doing his "Fake News" show features some wild stories which are straight off-the-wall, but they are always obviously done as humor, so they don't count.)


Well we are dependant upon their trade. Would we be able to force them to trade with us? Would they ever be willing to penalize themselves to hurt America?

Off the top of my head, I would say yes

Didn’t we? Wasn’t America forced to swallow at least a homeopathic dose of socialism — an old age pension, unemployment insurance, the whole New Deal package?

One of the things the neocons are trying to do is rip out the effects of the Great Society and the New Deal.

Under ordinary conditions this might not be such a crisis if the present government permitted dissension within its ranks, but they are as harsh with their own renegades as they are with the opposition.

It isn't integrity. At least I have seen nothing that makes me believe Democrats aren't politicians or that liberals have any more inate integity than anyone else. I don't really have a theory on the why.

A trading partner is significantly different from a colony. Yes, a trading partner could decide to impose sanction or an embargo. this could be particularly nasty if say OPEC did, but it isn't the same as a colony or a tributary state. It woul dhurt them too, and most countries aren't going to cut off thier nose beacuse you are spiting their neighbor.

Much of the new Deal wasn't welfare, it was work. People didn't want handouts, they wanted jobs. The CCC & WPA, TVA & Hoover Dam were all designed to give people jobs. A long standing gripe by conservatives has been that the parts of the New Deal the Dems have pushed to keep are not the parts that people liked. Be that asit may, while some socialist programs were adopeted, we didn't change governmental form. The big push at the time wasn't towards socialism, it was towards fascism.

I truly believe that one view point dominating all three branches is bad. Vicious suppression of dissent, even within your own party, dosen't help, but even if dissenters within the GOP were allowed to voice their concern without fear of repercussion, I still prefer it when there are more than one viewpoint represented.

-Colly

 

[shereads]

That begs the question why Burly. Why can't a liberal tell the same whoppers and cultivate an audience?

-Colly

Why can't they? Or why won't they?

My question is, would anyone want to tell whoppers to cultivate an audience? In the end, you may sway the vote, but only until people learn they've been deceived.

 

[shereads]

It isn't integrity. At least I have seen nothing that makes me believe Democrats aren't politicians or that liberals have any more inate integity than anyone else. I don't really have a theory on the why.

You've seen one piece of evidence yourself: the lack of liberal talk-show hosts who create tales of rape and murder about their political enemies to build an audience. I haven't seen Jon Stewart or even Al Franken resort to calling Bush a child rapist to make the point that he's a bad leader. He provides enough TRUE material.

 

[shereads]

I don't expect accuracy from Ann or Rush. I expect to be entertained. Quite often I am. I don't read or listen to either with the intention of being informed.

Yet the fact remains that they do get into the heads of a lot of folks. For good or ill, thier brand reactionary far right politics has wide appeal. I can distinguish between entertainment & accuracy, but many can't or more honestly, don't.

-Colly

I don't understand how it can be entertaining to hear someone making up vicious stories about people they perceive to be their enemies.

Reading the accounts of Paul Wellstone's memorial service from people who knew and loved Paul Wellstone, contrasted with the reaction by Limbaugh, Coulter and other spokesheads of the right, I've begun to wonder if these people have souls. Is there any line they won't cross to assuage their own sense of inferiority? That's the only purpose some of these attacks seem to serve; to make their side look noble in comparison to the monsters they create on the left.

Look at transcripts of Rush Limbaugh's incredibly disingenuous misrepresentation of a five-hour service of which he saw a few clips on CNN - that's just sad, it's not entertaining. He loathed Paul Wellstone. "paul Welfare" he used to call him. And when opportunity struck - a few minutes of political crap out of a five hours service - he spoke of his own "deep grief and sense of shame and embarrassment for the people who pretended to honor the memory of their fallen comrade, and in fact showed NO GRIEF WHATSOVER!"

He hits people when they're at their most vulnerable - grieving for a lost father, friend, mentor and hero. And he basks in it, like a pig rolling in mud. Quote:

"These people ripped Paul Wellstone's soul right up from the grave and danced a merry little jig around it. There was no grief! Where was the grief?"

Paul Wellstone having been a hero of mine - the last liberal who didn't mind calling himself one - I had a particular interest in the spin the right wing put on his memorial service, coming as it did before an election - and after they'd had the experience of watching Ashcroft lose his senate seat to a dead man.

I've read transcripts of some of the eulogies, and despite Limbaugh's "deep sense of outrage and shame," there was enough grief for a lifetime of memorial services. A beloved and gentle man - a politician who was as humble and far from corrupt as it's possible to be - had died with his wife, his daughter, five close friends who were his aides and campaign workers - and his son and some friends had hastily put together an event that grew out of control. But nothing was scripted or planned; there wasn't time.

Peggy Noonan's assertion on one program that "the crowd had a script - there was a teleprompter telling them when to applaud" was quoted in Al Franken's book. He called to let her know that the "teleprompter" was actually close-captioning for the hearing impaired, and that the reason it lagged by five seconds was that there was no script to follow. Her response wasn't an offer to retract the accusation. She just said, "Oh, Al, come on!" And hung up.

Paul Wellstone's son asked his father's closest friend to write a eulogy, and in his grief the man made an unfortunate decision to politicize the moment. Limbaugh and the right-wing took that single moment, disregarded the rest of the service, and created a legend that quickly became accepted fact. Example: "Republican friends of Wellstone's who wanted to speak were booed off the podium." there was no open mic, and no one was invited or tried to speak, other than the eulogists chosen by the families. In fact, Wellstone's son singled out five Republican congressmen and Senators for whom his father had great respect, and they got a standing ovation from the crowd. That's far from being 'booed off the podium."

Example, from Limbaugh's show transcript: "Nobody even mentioned the others who died on that plane, and that's just shameful." In fact, the first three hours were devoted to eulogies by friends of the aides who died at Wellstone's side.

Which part of this is entertaining?

Remember Coulter's comments about Max Cleland, belittling the injuries that cost him three limbs? "He could have saved the taxpayers a trip to Vietnam and just picked up a hand grenade here." This is funny?

How much humanity does someone need to shed to become that nasty? What do they think of themselves after an hour or two of trashing people with things they know to be untrue? The same sense of pride that Dick Cheney felt when he achieved his war and knew he had pulled one over on the american people?

 

[KarenAM]

Thanks again, Colly. I hope to God you're right.

I always admired Paul Wellstone. He was a man of genuine integrity, even if I didn't always agree with his politics. He had an amazing ability to get people to want to participate in politics, an ability to get people to believe that America and our system actually could work. He was sort of a Reagan for the left, I suppose. Yet I think what saddens me now about it all is the way that many liberal friends of mine insist that he was assassinated, but have shown no inclination to produce any evidence for this. His death has left a bitter hole in their lives and they don't seem to believe there is any hope anymore.

I'd like to think there is. After all, if Anne Frank can believe that people are good at heart, I certainly should be able to, shouldn't I?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Why can't they? Or why won't they?

My question is, would anyone want to tell whoppers to cultivate an audience? In the end, you may sway the vote, but only until people learn they've been deceived.

In line with my observation on the extreme pragmatism of the Neo-cons, I would note that no amount of proving Coulter or Rush have lied repeatedly seems to make the slighest bit of difference to their audience.

-Colly

 

[Colleen Thomas]

You've seen one piece of evidence yourself: the lack of liberal talk-show hosts who create tales of rape and murder about their political enemies to build an audience. I haven't seen Jon Stewart or even Al Franken resort to calling Bush a child rapist to make the point that he's a bad leader. He provides enough TRUE material.

Alan Berg: Took me a while to remember his name, sadly I had to do a google search on the white supremacist group that murdered him to find it. He was a far left radio shock jock who was on the edge of gaining a national stage when he was murdered.

Mike Webb: A self-described liberal talk-show host known for his disdain of the Bush administration called for the death penalty for the president and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for "war crimes," according to an audiotape.

Randi Rhodes: Although... I am Glad that Laura Bush is in the White House... She believes that a child beginning at the very earliest age must be taught (how to respect the servants). What a great job she did with Jenna and the "other one". But by now I think the secret service must be used to those late night runs to the convenience store for beer, rolling papers, and condoms. Not to mention the boyfriend pick ups at the local county jail. But she tips well, though, as a liberal... I must observe that even when you are the progeny of a Patrician Dynasty there is certainly no excuse for not knowing how to hide your boozing...

Ed Shultz: Big Eddie. A consortium of democratic and liberal interests put up 1.8 mil to assure big Ed stays on the airwaves for at least 2 years.

Though his irreverent, raucous style sounds familiar, Schultz's assaults on the Bush administration sharply contrast with the conservative commentary that dominates the radio airwaves.

A nice quote about Ed from a liberal Democrat: Speaking as a liberal Democrat, I wasn't too thrilled at first hearing; he's too much of a Limbaugh clone for my taste, with the same rhetorical moves and appeals to his "folks" in the audience.

That's off the first page of a google search with about 159,000 hits for liberal talk show hosts. Minus Berg who I intentionally went looking for.

Clearly, the left is trying. The most consistant quote in these articles is "we are not trying to out-Rush, Rush". Yet the styles are the same, abrasive, bombastic, filled with hate and innaccuracies and Rhetoric.

Clearly they(Liberals & Democrats) realize they are getting clubed over the head in the talk show medium of reaching folks, enough so that they are willing to put up millions, up front, to convince radio stations to carry their hosts, in leiu of those hosts being able to generate revenue from their own fans. I would note here that Randi Rhodes is actually quite successful in her time slot as is Webb.

Failure to produce a nationally successful "lefty" shock jock, does not indicate they are above it in any way, only that they have yet to find anyone who can do it as well as Rush or Ann.

Another note:

Progress Media planned to announce Tuesday that it has reached an agreement with Franken to host a live, three-hour daily broadcast that would form the anchor of the programming schedule, according to people familiar with the matter.

In an interview, Franken said the format of the show was still evolving, but he said he was certain that it would be akin to that used by his rival Rush Limbaugh, which Franken described as "non-guested confrontation."

Franken had long been rumored to be interested in a deal with Progress Media, the startup company that is assembling radio stations and talent for a radio network to challenge conservative talk show powerhouses like Limbaugh.

Apparently Al Franken isn't above trying his hand as a liberal shock jock. I note in his own words he intends to follow the Rush format.

It seems to me Rush is the one they are all trying to copy. Apparently he has found radio Nirvana and much like Stern was the prototype for "shock jocks", Rush has become the prototype for talk show hosts.

So I will ask my question again with an asterick*. Why can't the left find anyone who can do it successfully?

* This list is compiled completely from a google search. The only one of these people I had heard of was Berg. It's 2:00 in the morning and I have a splitting migrane. If someone wishes to come behind me here and prove that these people don't exist, didn't say these things, or that they are being painted as extremists by Right leaning websites, that would be cool. The question is asked under the assumption on my part that these people, quotes, and facts are legitimate.

-Colly

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I don't understand how it can be entertaining to hear someone making up vicious stories about people they perceive to be their enemies.

Reading the accounts of Paul Wellstone's memorial service from people who knew and loved Paul Wellstone, contrasted with the reaction by Limbaugh, Coulter and other spokesheads of the right, I've begun to wonder if these people have souls. Is there any line they won't cross to assuage their own sense of inferiority? That's the only purpose some of these attacks seem to serve; to make their side look noble in comparison to the monsters they create on the left.

Look at transcripts of Rush Limbaugh's incredibly disingenuous misrepresentation of a five-hour service of which he saw a few clips on CNN - that's just sad, it's not entertaining. He loathed Paul Wellstone. "paul Welfare" he used to call him. And when opportunity struck - a few minutes of political crap out of a five hours service - he spoke of his own "deep grief and sense of shame and embarrassment for the people who pretended to honor the memory of their fallen comrade, and in fact showed NO GRIEF WHATSOVER!"

He hits people when they're at their most vulnerable - grieving for a lost father, friend, mentor and hero. And he basks in it, like a pig rolling in mud. Quote:

"These people ripped Paul Wellstone's soul right up from the grave and danced a merry little jig around it. There was no grief! Where was the grief?"

Paul Wellstone having been a hero of mine - the last liberal who didn't mind calling himself one - I had a particular interest in the spin the right wing put on his memorial service, coming as it did before an election - and after they'd had the experience of watching Ashcroft lose his senate seat to a dead man.

I've read transcripts of some of the eulogies, and despite Limbaugh's "deep sense of outrage and shame," there was enough grief for a lifetime of memorial services. A beloved and gentle man - a politician who was as humble and far from corrupt as it's possible to be - had died with his wife, his daughter, five close friends who were his aides and campaign workers - and his son and some friends had hastily put together an event that grew out of control. But nothing was scripted or planned; there wasn't time.

Peggy Noonan's assertion on one program that "the crowd had a script - there was a teleprompter telling them when to applaud" was quoted in Al Franken's book. He called to let her know that the "teleprompter" was actually close-captioning for the hearing impaired, and that the reason it lagged by five seconds was that there was no script to follow. Her response wasn't an offer to retract the accusation. She just said, "Oh, Al, come on!" And hung up.

Paul Wellstone's son asked his father's closest friend to write a eulogy, and in his grief the man made an unfortunate decision to politicize the moment. Limbaugh and the right-wing took that single moment, disregarded the rest of the service, and created a legend that quickly became accepted fact. Example: "Republican friends of Wellstone's who wanted to speak were booed off the podium." there was no open mic, and no one was invited or tried to speak, other than the eulogists chosen by the families. In fact, Wellstone's son singled out five Republican congressmen and Senators for whom his father had great respect, and they got a standing ovation from the crowd. That's far from being 'booed off the podium."

Example, from Limbaugh's show transcript: "Nobody even mentioned the others who died on that plane, and that's just shameful." In fact, the first three hours were devoted to eulogies by friends of the aides who died at Wellstone's side.

Which part of this is entertaining?

Remember Coulter's comments about Max Cleland, belittling the injuries that cost him three limbs? "He could have saved the taxpayers a trip to Vietnam and just picked up a hand grenade here." This is funny?

How much humanity does someone need to shed to become that nasty? What do they think of themselves after an hour or two of trashing people with things they know to be untrue? The same sense of pride that Dick Cheney felt when he achieved his war and knew he had pulled one over on the american people?

Both the left and right take sadistic glee in ripping each other. Neither side has a monopoly on being crass. A simple look at the Reagan say what you want thread will provide you with liberal columnists who could't wait to dance a jig and say how happy they were that he was dead.

Here is a sampleof Big Ed for you Sher.

"This is the most selfish generation in the history of the country!" he shouted into his mike when a caller asked him about the federal deficit. His eyes were closed, his face was red and his hands slashed at the air. "The people lining the Bush campaign's pockets are running this country. The little guys don't have a say anymore."

Then Big Eddie looked up and winked. When he gets in a good one, he likes everyone to notice. "Hey," he'll call over to his producer at a commercial break, "that was a pretty good pip on Bush, wasn't it?"

I think that's what you are facing in Rush, Ann, their disciples on the right and the wannabe's on the left. It's a job. It's what they do. I suspect Rush has actually begun to believe his own hype and may really be just that crass off the air, but I suspect most of these folks have a turn it on/turn it off mindset.

Anthony Hopkins played Hannibal Lechter. He's a very talented actor and I have to believe that on film day, he was a rather scary person to be around. Most good character actors slip into their character. No one thinks of Anthony hopkins as evil, at least no one I know of.

I suspect the vast majority of these people are the same. I think they probably get up early in the morning and drive in to work with the same "God I wish it were friday" feeling most of us have. They probably stop at the coffee shop or Deli on the way in, are probably known there in the way regulars are known at almost every establishment of this type, and they are probably considered good people by those around them.

I tend to believe most of them aren't bitchy/nasty/snide/hateful 24/7, but are regular folks right up until the headset is on, the mic goes live and the on air light flashes green. Then it's their job to be pricks. They probably do it with about as much thought to the morality of what they are doing as I did every morning when I climbed into my van & headed out to work on people's telephone lines.

Obviously, most of these folks are at best, local celebrities. When you get to nationally known people, they may conciously or unconciously become what they have been playing. Or perhaps you just have to be totally unethical to begin with.

In any case, neither left nor right, republicans nor democrats have a corner on bad taste. Dancing on graves. Distorting, changing or just making shit up when the need serves. Showing their asses. It isn't a policy patented by one side or the other.

The far right just seems to be more successful with it.

-Colly

P.S. Who was Mr. Wellstone? It isn't a name I am familiar with and at least until this headache breaks of the pain meds kick, I am googled out.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Thanks again, Colly. I hope to God you're right.

I always admired Paul Wellstone. He was a man of genuine integrity, even if I didn't always agree with his politics. He had an amazing ability to get people to want to participate in politics, an ability to get people to believe that America and our system actually could work. He was sort of a Reagan for the left, I suppose. Yet I think what saddens me now about it all is the way that many liberal friends of mine insist that he was assassinated, but have shown no inclination to produce any evidence for this. His death has left a bitter hole in their lives and they don't seem to believe there is any hope anymore.

I'd like to think there is. After all, if Anne Frank can believe that people are good at heart, I certainly should be able to, shouldn't I?

I've pretty much given up on being right. Far too many times, the people in these forums have given me pause to consider the validity of even some of my most deeply held beliefs. I'm not sure, if you enter into these forums with an open mind, you can ever feel comfortable that you are right. I think that's a good thing, at least for me it is.

I will offer an opinion for you, or perhaps it's more of an observation. I have seen 2 two term presidents in my lifetime. In each case they both had it pretty much sewed up before the first person hit the button in the first state to open it's polling places.

Liberals and Democrats had no hope when RR was about to trounce Mondale. There were dire predictions about the country going bank rupt, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Conservatives & Republicans had no hope when Bill Clinton was about to trounce Dole. Socialized medicine! Welfare state! End of the world as we know it! I know the cries intimately, I was one of those making them.

Liberals & Democrats had no hope just a few short months ago, when Bush seemed a lock.

Hope springs eternal. It IS always darkest, before the dawn. A few scandals. Some revelations about the level of deciet of this administration and suddenly , it isn't a lock anymore we will have four more years of GW. And hope is back in bussiness.

I personally think GWB is going to win again. Barring a major screw up of some kind out of the white house, I just don't see Kerry being able to carry any state Gore didn't. I think he is about as personally appealing as ketchsup on a PBJ. I could be very wrong.

But I am more positive I am on target with this. Four more years of Bush or four years of John Kerry. Come late summer 2008, one side or the other will be feeling bereft of hope and one side will be riding high. You may or may not be better off than you are now, but you won't be nearly as bad off as your worst case scenario is painted in your head now. The U.S. will still be here. Time will march on. And come 2012 you will be hopeful or hopeless, depending on your viewpoint & the situation.

With the possible exception of George Washington, I don't think we have ever held an election where the prophets of doom weren't out in force. Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, Lincoln, TR, FDR, our most successful presidents were all painted as the one who would bring it all to an end. It's as much a part of the elctoral process here as campaign buttons and slogans.

-Colly

 

[Colleen Thomas]

For fun, a few quotes and the president they were aimed at:

1. Abe Lincoln: A low-bred, obsecen clown~Atlanta intelligencer

2. Geroge Washington: The man who is the source for all the misfortunes of our country~Philadelphia Aurora

3. FDR: he thinks government is a milk cow with 125 million teats~H.L. Menken

4. Teddy Roosevelt: As sweet a gentleman as ever scuttled a ship or slit a throat~Henery watterson

5. Thomas Jefferson: A contemptible hypocrite, with pretentions to character~Alexander Hamilton

6. Woodrow Wilson: He talked like Jesus Christ, but acted like Lloyd George.~ Geroges Clenenceau (French Premier)

7. Andy Jackson: a barbarian and savage who canbarely spell his own name.~John Q. Adams

8. LBJ: he had so much power and wanted so much more power that Democrats didn't know wheter to vote for him or plug him in~Barry goldwater

9. JFK: He impersonates a prematurely elder statesman who wants to grow up to be Lyndon Johnson~N.Y. Post

10. Zach taylor: Dead and in hell, and I am glad of it~Brigham Young


Just beacuse it's my favorite:

Martin Van Buren: A fop laced up in corsets, such as women in town wear, and if possible, tighter than the best of them~Davy Crockett


If you think the quotes are cheap shots, you should see what was being said, prophetsied and the political cartoons.

-Colly

 

[Guest]

a little more humour

The link between Al-queda and Kevin Bacon

 

[shereads]

But I am more positive I am on target with this. Four more years of Bush or four years of John Kerry. Come late summer 2008, one side or the other will be feeling bereft of hope and one side will be riding high. You may or may not be better off than you are now, but you won't be nearly as bad off as your worst case scenario is painted in your head now. The U.S. will still be here.

Not for all of us, Colly.

If it's true, as the evidence so clearly suggests, that we are in Iraq because Iraq was on the agenda and Bush/Cheney were only waiting for an excuse, then it follows that there are at least 800 dead Americans who would be alive if Al Gore had been elected. Say what you like about you think Gore would have handled or mishandled 9/ll, but it could not have been handled any worse.

The left was right. We were right on every count about what Bush/Cheney would do if they won power. Every single count: war in the middle east, attacks on civil liberties, attacks on gay rights and attacks on Roe V. Wade, corporate welfare at the expense of the poor, subsidies for the energy and mining industries at the expense of the environment, a virtual hands-off policy for meat inspectors and a quiet rise in the number of recalls for contaminated beef and poultry...What else needs to happen before this is a crisis?

Did you know poverty among African Americans is up for the first time since the Clinton administration took office?

That the difference in income between rich and poor is at its widest since the great depression?

That the working poor are not only carrying a greater share of the tax burden than they did before, but are being subjected to more IRS audits under a policy this administration put into place during its first months in office?

These are people whose policies seem directed at making the poor into the beasts of burden they were under feudal lords.

All that's left is to dispose of Habeus Corpus, and those of my generation will no longer recognize the country we grew up in. We thought the 60's had been worth the turmoil because they signaled a rebirth of compassion. I had no idea it would be this easy for a small group of obscenely rich men to turn back the clock.

And I still have no idea why the want to. I can't comprehend that level of greed.

There are clear choices here that have no precedent in our history.

Colly, those of us who lived through Watergate know a Constitutional crisis when we see one. The only thing thing that saved us then was the balance of power that existed. Lacking that protection now, the only thing that can save us is ourselves. Assuming that Diebold hasn't been put in place as a tie-breaker.

 

[shereads]

Re: a little more humour

The link between Al-queda and Kevin Bacon

Best part of that page: "If we had waited for correct information on Iraq, another country might have beaten us to it."

 

[shereads]

deleted double post

 

[rgraham666]

I did a lot of thinking about this while I was pushing a mop around today.

It seems to me that the 'right' has latched on to the anger many people feel today.

That anger come from the fact that the middle class is dying. This phenomena is occurring throughout the West, but it is especially noticeable in the U.S. People are either falling out of the middle class or are losing hope of entering it.

This anger is understandable.

But, the myth of America is that evil always comes from the 'left'. Whether it's Jacobins, Wobblies, Communists or liberals, all the destructive forces in America are 'left'.

So the neo-cons have taken that anger and placed the cause of it at the 'left's' door. It works because the anger is there, it needs a source, and the source has always been the 'left'.

This is a story repeated throughout history. "The anger is there. Let's use it for our purposes."

The cry of the demagogue is heard once again throughout the land.

 

[shereads]

P.S. Who was Mr. Wellstone? It isn't a name I am familiar with and at least until this headache breaks of the pain meds kick, I am googled out.

He was a Minnesota Senator and an old-school liberal, whose causes were of the type that don't fill a politician's campaign fund: veterans, the environment, small farmers, small business. He held a distinction you might appreciate: arrested as an anti-war protester during Vietnam (specifically, he was protesting Nixon's bombing of Cambodia) and endorsed for reelection by the Veterans of Foreign Wars - having proven himself a tireless advocate for veterans benefits and other causes of people without political muscle.

He died four weeks before the 2000 election in a plane crash, along with his wife, daughter, and half a dozen campaign workers. He also took an unpopular stand against the first Gulf War. This is an excerpt from his first speech as a Senator:

"Town meeting after town meeting after town meeting, citizens would stand up, quite often a Vietnam vet, point a finger at me and say: ‘Senator, how many of your children are in the Persian Gulf?’

"And I would respond this way. I would say, ‘I’m a son of a Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Union, and if I believed that Saddam Hussein was a Hitler and that we must go to war to stop him . . . I could accept the loss of life of one of my children, ages twenty-five, twenty-one, and eighteen.

"‘But this is the truth. I could not accept the loss of life of any of our children in the Persian Gulf right now, and that tells me in my gut I do not believe it is time to go to war. And if I apply this standard to my children, then I have to apply this standard to everyone’s children. I have to apply this standard to all of God’s children.’"

Excerpts from an interview in The Progressive during his first term:

"I don’t believe I see a New World Order, but rather a new world disorder, a primitive world order linked to violence. An opportunity to build some permanent structure to deal with problems in nonviolent ways is lost; we were unable to do that. {A military solution in the Gulf} will unleash forces there that are unknown and unknowable. Tremendous anger will be directed at the United States, Beirut writ large."

"I want to see the link broken between wealth and political power. I think we should move away from private money. I think there should be a system of public financing. I think that television and the media should be required to devote x amount of time to debates and we should require in turn that candidates take part in those debates."

"I think that small businesses are a little bit like family farmers—everybody loves them in the abstract, but public policy in terms of access to capital at reasonable terms is not there."

"I’m interested in Indian affairs, which is not a committee people always want to serve on. It involves a lot of controversies and, if you do the right thing, that’s not usually the political-majority thing to do."

"I want to use my position to empower people back home. What that means is I don’t want this to be the end-all—that I was elected. I want this to whet the appetite of people in the state of Minnesota, especially the progressive community, for much more."

"The people who have been the most shut-out and have been struggling the most are people I most especially want to spend time with."

Paul Wellstone made me proud to call myself a liberal Democrat. That he won his Senate seat despite being outspent 7-to-1, and won reelection and was favored to win another term when he lost his life, proves to me that people can make a difference, however small, without losing their integrity.

 

[rgraham666]

Wellstone reminds me of Harry Truman. Who was also supposed to lose every election he ran in.

I wish Harry was still around. We could use some one with humour, and honour.

I never gave anyone Hell. I just told them the truth and they thought it was Hell!

 

[Clare Quilty]

The Dems certainly have lost the PR war for the hearts and minds of America, and their leadership had been truly dismal.

But I also think that the GOP has taken the art of verisimilitude and distortion to new and unprecedented lows. Why doesn't the left have any political entertainers like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh on the air?

Perhaps its because the republican push for media deregulation was, in its inception, designed to arrive at the situation in which we now find ourselves. A handfull of arch conservative oligarchs control the print media, radio and television. Dare to speak against the current administration and you run the risk of being "dixie-chicked," "Helen Thomased," and/or "Bill Mahered."

Air America Radio: Home of The O'Franken Factor & Janeane Garofalo's Majority Report